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2026:Team challenges/Team 09S Ameriques

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Welcome on the page of TeamChallenges 09S America !
Wikidata-reuse
Fusión latina team

Project summary

Query Reuser is a community-driven tool under development that makes Wikidata SPARQL queries easier to discover, understand, and reuse. Through an intuitive interface, users will be able to browse queries by country, topic, or type of information, customize them by editing a few predefined parameters, and run them without needing to write SPARQL from scratch. The project also welcomes community contributions through its talk page, where new reusable queries can be proposed for review and inclusion in the tool.

Slides

Objective: Making Wikidata queries easier to reuse

We started from a simple observation: there are many useful Wikidata queries that already exist, but they are often difficult to discover, reuse, or adapt. Even when people find a relevant query, they may not know which part of the code needs to be changed—for example, the country, language, date range, type of item, or Wikipedia edition being queried.

Our goal is to explore a more accessible and user-friendly way of presenting these queries, helping people understand what each one does and how it can be adapted without needing advanced knowledge of SPARQL.

Rather than only displaying the SPARQL code, we want to explain the question each query helps answer, the type of results it produces, and the specific elements that can be modified to reuse it in another context.

Initial thematic areas

As a first step, we decided to focus on three themes that are particularly relevant to Latin American communities:

  • Memory: queries related to forced disappearances, dictatorships, historical memory, human rights, and other initiatives that seek to document people and events connected to the recent history of the region.
  • Public domain: queries building on the work developed by the Public Domain community in Wikidata, including the identification of authors and works in the public domain.
  • Biodiversity: queries related to species, ecosystems, natural heritage, trees, territories, and environmental knowledge.

Existing community work

The project builds on queries and documentation that have already been developed by Wikimedia communities and projects in the region.

For the public domain theme, one of our starting points is the collection of queries developed by the Chilean Public Domain project. It includes queries about authors and works in the public domain, as well as results related to gender, occupations, publications, cultural institutions, geographical information, and the availability of biographies on Wikipedia.

For historical memory, we are using the documentation developed around historical memory in Colombia as an initial example. Its SPARQL queries page documents queries related to the 6402+ project and explains the information retrieved, the Wikidata properties used, and some of the considerations needed when working with incomplete or sensitive data.

These examples show that valuable queries and documentation already exist. Our intention is not to replace this work, but to connect and present it through a common and accessible structure.

Team Challenge project

During the Team Challenge, we are:

  1. Collecting useful Wikidata queries related to the selected themes.
  2. Documenting the question that each query helps answer.
  3. Explaining the type of result it produces, such as a table, map, gallery, or graph.
  4. Identifying the specific parts of the query that can be modified.
  5. Explaining these modifications in accessible language.
  6. Developing a minimum viable product for a website or tool where users can browse, understand, and adapt the queries.

For example, a query may allow users to find museums located in a particular country, including their coordinates, images, and Wikipedia articles. The documentation would explain that:

  • In ?museum wdt:P17 wd:Q298, P17 represents the country property and Q298 represents Chile. The QID can be replaced with the Wikidata identifier of another country.
  • In FILTER(LANG(?label) = "es"), es determines the language of the label retrieved from Wikidata.
  • In https://es.wikipedia.org/, es determines which Wikipedia language edition is being consulted.

These parameters are independent. A query could, for example, retrieve labels in Spanish while searching for articles on Portuguese Wikipedia.

The intention is not to replace existing SPARQL tutorials. Instead, we want to provide a friendly entry point based on concrete questions and reusable examples, allowing people to experiment with existing queries without needing to understand every part of the code from the beginning.

Minimum viable product

The initial prototype will present a small collection of queries organized by theme. Each query will include:

  • The question it helps answer.
  • A short description of its purpose.
  • The type of result it produces.
  • A link to run the query in Wikidata Query Service.
  • An explanation of the parameters that can be modified.
  • Examples of how to adapt the query to another country, language, period, or context.
  • Information about the project or community where the query originated.

The first version will focus on a limited number of queries in order to test the structure, navigation, and adaptation instructions. The prototype could later grow into a broader and multilingual collection.

Demo

Slides

Community participation

As part of the project, we will also create a dedicated page on Wikidata where the initial collection of queries and the prototype can be documented.

Its discussion page will be open for community members to:

  • Suggest additional queries.
  • Share examples developed in their own projects.
  • Propose new thematic areas.
  • Correct or improve the documentation.
  • Suggest clearer adaptation instructions.
  • Share feedback about the prototype.

This will allow the collection to grow beyond the queries gathered during the Team Challenge and encourage contributions from different Wikimedia communities, thematic groups, languages, and regions.

Expected outcome

The expected outcome is a small functional prototype where people can:

  • Browse queries by theme.
  • Understand what question each query answers.
  • Preview the type of result it provides.
  • Open and run the original query in Wikidata Query Service.
  • Identify which parts of the code can be changed.
  • Adapt parameters such as the country, language, dates, type of item, or Wikipedia edition.

In the longer term, the project could become a community-maintained collection of documented and reusable Wikidata queries that helps connect existing work and reduce the barriers to using SPARQL.

The Team

Certificate

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