Topic on Talk:Wikidata Bridge

Hello all,

As we are working on the first version of the Bridge, we have been focusing on two specific areas and we would like to ask your opinion about it.

The first one is editing references. In the first version of the Bridge, we won’t be able to offer the possibility to edit or add references directly in the interface, therefore we will redirect editors to Wikidata.

The second part is information related to the license. We want to make sure that editors are aware that their contribution will be published under CC0, the license of Wikidata, and avoid any misunderstanding. We tried to adapt the standard license information message and to integrate it smoothly in the Bridge interface.

If you want, you can also have a look at the interface behaviour when the user’s connection is too slow to properly launch the Bridge, and when a permission error occurs (if the user is blocked on Wikipedia).

You can check the different paths on this prototype. Please keep in mind that it is a click-dummy, not a fully functioning interface, and most of the time you can only click on one element to progress through the path.

We would also like to point out that some functionality that you might have seen in the previous prototype has been removed. The reason behind it is that we wanted to show you the Bridge as it is planned to be rolled out on the very first wiki for testing it’s first features. The previous prototype included features of the second roll out stage that are currently not under development.

We’re looking forward to hearing what you experienced while testing: what did work for you, what didn’t? Did anything block you or happened unexpectedly?

Thanks in advance!

I think we should not access to Wikidata interface as easily: for Wikipedia editors, it is nice to edit Wikidata without exiting Wikipedia. So, in my opinion, it is a bad idea to display a final blue towards Wikidata. Probably the final blue button should be a simple “Done” which would exit the modal window, and you would provide another “Edit on Wikidata” advanced button (maybe with gears symbol). I mean: the default UX would probably not include to finish to Wikidata instead of Wikipedia (else, creating a bridge is pretty useless).

Also, redirecting to Phabricator is not a good idea either: this is not a user-friendly interface, besides it requires O-auth connection. You should insert a form bridged interface, as the one in VisualEditor. Or just redirecting to a structured discussion on mediawiki.org.

Hoping I’m clear, I thank you for your work!

I’ve forgotten: there is bug with the license warning: the “Don’t show this message again” checkbox is only displayed after you’ve submitted “Publish changes” (so it is not reachable).

Hello Pols12, and thanks for your feedback!

• Regarding the links to Wikidata: the first versions of the tool will not allow editing certain data types, because it's a complex technical feature that will require more time. It's the case for references, for example, that won't be handled in the first version of the tool. However, we don't want to leave the editors with a closed path "no sorry you can't perform this action at all", and we definitely want to suggest them to update references. That's why we suggest them to go to Wikidata if they want to make the change.
• Regarding the checkbox, thanks for noticing it, we are going to have a look.