possible basic structure of a Wikidata Query Service workshop

WDQS Workshops.md

WDQS Workshops

Basic structure of one of my Wikidata Query Service workshops, or rather, idealized version of it that I hope to get close to :)

• before the workshop: zoom in on all domains you’re likely to visit, at least www.wikidata.org and query.wikidata.org, until text is readable from the back of the audience (I usually go for ~150%).

• all slides: have a footer with

  • your name and Twitter handle, and

  • some helpful link (e. g. a tinyurl for the slides). (Consider putting that in larger print on the title slide, too.)

  In Google Slides, you can add text fields to the master slide(s) for that.

• Welcome, I’m …, ask questions at any time, interrupt me if get carried away. (Not sure if that last part is necessary, but let’s keep it for now.)

• Query examples, query helper. Don’t forget to put query.wikidata.org on the first slide so people can try out this simple process.

• Simplest query: a single triple.

• Autocompletion.

• Label service.

• If the audience is small enough, this is a good time to let them try writing a simple query.

• More than one triple. ;.

• With these out of the way, it’s definitely time for questions. This is where the Q&A part can really start off; the following features should also be explained, but not necessarily in this order and possibly in response to audience questions:

  • OPTIONAL.

  • ORDER BY.

  • MINUS.

  • GROUP BY.

  • Very basic FILTER.

  • Full statements (and, by extension, what exactly truthy statements are), qualifiers, and [] syntax.

• Final slide – thank you, and at least the following links, all as short as possible so people can copy them by hand:

  • contact information (Twitter handle, Wikimedia username, …)

  • slides

  • Help:SPARQL

  • WD:RAQ

• Afterwards: put the slides on Commons (for me: upload by Lucas Werkmeister (WMDE)), Category:Slides of Wikidata presentations in English. Tweet them (including Google Slides link if that was used).