Quality Assurance and Reliability
Wikidata has several checks and balances in place to ensure it contains reliable and high-quality data.
Is Wikidata Reliable?
Wikidata has a number of measures to ensure that its data are reliable. There is the option to add a reference to any entry on Wikidata, and users are encouraged to do so for the integrity of the website. In addition, institutions are supporting the reliability of Wikidata. For instance, The National Library of Congress tracks Wikidata's items, and several other organisations have pledged their commitment to improving Wikidata.
Wikidata is also vulnerable to vandalism (where users purposefully alter the information with malicious intent). However, researchers have been working to develop automatic vandalism detection tools which aim to streamline the process of identifying and removing vandalism. You can read more about these tools onMetawiki Research: Building automated vandalism detection tool for Wikidata. There is also an item quality evaluator tool that can be used to check the quality of referencing and information of the items, which is easy to use and can help users to consider the quality of their data.
- Video: Data Quality on Wikidata
- short video discussing wikidata reliability.
Even with these measures, users should always consider the reliability of the data they use and the quality of available references.
Read more about Wikidata's quality-assurance checks at the following links:
Why is Wikidata Important to You?
© Ewan McAndrew and Clea Strathmann, University of Edinburgh, 2021, CC BY-SA 4.0, unless otherwise indicated.