Connecting OpenRefine to a Wikibase instance

This page explains how to connect OpenRefine to any Wikibase instance. If you just want to work with Wikidata, you can ignore this page as Wikidata is configured out of the box in OpenRefine.

For Wikibase end users

All you need to configure OpenRefine to work with a Wikibase instance is a manifest for that instance, which provides some metadata and links required for the integration to work.

We offer some off-the-shelf manifests for some public Wikibase instances in the wikibase-manifests repository. But the administrators of your Wikibase instance should provide one that is potentially more up to date, so it makes sense to request it to them first.

For Wikibase administrators

To let your users contribute to your Wikibase instance with OpenRefine, you will need to write a manifest as described above. There is currently no canonical location where this manifest should be hosted - just make sure can be found easily by your users. This section explains the format of the manifest.

Requirements

To work with OpenRefine, your Wikibase instance needs an associated reconciliation service. For instance you can use a Python wrapper for this. Also, in addition to Wikibase, the UniversalLanguageSelector extension should be installed.

The format of the manifest

Here is the manifest of Wikidata:

{  "version": "1.0",  "mediawiki": {    "name": "Wikidata",    "root": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/",    "main_page": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page",    "api": "https://www.wikidata.org/w/api.php"  },  "wikibase": {    "site_iri": "http://www.wikidata.org/entity/",    "maxlag": 5,    "properties": {      "instance_of": "P31",      "subclass_of": "P279"    },    "constraints": {      "property_constraint_pid": "P2302",      "exception_to_constraint_pid": "P2303",      "constraint_status_pid": "P2316",      "mandatory_constraint_qid": "Q21502408",      "suggestion_constraint_qid": "Q62026391",      "distinct_values_constraint_qid": "Q21502410",      // ...    }  },  "oauth": {    "registration_page": "https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:OAuthConsumerRegistration/propose"  },  "reconciliation": {    "endpoint": "https://wikidata.reconci.link/${lang}/api"  },  "editgroups": {    "url_schema": "([[:toollabs:editgroups/b/OR/${batch_id}|details]])"  }}

In general, there are several parts of the manifest: version, mediawiki, wikibase, oauth, reconciliation and editgroups.

version

The version should in the format "1.x". The minor version should be increased when you update the manifest in a backward-compatible manner. The major version should be "1" if the manifest is in the format specified by wikibase-manifest-schema-v1.json.

mediawiki

This part contains some basic information of the Wikibase.

name

The name of the Wikibase, should be unique for different Wikibase instances.

root

The root of the Wikibase. Typically in the form "https://foo.bar/wiki/". The trailing slash cannot be omitted.

main_page

The main page of the Wikibase. Typically in the form "https://foo.bar/wiki/Main_Page".

api

The MediaWiki API endpoint of the Wikibase. Typically in the form "https://foo.bar/w/api.php".

wikibase

This part contains configurations of the Wikibase extension.

site_iri

The IRI of the Wikibase, in the form 'http://foo.bar/entity/'. This should match the IRI prefixes used in RDF serialization. Be careful about using "http" or "https", because any variation will break comparisons at various places. The trailing slash cannot be omitted.

maxlag

Maxlag is a parameter that controls how aggressive a mass-editing tool should be when uploading edits to a Wikibase instance. See https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Maxlag_parameter for more details. The value should be adapted according to the actual traffic of the Wikibase.

properties

Some special properties of the Wikibase.

instance_of

The ID of the property "instance of".

subclass_of

The ID of the property "subclass of".

constraints

Not required. Should be configured if the Wikibase has the WikibaseQualityConstraints extension installed. Configurations of constraints consists of IDs of constraints related properties and items. For Wikidata, these IDs are retrieved from extension.json. To configure this for another Wikibase instance, you should contact an admin of the Wikibase instance to get the content of extension.json.

oauth

Not required. Should be configured if the Wikibase has the OAuth extension installed.

registration_page

The page to register an OAuth consumer of the Wikibase. Typically in the form "https://foo.bar/wiki/Special:OAuthConsumerRegistration/propose".

reconciliation

The Wikibase instance must have at least a reconciliation service endpoint linked to it. If there is no reconciliation service for the Wikibase, you can run one with openrefine-wikibase.

endpoint

The default reconciliation service endpoint of the Wikibase instance. The endpoint must contain the "${lang}" variable such as "https://wikidata.reconci.link/${lang}/api", since the reconciliation service is expected to work for different languages.

editgroups

Not required. Should be configured if the Wikibase instance has EditGroups service(s).

url_schema

The URL schema used in edits summary. This is used for EditGroups to extract the batch id from a batch of edits and for linking to the EditGroups page of the batch. The URL schema must contains the variable '${batch_id}', such as '([[:toollabs:editgroups/b/OR/${batch_id}|details]])' for Wikidata.

Check the format of the manifest

As mentioned above, the manifest should be in the format specified by wikibase-manifest-schema-v1.json. You can check the format by adding the manifest directly to OpenRefine, and OpenRefine will complain if there is anything wrong with the format.