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About Structured Data on Commons

Structured data on Commons is multilingual information about a media file that can be understood by humans, with enough consistency that it can also be uniformly processed by machines.

The basics

Each media file page on Wikimedia Commons has a 'File information' and 'Structured data' tab.

We look at a simple example of a featured image on Wikimedia Commons: Würfelzucker (2018).

Add multilingual captions to files

Under the File information tab, you can add file captions in many languages: short, factual descriptions about the file, without hyperlinks or wikitext. These file captions make the file easier to find in search.

What is depicted (shown) in a file?

Under the Structured data tab, you can indicate what is portrayed ("depicted") in the file. In this case: twelve white sugar cubes. The screenshot below is animated, demonstrating how the descriptive elements are multilingual. You can see structured data in a different language by switching your interface language setting.
More information: see Commons:Depicts.

Other statements about a file

Also under the Structured data tab, you can add other descriptive information about the file. This example describes the file's license, creator and quality assessment.
More information: see Commons:Statements.

What Structured Data on Commons does

Structured data on Commons improves access, searchability, exploration and provides new ways to use the content.

Improving accessibility

• Multilingual: Provides labels in over 300 languages which are added automatically.
• Accessibility: Provides information that makes content more accessible to users with specific needs e.g. blind and partially sighted.

New ways to find content

• Searchability: Allows people to easily find content through better descriptions of what they depict.

New ways to explore and use content

• Connect knowledge from different sources: Allows content from many sources together to provide new ways to explore and visualise a subject.
• Explore collections and topics: Collates content to provide new ways to explore collections and topics.
• Usable by other websites and services: SDC data is free and machine readable meaning and ready to be used in apps and other content.

Improving the quality of information

• Data with references: Data can reference to its sources, allowing you to see the original creator of the information and corroboration by third parties.
• Queryable: Allows queries to check data quality across 1,000s of files at once, allowing people to more easily identify and correct missing, out of date or incorrect information.

A few easy ways to start

• Upload a new, freely licensed file to Wikimedia Commons. You will be prompted to add multilingual file captions (help page) and depicts statements (help page).
• Add structured data to some high-quality images supported by a Wikimedia chapter, via the ISA Tool. (You must log in with a Wikimedia account here.)

Open the ISA Tool on Toolforge

Get in touch

• Use the talk page of Structured Data on Commons to ask questions.
• Report bugs and post feature requests on Phabricator (Help).

How you can help

• Help writing documentation about Structured Data on Commons.
• Discuss and decide how files should be described, at Commons:Structured data/Modeling.

Tools to add structured data to files

AC/DC ("Add to Commons, Descriptive Claims") is a Wikimedia Commons gadget to help with batch editing. It allows adding statements to a group of files (for example a category).

Cat2Data is a beginner-friendly user script for adding statements to all files in a category.

Depictor lets you add depicts statements using a game-like interface. You can customize it using specific categories or SPARQL queries.

Image Annotator is a tool that runs image annotation campaigns on Wikimedia Commons.

ISA is a tool to help beginners to add depicts statements and multilingual captions to files.

OpenRefine is a powerful and flexible tool to add structured data to Wikimedia Commons files in batch (from OpenRefine 3.6).

SDC is a user script similar to Cat-a-lot that allows adding limited number of structured data statements to files in a category.

WikiCrowd lets you add depicts statements by simply clicking on images.

Info for developers

Development of Structured Data on Commons is tracked on Phabricator.

Structured Data on Commons is powered by the Wikibase software. Data can be accessed via API; see mw:Wikibase/API for documentation.

The extension used for structured data is WikibaseMediaInfo.

Frequently Asked Questions

What kind of structured data should I add? How should I describe a certain file in structured data?

• For best practices on Depicts statements, see Commons:Depicts.
• For inspiration and examples of other statements, please check the Modeling pages. Feel free to ask questions there and contribute to the documentation yourself. The data model of Structured Data on Commons is a work in progress and is designed by the Wikimedia Commons community.

How can I find files that already have structured data?

You can use the Wikimedia Commons search function to find files with structured data. A few examples:

• All files that depict a bunny (Q9394)
• All files with a caption in Italian
• All files with the word 'broccoli' in a file caption
• All files that have a structured data statement saying that the file's license is CC BY-SA 4.0
• All files that do not have a Depicts statement

You can also use the site Commons Walkabout, which provides a drill-down-style browsing interface for Commons Structured Data.

How can I add structured data to many files at once?

You can use the tools mentioned on this page; see above.

Other questions?

Check the Frequently Asked Questions page.