Submissions:2025/Using obituaries from the New York Times to enhance the accuracy of biographies on the English Wikipedia and Wikidata too

This submission has been noted and is pending review for WikiConference North America 2025.

Etherpad

Title:

Using obituaries from the New York Times to enhance the accuracy of biographies on the English Wikipedia and Wikidata too

Type of session:

Edit-a-thons or Workshops (30-120 min)

Session theme(s):

Credibility, Missing pieces

Abstract:

Using the New York Times Archive API to collect headlines and Filter out stories from section "Obituary."

First generation used a bash script with GAWK to process the JSON. Second generation is a work in progress to use Python.

OpenRefine reconciliation used to match subject names to Wikidata items. Currently only names. Gen 2 will use death date and estimated birth year from age.

More information here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:CmdrDan/Talks/2025_WConfNA/Using_Obits_to_improve_Wikidata_and_en.wiki

Author name(s):

Daniel Eldridge and colleague who wishes to remain anonymous

Wikimedia username(s):

CmdrDan

Affiliated organization(s):

Wikimedia NYC

Estimated length of session

60-90 minutes

Will you be presenting remotely?

I will present in-person

Okay to livestream?

Livestreaming is okay

Previously presented?

No

Special requests:

We're flexible on talk duration; we can make this 45 to 120 minutes.