(Repost of part of my previous comment, still valid, I think) Wikidata, just like Freebase, is trying to collect structured or semi-structured data instead of

(Repost of part of my previous comment, still valid, I think) Wikidata, just like Freebase, is trying to collect structured or semi-structured data instead of unstructured data such as that present in Wikipedia. I am happy about the aim (completely unstructured data is basically useless for any serious data reuse and data extraction) but my fear is that they will not succeed as well as they did with Wikipedia. Wikipedia funded its success on the fact that anybody could edit it. In order to edit a wikipedia page you only need very low technical skills and basic writing skills (plus knowledge of the topic, obviously). Adding and manipulating structured data requires people to obey to a certain mental grid, to a formalized model, to a schema developed by someone and put in place to be respected strictly. The vast majority of people is easily demotivated when they are required to learn something substantial beforehand and most of the edits of unskilled users end up removed by watchdog (something seen often in high quality Wikipedia articles: edits made by new users are quickly reverted on the grounds that they did not follow some of the many guidelines that must be followed). My idea is that many problems found in structured-data projects (FreeBase, MusicBrainz...) could be alleviated by better interfaces and a wide use of automation, both things that Wikipedia projects do not seem to excel in.