Enhance Your Wikibase With Extensions

What Are Wikibase Extensions

Wikibase is an open-source platform for storing and managing structured data, originally created for Wikidata. Wikibase itself is an extension to MediaWiki, the software behind Wikipedia. It can be extended further with additional “extensions” (“plugins”) to add new capabilities such as advanced search, data validation, and additional data types.

The core of Wikibase is a MediaWiki extension called Wikibase Repository, which turns a MediaWiki site into a structured data repository. You can create “Items” for concepts or entities, and define statements for them using “Properties”.

Once you installed Wikibase Repository, you have over a dozen additional extensions to choose from to enhance its functionality. In this post, we’ll explore the top Wikibase extensions, what they do, and who they’re for.

In This Blog

We describe 16 Wikibase extensions, roughly in order of their general usefulness and how much we recommend them.

To help you gauge how easy it is to get an extension up and running, we tagged each extension with one of the following installation difficulty levels:

1. Wikibase Faceted Search

Wikibase Faceted Search is a powerful search interface for Wikibase data. It allows users to filter search results by item types and property values. Unlike the Query Service UI, this extension is designed for non-technical users, requiring no knowledge of query syntax.

Built on top of Elasticsearch, Wikibase Faceted Search supports complex queries and allows you to combine full-text search with structured data search. It is a modern alternative to WikibaseCirrusSearch.

2. Wikibase Client

Access data from your Wikibase Repository in normal wiki pages. You can retrieve statement values via wikitext parser functions or Lua. Wikibase Client makes it easy for a separate wiki to pull and display structured data, such as in infoboxes or articles.

Wikibase Client comes bundled with Wikibase Repository, so you don't need to install it separately. You do need to enable it and configure it, including pointing it to your Wikibase Repository.

3. SPARQL Extension

The SPARQL Extension lets you run SPARQL queries directly from your wiki pages. This allows you to access and visualize data from a SPARQL endpoint via Lua. This SPARQL endpoint can be your own Wikibase Query Service, the Wikidata Query Service, or any other SPARQL endpoint.

4. Wikibase Local Media

Wikibase Local Media allows your Wikibase to reference media files uploaded to your own wiki. Without this extension, Wikibase assumes all media files reside on Wikimedia Commons. Wikibase Local Media extension is essential for organizations like museums or archives that manage media collections.

5. WikibaseMediaInfo

WikibaseMediaInfo introduces the "MediaInfo" entity type, allowing you to add structured statements directly to media files. This enables better multilingual descriptions, advanced categorization, and improved discoverability. It's extensively used by Wikimedia Commons to manage captions and "depicts" statements for media files.

6. Wikibase EDTF

Wikibase EDTF adds support for Extended Date/Time Format (EDTF) to Wikibase. It enables representation of approximate or uncertain dates, as well as date ranges, making it ideal for historical, archival, and bibliographic projects where exact dates might be unknown or approximate (e.g., "circa 1900" or "late 17th century").

7. Automated Values

Automated Values updates labels, descriptions, and aliases automatically based on your Wikibase statements. This significantly reduces manual data entry efforts and ensures consistency. Common use cases include automatically generating labels from statements (e.g., "First name + Last name") or updating aliases based on related properties.

8. Wikibase RDF

Wikibase RDF enables defining RDF mappings for Wikibase entities. When the extension is enabled, Item and Property pages show a "Mapping to other ontologies" section. You can configure the mappings from within the wiki, and the extension generates RDF exports based on these mappings.

9. Wikibase Export

Wikibase Export provides a user-friendly way to export structured data from Wikibase to CSV. A form allows non-technical users to create and customize CSV exports. Users can specify the properties to export, grouping by year, filtering by year, export language, and more. Administrators can configure the form via a configuration page in the MediaWiki namespace.

10. WikibaseCirrusSearch

WikibaseCirrusSearch is an older alternative to Wikibase Faceted Search. It only provides search keywords but no search UI. It also indexes your Wikibase data in a way that does not support aggregation or combining full-text search with structured data search. WikibaseCirrusSearch is used on Wikidata.

11. EntitySchema

EntitySchema introduces a new entity type called "Schema," allowing data modelers to define Shape Expressions (ShEx) schemas. These schemas can be used to validate Wikibase entities using various external tools.

12. Wikibase Quality Constraints

Wikibase Quality Constraints enables you to define logical constraints on Wikibase properties, such as "date of birth must precede date of death." Violations are automatically flagged, helping maintain high data quality and consistency across your dataset.

The full installation and operation of this extension is complex. The configuration is complex, additional software needs to be installed, and scripts need to be run.

13. PropertySuggester

PropertySuggester suggests relevant properties to users when editing Wikibase items, based on the most commonly used properties for similar items.

The full installation and operation of this extension is complex. The configuration is complex, additional software needs to be installed, and scripts need to be run.

14. UnlinkedWikibase

UnlinkedWikibase is an alternative to Wikibase Client that allows you to access data from any remote Wikibase instance via Lua. It makes web requests to the remote Wikibase's SPARQL endpoint to retrieve data. Unlike Wikibase Client, it does not require access to the database of the Wikibase Repository.

15. WikibaseManifest

WikibaseManifest provides an API endpoint that allows for automated configuration discovery of your Wikibase. Some external tools use this API to automatically configure themselves.

16. Semantic Wikibase

Semantic Wikibase makes your Wikibase data available in Semantic MediaWiki (SMW). This increases the consumability of your Wikibase data by allowing you to query, visualize, and combine it with other data in SMW directly inside your wiki. Semantic Wikibase is still experimental. See also: Managing Data in MediaWiki.

17. WikibaseLexeme

WikibaseLexeme adds specialized support for lexicographical data, including words, their forms, senses, and grammatical attributes. It is a tool for linguistic projects and dictionaries, primarily used on Wikidata.

More Wikibase Tools

A well-rounded Wikibase installation includes more than just Wikibase extensions, which is what we focused on in this blog. For example, if you want Single Sign-On, spam prevention, or batch uploads, you need MediaWiki extensions, not Wikibase extensions. Then there are also tools and services like QuickStatements and OpenRefine. While not built on top of MediaWiki, and thus technically speaking, not MediaWiki extensions, they are still essential for many Wikibase installations.

Check out our list of top MediaWiki extensions.

Commission A Wikibase Extension

Do you need a custom extension for your Wikibase? Check out our Wikibase software development services. We also provide other Wikibase services such as Wikibase hosting.

Related Reading

• Does Wikibase Fir Your Project?
• Top MediaWiki Extensions
• Top MediaWiki Themes
• Managing Data in MediaWiki
• Wikibase Hosting Options Compared
• Wikibase posts on this blog