This page is a work in progress.
In this project, we will explore a few ways to gather data using two Wikipedia APIs: one provides data related to edits, and the other provides data related to pageviews. Once we've done that, we will extend this to code to create our own datasets of Wikipedia edits or other data that we might be able to use to ask and answer questions in the final session.
Goals
- Get set up to build datasets with Wikipedia APIs
- Have fun collecting different types of data from Wikipedia
- Practice reading API documentation
- Pracice testing API queries in an API Sandbox
- Practice reading and extending other people's code
Download and test the Wikipedia API project
Datasources
Wikipedia Edit API
- the API sandbox - a tool for building queries
Wikipedia Page View API
- Use the experimental API
- This API is a little different because it uses relative paths instead of parameters.
- This API is case-sensitive.
- Request for Panama Papers: https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/metrics/pageviews/per-article/en.wikipedia/all-access/user/Panama_Papers/daily/20160401/20160420
Exercises
Building queries in the Wikipedia editing API Sandbox
- When was the most recent edit to the Panama Papers article?
- When was the article about the Panama Papers created?
- View query in sandbox
- View result in browser
- Follow up: How many edits has the creator of Panama Papers made to Wikipedia?
- What was the text of the Panama Papers article 24 hours after it was created?
- Who has edited the Panama Papers article?
- View query in sandbox
- View result in browser
- What categories is the Panama Papers article in?
- View query in sandbox
- View result in browser
- What other articles does Panama Papers link to?
- View query in sandbox
- View result in browser
Building queries in the Wikipedia page view API Sandbox
- How many views did Panama Papers have on the day it was created?
- How many views did Panama Papers have yesterday?
- How many people viewed Panama Papers using the Wikipedia mobile website on its first day?
Building queries with Python requests
- How many edits did Panama Papers receive in its first 24 hours?
- View result in browser
- How many edits has Panama Papers receive from mobile devices since it was created?
- View result in browser
- How many times was Panama Papers viewed in the first week? What proportion of those views came from mobile devices?
