Community Data Science Workshops (Fall 2014)/Day 2 SQL project

Building a Dataset using MySQL

In this project, we will explore a few ways to gather data from Wikimedia using MySQL and the Quarry web application. Once we've done that, we will download the results of our queries in CSV format which can be used to ask and answer questions and visualize data in the final session.

Goals

• Learn how to use MySQL (a Structured Query Language) to build datasets.
• Get set up to run MySQL queries to gather data from Wikimedia projects.
• Practice running MySQL queries on your own to get data about who is editing particular Wikipedia articles.
• Create a few collections of Wikipedia data that you can do research with in the final section.

Prerequisite

To participate in the afternoon session, you must have an a Wikimedia account. This is the account is used to run queries with Quarry. It is also an account you can use when you edit Wikipedia and other Wikimedia websites.

If you do not have a Wikimedia account already, >>click here to create an account <<.

If for some reason you are unable to create your account via the link above, try creating it via one of the links below. No matter which link you use, your account will allow you to log in to Quarry as well as any of the 100s of Wikimedia project.

Alternate account creation links

• meta.wikimedia.org
• commons.wikimedia.org
• mediawiki.org
• en.wikisource.org
• wiktionary.org
• wikivoyage.org

Practice

If you would like to practice SQL on your own, you can do so in the tutorial section of SQLZoo.

Notes

• For this session, you will not need to use Python or type commands on the command line.

Queries and other notes

• https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/CDSW_fall_2014_SQL_session_1