User:DBrant (WMF)/Unification

Unification: a naïve vision
In the coming years, structured data will play an ever-increasing role in Wikipedia's relevance and utility for our users' needs. Wikidata currently fulfills a portion of this role somewhat, but it has a problem of discoverability (compared to Wikipedia), as well as subtle differences in user experience, different licensing models, etc.

These problems will persist as long as Wikidata and Wikipedia are separate entities. The key to the future of both projects is unification. Here is a sketch of what this would look like:


 * Each Wikipedia article will have a "Data" tab, in addition to the "Edit", "Talk", and "History" tabs. The Data tab will contain structured data related to the subject, in much the same way that it is structured in Wikidata today.


 * Items from the Data tab can be included directly in the article (if a data item is modified, the modification will be reflected in every place it's referenced). Of course, items from the Data tab can be included in other articles, as well.


 * The Data tab will also contain References (as they're understood today) in a structured way. A reference can be used within the article text, or for any of the other data items.