Wiki Infographics: Developments in July

In our first Diff post about the Wiki Infographics we talked about the objectives of the project, and presented its development technical plan. In section 8 of that document we lay out a timeline for its development. We are almost on schedule, due to encountering technical complexities in our prototype integration with Toolforge. We are putting in place our risk mitigation strategy (section 6) to overcome those challenges. All the while, we have seen significant progress on both backend and frontend, ensuring that our tool possesses a solid infrastructure and intuitive interface. As this post continues, we will detail the milestones we have successfully attained thus far.

Backend and data processing

The backend is the backbone of the project. It is responsible for dealing with data fetch and processing. The Wiki Infographics software uses a robust, scalable and easily maintainable backend API system. We leverage Flask’s lightweight framework to fast-track our development process and Pandas functionalities to perform the data manipulation needed.

In July, we focused on the development of the initial prototype. For that, we established a study case: population data of the Brazilian municipalities, extracted from Wikidata. This example gives us data easy to retrieve (using Wikidata Query Service) and verify (accessing the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics – IBGE), and will serve as the basis for the other structured data we plan to gather from the Wikimedia projects.

The backend development involved establishing endpoints, processing the acquired data, and manipulation of the data to fit into different visualizations. The whole structure is modular, to allow scaling into other endpoints and data sources.

Authentication and Toolforge

Our tool will be hosted in Toolforge, a free cloud hosting for Wikimedia contributors. Once a tool is ready to be deployed, one can request a domain for a tool. The Wiki Movimento Brasil has several tools hosted on Toolforge. This is a critical phase in the project as it marks the transition from the local development setup to a functional, publicly accessible tool that the community can, in time, engage with. Because of some deployment challenges on Toolforge, we are not yet fully functional and live, but hopefully soon!

On Toolforge, we have limited space and capacity to manage multiple requests, so we have established that, for the initial prototype, the user must login into the tool using Oauth. That guarantees that we have some control about the amount of queries being done while we study the demands of the software on the server. We plan to implement a personal query history functionality so the user doesn’t lose their charts.

Frontend interface

Concurrently with the progress made in backend development, we initiated the development of the frontend interface. Our objective is to design an interface that is not only user-friendly but also intuitive, providing a seamless experience for users interacting with the data. To achieve this, we leveraged modern web technologies and frameworks to ensure that the interface is both responsive and accessible, paramount concepts on our developments.

What’s Next?

With these foundational elements in place, the next steps after the deployment involve further refining the tool, gathering feedback from the community, and iterating based on their input. We will continue to enhance the tool’s functionality, improve the user interface, and ensure that it meets the needs of its users.
Want to know more about the Wiki Infographics project, its progress and challenges? Read the in depth blog posts James Okolie is writing on his Outreachy internship!