Demographic Label Data in Wikipedia and Wikidata

This is an unfinished draft and working notes for "Demographic Label Data in Wikipedia and Wikidata". Direct questions to lead author Lane Rasberry; other contributors take no responsibility for errors in these working notes. This draft does not note credit to all contributors.

"Demographic data" is the familiar and conventional data from the field of demographics. In the context of Wikipedia and Wikidata, this data takes on new meaning and significance as moving it from the field of demographics into the Wikimedia platform increases the accessibility of this data so much that it enables new directions of research and creates new ethical and social issues. Briefly, for any class of public figure documented in Wikipedia, one may generate a demographic profile. For example, "demographics of scientists"; "demographics of scientists in the United States", or "demographics of medical researchers". While the data is incomplete, more complete data is rapidly becoming available and accessible to the public to consider at will. We consider this process of data collection, how Wikipedia presents it, what data Wikipedia and Wikidata collect, what systems are comparable, and what impact this is having on the media ecosystem.