Talk:Wikidata Platform

Relation to previous query service developers?

I'm wondering how this team is related to the group of WMF people we have worked with on the WDQS platform in the past, particularly on the recent graph split process - that included User:DCausse (WMF), User:Sannita (WMF), User:GLederrey (WMF) and User:ABaso (WMF), probably some others I've missed. ArthurPSmith (talk) 15:02, 12 September 2025 (UTC)

Hi @ArthurPSmith! It's a newly formed team, although @GModena (WMF) has been working within the Data Platform Engineering (DPE) unit at WMF for a while (and even recently embedded within the Search Platform team, which is part of DPE and the longtime maintainer of WDQS infrastructure). The newly formed team reports in to a different part of the same department, Product & Technology, rolling up to @ATsay-WMF. Gabriele is the tech lead for the team and is partnered with new joiner @BTracy-WMF, who is the dedicated product lead. They're shaping up vision, strategy, and roadmap for querying of structured data at scale while ensuring stability of the WDQS/Wikidata offering. Brandon and Gabriele will continue to be working closely with Search Platform, Data Platform SRE, and @Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) and the WMDE team to ensure a smooth transition of WDQS responsibilities and fruitful continued collaboration as the Wikidata Platform team is spun up and architectural considerations are approached. Existing collaboration with other teams in WMF (e.g., with Data Persistence and folks focused upon MediaWiki and Event Platform / Kafka tech) will of course continue to be a part of future work as well. ABaso (WMF) (talk) 17:48, 12 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks Adam, that clarifies it a bit... is there an organizational chart somewhere that shows how this is all put together right now though? I still feel a bit confused who is responsible for what! ArthurPSmith (talk) 18:41, 12 September 2025 (UTC)

@ArthurPSmith I'm not sure about if there's an org chart piece handy. We have our generic internal HRIS org chart tool, but that doesn't really capture what I think you're wondering about; and it doesn't include the WMDE staffing, of course. Capacity is being added here to ensure dedicated WDQS support in WMF, but I'll let @BTracy-WMF chime in if there's some other sort of diagram or succinct way to capture current/planned support roles and responsibilities between different units; it is still a bit early.

In practice I'd probably suggest if pinging on wiki to ping @GModena (WMF), @Sannita (EDIT: Sannita (WMF)), @DCausse (WMF), and @BTracy-WMF. You are also welcome to add me to the pings; but no problem if not! I'm working on other systems at present. The "Wikidata-Query-Service" component on Phabricator continues to be a good place if filing tasks or following ones regarding WDQS.

Hope all is well - have a good weekend. ABaso (WMF) (talk) 19:33, 12 September 2025 (UTC)

Hi @ArthurPSmith! We don't have a refined org chart that maps all collaborations across the previous WMF owners, WMDE, and our new team just yet. Once we do, we will add it to this page. For now, the best way to understand ownership is through the split of end-to-end user experiences (WMDE) and underlying data access infrastructure (Wikidata Platform). I agree with @ABaso (WMF)'s recommendation of going through @GModena (WMF), @Sannita (EDIT: Sannita (WMF)), @DCausse (WMF), and myself for issues that need a direct response and using the Phabricator board to submit requests. Our new team will be the first to receive and review any requests, and if we aren't up to speed on your specific issue, we will help triage to the right SMEs in the foundation. BTracy-WMF (talk) 20:29, 12 September 2025 (UTC)

Just a quick note, it's better to tag my work account @Sannita (WMF) and not my volunteer account. :) Sannita (WMF) (talk) 18:12, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

The wikidata:Wikidata:Report_a_technical_problem/WDQS_and_Search page is also still there, has not changed, and can still be used to contact the right people!

GLederrey (WMF) (talk) 14:58, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

details on technical capacity of Wikidata infrastructure

There is the unsourced statement: "The Wikidata platform and the Wikidata Query Service (WDQS) are fast approaching the upper limits of their technical capacity." Are there details on these limits? Peter F. Patel-Schneider (talk) 16:16, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

Our team’s current focus is stabilizing the Wikidata Query Service (WDQS). This service is built atop a database technology (Blazegraph) that is no longer under development: no new features or improvements are being implemented, and it is no longer maintained. Known and newly discovered bugs are not fixed. At our scale, we encounter frequent stability issues that place a considerable operational burden on our team and on SRE, with an increased risk of SLO-impacting service disruptions.

Moreover, relying on unmaintained technology limits the scope of platform evolution and our ability to sustain Wikidata’s expanding data size and access patterns. For example, the Blazegraph data loading pipeline is not able to reliably handle Wikidata entities dump ingestion. As a result, the process can run for days and occasionally fails with non-deterministic errors.

Some exploratory work that predates our team, and on which we built atop, can be found at:https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/WDQS_Backend_Alternatives_working_paper.pdf

Over the past quarter, the team has been reviewing and cataloguing performance and operational issues of WDQS. We are currently in the process of migrating away from Blazegraph as WDQS' backend. More details and updates on the current and future status of WDQS will be shared through our communication channels at https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:SPARQL_query_service/WDQS_backend_update. GModena (WMF) (talk) 09:13, 7 January 2026 (UTC)