Frequently Asked Questions

Who provides the data – and how are you different from Wikidata?

ChangingGraph is not Wikidata, nor „Wikidata lite". No central database, no global editorial group. It is a federated system over ActivityPub – the same protocol Mastodon runs on, except the payload is structured data instead of posts.

Data comes from whoever owns it. The bakery publishes its products, the repair café its events, a specialist community its vocabulary. An actor doesn't have to be an individual. An organisation or community can act as one and maintain things together. So „individual vs. community" is the wrong framing. The real distinction: one global community that decides everything (Wikidata) versus many sovereign actors, each responsible for their own slice (us).

What we won't argue away: cold start is a real problem. As long as barely anyone publishes, the graph stays thin.

Who removes information that is no longer current?

Whoever published it. What internal rules a community applies for this is up to them. That is the core of the idea, not its flaw.

To be honest: in a federated system, deletion is only theoretically possible. Whoever published can retract their statement – technically a Delete activity is sent to all known recipients. Whether the receiving instances actually apply it and remove their local copies, the sending side cannot enforce. Same principle as Mastodon posts.