Wikimedia Commons Creator Templates Scraper

Wikimedia Commons Creator Templates Scraper

Scrape creator templates from Wikimedia Commons, up to a million per run. Each record returns the page ID, namespace, and title for every creator template in a category. No login or API key required. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

Wikimedia Commons stores structured creator metadata inside templates, but browsing them manually means clicking through thousands of pages. This Actor reads the public MediaWiki API directly, lists every creator template page in a category, and returns the identifiers you need to fetch full details later. It works without authentication or rate-limit headaches.

Who uses it	What they scrape Wikimedia Commons for
Digital archivists	Building a complete index of creator records for a GLAM institution.
Data journalists	Mapping the geographic and temporal distribution of public-domain contributors.
Semantic web developers	Seeding a knowledge graph with Wikimedia Commons creator identifiers.
Researchers in art history	Compiling a dataset of painters, sculptors, and photographers represented on Commons.

What it does

This Actor collects Wikimedia Commons creator template pages from any MediaWiki category and returns each one as a flat row with its page ID, namespace, and title.

• Category-driven listing. Feed any MediaWiki category title and get every member page that is a creator template.
• Configurable volume. Set a max items limit to control how many template pages the run returns, from a preview of 10 up to 1,000,000.
• Paginated API access. The Actor handles continuation tokens automatically so you get the full list without writing pagination logic.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with Wikimedia Commons data

📚 Build a creator authority file.

A digital archivist runs the Actor on the default Creator_templates category, exports the full title list, and cross-references it with VIAF and Wikidata to enrich a museum's catalog.

🗺️ Analyze contributor demographics.

A researcher scrapes all creator template titles, then samples the underlying template content to study the birth decades and nationalities of Commons contributors.

🔗 Link Commons creators to external datasets.

A linked-data developer extracts page titles as seed identifiers, resolves them to Wikidata Q-IDs, and builds a reconciliation service for art databases.

📊 Audit template coverage.

A Commons volunteer runs the scraper weekly on a custom category to track how many new creator templates have been added and which ones still lack structured data.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
Public API, no auth	Reads the official commons.wikimedia.org API with zero registration or API keys.
Flat, predictable schema	Every row has the same fields: pageid, ns, title, scrapedAt, and error.
Handles pagination	Continuation tokens are managed internally so large categories complete in one run.
Export anywhere	Save results as CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML for direct use in your pipeline.

What a Wikimedia Commons record looks like

Every record returns as one flat JSON row. Here is a real one from a run:

{
 "pageid": 98469697,
 "ns": 100,
 "title": "Creator:Alexey Vazhnov",
 "scrapedAt": "2026-09-04T06:08:20.154Z"
}

Every value above comes from a real run. A field a record does not have comes back as null.

Configure the run

Drive the Actor from a MediaWiki category title and set a max items limit to control how many creator template pages are returned. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
 "categoryTitle": "Creator_templates",
 "maxItems": 10
}

A larger pull:

{
 "categoryTitle": "Creator_templates",
 "maxItems": 200
}

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account.
2. Open the Wikimedia Commons Creator Templates Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to Wikimedia Commons through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/wikimedia-creator-templates-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check that the categoryTitle you entered exists on Wikimedia Commons and contains pages. The default value is Creator_templates, which is a real category with thousands of members. If you changed it, verify the exact spelling and capitalization on Commons.

The run stopped before reaching my maxItems limit.

The category may have fewer members than the limit you set. The Actor returns every page it finds, so if the category contains 200 pages and you set maxItems to 1000, you will get 200 results.

I only see pageid, ns, and title in the output. Where is the creator's name and birth date?

This Actor lists the template pages, not the metadata inside them. The title field contains the template name, which often includes the creator's name. To extract birth dates and other fields you need to fetch and parse each page's wikitext in a separate step.

The Actor is slow for large categories.

The MediaWiki API returns up to 500 results per request. For categories with hundreds of thousands of members the run will take time proportional to the number of API calls. You can reduce maxItems to speed up a preview run.

FAQ

Question	Answer
What exactly is a creator template on Wikimedia Commons?	A creator template is a wiki page that holds structured metadata about a person who created a work, such as a painter or photographer. It includes fields like name, birth and death dates, nationality, and authority-control identifiers.
Does this Actor extract the full metadata from each creator template?	No, this Actor lists the template pages themselves and returns their page ID, namespace, and title. To get the detailed metadata inside each template you would need a second step that fetches and parses each page's wikitext.
Can I scrape a custom category instead of the default Creator_templates?	Yes, you can set the categoryTitle input to any valid MediaWiki category name. The Actor will list every member page in that category.
Is authentication or an API key required?	No. The Actor uses the public Wikimedia Commons API, which is open and does not require any login or key.
How many creator templates can I scrape in one run?	Free users can scrape up to 10 items as a preview. Paid Apify users can set maxItems up to 1,000,000 per run.
What output formats are supported?	You can export your dataset to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML directly from the Apify platform.
Does the Actor handle API pagination automatically?	Yes, it follows continuation tokens returned by the MediaWiki API so that large categories are fetched completely without manual intervention.
Can I use the scraped page titles to fetch the actual template content later?	Yes, the titles returned by this Actor are the exact page names you would pass to the MediaWiki parse or revisions API to retrieve the full wikitext and extract the structured creator fields.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.