Talk:Community Wishlist/W34

Reasons against

I tend to look after the font articles on Wikipedia. Because fonts are software, they can have updates fixing glitches or adding new characters. Also, there are lots of random fonts out there on websites like dafont (it claims to have 86 000 currently) that I'm not sure it makes sense to include. For this reason, I think it would be simplest not to do this and instead have Commons or Wikipedia link to creators' websites or repositories like GitHub, the Open Font Library or Google Fonts where up-to-date versions can be downloaded. For example, the article on Linear B cites specific fonts you can use for it).

Commons doesn't act as a general repository for open-source software that I know of, and although I don't know if there have been specific reasons why not, my guess is similar concerns apply there (project scope, updating, managing problems like buggy versions or forks, complexity). So at the moment instinctively I'm leaning no but am willing to consider arguments to the contrary. Blythwood (talk) 01:29, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

And Commons is for educational media, and I doubt fonts are educational. Janhrach (talk) 10:36, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Why would they not be? * Pppery * _{it has begun} 15:12, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Fonts are really complicated. My feeling is that allowing self-published fonts would be a bit like taking on publishing fanfiction or open-source software: other websites do it better, it’s of questionable value and Commons doesn’t have the contributors, time or expertise to deal with all that content moderation.
We would definitely get huge numbers of bad random self-published fonts. There are so many people who have created fonts for the imaginary language in their self-published fantasy novel. Or a font that they plan on finishing later that doesn’t even contain numbers. Or a home-brew fork of another open-source font because they don’t like the shape of the 'e'. (Those are real examples of self-published fonts I’ve run into.) Just click around on Dafont and imagine having to deal with someone bulk-uploading 86000 random fonts onto Commons and us having to decide which are worth keeping and which aren’t.
Now imagine that, plus dealing with bugs involving linguistics complexities that most people aren’t going to understand (“I know the uploader claims their font is perfect for displaying Old Gujarati script, but it actually gets all the character shaping wrong because…”). It would get even worse if we let people upload their own fonts and then call them onto Wikipedia pages, this would be a surefire way to end up with lots of text not viewable by people using screen readers and weird technical issues ("we're going to need to rewrite the article because the user wrote the Old Gujarati script snippets using their invented notation they thought was better than Unicode, so nobody can read it except using their weird font…"). And add to the attack surface for security risks too. Wikipedia articles should not serve webfonts. The best option is that people can choose themselves to set a custom font in their browser to display an article in their preferred font. Blythwood (talk) 16:02, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

 Note that Commons already stores extensive glyphs (one can think of these as 'unbundled' computer fonts minus the software for tracking, kerning, ligaturing, etc.): commons:COM:ancient Chinese characters project for example. Arlo Barnes (talk) 18:32, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Response to the wish

@Ebrahim Thank you for your wish! The team responsible for this is focused on other priorities and they don't see this as fulfillable based on the direction of the team. To read about what the team is focused on, see the Product & Technology OKRs. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 15:34, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

@Sannita (WMF) thank you for the response. I want to ask if there would be any other team that would be willing to take a task like this up. better font support has been repeatedly asked for and would be hugely beneficial to essentially all wiki projects. the associated ticket (T367644) has stalled due to the lack of developers to implement it, not the lack of support.  Juwan  🕊️🌈 16:56, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

@Juwan I'm sorry, but I don't see any other team that can take this up. Maybe you can ask the Unsupported Tools Working Group if they are interested to work on this? Sannita (WMF) (talk) 17:16, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

Why does this wish need to have a team interested in working on to be open for voting when there are hundreds of other wishes open for voting that don't? Nardog (talk) 17:29, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

@Nardog I don't see the point of your question, care to reformulate a bit? Sannita (WMF) (talk) 18:47, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

The correspondence above indicates that in order for this wish to be given a different status so people can vote for it, a WMF team must be interested in working on it, even though there are hundreds of other wishes, especially in "Under review" and "Community opportunity", that do not have a team attached but can be voted for. What makes this particular wish (and the few others declined as contrary to strategic priorities) deserve such an unfair treatment? Nardog (talk) 04:28, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

@Nardog It isn't an unfair treatment. Wishes are not just worked by Community Tech, many wishes are taken by other teams at the Foundation, and included in their line of work if they fit in the annual strategy. This one, unfortunately, didn't. That's all. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 13:38, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

So all of 441 wishes currently not declined are all included in some team's line of work? Nardog (talk) 13:41, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

No, only those that are being worked on are included at the moment in Community Tech's or other team's line of work. All the others, especially those under review, are not. Some are under investigation by other teams, some are under investigation by Community Tech, the response will be given in due time. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 13:46, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

So some wishes are declined (which bars them from being voted on) on the grounds that they're not in any team's line of work, while others are not declined (during which time they can accrue votes) even though they're not in any team's line of work. How is that not unfair? Nardog (talk) 13:52, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

It also makes little sense to me. Wishes don't require to be in any team's line of work, because:

• In the future new teams could be created
• The scope and goals of teams could change over time
• (most importantly) Open source volunteers could also take on wishes

Prototyperspective (talk) 23:03, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

I'll be sure to report this to the team, and discuss the general orientation of the declines. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 09:59, 11 February 2026 (UTC)