Talk:Wikimedia Foundation/Chief Executive Officer/Around the puzzle globe

Meeting with the Movement

Hi, when Maryana joined, she engaged on a listening tour. It would great if Bernadette could do something similar. I was very grateful to be invited to be a part of that listening tour, as a representative of Wikimedia LGBT+ and we would very much appreciate a similar opportunity, if Movement Comms is planning to organise something similar. For Maryana, the meeting was shared with AfroCrowd and WikiMujeres and it would be great to do so again with other Affiliates in the space of countering systemic bias and working with underrepresented communities. Thanks — and welcome aboard Bernadette! — OwenBlacker (Talk; he/him) 15:28, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

Thanks @OwenBlacker! Movement Comms is working with different Foundation teams to flesh out the Across the puzzle globe tour, but I wanted to chime in to say yes - its purpose is to create opportunities for Bernadette to connect directly with community members. It will have a mix of in-person and online conversations, happening across regions and topic areas. I'm noting that there's an interest in a conversation specifically around systemic bias and will pass that on. We'll be in touch in February with more details and dates after Bernadette's started. ELappen (WMF) (talk) 17:59, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

Thank you @ELappen (WMF), we will look forward to hearing more in due time — OwenBlacker (Talk; he/him) 08:06, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

Hello Owen, my name is Manar, and I work with the Movement Communications team. I’ve sent you an email regarding your request and look forward to your response. Thank you! MYacoubCriner-WMF (talk) 12:58, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

bernadettes questions

ad 1. what brought me to the movement? before wikipedia, there was google. a perfect search engine. which did find stuff. but not nicely written. wikipedia added the low barrier storage. not beeing able to remember stuff well, not able to write well, wikipedia and google solved my problem. i was able to write stuff down, low entrance barrier, and a license so everybody could copy and use it, no matter if private or for profit. nice people were there who helped improving my bad writing. i could help others as well. with it came community, meet people regularly, talk, have fun. and - a lot of discussions as well. different people, different opinions. people were able to create organisations, and we were able to learn, to make errors, to grow. these organizations, at that time called "chapters" could raise money from donations. some really used this donation page very well, and were ablle to have hundred thousands of members, like wikimedia deutschland. there were meetings all over the place. eating, drinking, talking, quarreling, reconciling.

ad 2. as jimmy wales said in one of his recent interviews, wikipedia will stay relevant. for 25 years. people write because they like writing. they do not care if one person reads it or one billion. wikipedia will stay super important to train artificial intelligence. for the future you might have at least two options. one, forget about the people, wikipedia si nearly complete, and the couple of person dying and becoming famous every year does not need too work force to update wikipedia. task some computers with it, become like grokipedia, continue collecting donations, invest the endowment well and live for 100 years. or, option twu, continue wikipedia as it always was, a people thingy. people connected locally, to local organisations, universities, libraries, archives and so on. artificial intelligence will make this local "people business" more important again. and then, let me be a little provocative. sometimes i am wondering why other countries wikpedys are so shy, so without vision. to give one example: wikipedia germany has 100'000 members, with 80 mil people. nigeria is three times germany, and soon will be fife times germany. why wikipedia nigeria does not have 300'000 members? are the people there bloody egocentric mentally retarded creatures? no, they are not at all. they are nice, intelligent, welcoming and love to contribute. but why is it then? so i d say, if you, bernadette, succeed that wikipedia nigeria has 300'000 members in 10 years time, wikipedia will stay relevant. otherwise, goodbey wikipedia, welcome grokipedia.

ad 3. what you should read first? i would not read anything, just create an account with some dummy name like pippi longstocking, and try to edit wikipedia. maybe create a page in english, reate it in another language as well, link it. try to go to a meetup, if find somebody with a similar mind? apply to join a conference to meet people. and then, in two months time, write a blog post about your experience.

--ThurnerRupert (talk) 23:37, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

Questions...

“What brought you to this movement?”

Right before I graduated from university, I undertook a very long period of soul-searching, looking for an answer to my biggest question so far: “What is my life mission?”

After crystallizing all the experiences and values I had accumulated up to that point, I settled on one thing: knowledge. To dedicate my whole life to knowledge. To seek new knowledge, share that knowledge, and apply what I have learned to solve real-world problems or improve the current state of things.

The Wikimedia movement aligns with my life mission. That is why I decided to participate here. Perhaps for a lifetime.

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“How do we stay relevant over the next 25 years?”

By expanding and innovating. Do not get trapped in stagnation.

Since the beginning of this movement, we have already seen meaningful innovations that increased the amount of knowledge we can share on this platform. First, there was Wikipedia. Then we realized that not every kind of knowledge fits into an encyclopedia format, so we created Wikibooks, which allows more freedom from rigid encyclopedic structure. There is also Wiktionary: a free dictionary is valuable, yet a single-word definition is often not enough for an encyclopedia entry. With the introduction of Wikidata, we gained the ability to enter new knowledge and access it in an entirely different way.

This trend -- refusing to be trapped by the rigidity of the “encyclopedia” format, which makes other kinds of knowledge feel illegal or out of place -- should continue, so we can share more types of knowledge. Some forms of knowledge still feel “illegal” within the Wikimedia movement due to technical and cultural limitations, and those limits should be challenged.

I hope that in the near future we can experiment with new Wikimedia sister projects that align with our vision: Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.

---

“What three Wiki resources should I read first?”

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikistress

Many long-time Wikimedia contributors leave everyday, probably because there are several deep, structural problems in how our daily operations work. These problems are so acute and seemingly incurable that most advice given to victims is simply: “Yeah, just leave. It’s better for your well-being to get out of this movement.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer

Still somewhat relevant, even today.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist_Survey

And finally, some good news. This kind of wishlist survey is a positive development. I hope this type of survey expands to every aspect of the Wikimedia Foundation. An innovation culture could begin here. Rtnf (talk) 06:04, 22 December 2025 (UTC)