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Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin 2026 Issue 5
[edit]
Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation since our last issue on February 27. Please help translate.
Highlights
- Supporting readers: For most of its history, Wikipedia did not have to worry about attracting readers. But with the way people search for information changing, there is a drop in the number of readers which is impacting the number of accounts created and contributions to our sites. Have a look at some of the ongoing and planned work to support reader experience.
- Server switch: All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 25 at 15:00 UTC. This is for the datacenter server switchover backup tests, which happen twice a year.
- Tools improvement: The PTAC Unsupported Tools Working Group continued improvements to Video2Commons in February, with fixes addressing authentication errors, large-file handling, task queue visibility, and clearer upload behavior. Work is still ongoing in some areas, including changes related to deprecated server-side uploads.
- Wikipedia 25 Grants: The celebration continues! The Wikimedia Foundation offers Wikipedia 25 Birthday Funds to communities planning Wikipedia’s 25th birthday events with funding between USD 1,000–2,000. Apply before March 31.
Annual Goals Progress on Infrastructure
See also newsletters: Wikimedia Apps · Growth · Product Safety and Integrity · Readers · Research · Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia · Tech News · Language and Internationalization · other newsletters on MediaWiki.org
- Experiments: The Foundation is frequently conducting experiments to help learn what features will be most effective and valuable to the projects. The list of experiments in Product and Technology, tracks upcoming, live, in-analysis, and completed experiments as well as their rationale. For example, the tracker shares that one upcoming experiment, Reader to Contributor Baseline, will measure how many readers create contributor accounts and whether the rate differs depending on how people arrived to the site.
- Article guidance: Help less experienced editors by filling out a questionnaire on this page (available in 7 languages). The Foundation are looking particularly for experienced Wikipedia editors from these pilot wikis. Your answers will help customize guidance for less experienced editors while creating an article.
- Wikifunctions: You can now create Functions that will show a citation in their output.
- Editing feature: Suggestion Mode is available as a beta feature within the visual editor at all Wikipedias. This feature proactively suggests various types of actions that people can consider taking to improve Wikipedia articles, and learn about related guidelines.
- Paste Check: Paste Check is now available at all Wikipedias. The feature prompts newcomers who are pasting text they are not likely to have written into VisualEditor to consider whether doing so risks a copyright violation.
- Mobile experience: The user menu in the top corner for all mobile users is standardized so that it is closer to the desktop experience to improve the user interface for readers.
- Two-factor authentication: For security reasons, members of certain user groups are required to have two-factor authentication (2FA) enabled. Currently, 2FA is required to use the group, but not to be a member of it. Given that this model still has some vulnerabilities, the situation will gradually change in March.
- Tech News: Latest updates from Tech News week 10 and 11 include the new GraphQL API has been released as a flexible alternative to select features of the Wikidata Query Service (WDQS). They also link to the 50 community submitted tasks that were resolved over the last two weeks.
Annual Goals Progress on Volunteer Support
See also blogs: Global Advocacy blog · Global Advocacy Newsletter · Policy blog · WikiLearn News · The Wikipedia Library · list of movement events
- WikiCelebrate: Celebrating Mervat, one of the most experienced and dedicated contributors to Arabic Wikipedia.
- Wikimedia ecosystem: The pilot on the ecosystem of Wikimedia organizations has published a draft proposal for a Future Affiliate Landscape. It welcomes your review and feedback.
- Fundraising: The Fundraising Report 2024–2025 has now been published on meta.
- International Women's Day 2026: Women, visibility, and the future of trusted knowledge on Wikimedia.
- Don't Blink: The latest developments from around the world about protecting the Wikimedia model, its people and its values.
- Wiki Loves Earth 2025: See the winners from the 13th annual edition of the globe-trotting photo contest.
- Wikimania 2026: While most Wikimania program submissions are closed, the research track is open until March 31. It accepts proposals from both professional researchers and Wikimedians.
Other Movement curated newsletters & news
See also: Diff blog · Goings-on · Planet Wikimedia · Signpost (en) · Kurier (de) · Actualités du Wiktionnaire (fr) · Regards sur l’actualité de la Wikimedia (fr) · Wikimag (fr) · Education · GLAM · Milestones · Wikidata · Central and Eastern Europe · other newsletters
Subscribe or unsubscribe · Help translate
For information about the Bulletin and to read previous editions, see the project page on Meta-Wiki. Let foundationbulletin
wikimedia.org know if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement!
MediaWiki message delivery 22:17, 17 March 2026 (UTC)
Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin 2026 Issue 6
[edit]Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation since our last issue on March 13. Please help translate.
Highlights
- Supporting the mobile experience: The Foundation is starting conversations with communities to explore how editing should work on the Wikipedia mobile apps. The goal is to understand how to better support both new and experienced editors, and how the app can guide users to the right editing tools. Your input is welcome. Join the discussion!
- Wikimania 2026: Registration for Wikimania 2026 is opening soon from the end of March to May 1. Like other Wikimedia events this year, we are introducing a "request for invitation" process, with trust and safety checks conducted prior to confirming in-person attendance. Our priority is to create a safe environment for connection, collaboration, and shared learning.
- Around the Puzzle Globe in the CEE region: On March 23 almost 60 Wikimedians took part in the CEE-Catch up- a meeting for Wikimedians from Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. As a part of continuous conversations we have with the communities around the Foundation's annual plan, participants discussed the global trends related to Readers and Contributors in their regional context. The meeting was also an opportunity to connect with the new Foundation CEO, Bernadette Meehan, who is meeting communities around the puzzle globe to listen, learn and engage with the communities.
Annual Goals Progress on Infrastructure
See also newsletters: Wikimedia Apps · Growth · Product Safety and Integrity · Readers · Research · Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia · Tech News · Language and Internationalization · other newsletters on MediaWiki.org
- Crawlers: The Foundation is now detecting and blocking billions of bot requests that don’t follow our robot policy, such as aggressive scrapers, to make sure our resources go towards serving human readers. In the coming months we’ll be working on better detection of rapidly changing bot behavior and better API infrastructure.
- Moderator tools for newer editors: Wikipedia editors in Indonesian, Thai, Turkish, and Simple English now have access to an early version of Special:PersonalDashboard. It introduces newer editors to patrolling workflows, making it easier for them to move from making edits to participating in more advanced moderation work on their project.
- Account creation on mobile: Mobile editors at several wikis are now presented with a simplified logged-out warning message, which encourages them to create an account or log in. This test is part of our ongoing effort to enhance the account creation experience on mobile and increase participation.
- Verification email redesign: The verification email sent to new accounts that add an email address during signup has been redesigned. When tested on English Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikidata, the same-week email verification rate increased from 41.6% to 45.9%.
- Retaining notification history: Wikimedia site users can export their notifications older than 5 years using a new Toolforge tool. This will ensure that users retain important notifications and avoid losing them based on the planned change to delete notifications older than 5 years, as previously announced.
- Tech News: Latest highlights from Tech News weeks 12 and 13 include the update that Wikimedia site users can now log in without a password using passkeys as a secure method supported by fingerprint, facial recognition, or PIN. See also the 64 community submitted tasks that were resolved over the last two weeks.
- Experiments: Check out the list of experiments in Product and Technology to see all upcoming, live, in-analysis, and completed experiments. One new experiment that just went live is the "Improve the logged-out warning message on mobile web," which aims to reduce the sense of friction or alarm when users encounter the logged-out warning upon editing.
Annual Goals Progress on Volunteer Support
See also blogs: Global Advocacy blog · Global Advocacy Newsletter · Policy blog · WikiLearn News · The Wikipedia Library · list of movement events
- Digital rights and free knowledge: Wikimedia Foundation staff and Wikimedians from across the movement will contribute to important conversations on AI governance, information integrity, and equitable access to knowledge at RightsCon 2026 from May 5–8. Join the conversation virtually.
- Microtask Generator: Learn more about the Microtask Generator, a tool which identifies content quality gaps in Wikipedia articles and suggests tasks for editors to address within a dashboard. Users can input lists of articles for analysis, or get recommendations based on article categories. Ideal for edit-a-thons and other article improvement drives.
- WikiLearn: Discover the latest edition of WikiLearn News where you can find the latest online learning opportunities to take your editing skills to new heights.
- Diff Event calendar: The event calendar on Diff is now redirected to the list of events on Meta-wiki. This list pulls in all events that are open to all wikis.
- Grantmaking Strategy: The GRDC has identified the key challenges that will inform the design of the new Grantmaking Strategy.
Annual Goals Progress on Effectiveness
See also: Progress on the annual plan
- Audit report: Highlights from the Wikimedia Endowment’s fiscal year 2024-2025 audit report.
- Enterprise partnerships: Wikimedia Enterprise announced new partnerships. Together with Firecrawl to reform how AI agents access the world’s largest online repository of human knowledge and with Aligned AI to develop Ethical AI products for families by providing Wikimedia Enterprise Snapshot API.
Board and Board committee updates
See Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard · Affiliations Committee Newsletter
- Endowment Board: Welcoming Nataliia Tymkiv to the Wikimedia Endowment Board of Directors.
- Affiliate recognition: Affiliations Committee extended the pause on new affiliate recognition to September 1, 2026.
Other Movement curated newsletters & news
See also: Diff blog · Goings-on · Planet Wikimedia · Signpost (en) · Kurier (de) · Actualités du Wiktionnaire (fr) · Regards sur l’actualité de la Wikimedia (fr) · Wikimag (fr) · Education · GLAM · Milestones · Wikidata · Central and Eastern Europe · other newsletters
Subscribe or unsubscribe · Help translate
For information about the Bulletin and to read previous editions, see the project page on Meta-Wiki. Let foundationbulletinwikimedia.org know if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement!