Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin/2026/12

Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation since our last issue on June 19. Please help translate. This edition uses the new annual plan goals for this fiscal year (July 2026–June 2027).

Highlights

Wikipedia 25: Wikipedia's 25th birthday was celebrated with various projects designed to grow awareness and support for Wikipedia and the people who make it possible. This includes the virtual birthday event on January 15, which garnered 10,000 live viewers and 15,000 reactions. Find more details on all related projects and results in the program report.
Sustainable use of Wikimedia infrastructure: A valid user-agent string will now be required for automated dumps downloads from the dumps.wikimedia.org website. Automated requests that provide a generic or empty user-agent will be blocked. This extends enforcement of the long standing user-agent policy. Access to dumps through Wikimedia Cloud Services will not change.
Increasing account creation: The experiment providing direct access to “Create account” and “Log in” actions on mobile increased account creation by about 20% without negatively affecting edit quality. The feature will now be rolled out to all wikis on mobile web.

Annual Goals Progress on Engage
See also: Growth · Product Safety and Integrity · Tech News · Language and Internationalization · The Wikipedia Library · list of movement events · Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia

Add A Link: The Foundation deployed Add A Link as a default-on suggestion within Suggestion Mode. It is now launched on all wikis to all editors who have opted in to the Suggestion Beta Feature.
Reusing references: Sub-referencing, the new MediaWiki feature that allows editors to reuse references with different details, was deployed to most small and medium-sized Wikipedia language versions.
Wikifunctions: Check out the 71 new functions with implementations to get a taste of what functions have been created.
Range calculator: The special page Special:RangeCalculator has been created. It allows users to find an IP range without needing to rely on external tools. Until now, this tool was only available to CheckUsers.
Captcha verification: Abuse filters that are set to “require CAPTCHA verification” now also affect users with the skipcaptcha right, which includes most autoconfirmed users. Bots are exempted. This change only affects edits that trigger an abuse filter.
Latest experiments: An upcoming experiment is testing two variations of a "thank you" badge shown to donors after a recent donation to deepen the relationship between donors and the Wikimedia movement. See all live, upcoming, and completed experiments in Product & Technology.
Account security on private wikis: Two-factor authentication will become mandatory for user accounts on private wikis. This will protect private information from being exposed by an account with a compromised password.
Tech News: The latest highlights from Tech News week 26 and 27 include users will now get a notification when they are blocked or unblocked from editing, or if this block changes. See also the 65 community submitted tasks that were resolved over the last two weeks.
Team Challenges: The core organizing team for Wikimania is introducing Team Challenges, a different approach to Wikimania Hackathon. This year, Wikimedians and professionals from other fields will join forces to undertake one of the 2026 technical challenges.

Annual Goals Progress on Enable
See also: Research newsletter · WikiLearn News · other newsletters on MediaWiki.org

Wikimedia Hackathon: A look at the 2026 edition of Wikimedia Hackathon which brought together 216 participants from 29 countries building, collaborating, and shaping the future together.
Wikimedia Hubs: The Hub Fund will pause funding for new pilots in fiscal year 2026–2027 to align with the work on the Ecosystem of Movement Organizations and the Global Resource Distribution Committee. Existing pilots in transition will be offered an additional year of funding.

Annual Goals Progress on Protect
See also: Global Advocacy blog · Global Advocacy Newsletter · Policy blog

Open Knowledge And Digital Rights: Wikimedians shared their reflections on how Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum reinforced the role of our movement within broader digital rights conversations.

Annual Goals Progress on Reach
See also: Wikimedia Apps · Readers

Journalism Award: Wikimedia Foundation announced three journalists from Africa as recipients of the Open the Knowledge Journalism Awards, run in partnership with the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ). The awards celebrate the essential role journalists play in creating well-researched articles that volunteer editors can use as source materials to develop content on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. In total, 320 submissions were received from 40 African countries.

Other Movement-curated newsletters & news
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. If you have feedback or suggestions about the bulletin, let us know at foundationbulletin@wikimedia.org. For questions about the Wikimedia Foundation's work, contact us!