Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin/2026/14
Special Wikimania issue
This is a special Wikimania issue of the Bulletin. We'll be back to our regular format in the next issue
- Wikimania Paris: Paris hosted Wikimania 2026 as Wikipedia celebrates 25 years of free knowledge. Catch up on missed sessions of Wikimania 2026 by checking session pages in the program.
- Meet the Wikimedians of the Year 2026: The beloved Wikimedian of The Year awards shine the light on exceptional individuals, and through them, on the whole Wikimedia community. Learn about all of this year's winners.
- Daily highlights from Wikimania:
- Public policy advocacy: Overview of Wikimania 2026 sessions about public policy advocacy. While not all sessions are recorded, you can watch some by clicking the session.
- Users with extended rights pre-conference: 190 users with extended rights from all around the world gathered at a Wikimania pre-conference, to exchange experiences, learn from each other and connect.
- Media coverage: The event was mentioned in many media outlets as part of wider coverage about the Wikimedia projects including in Le Monde, El Nacional and Radio France.
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
- Improvement to Reading Lists: Community feedback around the placement of watchstar and watchlist buttons for the Reading Lists beta feature has been incorporated. 93% of participating users reported that it was useful. This feature allows saving articles for later reading – a wishlist item to bring the functionality to web.
- Creating custom edit suggestions: With the TextMatch feature, volunteers can now create custom local suggestions within the VisualEditor for improving Wikipedia articles. You can find examples from other communities for inspiration. Share your feedback.
- Dark mode for Content Translation: Content Translation now supports dark mode, fulfilling a Community Wishlist request. This brings the tool in line with the accessibility features available in the Vector 2022 and Minerva skins, helping reduce visual fatigue for users translating content.
- Mobile page preview: Based on the conclusion of the experiment, mobile page previews feature will not be rolled out. The experiment showed flat retention and negative indicator metrics, suggesting that mobile web readers preferred navigating directly to linked articles rather than using page previews.
- Scaling of Explore Feed to iOS: The Explore Feed Refresh initiative was tested with new and casual Wikipedia app readers. The refreshed feed helps readers discover new and relevant content. After a 10.5% increase in engagement with the feed, Home Feed redesign will be scaled to iOS by applying the learnings from the Android release.
- Improving Account Creation process: After running several Account Creation Experiments to improve registration completion rates, a new version of the username field on Create Account has been rolled out. Read more.
- Latest experiments: An ongoing experiment is testing to better guide Temporary Account users toward full account creation. See all live, upcoming, and completed experiments in Product & Technology.
- Tech News: The latest highlights from Tech News week 30 and 31 include that now wikis can restrict editing in the “User” namespace to only the page owner and certain user groups. See also the 50 community submitted tasks that were resolved over the last two weeks.
- New bot detection system for all wikis: After a successful trial, which showed evidence of both deterring bots and being easier to use, hCaptcha (our new bot detection system) has been rolled out to all wikis, for account creation, and for most newcomer edits.
Annual Goals Progress on Protect
See also: Global Advocacy blog · Global Advocacy Newsletter · Policy blog
- Online age verification: Around the world, governments are adopting different approaches to online age verification. Learn more about it and how it is shaping our experiences online in a new three-part blog series: "What is it, a timeline of age-based restrictions, and why it matters", "What means what, how it's done, and balancing child rights and safety", and "Age-based restrictions, draft bills to watch, global complexity, and engaging with lawsuits".
Board and Board committee updates
See also: Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard · Affiliations Committee Newsletter
- Affiliation Committees: Celebrating 20 Years of the Wikimedia Affiliations Committee.
Other updates
- Enterprise: How Wikimedia Enterprise protects Wikipedia in the AI era.
- Unionization: Wikimedia Foundation Statement on US unionization request.
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
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