Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin 2025 Issue 19

Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation since our last issue on September 26. Previous editions of this bulletin are on Meta. Let askcac@wikimedia.org know if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement!

Upcoming and current events and conversations

Let’s Talk continues

• Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees Selection: Announcement of the final ballot for the 2025 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election and more answers about the decision. Eligible voters can vote between October 8 – October 23.
• Wikipedia 25: Are you planning to organize events to celebrate Wikipedia’s 25th birthday? The Wikimedia Foundation offers grants to support active Wikimedia groups in organizing short-term, low-cost projects to celebrate this milestone. Applications are open until November 1.
• WikiConference North America 2025: WikiConference North America will take place from October 16–19 in New York City, USA.

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

• Mobile Editing: Insights on mobile web editing on Wikipedia in 2025 are now available. This report highlights that ~95% of IP mobile users editing via wikitext open the editor but make no changes at all, a vast untapped potential. It also pinpoints where contributors most often drop off.
• Dark Mode: Dark Mode user interface will be rolled out on all Wikimedia sites on October 29. All anonymous users of Wikimedia sites will have the option to activate a color scheme that features light-colored text on a dark background. This is designed to provide a more comfortable reading experience, especially in low-light situations.
• Community wishlist extension: The new Community Wishlist extension has been released. This will allow users to add tags to their wishes to better categorise them, and (in a future iteration) to filter them by status, tags and focus areas. It will also be possible to support individual wishes again, as requested by the community in many instances.
• Paste Check: 22 Wikis are now testing a new Edit Check feature, Paste Check, to help avoid and fight copyright violations. When editors paste text into an article, Paste Check prompts them to confirm the origin and licensing of the content.
• Tone Check: The Wikimedia Foundation is working on a new check for newcomers: Tone check. Using a prediction model, this check will encourage editors to improve the tone of their edits.
• Search Suggestions: Search Suggestions was deployed on English Wikipedia. Upon clicking an empty search bar, logged-out users see suggestions of articles for further reading. The feature is available on both desktop and mobile.
• Unsupported Tools Working Group: A new Unsupported Tools Working Group has been formed to help prioritize and review requests for support of unmaintained extensions, gadgets, bots, and tools. The group has chosen Video2Commons as the first tool for its pilot cycle. The group will explore ways to improve and sustain the tool over the coming months.
• Tech News: Read updates from Tech News week 40 and 41 including about Sub-referencing – a new feature to re-use references with different details.
• Wikimedia Research Showcase: Don’t miss the next Wikimedia Research Showcase, “Celebrating 13 Years: Wikidata’s Role in Learning and Culture” taking place on October 15 at 16:30 UTC.

Annual Goals Progress on Volunteer Support

See also blogs: Global Advocacy blog · Global Advocacy Newsletter · Policy blog · WikiLearn News · list of movement events

• Wikimania: Wikimania Nairobi has been featured in more than 100 stories across community platforms and international media outlets.
• Wikifunctions: Rich text is now available for embedded Wikifunctions calls across the 150 wikis where it’s enabled.
• WikiLearn: New Wikipedia online courses you can join to strengthen your Wikimedia editing skills.
• Human Rights: Making sure AI serves people and knowledge stays human: Wikimedia Foundation publishes a Human Rights Impact Assessment on the interaction of AI and machine learning with Wikimedia projects.
• Don’t blink: The latest developments from around the world about protecting the Wikimedia model, its people and its values.
• Digital Safety & Privacy: Frequently Asked Questions about Wikimedia Foundation’s Legal Work.
• Transparency Report: Wikimedia Foundation publishes its Latest Transparency Report.
• Privacy Policy: The Wikimedia Foundation Privacy Policy is getting a minor update in preparation for Temporary Accounts.
• Learning Clinic: Join the next Let’s Connect Learning Clinic on the topic of “Mastering the Capacity Exchange (CapX) Tool (Part 2)” taking place on October 20 at 17:00 UTC.

Foundation statements

• Knowledge integrity: Lessons from Wikipedia on the 3 building blocks of trustworthy information. This is part of the new series from the Wikimedia Foundation that explores how Wikipedia can inspire new standards of knowledge integrity for our times.

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 · The Wikipedia Library · Milestones · Wikidata · Central and Eastern Europe · other newsletters

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