Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin 2026 Issue 4

Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation since our last issue on February 13. Previous editions of this bulletin are on Meta. Let askcac@wikimedia.org know if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement!

Highlights

Let’s Talk continues

• Birthday mode: This limited-time campaign feature celebrates 25 years of Wikipedia with a birthday mascot, Baby Globe. When turned on, Baby Globe is shown on ~2,500 articles, waiting to be discovered by readers. The feature is available for all Wikipedias to customise through Community Configuration until 6 April 2026. So far 17 Wikipedias have joined in the fun.
• Wikipedia’s 25th birthday party celebrated on Commons: Content from the January 15th global birthday party selected as Media of the day.

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

• Etherpad cleanup: For security and performance reasons, all current pads on Wikimedia’s Etherpad instance, the web-based “ephemeral” editor for real-time collaborative document editing, will be permanently deleted after 30 April. We will continue running this Etherpad instance to support events and other short-term collaboration, but will be periodically deleting data going forward. If you have content in Etherpad you want to keep, please create local backups, as data will be permanently deleted and will not be able to be recovered.
• Activity tab: Wikipedia iOS app has rolled out the improved Activity tab to all users in version 7.9.0. A/B test results showed increased account creation among users with access to the feature. Updates include enhanced editing impact insights, module customization, and relocation of History into the Search tab.
• Reference Check: The feature Reference Check has been deployed to all Wikipedias. In A/B testing, the impact was substantial: newcomers shown Reference Check were approximately 2.2 times more likely to include a reference on desktop (or acknowledge/explain why they did not) and about 17.5 times more likely on mobile web.
• Semantic search: The Foundation has launched a limited Android mobile app experiment that tests hybrid search capabilities which can handle both semantic and keyword queries. The Phase 1 beta is now live on Greek Wikipedia. The goal is to understand whether combining meaning-based retrieval with keyword search helps readers find information more effectively. Testing will expand to English, French, and Portuguese Wikipedias in March.
• Navigation experience: The Foundation will run an experiment for mobile web users, that adds a table of contents and automatically expands all article sections, to learn more about navigation issues they face. The test will be available on Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Indonesian, and Vietnamese Wikipedias.
• Site notices: Site notices (MediaWiki:Sitenotice and MediaWiki:Anonnotice) now will render on all platforms, not just on the desktop site. Users on mobile web will now see these notices and be informed.
• Tech News: Latest updates from Tech News week 08 and 09 include the new “Edit full page” button for people who are editing a page-section using the mobile visual editor. They also link to the 40 community submitted tasks that were resolved over the last two weeks.
• Wikifunctions: Abstract Wikipedia is going to have its public preview within the next few weeks, here is the preview.

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

• Gender gap: The Celebrate Women 2026 is coming! The Wikimedia Foundation will host a kick-off celebration that will work as a welcome session for both organizers and participants on March 5 at 13:00 UTC.
• Language: New edition of the Language and internationalization newsletter highlights new feature developments and improvements in various language-related technical projects.
• Let’s Connect Learning Clinic: Watch the recordings of past learning clinics about Wikipedia’s 25th Birthday Tool and Strengthening Local-Language Admin Communities.
• Wikimedia Research Showcase: You can watch the recording of this month research showcase whose theme is about “AI and Communities“.
• Hubs: Lessons from hub pilots.
• Banners & logo policies: Wikimedia Foundation has adopted new and updated policies regarding the use of banners, logo changes, and blackouts on the projects, particularly for advocacy purposes.
• Digital Safety: The next edition of Digital Safety Office Hours will be on Mar 27 at 9:00 UTC and 19:00 UTC. The session will explore practical threat modelling: a structured way to think about risks, assess your exposure, and make informed choices.

Annual Goals Progress on Effectiveness

See also: Progress on the annual plan

• Wikimedia Enterprise: Ecosia Enriches Search Results and AI Answers with Wikimedia Enterprise.
• Human centered AI: Members of the Wikimedia Enterprise team presented on “Wikipedia in the Age of AI and Bots” at the seminar of Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.
• Inclusive AI: Advancing Open, Inclusive AI with Free and Open Knowledge at the India AI Impact Summit 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

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