At the end of August, the first edition of the international challenge Wiki Loves Film, organized by the Wikimedia Czech Republic Association, came to a close. Its goal was to expand and improve film-related articles on Wikipedia across the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The challenge built on the 2024 micro-contest Films on Wikipedia, and thanks to the support of the Wikimedia CEE Hub, it covered the entire region from Aš to the Black Sea. Editors from six countries created 404 new articles and expanded or improved more than 1,000 additional pages.

How Did the Challenge and Competition Turn Out?

Wiki Loves Film built on the previous micro-contest Films on Wikipedia, which took place in 2024 exclusively on the Czech Wikipedia. In 2025, the challenge expanded to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe – a total of 28 countries. Participants from six of them joined the initial phase. Some communities showed exceptional activity and quickly climbed to the top of the ranking — most notably Romania, which also received the majority of partner-sponsored prizes.

Across the entire CEE region, 59 participants from six countries actively took part in the challenge. They collectively created 404 new articles in seven language versions of Wikipedia and improved 1,056 pages, amounting to 1,416 edits. The photographic part of the challenge was also active — 10 photographers uploaded a total of 448 images.

Most edits were made on the Czech Wikipedia (767), followed by the Romanian (599), Polish (37), and Macedonian (27). Among interesting contributions that could not be included in the competition this year was, for example, the expansion of the article Film on Uzbek Wikipedia by the user Panpanchik.

“I am very pleased that this year we approached the challenge internationally and involved the CEE Hub, whose founding I took part in and whose activities I consider crucial both for the region and for the movement as a whole. I am also glad that new entries are not limited to major global figures but include young filmmakers such as Monika Omerzu Midriaková. And I am especially delighted that many young editors joined this year’s challenge — they bring new energy and perspectives that are indispensable for the future of Wikipedia,” says Klára Joklová, Executive Director of Wikimedia Czech Republic.

The Purpose of the International Competition

“We decided to organize the international Wiki Loves Film competition because film is a universal language and an art form understood and appreciated by Wikipedians around the world. And this has now been confirmed,” says Pavel Bednařík, Chief Trainer of Wikimedia Czech Republic and the initiator of the competition. “Another reason was that it brings together my professional expertise, my personal obsession, and my work as Chief Trainer,” he adds.

Connecting the countries of the CEE region did not simply mean editing articles in parallel across multiple language versions of Wikipedia. In addition to creating an international list of notable articles, editors inspired one another and explored topics from various European cinematographies.

Publicity for Czech cinema was significantly boosted, for example, by colleagues from Poland, who published an article encouraging the Polish community to join the challenge. The most active Polish contributors were Ironupiwada and Damian Kujawa. Among other things, Ironupiwada created two key entries on the Polish Wikipedia: one about the Czech National Film Archive (Czeskie Narodowe Archiwum Filmowe) and another about the documentary filmmaker and icon of Czech documentary cinema, Karel Vachek. They also expanded the article about internationally known filmmaker of Czech origin Alexander Hackenschmied.

As noted above, a substantial share of edits, new articles, and photos was contributed by members of the Romanian community. In cooperation with Wikimedia Romania, they prepared a dedicated challenge page and also secured monetary rewards for the competitors. However, in the main competition, participants from all countries were awarded equally.

The results of the international CEE competition can be found here:

• Ironupiwada (Poland)
• AlessioRO (Romania)
• Elena Ancu Damian (Romania)
• Oly23lid (Romania)
• StanDG80 (Romania)
• ToniSant (Malta)
• Valivia.M (Romania)

The competition was made possible thanks to a microgrant from the Wikimedia CEE Hub. Thank you.

What Was Added to the Czech Wikipedia?

The strongest participation in the challenge naturally came from the Czech Republic. On the Czech Wikipedia, 37 participants took part, collectively improving 713 pages and creating several dozen additional new articles.

The range of new Czech articles created during the challenge was remarkably diverse. New entries now exist, for example, on Polish actor Daniel Olbrychski, Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (Pusher I, II, III; The Neon Demon; the series Copenhagen Cowboy), as well as the recently deceased Polish documentary filmmaker Marcel Łoziński. New articles were also created about other legends of world cinema — Lithuanian animation pioneer Ladislav Starewicz, or renowned French director Jules Dassin (Uptight). A standalone new article was also created about the phenomenon of the “vault film” (trezorový film).

The Czech winners and award recipients in the national competition were the following Wikipedians:

• Karelkam
• Hadonos
• Regi Novo
• Meloun1212
• Bazi
• Kurkic5
• Jklamo
• ZSsen

Thank you to everyone who took part in the competition!

Events and Partner Involvement

Author: Pavel Bednařík (WMCZ) – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

An accompanying international event of the challenge was an online edit-a-thon hosted by the CEE Hub, which took place on Monday, 18 August 2025, starting at 16:00. More than 15 participants joined, including the strong Uzbek community, which also expressed interest in participating even more actively in the next edition. The edit-a-thon included a knowledge quiz that added variety to the program and connected both online and in-person attendees.

The following day, 19 August, participants joined a walking tour of Prague cinemas, organized by the challenge partner Edison Filmhub, with around twenty people taking part. During the tour, Wikipedians captured numerous photographs, which were later uploaded to the open repository Wikimedia Commons as part of the challenge. After the tour, attendees were invited to a free screening of the new documentary distributed by Film Europe (connected to Edison Filmhub), The Lumière Brothers: The Adventure Continues.

Festival involvement extended beyond the two Czech festivals — the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and the Summer Film School in Uherské Hradiště. Participants also contributed photographs from the MakeDox and Manaki Brothers festivals in North Macedonia.

Looking Ahead to the Next Edition

The first international edition of Wiki Loves Film showed that film-related topics connect Wikipedians across the entire CEE region. The challenge brought dozens of new contacts, strengthened community collaboration, and supported the creation of a substantial amount of new and expanded film-related content.

We believe that the energy generated during the challenge will continue — and that even more people, countries, and partner organizations from across the Wikimedia movement will join next year. The results of the challenge are published on the Wiki Loves Film page.

Our thanks go to all participants for their contributions, and congratulations to all award recipients!

This weekend, over 100 people from around Chicago and the Chicago metro area came together to celebrate 25 years of Wikipedia. The event was organized and hosted by User:Luiysia, with help from the Wikimedians of Chicago User Group team.

Over 150 attendees arrived at the Hairpin Art Center at 1 pm. Nametags were available, with an option to share your favorite Wikipedia page or topic, which helped serve as an icebreaker. We enjoyed light refreshments and birthday cake while learning about the history of Wikipedia. We also had a talk about the basics of editing. During signups, over half said they had never contributed to Wikipedia before, but everyone was excited to learn.

Later, we all learned some trivia about Wikipedia through a Jeopardy game. The winners of Jeopardy received pinback buttons with the Wikipedia logo. After Jeopardy, we set the stage for lightning talks. 11 people signed up to give talks about pages they found interesting, or contributions they made that they were excited about. This included one user (User:Shotgunheist) who shared a page he made about the smallest park in Chicago, another (User:Chromecopper) who shared a page that assuaged a concern he had, and another (User:Kalmondczar) who gave a tribute to a missing Wikipedian. Lightning talk speakers also received pinback buttons as a thank you for sharing.

After the lightning talks, we gave away some fun merch items like water bottles and socks. Pizza arrived and attendees were able to mingle and chat about Wikipedia, which was a good way to share niche interests and interesting facts. The event ended at 4 pm, but a number stayed to chat and help clean up.

Overall, the event was a resounding success.

The turnout was nearly ten times as much as the previous year. Last year, we held a similar event but despite receiving a lot of interest, we were forced to stop accepting signups and even turn some people away due to limitations on the size of the venue. A banner was posted on Wikipedia via CentralNotice, but we had to take it down as we had reached capacity. This year, we promoted the event for two weeks via CentralNotice in addition to Instagram and through real-life flyers in cafes and bookstores around the city. We also received interest from a local publication, Block Club Chicago, and journalist Ariel Parrella-Aureli wrote a wonderful article about the event a few days before. On the day of the event, roughly 140 people turned out and we saw many, many new and old faces that were excited to learn more about Wikipedia and start editing.

We hope that this will bring many more people to future Wikimedians of Chicago events as well as many more new editors onto Wikipedia as a whole. Here’s to a great 2026!

There are 18 in total, including 3 K-dramas, 2 Hollywood actors, and 2 classical music composers

With its sheer volume and accessibility, Vietnamese Wikipedia (https://vi.wikipedia.org) is arguably the #1 reference website in Vietnam. Recently, there has been a shift toward prioritizing quality over quantity—an effort to create articles that serve as a true reflection of humanity’s collective knowledge, providing the most comprehensive and helpful reference possible for readers.

In order to promote high-quality content even further, the Article of the Year award was introduced in 2024, inspired by a similar initiative on the Russian Wikipedia.

Eligibility

To be eligible for the award, candidates must first achieve Featured Articles status, a status acquired only by those that have reached their highest quality, the article has been checked for accuracy, neutral tone, and complete sourcing and passed a formal community review to earn the title. For the Vietnamese community, many of these top-tier articles benefit from what we call a “proven blueprint” from the English or Chinese editions. Because the English version has already spent years researching, organizing, and verifying every fact to reach Featured status, a Vietnamese editor doesn’t have to start from zero. Instead, they can translate this high-quality foundation and then “localize” it with Vietnamese sources, similar to how international books are translated for a Vietnamese audience.

Candidates

The 18 candidates are as follows, with a focus on entertainment, history, politics, and classical music.

Entertainment

Entertainment continues to be one of the most prominent topics on Wikipedia. Here are six nominations that prove it.

Hậu duệ Mặt Trời

The 2016 K-drama hit Hậu duệ Mặt Trời (Descendants of the Sun), starring Song Joong-ki and Song Hye-kyo, is famous for its romantic and action-packed story. The article went through a major expansion and overhaul in July 2025. Whether you are a casual viewer or a die-hard fan, this featured article is now the ultimate reliable guide to the series.

Hẹn hò chốn công sở

Also known as Business Proposal, a rom-com starring Ahn Hyo-seop, Kim Se-jeong that went popular on the Internet in 2021. It is a classic ‘Cinderella’ story about a woman who meets a man who turns out to be the CEO of her company—and who slowly falls head over heels for her.

Báo động khẩn, tình yêu hạ cánh

Also known as Crash Landing on You, is another South Korean smash hit. Released in 2019 and starring Huyn Bin and Son Ye-jin, it tells the idealistic story of a romance between a South Korean heiress and a North Korean officer. Even today, it remains one of the most iconic rom-coms of all time. The Wikipedia article is especially impressive because it uses original Korean-language sources. This ensures the content is comprehensive and covers details that are often missing from articles that only use Vietnamese or English sources.

Brie Larson

Robert Pattinson

Both are Hollywood stars who are now household names. These articles benefit directly from the pre-existing quality of English Wikipedia. By translating an established Featured Article, editors can achieve the same status in the Vietnamese version with significantly less effort than writing from scratch.

Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V) became the fastest-selling entertainment product in history when it first came out, and it remains a massive favorite among Vietnamese gamers today. This is the first-ever article about a video game to be nominated for the ‘Article of the Year’ award, making it a must-read for fans who want to see the incredible details behind the game.

History

Lịch sử, aka history itself. A full translation from a previously promoted Featured Article from the English Wikipedia with added etymology to explain the term “history” (“lịch sử”) in Vietnamese. A basic yet important topic for humanity, a must read for everyone.

Hanoi’s War

“Hanoi’s War” is a highly acclaimed non-fiction book about the Vietnam War, written by Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, a Vietnamese-American scholar, and published in 2012. It is considered a milestone in historical research because the author was the first scholar permitted to access confidential archives from Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, providing a look at documents that were previously hidden from both Vietnamese and foreign researchers. An original work you won’t find anywhere else, only available on the Vietnamese Wikipedia.

Lịch sử Công giáo Việt Nam (1975–1990)

The history of Catholics in Vietnam between 1975 and 1990 is a story of a major religious community trying to find its place during a time of extreme political change. For context, 1975 marked the end of the Vietnam War, when the Communist North and the Republic of the South were unified under one government. Before this, the Catholic Church in the South was a powerful social and political force, but after 1975, the community entered a period of deep fear and uncertainty. The article is built from the ground up and represents the unique research and dedication of our local editors.

Politics

This article is a proud example of native content. Nghị định 168/2024/NĐ–CP aka Decree 168/2024/NĐ-CP, a newly introduced regulation from the government of Vietnam that took effect on January 1, 2025. The law has drawn intense scrutiny because it drastically increases road traffic fines—some by up to 50 times—often exceeding the average monthly income of a typical worker. Drafted by the Ministry of Public Safety, the decree was issued and implemented within just a few days, leading to public debate regarding its transparency and the ‘rushed’ nature of its enforcement.

Lê Duẩn was arguably the most powerful man in 20th-century Vietnamese history, yet he remains significantly less famous internationally than the country’s founding father, Hồ Chí Minh. His leadership was defined by a relentless commitment to socialist ideals and national independence. The article originally started as a translation of a Good Article from English Wikipedia, but the author has since expanded it significantly with additional sources to meet the highest quality standards.

Classical music composers

This year witnesses a sudden surge in classical music among newly elected Featured Articles on the Vietnamese Wikipedia. Frédéric Chopin achieved this status in February 2025, while Maurice Ravel followed in December of the same year, both of which are translated from corresponding high-quality articles from English Wikipedia. Both men were virtuoso pianists who placed the piano at the absolute center of their musical lives.

Other nominations

Tuân Tử

Also known as Xunzi, this monumental philosopher lived in ancient China and was one of the three greatest pillars of ancient Confucianism. He is most famous for his realistic—and sometimes controversial—belief that ‘human nature is inherently evil,’ arguing that humans are born with selfish desires and that goodness is an artificial result achieved only through rigorous education and social rituals. The article effectively leverages the groundwork laid by the English version and the promoted Featured Article Chinese version, supplemented by books in Vietnamese published by reputable publishers.

Giao tiếp

Communication is one of the most basic, yet essential, building blocks of humanity. But did you know it’s not just a human thing? This fascinating article takes a deep dive into the world of interaction—from how we talk to each other to how plants send chemical warnings and how pets ‘chat’ with their owners. Whether you’re curious about the science of language or just want to know how your dog understands your mood, this is an absolute must-read.

Đại số

Algebra, a branch of mathematics. A full translation from the English article. Hopefully we’ll get to see a high-quality article about geometry soon enough. Are you team Algebra or team Geometry? Let me know in the comments.

Ovalipes catharus

A species of crab found around the coasts of New Zealand and the Chatham Islands.

Mališan (tàu ngầm Nam Tư)

A submarine that used to serve in the Yugoslav Navy

The contrast provided by Niethammer who looked at the birds on one side while ignoring inhumanity on the other provided novelist Arno Surminski with a title for his 2008 novel - Die Vogelwelt von Auschwitz - ie. the birdlife of Auschwitz.

G. Niethammer

Niethammer studied birds around Auschwitz and also shot ducks in numbers for himself and to supply the commandant of the camp Rudolf Höss (if the name does not mean anything please do go to the linked article / or search for the name online).  Upon the death of Niethammer, an obituary (open access PDF here) was published in the Ibis of 1975 - a tribute with little mention of the war years or the fact that he rose to the rank of Obersturmführer. The Bonn museum journal had a special tribute issue noting the works and influence of Niethammer. Among the many tributes is one by Hans Kumerloeve (starts here online). A subspecies of the common jay was named as Garrulus glandarius hansguentheri by Hungarian ornithologist Andreas Keve in 1967 after the first names of Kumerloeve and Niethammer. Fortunately for the poor jay, this name is a junior synonym of  G. g. anatoliae described by Seebohm in 1883.

Meanwhile inside Auschwitz, the Polish artist Wladyslaw Siwek was making sketches of everyday life  in the camp. After the war he became a zoological artist of repute. Unfortunately there is very little that is readily accessible to English readers on the internet (beyond the Wikipedia entry).

Siwek, artist who documented life at Auschwitz before working as a wildlife artist.

 

Hans Kumerloeve

Niethammer stands behind Salim Ali, 1967. International Ornithological Congress, 1967

• Erwin Stresemann (1889 - 1972)
• Friedrich Tischler (1881 - 1945)
• Lew Osipowitsch Belopolskij (1907 - 1990)
• Jurij Andrejewitsch Isakow (1912 - 1988)
• Veleslav Wahl (1922 -1950)
• Wladyslaw Rydzewski (1911 - 1980)
• Andrzej Dunajewski (1908 -1944)
• Günther Niethammer (1908 - 1974)
• Hans Kummerlöwe alias Kumerloeve (1903 -1995)
• Wladyslaw Siwek (1907 -1983)
• Wlodzimierz Graf Dzieduszycki (1885 - 1971)
• Ferdinand Pax (1885 -1964)
• Kazimierz Szarski (1904 -1960)
• Werner Klemm (1909 -1990)
• Boris Karlowitsch Stegmann (1898 -1975)
• Nikolaj Alexejewitsch Gladkow (1905 - 1975)
• Hong-Gu Won (1888 -1970) - came to learn of his son lost during partition via a Daurian starling that happened to be ringed by his son!
• Pyong-Oh Won (born 1926) son of previous
• Jean Delacour (1890 -1985)
• Kazimierz von Granöw Wodzicki (1900 - 1987)
• Nikolaj Wladimirowitsch Timofejew-Ressowski (1900 -1981)
• Hans Stubbe (1902 -1989)
• Konrad Lorenz (1903 -1989)
• Jan Sokolowski (1899 -1982)
• Roman Wojtusiak (1906 -1987)
• Bernhard Grzimek (1909 -1987)
• Hans Christian Johansen (1897 -1973)
• Wasilij Nikolajewitsch Skalon (1903 - 1976)
• Wolfgang Makatsch (1906 -1983)
• Tso-hsin Cheng (1906 -1998)
• Nikolaj Boew (1922 -1985)
• Hans Schildmacher (1907 -1976)
• Oleg Ismailowitsch Semenow-Tjan-Schanskij (1906 -1990)
• Alexander Bogdanowitsch Kistiakowskij (1904 - 1983)
• Heinrich Dathe (1910 -1991)
• Erich Rutschke (1926 -1999)
• Georgij Petrowitsch Dementjew (1898 - 1969)
• Alexander Nikolajewitsch Formosow (1899 - 1973)
• Pierre Pfeffer (1927 - 2016)
• Micha Jankowski (1842 - 1912)
• Alexander Michailowitsch Jankowski (1876 -1944)
• Jurij Michailowitsch Jankowski (1879 - 1956)
• Walerij Jurewitsch Jankowski (1911 -)
• Charles Vaurie (1906 -1975)
• Walter Beick (1883 - 1933)
• Richard Meinertzhagen (1878 -1967)
• Wilfried Przygodda (1916 -1991)
• Salim Ali (1896 -1987)
• Boris Michailowitsch Pavlov (1933 - 1994) 

SS-Sturmbannführer Schäfer at the head of the table in Lhasa

Issues arising from race and perceptions are of course not restricted to this period or region, one of the less glorious stories of the Smithsonian Institution concerns the honorary curator Robert Wilson Shufeldt (1850 – 1934), who, in the infamous Audubon affair, made his personal troubles with his second wife, a grand-daughter of Audubon, into one of race. He also wrote such books as America's Greatest Problem: The Negro (1915) in which we learn of the ideas of other scientists of the period like Edward Drinker Cope! Like many other obituaries, Shufeldt's is a classic whitewash.  

Even as recently as 2015, the University of Salzburg withdrew an honorary doctorate that they had given to the Nobel prize winning Konrad Lorenz for his support of the political setup and racial beliefs. It should not be that hard for scientists to figure out whether they are on the wrong side of history even if they are funded by the state. Perhaps salaried scientists in India would do well to look at the legal contracts they sign with their employers, especially the state, more carefully. The current rules make government employees less free than ordinary citizens but will the educated speak out or do they prefer shackling themselves. 

Postscripts:

• Mixing natural history with war sometimes led to tragedy for the participants as well. In the case of Dr Manfred Oberdörffer who used his cover as an expert on leprosy to visit the borders of Afghanistan with entomologist Fred Hermann Brandt (1908–1994), an exchange of gunfire with British forces killed him although Brandt lived on to tell the tale.

• To the above list one should add -  Jean-Marie Derscheid.
• Another story to read - about biology and the Nazi era is about the SS Sammelkommando - see Heinz Brücher

• Apparently Himmler's entanglement with ornithology also led him to dream up "Storchbein Propaganda" - a plan to send pamphlets to the Boers in South Africa via migrating storks! The German ornithologist Ernst Schüz quietly (and safely) pointed out the inefficiency of it purely on the statistics of recoveries!

• July 2018 - an English translation of Nowak's book is now available.
• See also Walther Arndt  - Charles McGlashan - Alexei Byalynitsky-Birulya 
• There is a new book on Günther Niethammer by Nicholas Milton - The Birdman of Auschwitz. The Life of Günther Niethammer, the Ornithologist Seduced by the Nazis (2025)

When first-year college student Oskar Martinez sat down to edit the Wikipedia article about Mexican chemist Osvaldo Gutierrez, he wasn’t just working on an assignment — he was adding depth to a story that felt familiar.

“Growing up in the city of Los Angeles from a family of immigrant grandparents, as well as an immigrant mother, I understood what Osvaldo’s journey was like, and the challenges that came with living in a city like he did,” said Martinez. “Contributing to his story and what he went through was honestly an honor for me, and the reason why it felt so meaningful.”

Through extensive research and careful attention to source quality, Martinez worked to expand the information about Gutierrez’s early life and career. 

The hardest part? Finding new sources for the article that met Wikipedia’s reliability standards, a challenge familiar to everyone working to fill gaps in the encyclopedia’s coverage of historically underrepresented topic areas and figures.

While Martinez considered his Wikipedia assignment more difficult than a traditional assignment due to the depth of research required, he ultimately appreciated the process.

“Researching Osvaldo and his life was fun because of how much I had to look for anything [I could use as a credible source],” said Martinez. “It was like I was a detective finding information, and being able to find details was very rewarding.”

Martinez, who plans to major in criminal justice, also drew connections between his career aspirations and the critical skills he developed throughout his Wikipedia assignment. 

“This assignment required a lot of digging deep into the internet, as well as writing properly,” said Martinez. “This could especially be useful in a career like law enforcement or investigations because those jobs require a lot of writing and research [for] reports.” 

Beyond research and writing skills, the project creates a deeper appreciation for Wikipedia’s role in shaping public understanding of figures like Gutierrez, explained Martinez as he noted the broad reach of the platform. 

And now, thanks to his thoughtful approach and thorough research, the challenges, perseverance, and accomplishments of a STEM professional are more visible to readers everywhere.

Oskar’s work on Wikipedia is part of a larger Wiki Education initiative sponsored by the Broadcom Foundation, which supports creating and improving biographies of diverse people in STEM on Wikipedia.

Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your course? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free resources, digital tools, and staff support that Wiki Education offers to postsecondary instructors in the United States and Canada.

The ZedWiki Podcast is entering a new chapter. For the first time since its launch, the podcast will be hosted by a human presenter, marking a significant shift in how stories are told, shared, and experienced within the ZedWiki project. The ZedWiki Podcast production team has confirmed that Thandiwe Kasanda, a registered nurse based in Zambia, will officially take over as host starting February 2026, replacing the text-to-speech AI which was powered by ChatGPT.

Since its debut in October 2025, the ZedWiki Podcast has been powered by a text-to-speech AI host voice named Blueprint. While this approach allowed the team to experiment with accessible and innovative storytelling, it also revealed the limitations of an emotionless voice when engaging with culture, folklore, and lived experiences. The shift from an AI-powered host to a human presenter reflects the evolution of the ZedWiki Podcast—from a technical experiment to a living conversation grounded in people, place, and culture.

“The next phase of the podcast needed warmth, humor, and character,” Kanguya Louis the sound engineer noted. “A human voice allows stories to breathe. I don’t know if you understand what I mean by that… there is that ka thing that a human being and voice brings out…”

The transition to a human host comes at a meaningful moment. Beginning February 2026, Thandi will carry the torch for the podcast, shaping discussions that connect community voices with the Wikimedia movement’s mission of open knowledge. Thandi’s hosting style is expected to bring personality and emotional depth to conversations around folklore, traditions, ceremonies, and oral histories—elements that are best conveyed through human expression rather than automated narration. The episode two of the second season will be centered on Wiki Loves Folklore 2026, with a strong focus on the theme of Zambian culture and heritage.

In alignment with Wiki Loves Folklore 2026, the ZedWiki Podcast will be hosted from Chipata, Eastern Province of Zambia—home of the Nc’wala Ceremony, one of Zambia’s most significant cultural events. By situating the podcast in Chipata, the team aims to:

• Support and highlight the Nc’wala Ceremony
• Encourage local participation in Wiki Loves Folklore 2026
• Document folklore through written articles and media contributions

Community members will be encouraged to contribute folklore content not only through writing, but also through the lens—including photographs, videos, and audio recordings uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. As Wiki Loves Folklore 2026 unfolds, the ZedWiki Podcast aims to serve as both a platform and a catalyst—amplifying Zambia’s folklore while inviting communities to document, preserve, and share their heritage with the world. Now, with a human face and voice leading the show, the podcast seeks to expand its reach through video and short-form content, creating new opportunities for storytelling and community engagement.

The She Said 2025 in the Senior Citizens Network project was implemented from 15 September 2025 to 15 November 2025  to bring the voices of older adults into the digital world of Wikimedia, while helping close the persistent gender content gap. This project which strongly aligned with the Wiki Loves Women and the global SheSaid campaign, promoted greater visibility of women’s voices and documentation of quotes from notable women on Wikiquote. Supported by the Wikimedia Rapid Fund, the project helped to position senior citizens to not just be beneficiaries, but active knowledge contributors.

What We Did

• Mobilization and Outreach: Senior citizens aged 50 and above in Abuja and beyond were invited to participate through physical fliers and digital outreach. Members of the Wiki For Senior Citizens Network were encouraged to research archives, personal libraries, and rare publications to identify valuable quotes by African women.
  
  
• Online Training:  The project began with a virtual training session led by experienced Wikimedia volunteers. This session introduced participants to the campaign’s goals and equipped them with the skills to edit Wikiquote, identifying and citing notable quotations with accuracy.
  
  
• Physical event: Following the online session, we hosted a physical event to build connections and collaborations, and further support participants with hands-on training, while providing answers to questions.
  
  
• Continuous Editing & Reflection: Participants continued editing throughout the campaign period, documenting new quotes and improving existing Wikiquote articles about African women. Regular check-ins helped address challenges and sustain the momentum.
  
  
• Recognition & Showcase: At the end of the campaign, the contributions were reviewed and top contributors were celebrated with gift vouchers annd customized merch, thus inspiring others and showcasing the impact of senior engagement.

Impact & What We Learned

This project demonstrated that age is not a barrier but an asset in closing knowledge gaps. Senior citizens brought invaluable historical perspective and access to printed archival materials, enriching Wikiquote with content that might otherwise never be digitized. The campaign also proved that trainings, active volunteer support, and inclusivity can effectively integrate older adults into digital volunteer spaces. It was very interesting and successful to pair senior citizens with younger editors who assisted with page formatting, sourcing of quotes, and project navigation. We recorded a total of 263 new page creations, and 305 page improvements. The participants did not only add meaningful content but also gained confidence and built capacity in digital literacy.

By empowering senior citizens to contribute, document, and preserve women’s quotes, this project created pathways for expanded participation and a richer, more inclusive digital knowledge landscape. Sincere appreciation goes to all our participants, partners, and mentors. We look forward to sustained impact and more collaborations. Let’s keep the momentum going!

Introduction

The Wali Wikimedians Community is thrilled to announce the successful completion of our recent project, “Documenting African Food as Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Wali Language.” Running from 11 September 2025 to 2 November 2025, this initiative was a dedicated effort to preserve and promote the rich culinary traditions of Africa within the Wikimedia ecosystem.

The Journey

The project focused on enhancing Wikipedia’s coverage of African foods, ensuring that traditional knowledge is not only documented but accessible in the native Waali language.

Our journey began with a Hybrid Launch & Training session, where both new and experienced editors gathered to sharpen their skills. This was followed by a high-energy Editathon Workshop at the Yison Tech Hub in Wa, which brought together 27 passionate participants both in-person and virtually [Watch Workshop here].

Taking the Movement to the Airwaves

To ensure wide community engagement, the project went beyond digital editing. On the evening of November 1st, we took the movement to the radio. Zakaria Tunsung Bukari and Muhaideen Faiz Brichini were live on Tungsung Radio 97.3 FM in Wa.

During the YIRIMAMBO PROGRAM, hosted by Atawulahi Kanmintayie Ibrahim, we shared the community’s progress and the importance of Wali Wikipedia. This broadcast served as a powerful educational tool, introducing the Wikimedia movement to listeners across the region and inviting them to take ownership of their digital heritage [Watch Radio Program Here].

Key Achievements

The dedication of our contributors led to remarkable results that significantly boost the Waali presence online:

• Community Growth: 27 active participants (online and in-person).
• Content Creation: 248 newly created articles in the Waali Language. These articles are now hosted on the Wali Wikipedia (Incubator), providing free, accessible knowledge to Waala and other Waali speakers worldwide.
• Visual Documentation: 173 images of African cuisines were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons under the category: Afɩrɩka Paalʋʋ Sɩmɩhɩ (African Foods).

Looking Ahead

This project has proven that language is a vital vessel for culture. By documenting our foods in our own tongue, we are ensuring that the “intangible” becomes a permanent part of the world’s digital record.

Long live the Wali Language! Long live the Wikimedia movement!

Following the success of Wikimixtura Titicaca, a binational contest to enrich content on Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons about Lake Titicaca (shared by both countries), Wikimedistas de Bolivia and WikiAcción Perú are once again joining forces to continue building content related to the living and popular culture of both nations.

Fiesta Plurinacional is the name of this new cycle of alliances, with which we seek to deepen even further the already natural ties that unite both countries. The purpose of Fiesta Plurinacional is to become a constant space for collaboration and dialogue to generate reliable information on Wikimedia projects about various themes shared by the two neighboring and brotherly nations.

The first initiative of this cycle was the “Mortuary Sites and Rites” campaign, which aimed to enrich content about the bonds that Peruvian and Bolivian people maintain with their deceased. Death is a topic of particular importance in our territories, as it is understood not as the end of life, but as the beginning of another existence.

The contest invited people to create articles and upload images and multimedia content about intangible and tangible heritage linked to funeral rites. Thus, 32 editors participated on Wikimedia Commons, uploading 442 images and 3 multimedia files to the platform; likewise, 46 people registered for the Spanish Wikipedia editing contest and created and improved 30 articles. Our mapping of the information gap on this topic identified 66 Wikipedia articles to be created and improved, covering 45% of that gap.

The Wikipedia articles developed themes related to musical expressions, such as bolero de caballería; popular saints, like El Minerito; mortuary rituals, such as Cabo de Año or Tullupampay; cultural practices, like the burial of the placenta or the ancestor worship; gastronomy, such as maicillo; archaeological heritage, like the chullpas or the Momia Juanita; and finally, various cemeteries in Peru and Bolivia.

The images submitted to the audiovisual contest documented different moments, spaces, and components of the All Saints’ Day celebrations in our regions, as well as archaeological and modern heritage related to death. Submissions were received from 6 cities and 3 towns or rural communities in Peru: Huancavelica, Juliaca, Lima, the rural communities of Umuto, Andamarca and the town of Mito in Junín, Urubamba, and Huánuco; and from 7 cities and 12 towns or rural communities in Bolivia: El Alto, Tarija, La Paz, Cobija, Potosí, Santa Cruz, Oruro, and Charapaxi, Aiquile, Viacha, Llallagua, Peñas, Ilabaya, Italaque, Chulumani, Sorata, Warisata, Caracato, and Umala.

Photos were received documenting gastronomic and artisanal expressions, monuments, altars, ornamentation, mausoleums, sculptures, tombs of popular saints, cemetery niches in urban and rural areas, musical instruments, traditional clothing, past and contemporary buildings, and rites and customs carried out in public and private spaces related to the celebration of All Saints’ Day.

We also received a considerable number of entries documenting the Ñatitas festival, which involves bringing the skulls of deceased people to cemeteries, where offerings—such as candles and cigarettes—are made to them as a form of gratitude, as they are believed to have protective powers. Contributions were also received documenting the rites celebrated by relatives of people who disappeared between 1980 and 2000 in Peru, who gather every November 1st at the Memorial El Ojo que Llora in Lima.

Finally, as part of the campaign, we held a virtual panel with specialists from Peru and Bolivia to delve deeper into how various communities in Peru and Bolivia celebrate, represent, and reinterpret death from their own worldviews. We had the participation of Manuel Perales, who presented his research on Tullupampay, a ritual in homage to the deceased in the Mantaro Valley; Juan Villanueva, who gave a presentation on death in the pre-Hispanic altiplano of present-day Bolivia; Rodolfo Sánchez Garrafa, who presented reflections on death and the subterranean world in the Peruvian Andes; and Tatiana Villca Paco, who shared academic research on the anthropology of death in the department of La Paz (Bolivia) and in the altiplano and Amazon regions.

Through the planned activities and the generated content, we found both similarities and particularities that prevail in both territories, allowing people from Peru and Bolivia to recognize themselves in shared practices, dialogue about their differences, and strengthen cultural bonds beyond borders. All these materials constitute important resources for preserving the memory of our peoples and learning about the elements of our identity, as well as for revaluing local knowledge that, in many cases, lacks sufficient representation in digital spaces. In this way, the campaign helps communities see their stories, traditions, and worldviews reflected in Wikimedia projects, promoting cultural pride, citizen participation, and open access to knowledge.

Between talks about the Internet’s future as we know it, the rising of automatizing tools that are abusive or openly against Wikimedia projects, their impact on the formal and informal education as well as the increase of authoritarian democracies, we celebrated for the second time the Congreso Internacional Wikimedia, Educación y Culturas digitales: Resistencia, colaboración y enfoques Críticos frente a las Hegemonías Tecnológicas (Wikimedia, education and Digital Cultures International Congress: resistance, collaboration and critical approaches to technological hegemonies, also known as Wecudi), organized by Wikimedia Mexico.

Given the emergence of these factors, Wecudi is a bridge between academic thinking, social resistance, and the Wikimedia movement that finds a vehicle on free and open knowledge. Wikidata for memory conservation. A school for female Wikipedians. Open mapping against commercial maps. Drones to safeguard the territory with Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia projects as a way to preserve territories. These are just five examples of ideas born from the Wikimedia movement, and both formal and informal education during the event.

Wecudi was held in the Centro Cultural Tlatelolco (Tlatelolco Cultural Center, CCUT) of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (National Autonomous University of Mexico, UNAM) on October 29th, 30th, and 31st in Mexico City. Wecudi was made in partnership with the Instituto de Investigaciones sobre la Universidad y la Educación (University and Education Research Institute, IISUE), An International Research Entity responsible for, mainly, pondering over Educational processes of —but not limited to— the biggest Latin American University.

Participants from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Spain, the United States, France, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico Uruguay and 11 Mexican states (Aguascalientes, Guadalajara, Mexico City, Monterrey, Puebla, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, Sonora, state of Mexico, Tlaxcala, and Veracruz) gathered at the historic CCUT Building, located in an emblematic part of the Mexican capital, which was a backdrop of Historical turning points.

During the three Congress days, Wikimedians, educators, activists, teachers, and researchers converged to reflect, share projects, debate ideas, and envision possibilities where things are built from collaboration, freedom, and critical thinking, both on the inside and outside the Wikimedia movement.

In today’s Internet, academic considerations and criticism come either from techno-enthusiasm, meaning a critical vision on the adoption and technology’s impact upon society. Or, from rejection as a denial attitude to ongoing changes. On account of these considerations, and in contrast to the latest Wecudi edition, we decided to enable the Congress in a cross-disciplinary approach towards academia, education, digital cultures, and the Wikimedia movement; all influenced by three main themes:

• Collaborative knowledge construction, learning, and communicating paths walked by the Wikimedia community regarding communal knowledge production.  

• Critical, decolonial, and resistance approaches against technological hegemonies and techno-fascism, inviting projects that defy technological hegemonies. 

• Critical approaches and human rights defence in digital contexts, reuniting Wikimedians and non-Wikimedians out there in the world, who document and expand the global memory, as well as advocate for human rights through technology.

WECUDI held over 50 activities: ranging from conferences, workshops, cultural activities, and round tables to a poster session.  

We kicked off this edition with Luisina Ferrante (Wikimedia Argentina’s projects manager), who passed the baton to Mexico after holding back in 2023 the first Wecudi International Congress at the Universidad de la Plata (National University of La Plata). Afterwards, Carmen Alcázar (Wikimedia Mexico’s executive director) gave a welcome speech to all the participants and inaugurated this edition, noting that Wecudi goes beyond the educational phenomenon and reminding us of the importance of having this type of events within the community.

Five examples of talks 

Throughout the three days of activities, we participated in sessions related to the gender gap in the Wikimedia projects. For example, Diez años de Editatona: lecciones aprendidas (Ten Years of Editatona: Lessons Learned) by Carmen Alcázar; Campaña en tu nombre: Editatona por las mujeres desaparecidas del Perú (Campaing In Your Name: Editatona for Missing Women) by Kelly Pariona; the experience of the Escuela de Mujeres Wikipedistas (School of Wikipedian Women, EMW) with Oralia Torres and Isamar Cerón, and the Editatón: Filósofas, Artistas y Pensadoras 2024 (edit-a-thon: Female Philosphers, Artists and Thinkers 2024) with Luis Álvarez and Gabriela Martínez. All of these spaces highlighted needs, progress, and possible solutions to our problems within specific contexts.

Furthermore, in workshops like Mapear desde el margen: co-laboratorio rizomático de cartografía comunitaria y participación ciudadana (Mapping from the Margins: Rhizomatic Communal Cartography Co-lab and Citizen Participation) led by Mariana Marín, and Luis Antonio Sierra, we explored in a practical and thoughtful way open mapping as a territorial transformation and as a citizen participation tool. Likewise, in the Session plan for: ¿Eres el que construye, el que escucha o ambos? Pon a prueba tus habilidades comunicativas con Legos (Session Plan for: Are You the One Who Builds, Who Listens or Both? Test your communication skills with Legos) held by Cassie Casares, we exercised collaborative communication and active listening to strengthen teamwork, trust and mutual understanding. 

In Bernardo Caicedo’s storytelling of Cátedra Glaciares: una experiencia colaborativa para la conservación de la criósfera colombiana (Glaciers Lecture Series: a Collaborative Experience for the Conservation of the Colombian Cryosphere), a joint project between Wikimedia Colombia and the National University, we learned about innovative education, designing new ways to evaluate and document the pedagogical process through open and collaborative platforms like Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Wikimedia Commons to contribute to public databases about glaciers nationwide and globally. 

The Wikiproyecto LGBT: Rescatando la memoria de las diversidades sexuales latinoamericanas a través de Wikipedia (LGBT Wikiproject: Saving the Memory of Latin American Sexual Diversities Through Wikipedia) was present with Freddy Veloz, who shared with us the evolution of the LGBT Wikiproject, their strategies, efforts, and current challenges regarding sexual diversity in digital spaces.

In addition, we shared with the Hispanic community the artistic, cultural, and social impact project, Mi valedor (My Supporter), which supports the creation of networks for homeless people, as well as seniors and people on the move. And, Echarchal from the Colectiva Hilos (Threads Collective), entangled us with her intervention in the lobby of the CCUT with the proposal Sangre de mi Sangre (Blood of My Blood), a street and collective knitting project that represents a missing person or a victim of violence against women with a knitted piece.  

WECUDI 2025 program: https://w.wiki/DxWd 

Cultural activities 

Cultural activities were an important segment of the program, so the participants could get a more immersive experience of the city. First off, getting to know the origins and history of the CDMX; then, exploring the memory and strength of the country’s social movements, with the Museo Memorial 68 (68 Memorial Museum) and a guided tour through the historical zone of Tlatelolco. Finally, we ended on a high note with a dinner and a lot of dancing at the traditional Bar Mancera. 

WECUDI voices 

• “In the future, I would like to have more spaces like this (WECUDI) to talk and gather.”  — Cassie | WMF 

• “Overall, I think this idea allows creating networks; to start thinking about talking to other people, to keep that bond online, but still keep on generating projects in common with different groups.” — Mikel | Argentina 

• “As a challenge, WECUDI has to keep bringing together teachers from different parts of the world to build a better world.”— Lorena  | Colombia 

• “To try to make it once again (WECUDI), maybe with other people who were not able to make it, but I think that is one of the biggest challenges.” — Galder | Basque Country 

• “WECUDI is community: that’s what is happening here; the desire to participate and to build in common.” — Agustín | Argentina 

Do you want to know what happened at WECUDI 2025? 

Check all the photographs and resources in the Commons category: https://w.wiki/Dw$U 

In October, I was honoured to be invited to help the Wikimedia Sudan Usergroup as a Strategic Mentor to help the group shift from handling emergencies to building something more stable. But in Sudan, things are rarely straightforward.

I was glad to get this opportunity to work with a group of volunteers who decided to answer that question by turning knowledge into a form of resistance.

Before this recent initiative, the Wikimedia Sudan community was operating in what we identified as “Survival Mode.” Efforts were brave but scattered. Individual editors were trying to contribute, but they were drowning in the daily trauma of the war.

We set out to build capacity through our intervention, but it ultimately helped people feel more grounded. Our goal shifted from just helping people work through pain to actually to helping them heal.

We created the 2025 Training Program because we needed to regain control, and while we worked on the group’s structure, drafted bylaws, established governance, and planned workflows, our goal was to build a user group that could operate independently. We wanted to ensure that, even if the war changed our environment, we could still decide our own direction.

It would be a disservice to frame this recent success as a sudden miracle. It is, in fact, the culmination of five years of “digging through rock.” The Wikimedia Sudan usergroup has been laying the groundwork for this moment long before the current crisis escalated.

The last four months stood out because of the challenges we faced. The usergroup managed to organise a 35-hour training program with Mervat Salman, along with other trainers and Arabic Wikipedia administrators. Coordinating this effort took careful planning and teamwork, especially given the circumstances.

We kept things moving by managing each Zoom call and turning in the workshops’ assignments, even when it was difficult. I am glad I could help make sure our work continued and that we set up a structure so the community could keep going, even if some had to leave.

The usergroup learnt the art of digital preservation. In a country where archives, museums, and historical sites are under physical threat, Wikimedia projects become a Digital Ark.

Participants, through the workshops, looked at their surroundings with a critical, documentation-focused eye. An impact that metrics often miss in “normal” circumstances. The traditional era of encyclopedias was always proud of gatekeepers. Now, the Wikimedia communities continue to gain guardians, facilitators and coordinators! We need an awful lot of them!

One of the cruellest aspects of conflict is isolation. The war in Sudan has often felt forgotten by the world. This program, however, became a bridge through partnerships with the Nile Valley Initiative and Wiki Love Monuments, and with the support of mentors from the wider Arab region, the Sudanese community reconnected with its ecosystem.

The trainers and the usergroup core team showed real commitment, not just doing their jobs but going further. The Movement is real, supporting us when our local systems let us down. Looking over the final reports for this program, I can see how much we have grown as a group.

Wikimedia Sudan has successfully pivoted. They have moved from the reactive chaos of survival to the proactive stability of an institution. They have proven that with the proper governance structure (the “skeleton” we worked so hard to build) and the right spirit, a community can do more than survive a war: curate its history!

We snatched this success from the jaws of impossible circumstances. The training changed the people before it changed the articles. And in doing so, it proved that in the face of destruction, construction is the most radical act of all!

08/01/2026-14/01/2026

Community

• Eiim reported on the ongoing progress of mapping buildings in Delaware County, Ohio.
• In an OpenCage blog, members of the CoMaps team talked about the app and how they relate to the OSM community.
• Rphyrin has used OpenStreetMap data to map the extent and impact of Jakarta’s torrential rain on 12 January, which diverted 16 flights from Soekarno-Hatta Airport.
• Matt Whilden has built a new game titled ‘The OpenStreetMap Tag Showdown’, a turn-based challenge built around OpenStreetMap tagging knowledge. The game invites players to take turns adding tags to construct a query, with the risk that an invalid or non-existent tag combination can be challenged by the opposing player.

Local chapter news

• The French community recently realised that the max weight restrictions in France actually are about the max weight rating, and not about actual weight as in many other countries. The historic usage of maxweight=* for such weight restrictions in France is therefore invalid. It was decided to progressively migrate to maxweightrating=* in France:
  • in February 2026, the OSM objects tagged with maxweight=* will be dual-tagged with maxweightrating=*, with a note=* explaining that maxweight=* is deprecated for France, must no longer be used, and must be replaced with maxweightrating=*;
  • in July 2026, all the maxweight=* keys of France will be deleted with the aforementioned note=*.
  • Contributors and software currently using maxweight=* in France are asked to prepare for this migration.

Events

• The State of the Map Croatia 2026 will take ► place from 24 to 26 April as part of the DORS/CLUC conference in Zagreb. The hosts are inviting you to propose a presentation.

Maps

• Martin Ždila, of Freemap Slovakia, has presented Freemap.sk, a project that began as a community initiative to deliver a high-quality outdoor map for hiking and cycling in Slovakia, built entirely on OpenStreetMap data. Over time, it has developed into a full-featured web mapping application and has since expanded to cover most of Europe with an outdoor-orientated cartographic style.

OSM in action

• ^[1] In the podcast Stories from History ►, produced by the two historians Richard Hemmer and Daniel Meßner, one of them tells the other a ‘story from history’ that was previously unknown to the other. Many followers write postcards to the duo from all over the world. Richard Hemmer has recently published ► these postcards on a website using OSM as a basemap.
• In his new weekly column, mobileGEO explored ► the critical challenges facing OpenStreetMap, from opaque governance structures in software maintenance, to accessibility mapping and micro-mapping efforts in Vienna, highlighting resilience, inclusion, and long-term infrastructure sustainability.
• Whoosh, one of the largest scooter and bike sharing services in Russia, has started using OpenStreetMap maps instead of the commercial Yandex.Maps in its mobile apps.
• Igor Gromov and his friends have started creating the memmap, a map for meme videos. So far, the map is limited to the city of Saint Petersburg, but there are plans to add support for new cities. An OpenStreetMap-based map is used as the basemap.

Software

• The CoMaps project shared their plans for 2026, which focus on the long-term sustainability of the project and their apps.
• Taylor Smock has begun to develop a JOSM plugin for Panoramax, thus allowing JOSM users to benefit from a street-level imagery resource which currently amounts to over 80 million freely accessible and reusable images.
• Organic Maps has shared several projects ideas for Google Summer of Code 2026.

Programming

• Evgeny Arbatov has tried to estimate the width of an OSM way using the GPX data generated by Strava running activities.

Other “geo” things

• Mario Petzold, of Golem.de, reported that Monirail has unveiled plans to develop a quantum-based navigation system for London Underground trains, designed to provide precise positioning in environments where satellite navigation is unavailable.
• The MapLibre User Group Japan had a vibrant 2025, hosting monthly podcast sessions (‘MUG-JP Space’) on MapLibre updates and geospatial topics, alongside a successful online meet-up focused on trends in FOSS4G and web mapping.

Upcoming Events

Country	Where	Venue	What	When
	Palermo	Orbita, Palermo	Compleanno di Wikipedia 25 a Palermo	2026-01-17 – 2026-01-18
	Mangaluru		Mapping Party @ Surathkal	2026-01-18
	Utrecht	De Kargadoor Utrecht	Nieuwjaarsborrel OSGeo.nl, QGISNL, OSM NL	2026-01-18
	Tacoma	[Virtual]	TCAT’s Mappy New Year 2026	2026-01-19
			UN Mappers: OpenStreetMap Beginner Training using iD editor	2026-01-20
	Derby	The Brunswick, Railway Terrace, Derby	East Midlands pub meet-up	2026-01-20
	Madrid	Online	Mappy Hour OSM España	2026-01-20
		La Trattoria, Rue du Village 88, Aubange	OpenStreetMap Belgium — Arlon / Ardenne belge / Gaume — Social	2026-01-20
			Missing Maps Londres: (Online) Mid-Month Mapathon [eng]	2026-01-20
	Lyon	Tubà	Réunion du groupe local de Lyon	2026-01-20
	Bona	Dotty’s	196. OSM-Stammtisch Bona	2026-01-20
	Derby	The Brunswick, Railway Terrace, Derby	East Midlands pub meet-up	2026-01-20
	Cidade de Edimburgo	Jeremiah’s Taproom, Elm Row, Edinburgh	Edinburgh Social	2026-01-20
		Ferme du Clémarais, Aubange	OpenStreetMap Belgium — Arlon / Ardenne belge / Gaume — Meeting	2026-01-20
		Online	Lüneburger Mappertreffen (online)	2026-01-20
		Ninkasi Saint-Romain-en-Gal	Réunion du groupe local de Vienne	2026-01-21
	Karlsruhe	Chiang Mai	Stammtisch Karlsruhe	2026-01-21
	Mannheim	RaumZeitLabor, Mannheim	Rhein-Neckar OpenstreetMap Treffen	2026-01-22
			UN Mappers: OpenStreetMap Beginner Training using JOSM	2026-01-23
			OSMF Engineering Working Group meeting	2026-01-23
	Nashik	Nashik Engineering Cluster, MIDC Ambad	State of the Map India 2026	2026-01-24
			Missing Maps : Mapathon en ligne – CartONG [fr]	2026-01-26
	Hannover	Kuriosum	OSM-Stammtisch Hannover	2026-01-26
	Kiel	Mango’s, Kiel	Kieler Mapper*innentreffen	2026-01-27
	Berlim	Online	OSM-Verkehrswende #71	2026-01-27
	Düsseldorf	Online bei https://meet.jit.si/OSM-DUS-2026	Düsseldorfer OpenStreetMap-Treffen (online)	2026-01-28
	Amsterdão	TomTom HQ Amsterdão	2026 Kickoff Meetup – Mapping, Fireside Chats, Show & Tell, and More!	2026-01-29
			Mapping USA 2026	2026-01-30 – 2026-01-31
	Gent	Sporewegel 1	OpenStreetMap meetup in Gent	2026-01-30
	Aosta / Aoste	Museo archeologico regionale	Compleanno di Wikipedia e mapping party ad Aosta @ Fiera di Sant’Orso	2026-01-31
	Mumbai	Churchgate (approximate location)	OSM Mumbai Mapping Party No.6 (Mumbai City)	2026-01-31
	नई दिल्ली	Jitsi Meet (online)	OSM India – Monthly Online Mapathon	2026-02-01

Note:
If you like to see your event here, please put it into the OSM calendar. Only data which is there, will appear in weeklyOSM.

This weeklyOSM was produced by MarcoR, Raquel Dezidério Souto, Strubbl, Andrew Davidson, TrickyFoxy, barefootstache, derFred, mcliquid.
We welcome link suggestions for the next issue via this form and look forward to your contributions.

As part of the desktop improvements project we spent time investing in the core code that powers skins. With support from volunteers (the majority of this support coming from the prolific @Ammarpad), we identified code patterns and made changes to the MediaWiki-Core-Skin-Architecture to retroactively define a data layer API for generating a skin.

Once this was in place, we updated the legacy MediaWiki skins Monobook, Modern, CologneBlue to use Mustache to bring them in line with how Vector and Minerva were built.

The rationale for doing this was as follows:

1. We wanted to centralize code into core, and standardize markup, to make it easier to roll out changes to all skins. Often developers found ourselves updating every skin every time we wanted to make a small change or forced to use specific classes to markup elements (e.g. T248137, T253938).
2. We wanted to move away from server-side technologies to client-side technologies to play better to the strengths of frontend engineers and designers who worked on skins.
3. Since many of these skins do not see active development, we wanted to support them better by reducing lines of code
4. Many of the skins didn't support certain extensions because they used different code (for example certain skins didn't run hooks that were used by certain features) e.g. 6ce3ce1acb68f0a3fdf1bd8824f6d0717bffa320 T259400
5. Stop supporting features in core that were never widely adopted e.g. T97892

This process reduced 106,078 lines of code to 85,310 lines of code - a 20% decrease.
Before the change around 45% of skin code was PHP. After the change PHP only accounted for 15% of the code.

It would be great to in the future migrate Timeless too, but Timeless using the legacy skin platform does help keep us accountable for ensuring we continue to support skins built on this platform.

Methodology for result

To measure code makeup we can run github-linguist before and after the change.

Monobook

Before:

46.53%  22713      Less
36.83%  17981      PHP
16.53%  8071       JavaScript
0.10%   50         CSS
Lines of code: 48815

After change (abe94aa4082dbc4f8b9060528a1b4fea2d0af0f1)

59.28%  22831      Less
20.96%  8071       JavaScript
11.67%  4496       Mustache
7.96%   3066       PHP
0.13%   50         CSS
Lines of code: 38514

Modern

Before:

52.25%  13752      CSS
40.99%  10790      PHP
4.16%   1094       Less
2.61%   686        JavaScript
Lines of code: 26322

After change (c74d67950b6de2bafd9e3b1e05e601caaa7d9452)

68.87%  13877      CSS
18.22%  3672       Mustache
5.43%   1094       Less
4.07%   821        PHP
3.40%   686        JavaScript
Lines of code: 20150

Cologne Blue

Before:

62.00%  19183      PHP
34.82%  10773      CSS
2.22%   686        JavaScript
0.97%   299        Less
Lines of code: 30941

After change (bf06742467f6c6c2bb42367f2e073eb26ed5d495)

40.40%  10765      CSS
31.87%  8491       PHP
24.04%  6405       Mustache
2.57%   686        JavaScript
1.12%   299        Less
Lines of code: 26646

PHP

The total number of lines of PHP before the change: 47954
After the change: 12378 lines of PHP
(This is a 74% decrease in lines of code)

Originally published on freedom.press

In the mid-1700s, Denis Diderot published his Encyclopédie in France, collecting the work of more than 140 authors to summarize the Enlightenment. It quickly landed on the Catholic Church's banned books list for including contrarian thoughts, and, at one point, his publisher preemptively censored some content without Diderot's knowledge.

Around the same time, King George III censored the first edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica, requiring the removal of some anatomically correct drawings in an article about midwifery.

So when the 13 newly independent American states ratified the First Amendment a few decades later, it laid the groundwork not only for a free press but also for an encyclopedia that was not censored by an oppressive government.

Today, we celebrate the realization of that dream in the form of Wikipedia, which over the past 25 years has been collaboratively built by unpaid strangers on the internet. Wikipedia went from the source that teachers universally clamored "you can't trust it" to one of the most reliable sources in a world of "disinformation" and AI-generated slop.

Despite not being written by professional journalists (I edit it myself as a volunteer and used to work for its nonprofit host, Wikimedia Foundation), it's still able to set trends and drive narratives. For example, in 2011, Wikipedia editors started collating a list of people killed by law enforcement in the U.S., three years before The Washington Post would win a Pulitzer for its version of the same.

And for better or worse, Wikipedia is most likely the largest single source powering today's AI models. All in all, it's the largest repository of knowledge in human history.

But it's important to understand and appreciate that Wikipedia only exists because of the robust free speech and free press protections that exist in the United States.

Wikipedia has never been actively censored in the U.S., nor has any U.S.-based editor ever been arrested for their edits to Wikipedia. There's never even been a serious threat of censorship of Wikipedia by the federal government. (The FBI once demanded Wikipedia stop using its seal under a law written to stop impersonation of federal agents; Wikipedia's legal team laughed it off.)

The same cannot be said about Wikipedia in other countries. In France, intelligence operatives held a Wikipedia administrator until he deleted an article about a military radio station, under the guise it contained classified information. Agents made this demand even though the information in question wasn't classified at all and was mostly based on a documentary that the French air force had worked on and publicly released.

In India, a court required Wikipedia to remove an article about a news agency because it was supposedly defamatory. To top it off, the court then demanded Wikipedia remove the separate article that was written about the court case and removal order!

This kind of censorship shouldn't happen in the U.S. The Supreme Court ruled the First Amendment protects publishing classified information in a case about the Pentagon Papers. A U.S. court cannot order an article to be taken down, as that would be an unconstitutional prior restraint.

In the U.S., the law known as Section 230 would also protect Wikipedia from defamation claims, and instead require litigants to sue the editor who actually wrote and published the allegedly defamatory content. Those editors would be protected under the First Amendment and the high court's New York Times v. Sullivan decision, which requires defamation claims from public officials — later expanded to public figures — to meet the much higher standard of actual malice to win (nearly every biography on Wikipedia is of a public figure, by policy).

And to state the obvious, the U.S. has never blocked all of Wikipedia, unlike China (since 2015), Myanmar (since 2021), or Turkey, which did so from 2017 until an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights forced that nation to unblock it in 2020. We know of one editor, Bassel Khartabil, who was executed for their online activity, and a few others who are incarcerated in Belarus and Saudi Arabia.

Certainly, there are plenty of people in power who wish they could censor or control Wikipedia. At first, it was through editing: In 2006, a number of Congressional staffers were caught whitewashing their bosses' biographies, and, in 2007, someone at the FBI tried to remove images from the Guantánamo Bay detention camp article.

Then, in 2013, Edward Snowden leaked that the National Security Agency was illegally spying on Wikipedia readers and editors, revealing that the U.S. had adopted the same playbook as China. Wikipedia responded by encrypting all connections using HTTPS a few years later, and (unsuccessfully) sued the NSA for First and Fourth amendment violations.

The attacks against Wikipedia are starting to ramp up once again; last year saw ethically compromised interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin and Sen. Ted Cruz complain about Wikipedia's supposed left-wing bias, despite the First Amendment prohibiting the government from acting as speech police. We've also seen bits of the First Amendment firewall begin to crumble, with judges green-lighting prior restraints, or bipartisan groups of lawmakers working to repeal Section 230.

It will require a concerted effort by all of us to not just maintain existing First Amendment protections, but to expand them. That's the only way Wikipedia will thrive for another 25 years.

When all the relevant information is to be offered in many languages big and small, there is a need for a scaffolding for the information. on all the parties, all the candidates and all the other entities that may be of relevance.

Wikidata can provide this scaffolding. For the existing members of parliament there is likely an existing item. All the candidates are included in Wikidata and identified as a candidate for the 2027 elections. Assuming that there is a project page for all the language Wikipedias relevant for Nigeria, there will be a Listeria list with all the candidates, the candidates with and without a local article are identified as such. 

Another list could include all the fake news recognised by the project and the parties, organisations, parties involved.

Technically, there are a few things that will make live easier. 

• a template that includes the query for Listeria lists - one , , the Wikidata identifier the query is for.
• all participating projects enable the Listeriabot for its processing
• a trigger that will update a Listeria list wherever it exist 

15 January 2026 — Wikipedia, the world’s largest online information resource, turns 25 today, marking a quarter century of making trustworthy, human-powered knowledge accessible worldwide. Through a Wikipedia 25 campaign launched today, the Wikimedia Foundation — the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia — invites everyone to discover Wikipedia’s journey over the last 25 years, celebrate the volunteers who make the site possible, and be part of the platform’s future.

“Wikipedia is a digital wonder of the world, unlike anything else. It has overcome countless challenges and changes in its time, thanks to the people behind it and their unwavering commitment to sharing free, reliable knowledge with the world,” said Maryana Iskander, Chief Executive Officer of the Wikimedia Foundation. “With billions of monthly visits and an ever-growing number of organizations relying on Wikipedia’s free, verified knowledge, this platform has become integral to the architecture of the entire internet.”  

New Wikipedia birthday campaign: docuseries, time capsule, and more 

Today, the Wikimedia Foundation released for the first time a video “docuseries,” sharing a behind-the-scenes look at the lives and stories of Wikipedia volunteer editors around the world. All of the knowledge on Wikipedia is created and maintained by a global community of nearly 250,000 volunteer editors who write, edit, and fact check information according to rigorous standards on neutrality and reliability. 

The series stars eight of these volunteers and spotlights their unique purpose and passions for contributing to the online encyclopedia. They include a Californian who has spent two decades documenting hurricanes and storms, an Indian medical doctor who shared critical COVID-19 information during the global pandemic, an elderly librarian in Tokyo making knowledge available in Japanese, and more. Their stories underscore that, even and especially in the age of AI, knowledge is human, and knowledge needs humans. 

The Foundation also launched today a “25 Years of Wikipedia” time capsule, allowing Wikipedia fans worldwide to delve into the past, present, and future of this treasured global resource. Users can listen to Founder Jimmy Wales share in his own words memories from Wikipedia’s origin story, including when he himself installed the site’s very first servers. The capsule also explores Wikipedia’s role during major global events, such as when Wikipedia’s servers almost collapsed in 2009 from site visits following Michael Jackson’s death. It showcases some of the most weird and wonderful parts of Wikipedia, like an article on a prescient octopus named Paul.

In looking to Wikipedia’s future, a new interactive quiz — also released today — invites people worldwide to discover which Wikipedia future best represents them. The futures were imagined by a group of Wikipedia editors, young children, professional futurists, and artists, representing a range of visions for the Wikipedia of tomorrow.

Wikipedia in the age of AI 

Wikipedia has become the backbone of knowledge on the internet. For 25 years, Wikipedia and its global volunteer community have navigated technology disruptions, regulatory changes, and growing mistrust across the information landscape, among other shifts. Through it all, they have — and will continue to — adapt and evolve to ensure everyone, everywhere can continue to access and share knowledge.

In the AI era, Wikipedia and its human-created and curated knowledge has never been more valuable. Today, Wikipedia is among the top-ten most-visited global websites, and it is the only one to be run by a nonprofit. Its 65 million articles in over 300 languages are viewed nearly 15 billion times every month, and its knowledge power generative AI chatbots, search engines, voice assistants and more. Wikipedia is one of the highest-quality datasets used in training Large Language Models. 

Wikipedia’s progress over the last 25 years highlights its increasing relevance to the online world today. These are a few of the ways it has grown and evolved over the years: 

• New partnerships with tech companies support Wikipedia’s sustainability: Tech companies that rely on Wikipedia content must use it responsibly and help sustain Wikipedia for the future. One key way to do this is through the Wikimedia Enterprise platform. Developed by the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Enterprise is a commercial product for large-scale reusers and distributors of content from Wikimedia projects. Over the past year, several companies — including Ecosia, Microsoft, Mistral AI, Perplexity, Pleias, and ProRata — became new Wikimedia Enterprise partners, joining existing partners such as Amazon, Google, and Meta. They can access content from Wikimedia projects at a volume and speed designed specifically for their needs, while directly supporting our nonprofit mission.
• Implementing an AI strategy that puts humans first: The Foundation’s recent AI strategy directs future investments and developments in AI to support the human contributors at the core of Wikipedia, so that they can spend their valuable time on what they want to accomplish and not on how to technically achieve it.
• Strengthening our tech infrastructure: Continuous improvements have been made to Wikipedia’s tech infrastructure since 2001 to make it one of the most accessible and multilingual sites in the world. Updates to Wikipedia’s desktop interface and dark mode have greatly improved user accessibility; we’ve opened new data centers to quicken load times; and Wikipedia apps for iOS and Android allow Wikipedia fans to access content right from their mobile devices. 
• Closing knowledge gaps: Knowledge on Wikipedia today has grown to be more representative and reflective of the world through dedicated efforts in language translation and community-led initiatives to increase the spectrum of volunteer editors and content on the site. Further, Abstract Wikipedia aims to make the reliable information on Wikipedia available in all languages; the project was one of five finalists of MacArthur Foundation’s 100&Change grant competition last year. 
• Engaging the next generation of readers and contributors: Through new experiments such as online games and short content for social media, we are discovering innovative ways that Wikipedia can reach new users, respond to global trends, and meet the evolving needs of users in a changing internet landscape. 

More ways to celebrate Wikipedia

There are many ways that people around the world can get involved in the yearlong Wikipedia 25 celebrations. Other highlights include: 

• People worldwide are invited to use a new feature on social media to “sign” Wikipedia’s digital birthday card — helping to make it the longest birthday card ever. 
• A global, virtual birthday event on 15 January at 4:00 pm UTC, featuring surprise guests, games, entertainment, and more. The event will be livestreamed on Wikipedia’s YouTube, TikTok and Instagram channels. Other in-person events are planned worldwide. 
• Baby Globe, a new birthday mascot inspired by a Wikipedia volunteer’s sketches, can be found in a series of playful, visual surprises on several language versions of Wikipedia when readers turn on ‘Birthday mode’ next month.
• A fresh, festive limited-edition collection of Wikipedia merchandise, starting with a Baby Globe plushie developed in collaboration with Makeship. 

“In 2001, Wikipedia started as a dream to share knowledge with everyone, everywhere. No one, including me, knew if it would succeed,” said Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia Founder and Wikimedia Foundation Trustee. “Against all odds, Wikipedia has grown to become the backbone of knowledge on the internet today. Wikipedia demonstrates 25 years of humanity at its best, proving that when people come together in the spirit of building trust and collaboration, they can make the impossible possible.” 

The Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia’s global volunteer community, and Wikimedia affiliates around the world will continue activities to celebrate 25 years of Wikipedia throughout 2026. Visit this webpage and follow Wikipedia on social media to learn more about ways to get involved. 

Additional quotes about Wikipedia at 25

• “Wikipedia shows that knowledge is human, and knowledge needs humans. Especially now, in the age of AI, we need the human-powered knowledge of Wikipedia more than ever. With continued help from readers, volunteer editors, donors, partners, and fans across the globe, Wikipedia will remain the crucial hub for human-powered knowledge and collaboration online for the next 25 years and beyond.” — Selena Deckelmann, Chief Product and Technology Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation
• “Access to high‑quality, trustworthy information is at the heart of how we think about the future of AI at Microsoft. Our partnership with Wikimedia helps ensure that people, and the agents working on their behalf, can draw on knowledge they understand and trust. Together, we’re helping create a sustainable content ecosystem for the AI internet, where contributors are valued, communities are respected, and responsible AI expands opportunity for everyone.” — Corporate Vice President Tim Frank at Microsoft
• “The ProRataAI team happily celebrates the silver anniversary of the innovative, culture-changing community that is Wikipedia. In building a company focused on AI solutions grounded in respect for content creators it means so much that Wikipedia’s leadership and values have championed content quality, validity and transparency during a time of great technological change. We’re excited to continue to support Wikipedia over the next 25 years, as AI becomes a much greater force in search and discovery, and Wikipedia further advances control for publishers and credit for use of content.” — Bill Gross, Founder & CEO of ProRata AI
• “Every day, Wikipedians write history together — debating, discussing, and refining information based on trustworthy sources. In an increasingly fragmented media landscape, Wikipedia is where facts go to live.” — Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist and Wikimedia Foundation donor
• “Wikipedia’s unique value is in its ability to provide free, relevant knowledge to people around the world. As we look to the next billion people who will come online, Africa will have a critical role to play in ensuring that Wikipedia’s knowledge, and by extension the wider internet, reflects the richness of the continent and its people.” — Bobby Shabangu, Wikimedia Foundation Board Trustee based in Johannesburg, South Africa
• “Knowledge should belong to everyone. This is why I started editing Wikipedia over 20 years ago and why I continue today. My hope for Wikipedia is simple: that it continues to exist. For that to be possible, Wikipedia needs people. I would encourage everyone who finds value in the site to think about what they can contribute to free knowledge. If we do this, Wikipedia will continue to hold a critical place in our lives for the next 25 years.” — Robert Sim, volunteer Wikipedia editor and the 2025 Wikimedian of the Year from Singapore
• “Wikipedia has been a wonderful and powerful gateway for me to discover an entire world of facts that never before would have been reachable. As an artist, author, and parent I would be lost without the resources Wikipedia provides, and it’s all just a click away!” — Jim Sonefeld, Hootie & the Blowfish drummer, singer/songwriter, speaker, and author

Wikipedia facts and figures 

• Wikipedia is viewed nearly 15 billion times every month.
• Wikipedia contains over 65 million articles across more than 300 languages.
• Wikipedia is edited by nearly 250,000 editors every month around the world. Editors are defined by one edit or more every month; only editors with a username are counted.
• Wikipedia is accessed by over 1.5 billion unique devices every month.
• Wikipedia is edited 324 times per minute.
• Wikipedia is the only website in the top-ten most-visited global websites to be run by a nonprofit. 

About the Wikimedia Foundation 

The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. We support the people, technology, and policies that enable reliable information to be shared with the world. The Wikimedia Foundation is a United States 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization with offices in San Francisco, California, USA. Visit our website to learn more about the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia. 

For media inquiries, please contact press@wikimedia.org.

The post Wikipedia celebrates 25 years of knowledge at its best appeared first on Wikimedia Foundation.

🕑 1 hour 11 minutes

Shlomit Lir is a writer, editor, and researcher at the University of Haifa, specializing in the politics of knowledge. Since 2024, she has been a public critic of Wikipedia, especially relating to its coverage of Israel.

Links for some of the topics discussed:

• "The Bias Against Israel on Wikipedia" (2024 report for the World Jewish Congress)
• 2025 X post by Shlomit about then-candidate for the WMF Board of Trustees Ravan al-Taie
• "Smear Campaign Against Ravan, Wikimedia Foundation BoT Candidate" (response post by several Wikimedians)
• Larry Sanger's "Nine Theses on Wikipedia"
• "How Wikipedia's Pro-Hamas Editors Hijacked the Israel-Palestine Narrative" (2024 Pirate Wires article by Ashley Rindsberg)
• "Manipulated History" (2025 document for the World Jewish Congress)

As one of the most famous figures of the American Revolution, it’s no surprise that Paul Revere’s English Wikipedia article has existed for nearly as long as the online encyclopedia itself. 

More surprising? Even after nearly 2,500 edits throughout more than 20 years, and with over 400 editors watching the page, there are still missing pieces to fill in the midnight rider’s history. And who is uniquely positioned to spot and fill these gaps? Historian Tegan Kehoe at the Paul Revere House in Boston, for one.

Kehoe is just one of the 152 historians, museum curators, historical site professionals, and other history practitioners who have brought their collections and expertise to Wikipedia through Wiki Education’s new series of editing courses, launched in collaboration with American Association for State and Local History (AASLH). 

To date, the courses have brought together experts from 47 states across the U.S. to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of their local history in celebration of the country’s upcoming 250th birthday this year.

Last month, Kehoe joined Sarah Rafael García (LibroMobile Arts Cooperative & Bookstore), Becky Raines (Museum of Natural and Cultural History-University of Oregon), and Con Trumbull (Nevada Northern Railway) as the featured panelists of Wiki Education’s Speaker Series webinar, “When Experts Edit: Improving Wikipedia’s coverage of U.S. history,” moderated by Wiki Education’s Kelly Doyle Kim.

The panelists reflected on their personal experiences, noted systemic challenges in the work to improve open access knowledge through Wikipedia, and underscored both the local and global impact of the initiative. 

“We have to talk about accessibility,” said García, a scholar and educator who has worked to expand Wikipedia’s coverage of Latinx communities and individuals. “A lot of information is not available at our fingertips if you don’t have a connection to a historical archive or an institution. [Wikipedia] is still accessible when you leave campus, it’s still accessible when you can’t get accepted to be part of an institution that has archives and paywalls.”

For museum professionals, improving Wikipedia often also enhances the way visitors engage with and understand their collections.

“We can’t put signs everywhere, so people go to their phones and pull things up right away,” explained Trumbull, archivist at the Nevada Northern Railway Museum. “Having a resource that’s very comprehensive like Wikipedia has changed the game immensely for all of us.” (Read more about Trumbull’s experience.)

Panelist Raines also contrasted the physical constraints of museum exhibits, where space is limited and content must be accessible to a wide range of visitors, with the more expansive possibilities of adding information and sources to Wikipedia.

The Oregon-based museum professional enrolled in the Wiki Education editing course expecting to struggle to find something to work on, but quickly realized she shouldn’t have worried — there were plenty of gaps to fill using her knowledge of Indigenous populations of the Pacific Northwest.

“I’m finding that a shocking number of contemporary Indigenous people are not represented at all on Wikipedia,” explained Raines. “Once those articles are written, people are jumping in, people are adding to them, fleshing them out. But the initial step of [creating] those articles has been lacking.”

Thanks to Raines, Wikipedia now includes articles about notable but lesser-known Pacific Northwest figures like artist and writer Carla Rossi and multimedia artist Steph Littlebird.

Across the country at the Paul Revere House, Kehoe reflected on how Wikipedia aligns naturally with the goals of public history, not only reaching broader audiences, but helping the public better understand how sources are evaluated and knowledge is created. 

“Those of us who work in public history [are] already trying to connect with the public,” explained Kehoe. “Wikipedia is a really great tool for broadening our reach. And teaching people how to edit Wikipedia is a really amazing way to teach people about the process of history and the process of scholarship overall.”

And that sense of possibility certainly resonated beyond the panelists themselves, with one audience member summing up the spirit of the conversation in the webinar chat box:

“Your enthusiasm and creativity gives me hope.”

Join our next Speaker Series webinar tomorrow, January 14!

Wikipedia at 25: Authority, Legitimacy, and the Future of Knowledge
Wednesday, January 14, 2026
9 am Pacific / 12 pm Eastern
Registration

Interested in learning how to add your expertise to Wikipedia? Explore Wiki Education’s upcoming courses for subject-area experts.

• From the team: Global GLAM Calls Continue in 2026
• Albania report: Wikimedian in Residence, 2025, in Elbasan Albania
• Argentina report: Resume of the year
• Australia report: AMaGA partnership, signing the Open Heritage Statement and South Australian Museum Partner Project
• Belgium report: Public Domain Day 2026, Circus Heritage and Fosdem
• Colombia report: Preparándonos para celebrar el día del dominio público – Getting ready for the Public Domain Day celebration
• Italy report: Exploring Italy and Unlocking Its Heritage: Touring Club Italiano and GLAM Call 2026–2028
• New Zealand report: ASBS 2025 Conference follow-up Wiki webinar & Auckland Museum student update
• Poland report: Public Domain, Conferences, and Conversations on Open Culture
• Switzerland report: GLAM on Tour Bellinzona, Xmas Event, GLAM Wiki Group
• UK report: 2025 in review
• USA report: December meetings
• Public Domain Day report: Public Domain Day 2026
• Biodiversity Heritage Library report: Updates on work by BHLWiki Working Group members
• Memory of the World report: 2025 in review
• Calendar: January’s GLAM events

Since 2020, The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) has been sharing information on Wikidata (an open source database) about its research. Wikimedia UK has been providing support and advice, and over the years this collaboration has grown, reaching an important landmark in 2025: the appointment of a Wikimedian in Residence and Research Visibility Champion at LSE.

Adam Harangozó stepped into the role in December 2025, combining sharing openly licensed content, training and preparing learning resources, with bibliometrics tools to help researchers make their work more visible. The project will last for two years and aims to support LSE and the wider international social science community in developing open knowledge and sharing insights and expertise through the Wikimedia projects. Adam has previously worked as a Wikimedian in Residence for the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and the Blinken Open Society Archives (based in Budapest).

At Wikimedia UK, we are very excited to be working with both LSE and Adam. This is the fourth residency active at a UK university – joining Edinburgh, Exeter, and Leeds – and the first to focus specifically on social science.

As well as joining LSE’s community, Adam joins Wikimedia UK’s community of Wikimedians in Residence who learn from and support each other. LSE’s ‘Research for the World’ strategy aligns closely with WMUK’s aims, setting out how LSE seeks to “generate the knowledge and insight the world needs to build a more sustainable, prosperous and equitable future.”

The post Introducing the new Wikimedian In Residence at LSE appeared first on Wikimedia UK.

01/01/2026-07/01/2026

Community

• ^[1] The OpenStreetMap community of northern Portugal met in Braga on Saturday 3 January at the Municipal Market of Braga. In an informal and open atmosphere, participants from Braga and the surrounding area came together to map, learn, and share knowledge about the territory. Between collaborative edits, conversations and exchanges of experiences, there was time to work on topics such as pedestrian and cycle mobility, accessibility and collaborative cartography. Newbies, curious onlookers and experienced editors worked side by side, reinforcing the spirit of mutual help that characterises OSM. The event was reported on social media Facebook and Mastodon and in a blog post.
• Arjunaraoc explained how to make an OpenStreetMap edit timelapse video using QGIS.
• Mateusz Konieczny is proposing a bot edit to remove amenity=office where it duplicates the existing office=* tagging.
• Dr Raquel Dezidério Souto reported, in her OSM user diary, about four tagging schemes for thematic mapping with OpenStreetMap (rural villages, beach access, toponymy, and mining), published in 2025. The documents were prepared by IVIDES DATA, a company associated with the Virtual Institute for Sustainable Development, and are the result of new joint research and training sessions conducted with three Brazilian higher education institutions: University of the São Francisco Valley – Univasf, Federal University of Minas Gerais – UFMG, and Federal University of Rio de Janeiro – UFRJ.
• Metapod was doing ► some OpenStreetMap wiki maintenance and discovered a list of Portugal-related geospatial datasets that could be added to OpenStreetMap.
• Rphyrin has developed Altilunium Locationpad to help plan someone’s trip to the Ragunan Zoo.
• Penegal has drafted a tagging scheme proposal for mapping restriction ideograms, as displayed on highway destination signs. As traffic signs are currently mapped following two differing principles (with human-readable keys and values, or with national traffic sign IDs), he has asked for the community’s opinion about which principle would be better suited for his proposal. You are invited to cast a vote and to discuss which principle is better suited.
• Sunni24 explained ► how to set up a 360° camera mount on a bicycle using the Samsung Gear 360 (2017).

OpenStreetMap Foundation

• The OSMF invites the OpenStreetMap community to provide input for the EU Commission’s consultation on the Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy – seeking feedback on the strengths, challenges, and support needs of the open-source sector, as well as its role in EU digital sovereignty, cybersecurity, and competitiveness.

Events

• The FOSSGIS Conference 2026 will take place from 25 to 28 March 2026 in Göttingen, Germany, where you can also take part in the OSM Saturday and Community Sprint on 28 March. Registration is now open .

OSM in action

• Scott Reinhard, graphics editor of The New York Times, published on LinkedIn about an open source interactive mapping solution, developed with Ben Walsh. The solution adopts OpenStreetMap, MPTiles, and Maputnik, focusing on automated data analysis and map generation. A short guide is offered.

Software

• MapYourGrid has released the ‘GridInspector’ to analyse quality of power grid data in OpenStreetMap.
• Over the past six months, OpenHistoricalMap’s developers have been busy keeping services running reliably and improving existing features. You can now log in with a Wikimedia account, explore the map in ancient languages, and inspect larger changesets in OSMCha.

Programming

• fghj753 started the new year with a weekend mapping project to locate and map public traffic camera feeds in Tallinn, Estonia.
• By combining OpenStreetMap railway network data with population figures from INSEE, Michaël has estimated that 40.8 percent of France’s metropolitan population lives within 50 kilometres of the London–Marseille railway line.
• Bastian Greshake Tzovaras wrote about how to locally serve map files for CoMaps, using a small command-line tool, CoMaps Map Distributor, which he has built.

Releases

• CycleStreets has released a new ‘white label sites system’ feature that allows organisations and companies to easily embed an active travel route planner into their websites.

Did you know that …

• … you can ask mappers to add your business to OSM using the website On OpenStreetMap, which has support in various languages?
• … there is a development server to help contributors try things out with OSM, which is provided by the OSMF?

OSM in the media

• El País has published an article on the US attack on Venezuela, including some maps based on OpenStreetMap.
• You can read some reviews of OpenStreetMap, and a lot of software, on the G2 portal.

Upcoming Events

Country	Where	Venue	What	When
			MapYourGrid webinar: Data quality in OpenStreetMap for energy system planning	2026-01-08
	Berlin	Restaurant Neumanns	211. OSM-Stammtisch Berlin-Brandenburg	2026-01-08
	Dresden	Bottoms Up, Dresden	OSM-Stammisch Dresden	2026-01-08
		Online	OpenStreetMap Midwest Meetup	2026-01-08
	Bochum	Das Labor, Alleestraße 50, Bochum	OSM-Treffen in Bochum	2026-01-08
			OSMF Engineering Working Group meeting	2026-01-09
		Jitsi-Meet	Erstes Online-Treffen der OSM-Mapper:innen im Sauerland	2026-01-09
	Zürich	Bitwäscherei Zürich	183. OSM-Stammtisch Zürich	2026-01-09
			OSM World Mappy Hour	2026-01-09
		Chiasso	Mapping party @ New Year’s brunch by Wikimedia CH	2026-01-10
	New Delhi	Indian Coffee House, Connaught Place	OSM Delhi Mapping Party No.25 (Central Zone)	2026-01-11
	København	Cafe Bevar’s	OSMmapperCPH	2026-01-11
			Missing Maps : Mapathon en ligne – CartONG [fr]	2026-01-12
	Grenoble	La Turbine Coop	Atelier de janvier du groupe local OpenStreetMap de Grenoble	2026-01-12
	臺北市	MozSpace Taipei	OpenStreetMap x Wikidata Taipei #84	2026-01-12
	Madrid	Online	Mappy Hour OSM España	2026-01-13
	Hamburg	Voraussichtlich: “Variable”, Karolinenstraße 23	Hamburger Mappertreffen	2026-01-13
	München	Echardinger Einkehr	Münchner OSM-Treffen	2026-01-13
	Mangaluru		Mapping Party @ Surathkal	2026-01-18
	Tacoma	[Virtual]	TCAT’s Mappy New Year 2026	2026-01-19
	Derby	The Brunswick, Railway Terrace, Derby	East Midlands pub meet-up	2026-01-20
			Missing Maps London: (Online) Mid-Month Mapathon [eng]	2026-01-20
		La Trattoria, Rue du Village 88, Aubange	OpenStreetMap Belgium — Arlon / Ardenne belge / Gaume — Social	2026-01-20
	Lyon	Tubà	Réunion du groupe local de Lyon	2026-01-20
	Bonn	Dotty’s	196. OSM-Stammtisch Bonn	2026-01-20
	Derby	The Brunswick, Railway Terrace, Derby	East Midlands pub meet-up	2026-01-20
		Ferme du Clémarais, Aubange	OpenStreetMap Belgium — Arlon / Ardenne belge / Gaume — Meeting	2026-01-20
		Online	Lüneburger Mappertreffen (online)	2026-01-20
		Ninkasi Saint-Romain-en-Gal	Réunion du groupe local de Vienne	2026-01-21
	Nashik	Nashik Engineering Cluster, MIDC Ambad	State of the Map India 2026	2026-01-24
			Missing Maps : Mapathon en ligne – CartONG [fr]	2026-01-26

Note:
If you like to see your event here, please put it into the OSM calendar. Only data which is there, will appear in weeklyOSM.

This weeklyOSM was produced by Raquel Dezidério Souto, Andrew Davidson, barefootstache, derFred.
We welcome link suggestions for the next issue via this form and look forward to your contributions.

Well, I’m still not back on a boat as I was in 2023… Where to start…

Lightbug

I havn’t written a whole lot about Lightbug yet on this blog, but its still been a fun year of new developments at, and I think it’s time to share some of them with pictures ;)

We released small handheld RTK device, with programmable ESP32 onboard, giving high precision accuracy, in a nice small package.

I’v enjoyed seeing how folks have been using these devices, from tracking lane changes in cars, to finding accuract path positions, or traking things around race courses.

You can find the documentaiton to read through on the docs site, a fancy looking marketing booklet on the website or look at some of the code examples for the programmable ESP32 also on the docs site.

Hopfully this year I’ll get to the point of writing my GPS, RTK, phone etc comparison blog post, comparing the tracks recorded from a bunch of different devices to compare accuracy etc.

Given my open source / open data interests, I do wonder if this will end up being useful for the OpenStreetMap community.

Now we also developed and worked on the ZCard device, though this has primarily remained inhouse, or for show and conferences and workshops. So much so, that there isn’t even a picture of one on the Lightbug website yet, but here is one sitting on one of our tshirts bak at MWC earlier this year, where we had a demo application running on it, allowing basic interactions from a web page.

Think of it kind of like a Flipper Zero in a way, but running the same hardware and firmware stack as the rest of the Lightbug devices, at a fraction of the price, focued on developers. Buttons, Lights, Eink screen, but more importantly, cellular connectivity (GSM LTE CAT 1), LORA, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and more.

The primary processor, and high levels SDKs take care of the complexities of connectivity, power management and eink screen renderings, and give you a high level API for interacting the the device in many ways, such as drawing on the screen, communicating over LORA, or connecting to a server to send and receive data.

Wikimedia

Meanwhile, in my non work Wikimedia volunteer time, I have the privilege of attending both Wikimania 2025 in Nairobi, as well as the Wikimedia Hackathon 2025 in Istanbul, Turkey.

I spent a fair while at the hackathon showing and working on one of my tools, wikicrowd. And after the event I managed to put in place some of the ideas that came up during all of the conversations.

A big part of that was allowing for custom grid generations, and to control the backend generations via a file on wiki.

And as a result, since May 2025 the tool has shot up from around 163k edits in the previous 3 years, to over 1 million edits in total, just from the second half of 2025.

I spent some portions of the year talking to various people at Mediawiki and Wikimedia focused CLI tooling, primarily focused around the tool that I still maintain, and finally started the move from mwcli to wmcli (very minor but it gets away from a naming conflict).

I also look forward to seeing where the development environmetn part of wmcli endd up as part of the Developer Satisfaction Survey 2026 which is not yet published, but is underway.

Even though the code repo is under the “releng” grouping on Gitlab it doesnt get too much work on by the releng team at all. Though there is now a task to draft a proposal for TP/DevEx incetment in this CLi tool! Which should be exciting if it all pans out.

Frankly, I spent a lot of time moaning (hopfully constructively) about many things Wikibase, though I believe I am primarirly repeating myself, I managed to come back around with some real data and things to point at…

That would be:

• Visualizing Wikibase connections, using wikibase.world queries
• Visualizing Wikibase ecosystem, using wikibase.world
• How much is “Wikibase Suite” (and deploy) used

I’ll be excited to get to the point where the Wikibase ecosystem has the ability to fully flourish, but it sure is nice to have visuals of it slowly developing and expanding.

Metrics

Every year I take a look at all of my blog posts, and try to gauge which areas I write in seem to be both the most interesting for me, as I write the posts, and which areas seem to be the most interesting for anyone reading this site.

2024 saw me write 18 posts, but 2025 brought this back up to 23 throughout the year. So its safe to say I end up in the region of one to two posts a month.

Top 10 for 2025 were:

1. WSL2 COM port pass-through with usbipd (firewall issues) (was #6 )
2. Installing Android Studio on WSL2 for Flutter (was #1 )
3. Add Exif data back to Facebook images – 0.10 (was #5 )
4. Altering a Gerrit change (git workflow) ( new in the top10, written 2022)
5. If you have a sandwich and cut it in half, do you have one or two sandwiches (was #3 )
6. Your own Wikidata Query Service, with no limits (was #10 )
7. Smart home: Starting with OPNSense Router, Eero Wi-Fi and a pile of cables (was #2 )
8. Reading from USB COM port in go ( new in the top10, written 2024)
9. Dependency injection in go using fx, and replacing services for test ( new in the top10, written 2023)
10. READ FIRST: Installing kubuntu-desktop on WSL2 ( new in the top10, written 2024)

My open source contributions have increased (according to Github) in 2025, up to 1618 from 1073 in 2024, likely down to the fact that Lightbug has some open source repos these days.

And it looks like this past year, https://github.com/WallOfGreen managed to make it to a complete wall of green once again! I wonder how long that repo will go on for…

Until next year! Let’s see what I have to say then…

When a student editor in our Wikipedia Student Program sets out to improve a biography on Wikipedia, the possibilities of choice might seem endless. With more than 2 million biographies on the English Wikipedia, how do they decide where to focus their efforts?

For many, the choice becomes simple when they discover a figure whose backgrounds, identities, or experiences resonate with their own, and the wide-reaching, public project takes on a personal meaning.

Bay Path University sophomore Zormar Betancourt Medina experienced this during her own Wikipedia assignment when she chose to improve the article about Puerto Rican scientist Nitza Margarita Cintrón.

“As someone who is also from Puerto Rico and passionate about science, I felt a strong personal connection and responsibility to highlight [Cintrón’s] work,” explained Betancourt Medina, a forensic science major. “Contributing to her article allowed me to support and uplift a fellow scientist whose achievements deserve wider recognition.”

Hundreds of miles away at the University of South Carolina, junior Tamaria Dawkins also cited a strong personal connection with the subject of her work. As part of her Wikipedia assignment, Dawkins improved the Wikipedia article about Lucille L. Adams-Campbell, the first African-American woman to receive a PhD in epidemiology in the United States.

“Lucille L. Adams-Campbell’s article should have more information because, for me, a young Black woman, seeing a highly accomplished Black woman in a male-dominated field is very interesting and inspiring,” said Dawkins. “I added information because I believe anyone who looks at her article should know as much as they can.” 

Cintrón’s and Adams-Campbell’s Wikipedia articles are just some of the many biographies enhanced by student editors throughout the year as part of a larger Wiki Education initiative sponsored by the Broadcom Foundation to improve coverage of diverse figures in STEM.

While some students created new Wikipedia articles from scratch or completely transformed existing text, others made smaller contributions that still had a significant impact on the accuracy and quality of existing biographies. 

And as Betancourt Medina explained, any advancement to Wikipedia’s coverage of diverse figures in STEM, and in the case of her edits, diverse women in STEM, is a step in the right direction.

“Improving Wikipedia’s coverage of diverse women in STEM is important because women are incredibly intelligent and innovative, yet their contributions have historically been overlooked due to long-standing oppression that still exists today,” said Betancourt Medina. “Increasing their visibility helps acknowledge their impact and inspires future generations of women in science.”

Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your course? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free resources, digital tools, and staff support that Wiki Education offers to postsecondary instructors in the United States and Canada. 

By Lucy Crompton-Reid |

With a decision on whether or not Wikipedia will be considered a category 1 service under the UK Online Safety Act 2023 expected in 2026, it seems like a timely moment to reflect on the journey to this point; including Wikimedia UK’s work to ensure that measures to improve online safety do not have detrimental consequences for public interest platforms like Wikipedia.

Overview of the Online Safety Act

The UK Online Safety Act 2023 (the Act) is a set of laws that aims to protect children and adults online by establishing a regulatory framework for certain online services, including user-to-user services (such as Facebook) and search services (such as Google). The Act gives providers new duties to create and implement systems to reduce the risk of their services being used for illegal activity, and to take down illegal content that does appear. There are specific duties related to child safety, with providers required to prevent children from accessing harmful or age-inappropriate content. The 2023 Act established Ofcom (the Office of Communications) as the regulator of online services, and gives it a broad range of powers to assess and enforce compliance with the framework. 

Background and history to the creation of the Act

The backdrop to the creation of the Online Safety Act was one of mounting concern about the risks children and young people face online, with calls for more regulation of online platforms becoming increasingly urgent following the tragic death of Molly Russell in 2017. The inquest concluded that Molly died from an act of self-harm whilst suffering from depression and the negative effects of online content, and a Prevention of Future Deaths report was sent by the Coroner to the government, Pinterest and Meta recommending the introduction of platform regulation. This led to an Internet Safety Strategy Green Paper, published by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport in Autumn 2017, followed by the Online Harms White Paper in April 2019. 

Wikimedia’s concerns in relation to online safety regulation

Wikimedia UK strongly supports efforts to keep people safe online. Our charity has a strong focus on information literacy, with projects and programmes designed to equip young people with the skills needed to successfully navigate the online environment. However, the Online Safety Act was simply not designed for public interest, non profit and educational projects like Wikipedia. The Act has provisions around content moderation, age-gating, and user verification that are incompatible with the way in which information on Wikipedia is created and curated, as well as the website’s commitment to user privacy and freedom of speech. 

Advocating for changes to the proposed legislation

Wikimedia UK provided detailed responses to successive government consultations relating to Online Safety, stressing the need to balance safety with access. In particular, we emphasised that online providers should not be forced to take down content that would be legally protected as free speech in other contexts (an aspect of the proposed legislation that didn’t make it into the final Act). We argued that Wikipedia and other projects within the open internet movement should be outside the scope of the legislation, sharing our concerns in meetings with Ofcom and DCMS, alongside colleagues from the Wikimedia Foundation. 

How we tried to influence the Bill in Parliament

The Online Safety Bill was introduced to the House of Lords in January 2023, at which point Wikimedia UK’s advocacy efforts moved up a gear as we started communicating directly with Parliamentarians in a bid to make changes to the draft legislation. Working in partnership with staff from the Global Advocacy, Legal and Communications teams at the Wikimedia Foundation (the legal host of Wikipedia), our actions included: 

• Scrutinising the draft text to identify key areas that risked our movement and model 
• Drafting a series of amendments to the Bill that addressed these problematic areas
• Briefing peers (members of the House of Lords) about the unintended consequences of the Bill and our suggested amendments 
• Meetings with Parliamentarians, Ministers and the regulator to explain our position
• Drafting speeches for the Peers who sponsored our amendments in the House
• Working with civil society partners, including supporting joint briefings and campaigns

The response from Peers

As a result of this work we were able to ensure that our proposed amendments were debated during both the Committee and Reports stages of the Bill’s passage through the House of Lords. Ultimately, we focused on just one amendment, which was to introduce an exemption for public interest projects. Many members of the House of Lords shared our concern that access to open knowledge could be threatened if the Bill became law without such an exemption. The following quotes are all taken from the formal Parliamentary record:

Baroness Harding (Conservative): “There is unanimity of desire here to make sure that organisations such as Wikipedia and Streetmap are not captured.”

Baroness Kidron (Crossbench, Chair of the 5Rights Foundation): “I too am concerned at the answer that has been given. I can see the headline now, “Online Safety Bill Age-Gates Wikipedia”…there are some services that are inherently in a child’s best interests”

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Labour, frontbench): “Why is it that we are still worried about Wikipedia, a service for public good, which clearly has risks in it…but is definitely a good thing that should not be threatened by having to conform with a structure and a system which we think is capable of dealing with some of the biggest and most egregious companies that are pushing stuff at us in the way that we have talked about?”

Lord Clement-Jones (Lib Dem, Spokesperson for Digital Economy): “All of us are Wikipedia users; we all value the service. I particularly appreciated what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron: Wikipedia does not push its content at us—it is not algorithmically based.”

Baroness Stowell (Conservative, frontbench): “I have been very much persuaded by the various correspondence that I have received, which often uses Wikipedia as the example to illustrate the problem…(we must make sure) that there is a way of appropriately excluding organisations that should not be subject to these various regulations because they are not designed for them.”

The Open Letter

In June 2023 we also launched an open letter inviting knowledge institutions, Wikimedians, civil society and concerned members of the public to join us in calling on the UK Government and Parliament to exempt public interest projects from the Bill. The initial coalition of signatories included the Arcadia Foundation (one of the largest funders of open access world-wide), Creative Commons, Liberty (the UK’s foremost charity for human rights and civil liberties), Open Rights Group and The Heritage Alliance (England’s national umbrella body for heritage), among many others, with additional signatures added by over 800 individuals and organisations. You can read the open letter and see the signatories here. 

The Act is passed, and the work on implementation begins

Unfortunately, despite cross party support for some sort of exemption from the Bill for public interest projects, there was no softening of position from the government and the Act became law in October 2023, without any consideration for charities, educational or public interest projects. After this, the regulator Ofcom started developing and introducing secondary legislation to enforce the Act and in December 2024 the categorisation thresholds were published. Sadly, despite the many verbal assurances to the contrary, once the proposed thresholds were published it became clear that Wikipedia could be treated as a Category 1 service, and subject to the most stringent requirements of the Act which are fundamentally incompatible with Wikipedia’s community-led model of content generation, curation and governance. 

The Motion to Regret the Regulations is won

Working quickly before the Regulations were debated in the House of Lords, it was agreed with our colleagues at the Wikimedia Foundation that Wikimedia UK should write to a number of peers to highlight Wikimedia’s concerns, with Lord Clement-Jones subsequently tabling a ‘motion to regret’ in which he called on the Government ‘to withdraw the Regulations and establish a revised definition of Category 1 services. Introducing the motion, Lord Clement-Jones highlighted the importance of protecting Wikipedia: “Many sites with over 7 million users a month – including Wikipedia, a vital source of open knowledge and information in the UK – might be treated as a category 1 service, regardless of actual safety considerations….This makes it doubly important for the Government and Ofcom to examine, and make use of, powers to more appropriately tailor the scope and reach of the Act and the categorisations, to ensure that the UK does not put low-risk, low-resource, socially beneficial platforms in untenable positions.” Conservative peer Lord Moylan added, “I come back to the same question that I have been asking to no real effect now for two years. Perhaps when she comes to reply, the Minister can give me a definitive answer. Is Wikipedia in scope of this regulation? Is it covered by Section 3 or not? We would like to know.”

Lord Clement-Jones won the motion against the government by 86 to 55 votes. However a “motion to regret” is not legally binding, and despite heavy criticism from within and outside of Parliament – including from child safety organisations – the Categorisation Regulations became law on 26th February 2025. 

The legal challenge

If enforced on Wikipedia, Category 1 demands would undermine the privacy and safety of Wikipedia’s volunteer contributors, expose the encyclopedia to manipulation and vandalism, and divert essential resources from protecting people and improving Wikipedia, one of the world’s most trusted and widely used digital public goods. Given the seriousness of the threat posed by Category 1 status, in May 2025 the Wikimedia Foundation announced that it was challenging the lawfulness of the OSA’s Categorisation Regulations, arguing that the regulations endanger Wikipedia and the global community of volunteer contributors who create the information on the site. The case was heard in the UK’s High Court in July, and was dismissed on 11th August.

While this decision did not provide the immediate legal protections for Wikipedia that were hoped for, the Court’s ruling emphasised the responsibility of Ofcom and the government to ensure Wikipedia is protected; acknowledging the “significant value” of Wikipedia, its safety for users, as well as the damages that wrongly-assigned OSA categorisations and duties could have on the human rights of volunteer contributors. The Court stressed that this ruling “does not give Ofcom and the Secretary of State a green light to implement a regime that would significantly impede Wikipedia’s operations”, and indicated they could face legal repercussions if they fail to protect Wikipedia and the rights of its users. 

The current situation and next steps

In November 2025, Ofcom published an update on the implementation of the Online Safety Act, noting the legal challenge to the Government’s secondary legislation setting the categorisation thresholds. Having considered the implications of the judgment, Ofcom has adjusted their plans for the categorisation register and the consultation on the additional duties that will apply to categorised services. There is a “representations process” planned for early 2026, giving services that Ofcom believe meet the threshold conditions an opportunity to comment on provisional decisions before the register is finalised. It’s worth noting that regardless of the secondary legislation passed, it is in the gift of both Ofcom and the Secretary of State to exercise their burden reduction powers under the Act, allowing low risk platforms such as Wikipedia to focus on ensuring every single person on the planet – including those living in the UK – has free access to the sum of all human knowledge. 

Personal reflections

Having worked on this issue since 2019, I believe that the value of Wikipedia and other public interest projects to UK society must be recognised and protected in law, not subject to shifts in the political agendas of future governments and regulators. The central paradigm of the UK Online Safety Act is that people are kept safe by denial of access to harmful content. But the notion of what is harmful is neither globally homogenous, nor apolitical. The current UK government may be most concerned about limiting access to pornography, and protecting children from sites that promote self-harm. But it’s not a huge stretch of the imagination to see future governments shifting the focus to “public order offences” or using the law to impose similarly repressive tactics which would be detrimental to free expression and civic life. We need to take a more holistic approach to user and societal wellbeing, with adequate safeguards for human rights and an emphasis on empowering people with the media and information literacy skills to become active curators of the knowledge they seek out, not passive consumers of information with no regard to the agenda or ideology of their sources.

The post Wikimedia UK and the Online Safety Act: A deep dive into the story so far appeared first on Wikimedia UK.