Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)/Archive 12

[1] They have issued a subpoena for Iksander on "foreign operations and individuals at academic institutions subsidized by U.S. taxpayer dollars to influence U.S. public opinion", and pointing to the ADL's complaints about Wikipedia as a basis. "The panel is seeking documents and communications about Wikipedia volunteer editors who violated the platform’s policies, as well as the Wikimedia Foundation’s efforts to “thwart intentional, organized efforts to inject bias into important and sensitive topics.”" Masem (t) 18:28, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

To the best of my understanding of how hose committees work, the Hill story, and looking at the letter itself ([2] also linked from the story), it is not a subpoena that has been issued to the WMF at this time. Just a letter asking for information but not requiring it. But IANAL and hopefully WMF will soon provide information about what they intend to do. Skynxnex (talk) 19:10, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

Here's the letter they sent [3]. Their #4 demand is especially concerning:

Records showing identifying and unique characteristics of accounts (such as names, IP addresses, registration dates, user activity logs) for editors subject to actions by ArbCom.

This would give them the power to potentially expose the identity of individual Wikipedia editors involved in ArbCom cases. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:11, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

Well, apart from IP-addresses, those are pretty much public already, right? If names is account-names. They may not be. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:43, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

It's not too hard to read that they want real names and other such details which can be gleaned off IP addresses that would be in server logs for registered users. Masem (t) 20:16, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

FWIW, I don't believe this is a formal subpoena, just a "request" that the WMF can (and should) ignore. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 19:22, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

It looks to me like they are asking the WMF to do their fishing for them. Donald Albury 19:43, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

Yep. Hard to believe that (BLP violation removed) cosigner of the document, Nancy Mace, is Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation. Carlstak (talk) 20:23, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

Maybe I agree with you about Nancy Mace, and maybe I don't (or maybe I've never heard of her), but we shouldn't be calling anyone a (BLP violation removed) per WP:BLP, which applies everywhere, especially if unsourced. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:57, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

Is calling her a (BLP violation removed) really a WP:BLP violation, thought? That's a pure insult. WP:BLP concerns itself with information about people, which this doesn't pretend to be. There can't be any source about whether she is in fact a (BLP violation removed). Tercer (talk) 10:41, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

lmao you guys are awesome!!! 199.66.14.55 (talk) 20:06, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

@GorillaWarfare I added something about it at Ideological_bias_on_Wikipedia#US_Congress, we'll see what happens. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:20, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

The Hill reports the WMF's response as follows: In a statement, a Wikimedia Foundation spokesperson said the organization had received the request and are reviewing it. “We welcome the opportunity to respond to the Committee’s questions and to discuss the importance of safeguarding the integrity of information on our platform,” the spokesperson said. It would be good to hear from a WMF representative here if they can share any other details about their planned response. —Ganesha811 (talk) 21:22, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

It would probably be best if WMF doesn't alert the committee on their strategy for a response before they are ready to respond. Donald Albury 23:20, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

Hence "if". —Ganesha811 (talk) 23:49, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

This sort of request letter is something WMF can handle, and I don't think we need details on their planned response. If their response is as boilerplate generic as much of the letter, which clearly doesn't evidence much research into how Wikipedia works, that would be fine. CMD (talk) 07:49, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

I'm guessing the WMF will take their time, possibly a few weeks, and then make a further reply. Depending on what happens after that, we can always start discussing a WP-blackout of the US or whatever as needed. And in the meantime, we can update related WP-articles in a WP:PROPORTIONate manner as and if more RS coverage becomes available. US Congress probe of Wikipedia or somesuch might pop into existence one day. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:06, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

To what extent is this a performance for their voters? Why would they assume the editors are either foreign operatives or working for a taxpayer-funded university? Tech for Palestine was funded by an American tech billionaire, wasn't it? Also, why would they need the WMF to explain how Arbcom sanctioned pro-Palestine editors earlier this year, when Arbcom cases are fairly public? Rjjiii (ii) (talk) 11:44, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

I'd guess more a performance for their Overlord, like Ed Martin (Missouri politician) did, but that's my speculation. AGF:ing, it's also possible they are concerned there is non-American stuff and people on WP. Think of the chatbots. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:50, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

Agree that this is performative. The letter uses "individuals at academic institutions subsidized by U.S. taxpayer dollars" editing Wikipedia as a rationale for Congress' access to sensitive user info, but if the issue were really Wikipedians in Residence at American universities as a matter of spending propriety, then the appropriate target would be requesting info from the institutions running such programs. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 12:04, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

Isn't all WIR-people publicly declared anyway? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:08, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

WMF should really consider moving operations to a country other than the United States. Simonm223 (talk) 12:19, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

Yes, all Wikipedias in Residence have publicly declared accounts. I understood the committee as accusing some of having secondary accounts to POV push on the university's dime, which they want the WMF to reveal. That holds zero weight without identification of a single case though. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 23:56, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

The surface level read of this is they want to find students here on visas that are critical of Israel (on the flawed thinking that being anti-Israel or pro-Palestine must mean they are pro-Hamas and thus support terrorism) so they can be revoked/deported, but we also know that the conservatives have long had a problem with the liberal lean of the truth and may be trying to find other bad actors that work to deny the conservative POV in articles. Masem (t) 12:31, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

May we not forget the story that The Forward broke back in January. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 17:57, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

Indeed. Common Dreams just published an article opining that "The [House Oversight] effort furthers the goals of the Heritage Foundation, which has launched a plan to "identify and target Wikipedia editors" using a number of underhanded tactics." GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 21:09, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

Yes, may be after anti-MAGA editors. Doug Weller talk 18:10, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

A permanent one-country blackout wouldn't work here, since the WMF is headquartered in the United States. Unless they decide to move, they would have to comply with any demand by Congress, blackout or no blackout. We could do a temporary blackout like with the SOPA/PIPA protests, but a permanent blackout would be giving them exactly what they want, and would not be able to protect the site. QuicoleJR (talk) 21:06, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

Having the Office action: Removals on the article Caesar DePaço thread, WMF loses legal challenge to UK Online Safety Act (OSA) at High Court thread, and this thread all appear on the same page is wild--what a month August has been for the WMF. As I said in the other thread, this feels like the beginning of the end for this project. Fwiw, a blackout seems like a fun idea. Some1 (talk) 01:34, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

I'm still holding out hope that we will survive this, although I'm beginning to wonder if the WMF should move its headquarters to a different country. It has definitely not been a good month for us, but this is why we have the WMF. I trust that they can take care of all legal issues, and America has some solid protections for freedom of speech. QuicoleJR (talk) 01:42, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

I like what Will Stancil said: "The other thing is that if you have the morally, logically correct position in a conflict – or are simply standing up for a popular institution or a stable status quo – you should WANT to fight, as long as possible, in as large a public forum as possible, because that's how you persuade people." Carlstak (talk) 02:47, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

To me, these 3 things happening in the same month paint a pattern of the internet getting more and more regulated by governments as time goes on. Many governments (especially conservative governments and authoritarian governments) are trying to make the internet less free and end the internet's wild west phase. The UK isn't the only country trying to crack down on children using the internet (example: Online Safety Amendment in Australia, various state bills in USA).

However, while that is probably bad overall, I do not think it spells the end of Wikipedia. I think this feels like the beginning of the end for this project is way too pessimistic. We should have some faith that this project that we've built that is the 10th most visited website in the world will be quite resilient to most attacks. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:58, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

+1. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:07, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

Amen. Carlstak (talk) 13:45, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

"The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." – Frederick Douglass. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:06, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

A temporary global blackout?  — 魔琴 (Zauber Violino) [ talk contribs ] 04:05, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

I am topic-banned in the area targeted so I know that I may not be allowed to discuss this situation, but revealing the IP addresses of editors, including me, should worry everyone who uses this site. I think that the WMF should be taking drastic action to protect its contributors, who probably began editing without suspecting that they would eventually be targeted in a federal investigation. Would migrating arbitration case logs to somewhere private be feasible for the time being? Salmoonlight (talk) 04:17, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

Okay, I take my back my "performance for their voters" comment above. If any people at all are feeling intimidated and chilled by these letters then they're already a problem. Let's hope that the WMF can help Comer and Mace understand free speech and the First Amendment, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 17:47, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

This isn't just me feeling intimidated. On my user page I identify myself as being LGBTQ+ and pro-Palestine in a so-called red state. In the event that my IP address gets leaked, through either the purposeful malice or incompetence of the committee, I could be physically harassed in real life. Salmoonlight (talk) 19:50, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

The committee can ask for whatever info it wants, but that doesn't mean that the WMF is going to supply that info to the committee. As noted above, this isn't a subpoena. FactOrOpinion (talk) 00:38, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

True, but the WMF's response sounds very cordial with the committee. Salmoonlight (talk) 00:57, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

I think they're only being polite, and recognizing that there may be areas where the WMF's goals align with the committee's goals (e.g., "safeguarding the integrity of information on our platform"). But providing editors' IP addresses isn't going to be one of them. FactOrOpinion (talk) 01:16, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

"Comer and Mace Investigate Efforts to Manipulate Information on Wikipedia" -- Cdjp1 (talk) 17:53, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

MAGA Puts Wikipedia in Its Crosshairs Prominent Republicans are trying to fight "bias" online. Polygnotus (talk) 18:17, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

• How has WMF responded to the letter / how do they plan on responding? If WMF decides to reveal users' IP addresses, will this be announced, so users' may make their own arrangements to protect their safety? VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 05:01, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

  See [4] and several other media reports on how they have responded so far. My guess is that they're probably planning for the time being, so how might not really exist yet in all details. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 05:11, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

  I really hope that the questions they wish to answer aren't related to our personal information. Salmoonlight (talk) 05:17, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

  They might go after our status as a charity. Doug Weller talk 06:23, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

  That's been well known; there's been rumblings of either an EO or a bill that would strip non-profits of that status if they support "terrorism", and under this admin, they're already using language that simply opposing the ruling party is akin to that. Such a law/EO shouldn't survive a court review, but that's not a sure thing. Masem (t) 13:49, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

  It may not survive but it may still introduce chaos temporarily as the court sorts out the issue, unless the a temporary injunction on the EO or law if a bill is passed can be obtained almost immediately. For example, the original organisation in India which was the fiscal sponsor for a majority of Wikimedia related outreach activities was denied a renewal of a license to receive foreign funds. It caused local volunteers to either cancel or postpone activities for months before an alternative organisation was found. – robertsky (talk) 01:33, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

Here's a good Techdirt article about this: House Republicans Want To Doxx Wikipedia Editors Over Bogus ‘Bias’ Complaints. Carlstak (talk) 00:46, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

Seems that right-wing outlets are celebrating this investigation while defeating their own argument by bringing up disparate cases of genuine manipulation on Wikipedia that have long been resolved. It'd be nice if mainstream journalists who feign concern about the death of democracy would clear the fog of war already considering the rate at which they pump out articles. Salmoonlight (talk) 02:29, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

• One of my main concerns here is that we have rather recent precedence with Asian News International vs. Wikimedia Foundation of the WMF giving up the identities of the editors in question (the ones in India at least). Yes, the WMF then offered them legal counsel and support, but that's still not very comforting. Silverseren^C 19:52, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

  Maybe it will help focus some minds a bit if there are potentally Americans involved, rather than just those pesky expendable Indians, who all look the same anyway. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:10, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

  I don't see how this is comparable to that lawsuit. This isn't even a congressional subpoena, much less a court ruling, and it's not clear to me how it could become a lawsuit. Nor do I see a reason to think that the relevant laws and jurisprudence are the same in the US and India. FactOrOpinion (talk) 22:21, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

  I think the best way to understand what's happening is that they are using the threat of revoking Wikipedia's tax-exempt status as a cudgel to get WMF to give them personal information about editors that Republicans think they can portray as bad actors. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:25, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

  If by "they," you mean Republicans in Congress, they have no power over WMF's tax status; they could attempt to change tax law, but clearly couldn't single out WMF, and would likely face resistance by diverse non-profits in their districts/states if they tried to make a broad change. If by "they," you mean the IRS under the Trump administration, I assume that WMF would sue in response. The Trump admin. wants the IRS to revoke Harvard's tax exempt status, and so far, the IRS has resisted, though of course that could change. There are some bad actors among editors, which is why we have ANI, AE, recent changes patrol, ... FactOrOpinion (talk) 23:14, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

  Interesting response to Mike Masnick's column about this:

  Adam Pavlacka (on BlueSky):

  ‪

  "I've edited Wikipedia pages before. And I'm in California (so 9th Circuit). If any 1A lawyers want to file a claim against Comer and Mace for 1A violations/attempting to chill speech and need a named plaintiff, sign me up." FactOrOpinion (talk) 01:18, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation since our last issue on August 16. Please help translate.

---

Upcoming and current events and conversations
Let's Talk continues

• Wikimedia Futures Lab: Apply before Sep 4 to join The Wikimedia Futures Lab, the in-person convening hosted on January 30 – February 1, 2026 in Frankfurt, Germany with participants from affiliates, contributors and external experts, to learn more about global trends and discuss potential movement-wide responses.
• Wikimania 2026: The theme and date for Wikimania 2026 have been decided: Liberté, Équité, Fiabilité (Freedom, Equity, Reliability). This edition will take place in Paris, from July 21 to July 25, 2026.

Annual Goals Progress on Infrastructure
See also newsletters: Wikimedia Apps · Growth · Research · Web · Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia · Tech News · Language and Internationalization · other newsletters on MediaWiki.org

• Tech News: Some of the latest updates from Tech News week 34 and 35: An A/B test comparing two versions of the desktop donate link launched on testwiki and English Wikipedia for 0.1% of logged out users on the desktop site. The experiment will run for three weeks, ending on 12 September; Administrators can now access the Special:BlockedExternalDomains page from the Special:CommunityConfiguration list page. This makes it easier to find.
• Spread Wikilove, thank comments: A new improvement was added to the "Discussion tools" Beta feature; it is now possible to thank a user for their comment. This new feature is released for a 3-months long test.
• Community Wishlist: Template authors can now use additional CSS properties, since the CSS sanitizer used by TemplateStyles was updated. These improvements are a Community Wishlist wish.
• Wikipedia Mobile Apps: The Android app team has launched a new experiment in Italy that lets logged-out readers of Italian and English Wikipedia set their own donation reminders based on how often they read. This new approach responds to feedback from donors who say their motivation to give is tied to their reading habits. Instead of one-size-fits-all banners, readers can now choose reminders that fit their own usage, all while keeping their privacy intact.

Annual Goals Progress on Volunteer Support
See also blogs: Global Advocacy blog · Global Advocacy Newsletter · Policy blog · WikiLearn News · list of movement events

• Wikipedia 25: To celebrate Wikipedia’s 25th birthday, the Wikimedia Foundation is adding several resources to the Wikipedia 25 Meta-Wiki hub.
• The Wikipedia Library: Collections from Dow Jones & Company, including the The Wall Street Journal, are now available to editors who are eligible for The Wikipedia Library.
• Don't Blink: The latest developments from around the world about protecting the Wikimedia model, its people and its values.

Board and Board committee updates
See Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard · Affiliations Committee Newsletter

• Affiliate recognition: The recognition of new User Groups, Chapters, and Thematic Organizations is paused until March 31, 2026.
• Board of Trustees selection: The voting period for the upcoming Board selection process will now open on October 8 and close October 23.
• New Board member: Wikimedia Foundation welcomes incoming Board Trustee Mayree Clark.

Other Movement curated newsletters & news
See also: Diff blog · Goings-on · Planet Wikimedia · Signpost (en) · Kurier (de) · Actualités du Wiktionnaire (fr) · Regards sur l’actualité de la Wikimedia (fr) · Wikimag (fr) · Education · GLAM · The Wikipedia Library · Milestones · Wikidata · Central and Eastern Europe · other newsletters

Subscribe or unsubscribe · Help translate

For information about the Bulletin and to read previous editions, see the project page on Meta-Wiki. Let askcacwikimedia.org know if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement!

MediaWiki message delivery 18:14, 2 September 2025 (UTC)

The Community Tech will start working on their next feature: Multiple watchlists under the Task Prioritization focus area. They are looking for feedback regarding how watchlists and recent changes pages are used across projects. In particular, they are interested in knowing which filters you use to select relevant edits, when doing your activities. (for example, What is considered best for patrolling?) Feel free to create new wishes on the topic or provide long-form feedback at on the topic about Watchlist filtering on their talk page! Sohom (talk) 19:39, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

This looks interesting, thank you! Do you know where I can find more about other Community Tech feedback requests to participate? Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 21:48, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

I think the way to keep updated would be to watchlist to the Community Tech Wishlist updates page. @JWheeler-WMF should be able to give more specific advice on that (I actually wonder if it would be too much work to convert the page to use the Newsletter extension?) Sohom (talk) 00:26, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 00:55, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

I understand that I'm not the first user to make this complaint, but I'm astonished that the Foundation still feels the need to run extreme, screen-filling pleas for donations. I'm not sure how worldwide or coordinated these campaigns are across different WMF chapters, but (at least in Australia) Wikimedia places giant banners begging for donations on the Wikipedia homepage when logged in, and fills the entire screen with a similar plea for money when one even clicks on an article if they aren't logged in! Is this not just a bit excessive? The Foundation's article on this wiki has a whole section titled Excessive spending and fundraising and asserts that its budget has a "significant surplus" and that it's in ownership of "vast money reserves". Why on Earth does the WFM feel the need to use this Wiki to grab at users' wallets at every opportunity? Loytra (talk) 08:08, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

The short answer is that anything "obnoxious" the WMF does in donation banners has been A/B tested to work better than not doing it, getting more donations. Overall year over year, I think traffic to Wikipedia is declining because search engines and AI are using our content, so the overall strategic situation isn't great. The "significant surplus" and that it's in ownership of "vast money reserves" part is probably talking about the Wikimedia Endowment, which works like a retirement account but for organizations. The idea behind retirement accounts is to build up a huge reserve of money, invest it, then live off the interest, making it self-sustaining. So just because the WMF has a ton of money doesn't mean they should cancel all fundraising and spend the endowment down to $0. They are in my opinion prudently trying to build up the endownment so that it can generate enough interest to fund things in perpetuity. Hope that explanation makes sense. –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:56, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

Fwiw, "While overall Wikipedia traffic remains steady, the researchers find that specific types of articles—those whose content closely resembles what ChatGPT would generate—have seen a noticeable drop in readership since ChatGPT’s launch. Editing activity on these articles may also be declining, though the evidence there is less conclusive. " From last month. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:34, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

Also this from the August 2025 Readers Newsletter: Wikipedia's pageviews have either stayed flat or declined in the past few years, while global internet usage has increased. This means that the percentage of internet users that find, use, and appreciate Wikipedia is decreasing significantly. Some1 (talk) 17:41, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

What on earth is that page, key takeaways, the tiny actual article, and then an FAQ section all identical. Columbia business school? Anyway, if anyone actually knows what is meant by articles whose content resembles what ChatGPT would generate (generalist articles?), it would be interesting to know. CMD (talk) 02:31, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis, Sections 2.1 and 2.2 in the paper explain this. They looked at articles created from 2021-12 to 2023-11 (to straddle the launch of ChatGPT). They cross reference that against the top 1000 most viewed articles per month to get 2206 articles created recently with high pageviews. Then they prompt Chat GPT 3.5 turbo with each of those articles:

"You are an assistant whose task is to write an encyclopedic article for a given topic chosen by the user, similar to those found on Wikipedia. Generate an encyclopedic article in English with title "[title of actual Wikipedia page]"

They compute a similarity score between the actual text of the Wikipedia article and the text Chat GPT generates. And their analysis goes on from there to say that articles that had high similarity experienced a drop in pageviews. But from figure 2(a) there on page 3 of the paper, the drop looks kind of tiny. And there's a bigger increase in pageviews to dissimilar articles.

As someone who works on this data, I'd have to do a lot of work to validate that what they found actually suggests what they say. Because there are just too many moving parts to make this clean of a conclusion. But it's certainly thought provoking. Milimetric (WMF) (talk) 13:47, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. Agree with the concerns, and I'm not sure bucketing all articles as a binary similar/dissimilar is sensible at any rate. The data also suggests overall page views went up after ChatGPT's launch, which is not in my priors. I wonder which articles are more similar, my instinct is that it is the niche ones where Wikipedia is the primary accessible source. CMD (talk) 15:07, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

Yeah that's slop. This is the actual study. Gnomingstuff (talk) 19:40, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

I'm surprised to see that section title; "Excessive spending and fundraising" doesn't seem NPOV. Sdkb ^talk 15:29, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

In context (subsection to "Disputes") I'd be fine with dropping "Excessive". Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:38, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

Tbf, those excessive donations should have been paid to those who worked hard for the WMF. Ahri Boy (talk) 00:14, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

You can hide them while logged in. In your preferences. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:58, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity and planning(cause I kinda want to do something regarding it) where can I see a full list of newly "born", incubated and shut down(both ones that didn't get out of Incubator and ones that did) Wikimedia projects? Brickguy276 (talk) 20:05, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

For the first part of the question, see incubator:I:SCL. Projects aren't generally "shut down"; they usually just languish in Incubator forever - in the rare cases they are after graduating, see m:PCP, and for deletions of projects in Incubator see incubator:I:RFD. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:31, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations – Wikimedia Foundation

UPDATE: On Monday, 11 August, the High Court of Justice dismissed the Wikimedia Foundation’s challenge to the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) Categorisation Regulations. While the decision does not provide the immediate legal protections for Wikipedia that we hoped for, the Court’s ruling emphasized the responsibility of Ofcom and the UK government to ensure Wikipedia is protected as the OSA is implemented.

The judge recognized 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 Wikipedia’s 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. In order to achieve that outcome, he suggested that Ofcom may need to find a particularly flexible interpretation of the rules in question, or that the rules themselves may need amendment in Parliament.

If the ruling stands, the first categorization decisions from Ofcom are expected this summer. The Foundation will continue to seek solutions to protect Wikipedia and the rights of its users as the OSA continues to be implemented.

qcne (talk) 11:40, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

Another excerpt from the post:

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.

For example, the Foundation would be required to verify the identity of many Wikipedia contributors, undermining the privacy that is central to keeping Wikipedia volunteers safe. In addition to being exceptionally burdensome, this requirement—which is just one of several Category 1 demands—could expose contributors to data breaches, stalking, lawsuits, or even imprisonment by authoritarian regimes.

Some1 (talk) 11:59, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

It seems withdrawing Wikipedia from the UK might, sadly, be the best outcome for the project if that happened. Simonm223 (talk) 12:17, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

Aww, bye-bye then me lovlies. I have really enjoyed editing Wikipedia. Thank you to every editor who has helped me along the way. I've met some great people here. Thank you for the opportunity to help the worlds best encyclopaedia. Knitsey (talk) 12:32, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

+1, if this is it for Wikipedia in the UK then I would like to say it’s been an absolute pleasure being a part of this community for over a decade, and I will really miss it, as well as all the people here I’ve connected with as a result. Patient Zero^talk 13:03, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

If this really does become it for Wikipedia in the UK which it might, then it has been a pleasure editing Wikipedia.
I would like to give my thanks to everyone who has helped up to this point.
I can't believe my time here could be up soon after 5 years and nearly 24,000 edits later. Maurice Oly (talk) 14:01, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

Is it possible you all are writing your resignation speeches a little quickly? Wouldn't it be better to try to circumvent whatever they're doing with a VPN or something? Is it even confirmed that they're doing anything to Wikipedia yet? –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:55, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

Since VPNs are routinely blocked by Wikipedia, and the edit restrictions would be imposed by Wikipedia to prevent it breaching the Category 1 threshold, I don't think that users of Wikipedia in the UK can rely on VPNs to be able to edit Wikimedia sites.Nigel Ish (talk) 22:12, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

In a situation where a VPN is needed, UK editors would probably want to apply for WP:IPBE. This is how Mainland China editors circumvent their country's restrictions, I think. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:07, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

As a UK editor, if this were to happen, and I had assurance that Wikipedia administrators wouldn't block me for circumventing the OSA law, I would probably consider doing that. VPNs and browser proxies I have used previously however, have been slow and have issues with maintaining connection across tabs (which for Wikipedia is a must - partaking in multiple discussions on different pages for example). 11WB (talk) 23:18, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

This is good to know. I have IPBE already and would certainly want to use it to contribute using a VPN if anything does happen. I hope I would be allowed to do so. I believe that the OSA does plan on addressing VPN usage at some point, though, so if that were to happen it would only be a temporary fix. Patient Zero^talk 00:51, 12 August 2025 (UTC)

The full judgement is at Wikimedia Foundation -v- Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology - Courts and Tribunals Judiciary.

It's not actually that bad of a loss for Wikipedia. The relevant extracts from the judgement (emphasis mine):

I stress that this does not give Ofcom and the Secretary of State a green light to implement a regime that would significantly impede Wikipedia’s operations. If they were to do so, that would have to be justified as proportionate if it were not to amount to a breach of the right to freedom of expression under article 10 of the Convention (and, potentially, a breach also of articles 8 and 11). It is, however, premature to rule on that now. Neither party has sought a ruling as to whether Wikipedia is a Category 1 service. Both parties say that decision must, for the moment, be left to Ofcom. If Ofcom decides that Wikipedia is not a Category 1 service, then no further issue will arise.

If Ofcom permissibly determines that Wikipedia is a Category 1 service, and if the practical effect of that is that Wikipedia cannot continue to operate, the Secretary of State may be obliged to consider whether to amend the regulations or to exempt categories of service from the Act. In doing so, he would have to act compatibly with the Convention. Any failure to do so could also be subject to further challenge. Such a challenge would not be prevented by the outcome of this claim

qcne (talk) 13:08, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

Note the use of the words "May be" my guess is that the government will do everything in its power to change may be to not have to.
We will just have to wait and see what happens. Maurice Oly (talk) 14:03, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

I still can't see how we can fall under the Category 1 regulations? They keep talking about the number of users but the key part for us is surely "uses a content recommender system". I saw some saying things like Special:NewPagesFeed would count but it's not algorithmic as defined in the legislation. Even if it was classified as such instead of reducing access, as some have said, just put such feeds behind permissions and remove any perceived "content recommender system"s from the general readership. Worst case is IP editors get a bit restricted. KylieTastic (talk) 14:32, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

@KylieTastic the NPP was actually specifically addressed in the judgement. qcne (talk) 14:37, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

I mistakenly put this on Knitsey's talk page discussion instead of here. I'll repost here. This is my takeaway from this as a UK contributor:

The OSA and how Wikipedia will be categorised by Ofcom is concerning. However, looking at this which lays out how the categorisation works based on the 2 conditions - personally, I don't see how Wikipedia could meet condition 1, as for condition 2, 'allows users to forward or reshare user-generated content' I believe is true and 'has more than 7 million UK users on the user-to-user part of its service, representing c.10% of the UK population' is possible (I don't think the actual number of active registered UK Wikipedians is known publicly). Dependent on how Ofcom determines the second condition, Category 1 could be a possibility. It's clear though if that were to happen, the Wikimedia Foundation don't plan to leave it unchallenged. Hopefully that's some reassurance! 11WB (talk) 14:38, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

But option (b) needs to hit all three conditions as there is an and at the end of (ii) so if uses a content recommender system can be show to not be true or taken away from the main user base (the readers) then we can ignore the sharing part of the regulation (iii). KylieTastic (talk) 14:56, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

@KylieTastic: The app has some features that strike me as meeting this criteria more than NPP does. For example, "Places" (which shows articles about places near you if you enable location sharing), "Wikipedia games" (guess what event in history happened first), and actual recommendations for articles that might interest you based on your viewing history. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 03:05, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

I don't think this will happen. But if it does, I'll edit through a VPN. Doug Weller talk 15:00, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

A VPN did cross my mind, however Wikipedia itself has very tough policies on those. Editors who are known to be from the UK that begin using VPNs to circumvent any (potential) Category 1 block run the risk of their Wikipedia accounts getting blocked by a Wikipedia admin in return! I think if Wikipedia editing rights were stopped in the UK I would have to hang my coat up on the rack and call it a day (as unfortunate as that would be). 11WB (talk) 15:03, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

'User-to-user part' refers to editing and Special:EmailUser, right?

When counting users, do you only count registered users or also IPs and temporary accounts? What about very infrequent editors who might make one edit a year?

When counting users, do you count all WMF projects as one, or do you count, for example, English Wikipedia and Welsh Wikipedia as two separate projects? --Stefan2 (talk) 16:54, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

The medium article about the original legal challenge that's linked to from the blog post does include some discussion of why it's potentially classifiable under category 1. It looks pretty plausible that with how broadly "content recommender system" is defined, there's a bunch of stuff on wikipedia that could qualify:

a “content recommender system” means a system, used by the provider of a regulated user-to-user service in respect of the user-to-user part of that service, that uses algorithms which by means of machine learning or other techniques determines, or otherwise affects, the way in which regulated user-generated content of a user, whether alone or with other content, may be encountered by other users of the service.

"By means of machine learning or other techniques determines, or otherwise affects" is... broad. I bet that a bunch of moderation tools fall under that definition. A sufficiently hostile reading could get "Special:Random" under it. DLynch (talk) 15:03, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

Wouldn't Special:Random count as a "content recommender system"? ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 17:21, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

It certainly uses an algorithm to pick content to show to a user! It's not a very complicated algorithm, but the law doesn't seem to define "algorithm" in any way, so I think we have to read it as its plain-language meaning. DLynch (talk) 21:46, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

What about the search bar, which presumably uses an "algorithm" to determine what order the results appear in? "Algorithm" is such a vague word that I'm not sure we'll be able to expunge all algorithms for UK readers. Toadspike [Talk] 15:04, 12 August 2025 (UTC)

Again, the WMF shouldn't spread their cheeks wide to oppressive governments. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 17:56, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

"Cecilia Ivimy KC, for the government, said ministers had reviewed Ofcom guidance and considered specifically whether Wikipedia should be exempt from the regulations and rejected that. She said they had decided that Wikipedia “is in principle an appropriate service on which to impose category 1 duties”, and how ministers had arrived at that choice was not “without reasonable foundation nor irrational”." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:57, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

What's the best VPN for wiki editors in the UK to use? - Roxy the dog 17:09, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

I left a reply above on this! The best choice would be not to use one at all in the event a block occurred. 11WB (talk) 17:25, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

So how would I edit then? - Roxy the dog 17:40, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

Per WP:NOP however, Open or anonymizing proxies, including Tor as well as many public VPNs, may be blocked from editing for any period at any time. While this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may freely use proxies until those are blocked. Tenshi! (Talk page) 17:41, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

@Roxy the dog, in the event editing rights were revoked, I think it comes down to the individual editor to decide what they would do. VPN IPs have the disadvantage of being accessible by anyone, including to those who vandalise, as a result many are already blocked from Wikipedia. It would probably be preferential to cease editing in that scenario (hopefully this won't be the case!). 11WB (talk) 17:47, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

That seems silly. If I am editing through a VPN, signed in, why would an admin sanction an editor in good standing in these circumstances? - Roxy the dog 17:53, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

I refer to the IP address being used already being previously blocked as VPNs are usable by anybody, including vandals. 11WB (talk) 17:55, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

I dont care about what random IP editors do, and my Q wasn't about them. Vandals are vandals if they use a VPN or if they dont.

I repeat, "If I am editing through a VPN, signed in, why would an admin sanction an editor in good standing in these circumstances?" Roxy the dog 18:01, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

That's not really a thing (though I'm obliged to point out Wikipedia:PROXY#Checkuser). -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:13, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

Apologies, I didn't explain it in the best way. The VPN you log into may be assigned an IP address that has previously been used by a vandal (as IP ranges are the same by service and per chosen country), meaning you'll find it unusable on Wikipedia. That is what I meant to say! 11WB (talk) 18:16, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

If this was the chosen method, I believe this is where WP:IPBE becomes important. 11WB (talk) 18:20, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

Are you saying that the wiki software would automatically block my VPN, without human intervention, despite my being logged in? Roxy the dog 18:33, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

Most proxies (especially free ones) have been blocked due to abuse. Others are blocked preemptively (due to abuse). Most are blocked by humans, but don't rule out a bot doing it. These blocks are usually hardblocks, not anononly (due to abuse). You take your chances being able to edit on a proxy without IPBE. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:39, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

The way Zzuuzz explained it is the best way to articulate what I was attempting (quite badly) to explain! Thank you for this! 11WB (talk) 18:42, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

I temporarily turned on my Chrome extension proxy so I could screenshot the message that shows when you attempt to make any edits using a VPN or proxy IP. You'll see something like this (those are not my regular IP addresses) when attempting to edit on a VPN usually, and you'll find you cannot make any edits as a result. Hope this helps visualise it for you! 11WB (talk) 18:46, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

OK, I think Ive got it. Thanks. Roxy the dog 18:47, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

• This seems overall like the best we really could have reasonably expected out of the courts at this stage... Personally I view it as a strategic victory, it sets us up really well for when/if the OSA does actually have significant deleterious consequences. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:44, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

  As I said to someone somewhere else, I think it's clear that Wikipedia has won the argument. Subjecting us to Category 1 rules would be a proper absurdity, in addition to being probably unlawful. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:34, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

  It seems like a Pyrrhic victory to me. - Roxy the dog 18:41, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

  The court case was really about whether Ofcom is required by law to put us in Category 1. The court said it didn't have to put us there, or subject us to Cat 1 rules, and agreed there's a good chance doing so might be unlawful. It's not as bad as it sounds. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:46, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

  This is no way a victory of any sort - any editors from the UK (and possibly even readers) now have a Sword of Damocles over their head, where Ofcom or the Government can decide to designate Wikimedia as a Category 1 website at any time, with all the consequences and loss of editor base that would result.Nigel Ish (talk) 18:54, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

  Whilst this is true, it is mostly out of our control! Your Sword of Damocles is a very good metaphor. The saying I am applying to this is, 'what will be, will be'. 11WB (talk) 18:58, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

  Isn't the case that they already had a Sword of Damocles over their head and the court simply declined to remove said sword although they did comment on what a lovely head it was and what a problem it would be for such a sword to fall? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:04, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

  In what way does this seem like a Pyrrhic victory to you? By my reading neither side has really committed to battle yet, this was a skirmish. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:01, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

  I agree. The judge doesn't want (and may not be allowed) to issue an injunction barring a (currently) counterfactual scenario, but considers WMF's arguments logically and perhaps legally correct. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 20:30, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

  That was my understanding of the situation. Dronebogus (talk) 12:38, 12 August 2025 (UTC)

• Were it to come to that (which it seems it hasn't yet), I am sure IPBE would be liberally granted to editors in the UK who are in good standing. I certainly would be willing to do that. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 21:37, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

  @Seraphimblade If it does come to that, I'll send you a talk page message! I am kidding of course, I genuinely don't think it'll go to that extreme, things often have a way of working out! TikTok is still available in the US as far as I'm aware. This whole thing has given me a strange sense of déjà vu to be honest... 11WB (talk) 22:52, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

  Not gonna last long for US TikTok users. And by the way, YouTube is starting to verify every US viewer with AI based ID scan. We can't let WMF projects do the same for US readers. WMF might find a workaround to stop implementation of privacy invading policies. Ahri Boy (talk) 07:23, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

  I thought youtube was only doing the ID verification for UK users, I had no idea youtube was doing ID verification for US users.
  At the moment the WMF is only at risk of having to verify the ID's of UK users.
  I'm not sure quite how the WMF is going to get around having to do ID checks for UK users given the UK government will 100% want Wikipedia to be a Category 1 website. Maurice Oly (talk) 14:16, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

  I think YouTube will only require invasive age verification if the bot thinks your a minor? Dronebogus (talk) 14:54, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

  There are different requirements in play. There's age verification (for accessing 'harmful' content) and 'verification' (for Cat 1 user-to-user 'empowerment'). The user empowerment part is the shadow on the horizon and has implications that affects everyone here, and probably Youtube as well - UK users must have the option to filter out any non-verified user and any of their content,[5] whatever that means. In our context that means no more warnings or block notices from those pesky unverified admins, no more unverified editing the same page to remove vandalism or POV. It soon gets into bonkers territory. WMF is talking about restricting access from the UK to get out of Cat 1. I don't blame them. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 17:06, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

  So if an article contains two sentences, and the first sentence is written by an unverified user while the second sentence is written by a verified user, only the second sentence should be shown? And if a verified user corrects a typo in an unverified user's text, only the word with the corrected typo should be shown? Sounds wonderful. --Stefan2 (talk) 17:41, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

  That would end up making articles read really weirdly. 11WB (talk) 17:53, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

  Oh yeah. This was presented to the court in magnificent detail (see #9). But also if a verified user adds vandalism, or a page advertising their services, or writes about how great their idea or ideology is, you'll need to be verified to touch the article or go near them to point out policies. Bonkers I tell you. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:13, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

  I am completely lost. I don’t know what anything is supposed to do or mean in regards to this whole thing. Dronebogus (talk) 18:15, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

  You're quoting a politician talking about the Internet? Yes it makes no sense, but here's the law: "A duty to include [...] features which adult users may use or apply if they wish to filter out non-verified users [which means...] prevent non-verified users from interacting with content which that user generates, uploads or shares on the service, and reduce the likelihood of that user encountering content which non-verified users generate, upload or share." -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 20:40, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

  So only adult users can filter out content provided by unverified users, while children would be required to view that content? It sounds like a wonderful suggestion to show something to adults and something else to children, in case the things shown to children are dangerous for children.

  If you send a DMCA takedown request, then I suppose you're unverified and so the material provided in the takedown request should have no effect on what verified UK users see? Of course you have to provide your name and address in the takedown request, but are those verified against some kind of ID? --Stefan2 (talk) 03:43, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

  Just to expand on what @Zzuuzz has said, I have posted an explainer on Wikilegal, talking about what the "category 1" identity verification duty is, and why it's different from (and potentially worse than) age verification: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikilegal/UK_OSA_Litigation_Explainer:_ID_Verification PBradley-WMF (talk) 09:40, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

  [6] looks like it is aimed at US teens. Knitsey (talk) 17:08, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

  That blog post was horribly uninformitive. Dronebogus (talk) 18:12, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

  Did you expect anything else from YouTube? LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 02:41, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

  Psh, no, of course not Dronebogus (talk) 11:30, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

  "a variety of signals" determine whether a user is over or under 18, and the option to "use a credit card or a government ID" if you are incorrectly flagged. Yeah, right. Most of the people would be incorrectly flagged anyway and have to surrender their government ID in the name of "protecting the kids" or "national security". While blocking VPNs is protecting Wikipedia vandalism, balance needs to be thought out as well as governments increasingly use their powers to muzzle free speech, and editors are rightly concerned if the government could get their hands on their IP address. ✠ SunDawn ✠ Contact me! 00:33, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

  There's an idea floating around at the VPI about automatically granting IP block exemption to every editor who meets certain requirements (Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) § Automatic IP block exemption). But due to sockpuppetry concerns, that proposal will unfortunately remain a pipe dream. Some1 (talk) 00:42, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

  Should also add that sooner or later, US lawmakers will catch wind of the "Wikipedia users must undergo ID verification before they are allowed to edit" idea, and that'll mark the beginning of the end for this project. Some1 (talk) 02:46, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

  YouTube never said anything about national security. The government can already practically read your brainwaves if it wants to. Dronebogus (talk) 00:51, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

  Wikimedia very much does not need your ID. It only needs to verify that you are older than 18. Wikimedia's statements are very much making this a bigger deal than it is. Wikipedia could just ask you questions you should know after graduating upper secondary school, assuming the test is reliable enough. According to the UK government 68% of pupils finished upper secondary school.

  As for content moderation, Wikimedia Commons has c:Commons:Not_safe_for_work (NSFW) which does part of what Wikimedia needs, but needs to go much further. Being verified to post content is basically what FlaggedRevs allready does. I would like to see a page accepting categories of images and articles that are not safe for children and I think NSFW is done that way too. Then Wikimedia just refuses to show articles and images in the categories of said list to kids and people that fail the adult test (the test of whether you finished upper secondary school). Snævar (talk) 18:04, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

  That is exactly what we shouldn't be doing; Wikipedia is not censored and shouldn't be for anyone. And, how do we decide this stuff? Could we, for example, show the article about breast cancer to someone who failed your hypothetical test? I might not pull it up at work, but I still would not consider it inappropriate for a minor to see. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 18:25, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

  @Snævar: By your own admission, that would deprive 32% of British adults of access to Wikipedia because they weren't educated enough for your liking. Not to mention the fact that education systems are different between countries, and the fact that people could just look up the answers. No, to verify your age, Wikipedia would need to identify you, and that isn't happening. I'd blackout the site in the UK before agreeing to censor "inappropriate" content (what if conservatives decide that the transgender article isn't appropriate for kids?) and I am not giving the WMF my identity anytime soon. QuicoleJR (talk) 19:04, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

  The issue doesn't seem to be NSFW content moderation, but rather the legislation treating Wikipedia as a social media site, and requiring the ability to screen out content from non-verified persons (which presumably means non-verified persons anywhere - not just from the UK), which appears to include article content as well as talk pages. This would break Wikipedia's editing model.Nigel Ish (talk) 19:19, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

  Still, this would ruin the site, like you said. I'd support any form of protest, even the most extreme options we have, up to an indefinite UK blackout. QuicoleJR (talk) 19:43, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

  As much as I don't want to see an indefinite UK blackout that might be the only way forward, we will just have to wait and see which category Wikipedia ends up in.
  Though I do fear Wikipedia will end up in category 1. Maurice Oly (talk) 21:25, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

  I support a full blackout on all Wikimedia projects. This is the way of pressing on against the legislation. I may support full blackout in other countries if they follow UK's example. Ahri Boy (talk) 22:40, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

  @Ahri Boy: A blackout affecting all projects would need to be agreed upon at Meta-Wiki. A proposal made on enwiki would only affect enwiki. That being said, I would support such a proposal, here or globally. QuicoleJR (talk) 23:15, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

  @QuicoleJR The test of wether someone has graduated from a secondary school is an example. An example is just that, do not try to frame that as some major point in my argument when it is not. Feel free to find any better way of distinguishing adults from kids.

  Nigel: This ruling affects only UK viewers and users. Neither the UK parliament or courts have the power to say what treatment any other citizents have on an website. Australia is doing an similar thing to the UK (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-11/age-verification-search-engines/105516256 ), but other than that it will only affect more countries if those other English speaking parliaments bring it up. Snævar (talk) 18:13, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

  @Snævar: My point is that there is no question that can reliably separate people by ages, as some adults may not have learned certain things and kids can just Google the answers. It doesn't matter what the question is, this solution would not work. QuicoleJR (talk) 22:31, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

  Tests in schools that allow you to go the internet exist where I live. Those tests are just harder versions of their non-internet versions. We also have tests that give you a Gymnasium (school) pass in a particular field, like German. It could be a TestDaF test or some other standard. We also have an gymnasium competition where people that are good at memorizing compete in questionnaire, so the school system needs to account for those too. The test would test your ability, not whether you can remember an answer from your book from class or some notes from a student google found. Let's say you just go to one of those tests (for exaample TestDaF) and they allow you to go to the internet, do you really think they would allow that if you could just cheese it?

  This brings me to my original main point of the example, although I have not said what it is yet. WMF would be convincing an governmental entity that their test works. Since the test is based on the curriculum, a work of the ministry of education, if the WMF test fails it most likely criticizes the government itself. The ministry of education would need to update the curriculum and the WMF would use that work to improve their own test. Snævar (talk) 05:38, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

  Also, the French privacy institution have a list over possible age tests and how they rate them at https://www.cnil.fr/en/online-age-verification-balancing-privacy-and-protection-minors. I would like to stop this focus on an example and over to these examples, which is and was my main point. Please do not ping me just to talk about the example, thanks. Snævar (talk) 05:41, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

  The test would test your ability, not whether you can remember an answer

  How would tests of skill in history analysis, language arts, mathematics, etc... apply to age? How do you even test someone's skill at aging over the screen?

  The CNIL article you linked says every age test known at the time of writing is bad; of what you say exists, it gives nothing of the sort.

  The CNIL has analysed several existing solutions for online age verification, checking whether they have the following properties: sufficiently reliable verification, complete coverage of the population and respect for the protection of individuals' data and privacy and their security.

  The CNIL finds that there is currently no solution that satisfactorily meets these three requirements. It therefore calls on public authorities and stakeholders to develop new solutions, following the recommendations described above. The CNIL deems it urgent that more effective, reliable and privacy-friendly devices be proposed and regulated as soon as possible.

  
  6_template�See also Privacy-Preserving Age Verification—and Its Limitations by CS PhD and Columbia Professor Emeritus Steven M. Bellovin, a submission to an IAB/W3C working group on age gating. Techdirt's Privacy‑Preserving Age Verification Falls Apart On Contact With Reality attempts to summarize it. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:10, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

  Even being blocked for using the username of someone notable does not require sending id. {{Uw-ublock-wellknown}}

  If you choose to keep your current username, please send an email [...] including your real name and your Wikipedia username to receive instructions from our volunteer response team about account verification. Please do not send documentation without being requested to do so. (emphasis added)

  Also at Wikipedia:Username policy, it says:

  Do not send unsolicited scans of your passport or driver's license to the volunteer response team. Instead, you should contact them to find out the best way to prove your identity. The best way will vary, but could be by using an email address on a domain name that belongs to you. (links in original; emphasis added) JuniperChill (talk) 21:14, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

  As an example, you probably have been to an intersection with lights before. Well, those lights can break and then the police dictates the traffic. Even if the lights are active, what the police says goes. With law, you have a hierarchy. The constitution is at the top, then statuary law, then regulations, then any community or company rules. Those rules are probably there to make it hard for the police to come after you, but you still need to follow the law, even if Wikipedia's rules say otherwise. Also see my comments on a passport not being necessary. You have the option to not answer an age test/submit an ID and then you will have some access to Wikipedia, but not anything unsafe to a child, like porn or violence. Snævar (talk) 06:02, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

  Hello all: I have posted an explainer on Wikilegal, talking about what the "category 1" identity verification duty (due to come into force in 2027) is, and why it's different from (and potentially worse than) age verification duties that came into force this year. See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikilegal/UK_OSA_Litigation_Explainer:_ID_Verification . @Zzuuzz also posted some useful clarifications about this, above. PBradley-WMF (talk) 09:41, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

If anyone is interested, I've sent this letter to the Secretary of State and my MP. I'll post any reponse I get. qcne (talk) 18:47, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Remember the Wikipedia:2024 open letter to the Wikimedia Foundation? Maybe an WP:OPENLETTER could be written to the High Court of Justice/Ofcom/UK government/etc. Some1 (talk) 19:09, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

I would sign that in a heartbeat. If you think you can write a good one, go for it. QuicoleJR (talk) 01:52, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

If anyone cares, I received the following response from the Department of Science, Innovation & Technology:

Thank you for your correspondence of 15 August to the then Secretary of State, the Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP regarding the implications of the Online Safety Act for Wikipedia and your concerns about preserving anonymous participation and access for UK users. I am replying as a member of the Ministerial Support Team.
The government is committed to implementing the Online Safety Act and will continue to work closely with Ofcom which is under a duty to ensure that the measures in its Codes of Practice are proportionate and appropriate for different kinds and sizes of services. As a public body, Ofcom is also under a duty to act compatibly with the European Commission of Human Rights (ECHR).
The government does not make an assessment of services which are to be designated as Category 1, as this is the role of Ofcom as the independent regulator under the Online Safety Act. Ofcom have requested information from services and will make its categorisation determination in the coming months. Once the register of categorised services has been established, Ofcom will publicly consult on its draft Codes of Practice for the additional duties on categorised services by early 2026.
Ofcom have a duty to consult with those they consider to have relevant expertise regarding the ECHR rights to freedom of expression and privacy. The duties, such as user empowerment and user verification, will not apply to services until the relevant codes of practice are in force, following Parliamentary scrutiny.
Yours sincerely,
Ministerial Support Team

qcne (talk) 16:24, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Back to the main topic for a third time. The memory of the events of Sunday, 31 August 28 years ago is still fresh (comments, [8], procession [9]). Harry will be returning to the UK on 8 September to continue the work. So let's give it all we've got. I propose the following banner for the main page:

Errors (rare) in Wikipedia are spotted and corrected in seconds by anyone. The UK government proposes to inhibit this process by designating Wikipedia as a Category One website under the Online Safety Act. It is also preventing Judges from hearing cases brought against it which it knows it will lose. Read the amazing judgment here.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.44.78.34 (talk)

Errors (rare) in Wikipedia are spotted and corrected in seconds by anyone. Not as often as you seem to think. I routinely catch introduced errors up to 24 hours old in my daily watchlist patrol, and ocassionally find older ones. I once found an error that had sat uncorrected for eight years (sad to say, I had introduced it myself). - Donald Albury 16:25, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

It is also preventing Judges from hearing cases brought against it which it knows it will lose.

I don't think that's a correct characterization of parliamentary privilege. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:29, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

Nothing to do with parliamentary privilege. The case was filed on 11 August and the court office should have served the defendants and notified the plaintiff within five working days. Instead it has done nothing, effectively telling the plaintiff to pound sand. 80.44.78.34 (talk) 13:01, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

Hello, we are the Wikimedia Foundation Product Safety and Integrity team, a team dedicated to the security and safety of users of the Wikimedia wikis. We have been integrating a new bot detection service, with the goal of replacing our current CAPTCHA with something that can hold up better against modern AI bots and other automated activity. In the coming weeks, we would start a trial here on English Wikipedia. We will be monitoring its deployment beforehand as we roll this out across several trial wikis, to make sure it is stable and performant.

This service will start by protecting the account creation page (Special:CreateAccount). We may extend it later to protect editing or other sensitive actions.

In this trial, we’ll be looking to see how well the new service does at stopping or slowing bot-driven activity, and how well it helps real humans more easily use Wikipedia.

Why our CAPTCHA needs replacement

Wikipedia needs strong tools to defend itself from malicious automated (including AI-driven) activity. The CAPTCHA we use today hails from an earlier era of the web. It has been aging poorly for some time, and is especially unsuited for the new era of AI. We know it also annoys many of our human users, and likely shuts some of them out.

We’ll be testing out replacing our current CAPTCHA with hCaptcha, a third-party service specializing in bot detection. They have a particular focus on privacy-sensitive customers, such as Signal and many other internet services, that make them a good fit for the Wikimedia wikis.

We want to be upfront that this trial will involve us integrating wikis directly with a third-party proprietary service. This is new for Wikimedia, and something we, as the Foundation, don’t take lightly. However, it’s not feasible for us to build a service ourselves that can keep the projects safe in this era. Organizations that are dedicated to running bot detection services have dramatically more expertise and resources to offer than us – especially the ongoing work of keeping up with the cat-and-mouse game of bot detection and evasion as it changes each year.

We’ve always operated Wikipedia in the most privacy-sensitive way we can, which has helped us avoid the kind of casual information sharing and online tracking that has become so common to the modern web. To maintain this commitment, we’ve set it up so that hCaptcha cannot see raw IP addresses of visitors, nor will it be able to see what specific actions are being taken or what URLs are being accessed. Any information about visiting devices that does get collected as part of bot detection will be discarded by hCaptcha within 10 days.

Our Legal department has approved such implementation of hCaptcha and confirmed that it is in line with our Privacy policy and Terms of Use.

hCaptcha is already live on test2wiki, where you can test it out today. If you do test it out manually, bear in mind that you are unlikely to actually see a CAPTCHA-style puzzle due to how hCaptcha works (see below).

How the bot detection trial will work

• Unlike our current CAPTCHA, with this new approach, the service will work primarily invisibly. Most visitors (around 99.9%) will never see a puzzle to solve at all.
• For those visitors that do see a puzzle, they will need to complete it to create an account. These are visual puzzles, but for users with sight issues or other accessibility needs, a text-based puzzle is available that can be completed using only a keyboard.
• The service will send back a “risk score” that is their confidence level in the account having been made by an inauthentic user. This risk score will not be public, but will be saved privately to enable analysis and responses to potentially bot-driven activity by WMF and volunteer investigators.
• Visitor IP addresses will not be sent to the service – all requests to the service go through a proxy we host ourselves that drops raw IPs and uses hashed versions instead.
• The code we load from the service will be sandboxed so that it cannot see or interfere with the page context of the user session, and so that the service can’t see the specific URL of the page.
• See our project page for more technical details.

During the trial we’ll be analyzing how bots are engaging with the wikis, making sure hCaptcha isn’t making it unexpectedly harder to use Wikipedia, and identifying any further privacy and security measures we can take. We will review this analysis, and will engage publicly with the communities about how the trial went, before we make decisions on expanding the use of hCaptcha to replace our current CAPTCHA.

See our project page for more technical details and more information about risks and how we are mitigating them. See also our Diff post to read an expanded version of this announcement. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay in touch.

If you'd like to talk to us off-wiki, you will find us on Discord. Thank you! EMill-WMF, KHarlan (WMF), SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 14:29, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks to the team for your work on this – I have really appreciated the thoughtfulness with which you've approached this deployment. I particularly appreciate the trial to collect data that informs technical decisionmaking going forward: I know that we're not yet confident about just what kinds or volume of abuse will be best addressed through this new service vs. other technical solutions vs. existing infrastructure, but I fully support the experimentation that it will take to gather the data to answer this question. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 15:02, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

I hope the trial is successful (just about anything must be better than CAPTCHA) but if it is not please accept that it has been unsuccessful. Far too many times I have seen things being trialled in Wikipedia and then the trial being lauded as a success (my guess is because of the sunken costs fallacy) when it is not. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:14, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Will the risk score be available to checkusers? Similarly, will account creation attempts that were rejected due to hCaptcha feedback be logged in the CU database? RoySmith (talk) 16:47, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

@RoySmith While we won't get into great detail here about exactly what checkusers will see, we were a little more explicit about incorporating these signals into investigation tools in our blog post: "We are also planning to incorporate the bot detection data we get from this into the tools we provide to our trusted volunteer investigators to respond to sockpuppeting and other inauthentic activity." We'll soon have a product page going up with some public details. EMill-WMF (talk) 18:01, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

One problem: despite you using hCaptcha's "secure enclave" to provide sandboxing, one hCaptcha script, api.js, is loaded into the main thread, which contains an obfuscated bytecode VM (cf. reCaptcha, Kasada, f5 (formerly Shape Security)), and that VM (along with the rest of the script) seemingly has access to the main page's context. OutsideNormality (talk) 03:53, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

Nevermind, it seems to be fixed as of now, as it now loads "secure-api.js" instead, which does not contain the VM and instead loads the api.js in a separate iframe. OutsideNormality (talk) 19:38, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

@OutsideNormality Yes, we reviewed our implementation today, fixing the issue you mentioned -- thank you for giving it a close look. We also plan to self-host secure-api.js entirely (which is supported) to further reduce the risk of unexpected changes to that initial JS bootstrap code. EMill-WMF (talk) 20:18, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

The blog post says that the service drops raw IPs and uses hashed versions instead, but if the hash function is deterministic, one can easily create rainbow tables mapping each IP to a unique hash. Of course, if by hash you mean a randomly generated UUID, then this won't be a problem. I would say that some IPs are more problematic than others (proxies, botnets, etc.), so it might be worthwhile to do some local processing with, say, the Spur databases.

Also, https://www.hcaptcha.com/use-case-account-defense seems interesting and might be able to slow down a few of our LTAs who are known to compromise accounts.

Anyway, thanks so much for your work on this. Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 22:03, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

2 additional points:

• This is a massive change and would likely require site-wide consensus (listed at WP:CENT and everything). Introducing nonfree code onto Wikimedia sites can be seen as even more drastic than adding AI summaries to articles, especially when that code is obfuscated and performs deep fingerprinting of the browser (or device, for Wikipedia's mobile apps), including canvas fingerprinting.
• Using a deliberately exaggerated configuration (navigator.webdriver === true, Chrome on Windows 10, user agent claims Firefox on Windows 10, DevTools set to emulate a mobile device), I managed to get an hCaptcha to appear and even got one of their text captchas. I had to solve 3 of these:
  • Within this data string 4355 * 8591 9489 + 7025 - 1616, retrieve the penultimate set of numerals
  • Find the center collection of numbers from the data shown: 3186 ... 5233 / 6930 * 2367 ... 2090
  • Point out the second group of digits in the provided set: 1821 9018 | 2321 - 7393 % 4377 ^ 2352
  This was surprising, as I thought it would ask questions like "What is the colour when you look up on a sunny morning and there's no roof?", but it's all numbers. I'm pretty sure I got the first one wrong (I typed 81 when I was supposed to type 7025), but it still accepted my answer (despite the navigator.webdriver value ¯\_(ツ)_/¯).

also, why was formatting the multi-level list in this comment so obscenely difficult?! OutsideNormality (talk) 01:27, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

@EMill-WMF, (and @Chaotic Enby) and I had a conversation about the fingerprinting aspect of the scripts, the long and short is that iff hCAPTCHA keeps the promises/guarantees they claim to provide, the risk of device re-identification by hCAPTCHA is low even through highly invasive techniques is low because they do not have access to surrounding information that identifies you as a contributor to Wikipedia. There is a seperate conversation to be had about the non-free nature of the code, but I think that a necessary tradeoff within this context. Sohom (talk) 16:28, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. One of the key aspects is Any information about visiting devices that does get collected as part of bot detection will be discarded by hCaptcha within 10 days, which hasn't been explicitly codified in the contract with hCaptcha, and is currently more of a "verbal agreement" as far as I understand it. If this is followed through, there is less worry to be had, but codifying it could be a helpful step in terms of trust.

Beyond that, I am sad to see that the possibility of running the hCaptcha model locally (which was mentioned during the conversation) hasn't been elaborated on in this announcement. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 21:33, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

Struck the last part of my comment as it was due to a misunderstanding in the conversation. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 01:07, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

​"hasn't been explicitly codified in the contract with hCaptcha" – If this is true then any kind of hCaptcha rollout is a non-starter, and it's concerning that this hasn't been communicated clearly in the original post or at mw.

I'd object to implementing hCaptcha in any form until the data retention limitation is codified in a legally binding way. "Trust us" is not enough from a for-profit company handling what is ostensibly tracking data. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 23:42, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

@Fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four To my understanding of the conversation (and @Chaotic Enby and @EMill-WMF can clarify here) there is a data retention limitation in legal agreement of 180 days (as defined by hCAPTCHA's own ToS), with a verbal agreement between WMF and hCAPTCHA to only persist/store the data for 10 days. Sohom (talk) 01:56, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, that's not acceptable and the initial communication is bad and misleading. The opening message here stated that the data "will be discarded by hCaptcha within 10 days" immediately before a sentence starting with "Our Legal department has approved such implementation of hCaptcha ..." with no mention of 180 days.

I'm sure the WMF and involved parties are trying to communicate openly, but the statements given so far give a false impression of what the reality of the agreements in place are. Device fingerprinting data is sensitive, and the difference between retaining sensitive data for ten days vs half a year is massive. A "verbal agreement" with hCaptcha is inadequate to ensure such sensitive user data is properly protected, and if WMF's legal team hasn't advised the same then I'd be very surprised. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 03:11, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

To my understanding of how this is came to be is that folks at hCAPTCHA have told engineers at the WMF that the way their current systems are architected, their systems only store customer data for 10 days for everyone. It is my understanding that WMF staff did not push for this 10 day restriction to be codified in the contract for specifically the trial period since there was a understanding the systems handling such data would not change significantly during that time period. A point to note is that, if the WMF terminates their contract with hCAPTCHA, per their ToS, WMF can ask for all the data to be deleted and destroyed. I'm not sure if this arrangement will continue going forward, after the trial, but my understanding is that is up for debate. (For what it's worth, I've lobbied for the 10-day data retention policy to be codified in the contract in conversation because of similar concerns to the ones you raise) Sohom (talk) 03:57, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for cluing me into the backstory, my feelings remain unchanged. The WMF really shouldn't play fast and loose with user data like this. The data is sensitive and real, trial or not. The fact that this concern was raised previously and went unresolved and uncommunicated is disappointing and concerning. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 04:13, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

I am not especially worried either about hCaptcha keeping the user data from the trial. My bigger concern is that the contract for the trial might be used as a template for a future rollout, and will not address the 10 day restriction explicitly. This is compounded by the fact that this legal aspect wasn't mentioned in either announcement, meaning that the WMF might not be especially careful with codifying it. As Sohom said, the current data retention systems aren't a cause of worry, but third-party companies can easily change their architecture without giving us time to renegotiate the terms of the contract, if safeguards aren't codified in writing. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 13:10, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

"the current data retention systems aren't a cause of worry" – This is also based on hCaptcha saying "trust us". I'm assuming the WMF was not given access to perform an audit themselves, so it's just the word of a for-profit company that tracks users at scale (to prevent abuse of course) that they only retain data for 10 days despite their ToS having a carve out for 180 days. A layperson should be skeptical, a lawyer should be scowling.

The fact that this is a trial is no different than if it is a full rollout when it comes to protecting user data, the data is the same and is just as sensitive as it will be during a full rollout, and the trial is not limited to ten days, so there is no strong legal barrier to hCaptcha retaining data for longer than what has been described in these announcements.

This is an unprecedented change, it should be done right from the first steps. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 21:07, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

I think the difference between "a commitment by the vendor" and "a legal commitment by the vendor" is not zero, but not beyond the ability of WMF to judge, alongside meaningful other tradeoffs that forcing a legal commitment now for this trial could bring in timeline, cost, etc. Yes, we should make our position as a community known (that it would be much better to have a legal commitment). But in my view, this is not a blocker. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 23:53, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

A reasonable view. I think the community should be afforded the opportunity to make that judgement since it directly impacts the privacy of individual users, however due to lacking communication from the WMF it seems that the community is going to go mostly unawares which is possibly the more serious issue here. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 00:04, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

the part about using aggregate/de-identified data for “any purpose” also seems pretty vague and makes me nervous as well. There’s no industry standard term for what that means and in a lot of places and cases it’s not anonymized such that it can’t be de-anonymized. I have no idea whether this company does or doesn’t handle this well, but it’s all on faith. Driftingdrifting (talk) 04:11, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

I've mentioned this post at the technical village pump and at the talk page for WikiProject Accessibility. As a screen reader user, I very much hope this trial works out. Graham87 (talk) 14:55, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

hCaptcha's puzzles are image labeling tasks. The makers of hCaptcha also sell image labeling services to other companies - the labor involved is the labor of the users solving these hCaptcha tasks. Would Wikipedia's users be part of this labor pool? What sort of compensation would Wikimedia be getting for selling this labor? MrOllie (talk) 15:00, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

@MrOllie, citation needed, to my understanding, the CAPTCHA's served at Wikimedia are math puzzles and "move this shape here" which are typically more about mouse movement than image labelling. Sohom (talk) 15:07, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

No, if you get served a challenge, it will probably be an image labelling task (I tested it), though you can switch to a text-based "Accessibility Challenge" (see comment above). hCaptcha apparently still sells their labelling services despite them ending their payment program. Although, based on the fact that Enterprise users couldn't earn rewards for solves at all originally, I'd wager that hCaptcha simply does not send data labelling tasks to Enterprise users. I don't know where you got "math puzzles" from, although hCaptcha does sometimes use "move this shape here" puzzles. OutsideNormality (talk) 15:18, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

I was involved in testing some of this before this post was made, the CAPTCHA challenges that were served to me were almost always "move this shape here" and math/digit-based challenges in text mode. Sohom (talk) 15:45, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

Wikimedia's project page (linked above) links to a page with screenshots if you haven't seen the image labeling task yet. MrOllie (talk) 15:47, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

For (non-public information reasons) hCAPTCHA's docs seem to be somewhat outdated, which is why I chose to ignore them (that's on me) :) Sohom (talk) 15:58, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

Going off into the weeds a bit, it would be interesting if we could customize this into some wiki-specific task, say "Select all the images containing a misspelled word", and showing them real screenshot fragments with words some automated process suspects might be misspelled. In addition to the bot-filtering function, it would also get some useful work done for the encyclopedia. RoySmith (talk) 15:58, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

A big change from our current CAPTCHA, where every use of it involves solving a challenge, is that hCaptcha can work invisibly, and we've configured it so that the challenges are supposed to be quite rare (0.1% or less of the time). So, while we certainly do still have to care about them from a usability and accessibility perspective, they likely won't be at a volume that would be useful for deriving secondary value. EMill-WMF (talk) 19:33, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

The focus on IP and a cookie subset in the privacy discussions feels a little disingenuous. While I appreciate the effort to obfuscate IP addresses (assuming that hash is appropriately salted, otherwise it’s a nearly useless gesture), I’m a lot more concerned about the “thousands” of signals they are using to uniquely identify my browser. JavaScript + HTML5 include some very invasive, privacy violating features that it sounds like are now being shared with a third party? I’m more worried about that than IP tracking. Driftingdrifting (talk) 04:33, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

There is no meaningful technical way to isolate/elide those browser-based signals. Any attempt to do that would be not sustainable in the long term as a solution. Sohom (talk) 12:56, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

(For what it is worth, I'm not the greatest fan, but it is very much a take-it or leave it) Sohom (talk) 12:57, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

That's very true, but for me that feels more like a reason to either not do this or to be absolutely rock-solid in the privacy agreement with this company. I'm less than convinced this is impossible for them to do themselves if they wanted to, where WMF makes tech investments continues to baffle me; this seems like it should be up there in terms of priorities and it isn't rocket-science. Driftingdrifting (talk) 14:57, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

As the latest human authentication methods are based on behavioural analysis, large training datasets are invaluable for improvements. Even if the WMF were to turn on human authentication tests for everyone logging in, I think companies dominant in the field are able to collect much more data and have an ongoing revenue stream to support continually improving their models. To be able to match countermeasures that are also continuously updated, the WMF would need a business model that supported collecting a lot more data, and that would likely mean spinning up a for-profit subsidiary and attaining significant market share. isaacl (talk) 17:29, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

That's a completely fair, I didn't think about the ML training angle on that, that would be hard to build the data set on in this limited scope. Driftingdrifting (talk) 20:33, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

I'm less than convinced this is impossible for them to do themselves if they wanted to. My understanding is that filtering bot traffic is a game of whack-a-mole that would be hard to do in-house. Using a third party service that specializes in it and is used on multiple major websites makes those tools better than what we could develop. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:34, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

I don't know much about current bot detection technologies, so I can't speak for whether hCaptcha is the right one or not. But I do agree with the idea that we can't be experts at everything and shouldn't try. There's a ton of things that need to get done that can only be done in-house. I'm sure we could all reel off a list of a dozen "must have" features or bug fixes that we want done in the MediaWiki code base by yesterday. Every person-hour spent working on bot detection is a person-hour that can't be spent on those things.

This is the kind of thing that benefits from a broad customer base. Let's say our bot detection vendor has (to pick an absurdly low number) 100 customers. If some new bot attack springs up and is launched against one of their other customers, the vendor starts working on analyzing it and implementing counter-measures. By the time the bot master gets around to launching it at us, the fix may already be in and we're protected. RoySmith (talk) 20:54, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone who commented here. I wanted to just acknowledge the discussion here about privacy and data, including the strength of the guarantees we have around data retention. There will be an inflection point after the trial where we will be reviewing what would be needed -- on privacy, but also on accessibility, performance, volume, and cost -- from our implementation (and our agreement with hCaptcha) to support potential expansion if the trial is as promising as we hope it will be. It's helpful to have the community's perspective here for us to refer to when we reach that point, and you'll be hearing more from us again at that point as well. EMill-WMF (talk) 21:05, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

Apparently a journalist from the New York Post tried to get into contact with the foundation to ask about the Killing of Iryna Zarutska article but did not received any response

Is there anyone at the foundation who can confirm that this attempt at contact actually happened? Or is the Nypost just making it up (as usual) Trade (talk) 22:17, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

Based on the nypost article and looking at the AFD, this nypost article seems to be a knee jerk to fan the flames of their dislike of liberal bias on WP. The AFD closed almost by snow to keep and they apparently did not look at that, only that it got nominated. It's a puff piece we should not worry about. Masem (t) 22:37, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

I was just curious if anyone have seen a comment on ENWP claiming to be a journalist from nypost Trade (talk) 22:53, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

Convenience link: Killing of Iryna Zarutska. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:08, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

There should be a place where if you're an admin, you can sign up to be on the list of talking heads who give comments to the newspaper. The news will always quote someone from the WMF awkwardly saying "we can't comment on that", which is boring, when they could instead have some monument of outspoken and brilliantly erudite witticism, guaranteed to impress and edify, from a brain-genius, of which I can easily name several, including of course myself. jp×g🗯️ 09:17, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

I think this would be a bad idea. You definitely can't speak for me - we don't always agree afterall - and neither of us can speak for the WMF. But if there was that list then we would suddenly be official in ways we shouldn't be. There is COMCOM but I'm not sure how active that is these days nor am I sure what their turnaround is - they might not be able to get a comment out quickly enough for a New York Post deadline. Now, I do think there could be utility in a project page listing people who are willing to speak to reporters (and what they could speak about), but that feels like the extent such things could go. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:43, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

Noting that I've passed on a link to this thread to a member of the WMF Communications team. I am on the committee Barkeep49 mentions above, but I also know that Comms does look to add to the ranks of people who are willing to participate in responding to media questions. Risker (talk) 16:02, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

The link above doesn't seem to work, but I'm always happy to answer media questions. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:27, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

Fixed link: m:ComCom Aaron Liu (talk) 15:52, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Hi everyone,

In case you haven’t seen it, we have posted some updates on the English banner fundraising campaign over on the collaboration page.

Best, JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 09:52, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation since our last issue on August 29. Please help translate.

---

Upcoming and current events and conversations
Let's Talk continues

• Wikimania 2026: The scholarship application for Wikimania 2026 is open. Apply now by October 31.
• Wikipedia 25: Help us find inspiring stories to share during birthday celebrations by September 23.
• Wikimedia Research Showcase: "Readers and Readership Research" will be the featured theme for the next research showcase taking place on September 24 at 16:30 UTC.
• Update to banner and logo policies: Feedback is requested on proposed policy and documentation updates regarding the use of banners and logos for advocacy purposes.
• GLAM Wiki 2025: The registration for GLAM Wiki Conference is open until September 30.

Annual Goals Progress on Infrastructure
See also newsletters: Wikimedia Apps · Growth · Product Safety and Integrity · Readers · Research · Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia · Tech News · Language and Internationalization · other newsletters on MediaWiki.org

• Better bot detection: How we are improving bot detection and replacing our CAPTCHA.
• Temporary Accounts: Temporary accounts are now deployed to almost all wikis except the last 11.
• User Info: This new feature displays data related to a user account when you tap or click on the "user avatar" icon button next to a username. It's meant to be useful for different users with extended rights as well as newcomers.
• Newsletter highlights: The latest Readers Newsletter is now available. It includes considerations about Wikipedia's declining pageviews in the recent years, how the Foundation and communities may work on addressing this together, and the formation of two new teams — Reader Growth and Reader Experience.
• Activity Tab Experiment: The Foundation launched an experiment testing a new Activity tab in the Wikipedia Android app to our beta testers. Instead of only showing editing activity, this tab also surfaces insights about reading and donation behavior.
• Search Suggestions: To make it easier for users to find articles, logged-out users on both desktop and mobile will see suggestions of articles for further reading on English Wikipedia beginning the week of September 22. All non-English wikis received this update in June and July.
• Paste Check: The Foundation is working on a new check: Paste check. This check informs newcomers who paste text into Wikipedia that the content might not be accepted to ensure it is aligned with the Movement's values. This check will soon be tested at a few wikis.
• CampaignEvents extension: The CampaignEvents extension has been enabled for all Wikisources. The extension makes it easier to organize and participate in collaborative activities, like edit-a-thons and WikiProjects, on the wikis. To request the extension for your wiki, visit the information page.
• Structured Task: The Add a Link Structured Task has been fully released at English Wikipedia. This release is an important step in making editing more accessible for new contributors, especially on mobile.
• Tech News: Read more updates from Tech News week 36 and 37.
• Wikifunctions: Wikifunctions is now available on 65 Wiktionaries and has a new capability to copy function calls from one Wikipedia to another.
• Multilingual Contributors: The Language and Product Localisation team is launching a CentralNotice campaign to attract multilingual contributors to specific Wikipedias. The campaign will feature regionally targeted banners to reach potential native speakers.

Annual Goals Progress on Volunteer Support
See also blogs: Global Advocacy blog · Global Advocacy Newsletter · Policy blog · WikiLearn News · list of movement events

• Global Resources: Introducing the interim Global Resource Distribution Committee (GRDC).
• Funding the Movement: Key Takeaways, Trends, and Lessons from FY 2024-2025 Community Fund Grants.
• Open Indonesia: Reflections on Open Indonesia, an event in Bandung gathering communities dedicated to advancing open knowledge to build the country's Open Knowledge Roadmap.
• WikiWomen*: Reflections from the WikiWomen* Summit 2025.
• Gender & AI: Is Gendering AI Possible? Reflections from the 2025 Gendering AI Conference.
• Wikipedia 25: What one centenarian can teach us about 25 years of Wikipedia.
• Knowledge Equity Fund: Wikimedia Ghana User Group receives Knowledge Equity Fund Connected Grant.
• Wikimania 2025: ESEAP First Timers at Wikimania Nairobi.
• César do Paço Lawsuit: Update about a lawsuit in Portugal and the Foundation's appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
• UK Online Safety Act: The Wikimedia Foundation will not appeal the UK High Court’s decision to dismiss our challenge to the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) Categorisation Regulations.

Board and Board committee updates
See Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard · Affiliations Committee Newsletter

• August board meeting: Updates on board appointments and selection, CEO search, work to strengthen Wikipedia's approach to neutral point of view and updates on three pilots around more shared decision-making and shared accountability across the movement.
• New Endowment board members: Welcoming New Wikimedia Endowment Board Members, Kevin Bonebrake and Ike Kier.

Other Movement curated newsletters & news
See also: Diff blog · Goings-on · Planet Wikimedia · Signpost (en) · Kurier (de) · Actualités du Wiktionnaire (fr) · Regards sur l’actualité de la Wikimedia (fr) · Wikimag (fr) · Education · GLAM · The Wikipedia Library · Milestones · Wikidata · Central and Eastern Europe · other newsletters

Subscribe or unsubscribe · Help translate

For information about the Bulletin and to read previous editions, see the project page on Meta-Wiki. Let askcacwikimedia.org know if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement!

MediaWiki message delivery 01:04, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

In August George passed the wonderful milestone of being 100 years old, and he continues to contribute to Wikipedia today. Although we collect very little data about Wikipedia editors, our suspicion is that he’s the oldest person to ever edit Wikipedia. Wow! And I'm reminded of this comic from the Signpost: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-05-16/Comix. Some1 (talk) 04:02, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

In the last year, we've had editors outed in relation to legal disputes regarding Asian News International vs. Wikimedia Foundation (see WP:ANIvsWMF and WP:2024OPENLETTER) and Caesar DePaço (see Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)/Archive 11#Office action: Removals on the article Caesar DePaço. I'd like to request a few updates. First, do we know what has been done with the PII in either case since it was released? To whom has it been released, and do we know if the lives of any editors have been disrupted at this point? Second, did we ever get a straight answer on what determines if the WMF complies with a government order (e.g. India and Portugal) or disregards it (e.g. Russia and Turkey)? If not, can we please have this answer? Third, do we have any indication whether content will ultimately be affected by ANI vs WMF? While the harm to editors cannot be undone in either case, I understand that the WMF is still trying to address the content side of the issues in the Caesar DePaço case and would like to know whether this is applicable to ANI vs WMF. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 20:10, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

+1 Silverseren^C 20:21, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

First, do we know what has been done with the PII in either case since it was released? To whom has it been released, and do we know if the lives of any editors have been disrupted at this point?
If nothing has happened that WMF is aware of, perhaps they could say that. But I would not expect an update to the extent that editors have been affected, because it would likely not be in the interest of protecting those very same editors for WMF to publicly proclaim this information. At least in the majority of cases, that is; occasionally, of course, shining a broader limelight can be part of a thoughtful strategy.

Second, did we ever get a straight answer on what determines if the WMF complies with a government order (e.g. India and Portugal) or disregards it (e.g. Russia and Turkey)? If not, can we please have this answer?
I suspect that the Foundation would say, justifiably, that publicly revealing this information (a) is impossible because it depends heavily on circumstances, and (b) even if possible would be a very bad idea to post publicly on this site where in fact the Foundation's legal adversaries do read.
Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 06:18, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

My main hope here is that we can get an indication, in whatever form it make take, that the WMF is making an effort to change its approach to prevent outing its own editors for routine editing. I'm not asking for a guarantee, just some sign that we're not going to see a repeat of previous events every time someone sues. My fear is that these two instances of compromising editor safety has created a blueprint for every bad actor with a modicum of resources, and I'm hoping that the WMF can dissuade this fear. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 23:42, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

I'm curious on the ANI-thing, haven't seen anything in media for quite awhile, and I was told that "The case was adjourned to be heard on 7 July after WMF's senior advocate Akhil Sibal requested more time." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:07, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

Case updates are here. Latest update is from September 19, where the ANI lawyers sought adjournment. Next court date is December 15. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 19:53, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

The Reader Growth team is planning on experimenting with changing the way the users browse images. They've published a mockup of how the UI might look here. The project is in a early experimental stage and they want the community to answer the following question:

• How should they handle images from other (smaller) Wikipedias?
• How should they handle sensitive image/undesirable images?
• Does the community has any particular stipulations surrounding image placement that the team should keep in mind when building this features?

The team welcomes feedback on these on the WP:VPT thread. Feel free to comment on the thread and provide suggestions.

Also of note, the team has released a set of changes they will be making following the Simple Summaries experiment surrounding the way they do experiments. Thoughts and feedback on it are welcomed here. Sohom (talk) 22:23, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation since our last issue on September 13. Please help translate.

---

Upcoming and current events and conversations
Let's Talk continues

• CEE Meeting: Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2025 will be held in Thessaloniki, Greece, September 26-28.
• Learning Clinic: The next Let's Connect Learning Clinic will talk about "Mastering the Capacity Exchange (CapX) Tool" and will take place on September 30 at 13:00 UTC.
• Big Fat Brussels Meeting: The tenth in-person gathering of Wikimedians enthusiastic in free knowledge advocacy, Big Fat Brussels Meeting, will take place on October 3-4.
• Wikimedia Research Showcase: "Celebrating 13 Years: Wikidata’s Role in Learning and Culture" will be the featured theme for the next research showcase taking place on October 15 at 16:30 UTC.

Annual Goals Progress on Infrastructure
See also newsletters: Wikimedia Apps · Growth · Research · Web · Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia · Tech News · Language and Internationalization · other newsletters on MediaWiki.org

• Tech News: Read updates from Tech News week 38 and 39.
• Wikifunctions: Wikifunctions is now available on 123 Wiktionary languages and have more than 3,000 functions available.
• Collaborative Contributions: A new feature, called Collaborative Contributions, allows editors to see the impact of their collaborative editing activities. It was live demoed earlier and you can follow instructions to test it out.
• CampaignEvents extension: The CampaignEvents extension was deployed to Wikimedia Commons and all Wikisources -80+ wikis.
• Event registration: Starting the week of October 6, on small and medium wikis that have the CampaignEvents extension enabled, all autoconfirmed users will be able to use Event Registration as an organizer. No changes will be made for large wikis unless requested in Phabricator. More information on Meta.
• Search Suggestions: Upon clicking an empty search bar, logged-out users now see suggestions of articles for further reading on all Wikipedias, in order to make it easier for users to find articles.
• Datacenter server switchover: A successful datacenter server switchover backup test took place on September 24.
• Activity Tab now on Android: Beta users of the Wikipedia Android app can now try the redesigned Activity tab, which replaces the Edits tab. The new tab offers personalized insights into reading, editing, and donation activity, while simplifying navigation and making app use more engaging.

Annual Goals Progress on Volunteer Support
See also blogs: Global Advocacy blog · Global Advocacy Newsletter · Policy blog · WikiLearn News · list of movement events

• Banners & Logos policies: The Wikimedia Foundation has published draft proposals for policies related to the use of banners and logo changes for advocacy purposes.
• Wikipedia 25: Wikimedia Foundation is creating playful, celebratory interventions on the Wikipedia portal page, the Wikipedia app, and potentially any interested Wikipedias to celebrate Wikipedia’s 25th birthday. Please share your inputs and add your username on the Talk page if you think your community would be interested in participating.
• Regional Funds: Welcoming new ESEAP Regional Funds Committee Members.
• Peer Learning: Reflections from Let’s Connect at Wikimania Nairobi 2025.

Annual Goals Progress on Effectiveness
See also: Progress on the annual plan

• Enterprise: Structured Contents now supports Wikipedia tables as structured JSON.

Board and Board committee updates
See Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard · Affiliations Committee Newsletter

• Wikimedia Georgia: Wikimedia Georgia becomes the newest Wikimedia Chapter.

Foundation statements

• Knowledge integrity: The Wikimedia Foundation launches a new series that explores how Wikipedia can inspire new standards of knowledge integrity for our times.

Highlights from other Movement curated newsletters & news
See also: Diff blog · Goings-on · Planet Wikimedia · Signpost (en) · Kurier (de) · Actualités du Wiktionnaire (fr) · Regards sur l’actualité de la Wikimedia (fr) · Wikimag (fr) · Education · GLAM · The Wikipedia Library · Milestones · Wikidata · Central and Eastern Europe · other newsletters

• National award: Wikipedian and current chair of Wikimedia Deutschland, Alice Wiegand, receives the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for her voluntary commitment to Wikipedia and the global Wikimedia movement.
• Supporting admins and patrollers: Motivating, training and networking – Wikimedia Ukraine’s plan to support Wikipedia admins and patrollers.
• Wikimania roundup: A roundup of Wikimania and this year's Wikimedians of the year by the French-speaking community's newsletter, Regards sur l’actualité du mouvement Wikimédia (Views on Wikimedia movement's events, or RAW).

Subscribe or unsubscribe · Help translate

For information about the Bulletin and to read previous editions, see the project page on Meta-Wiki. Let askcacwikimedia.org know if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement!

MediaWiki message delivery 16:26, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Foundation's mobile apps team is planning a 30-day experiment that will involve showing content from the "Did you know" section of the Main Page directly in the app's tabbed browsing feature. This would make the DYK section's content more visible to app readers, and it will be formatted in a more app-friendly way.

Happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you!

--ARamadan-WMF (talk) 08:48, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

@Cielquiparle It's been a while, but I know you were interested in this :) the wub "?!" 09:35, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks @The wub. Tagging @RoySmith and @Theleekycauldron. Cielquiparle (talk) 03:20, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

@ARamadan-WMF, do you all have a set date to begin the experiment yet? Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 20:45, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Starting from late October. ARamadan-WMF (talk) 17:08, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Ending 9 October the Foundation is asking for feedback to their proposed update to the banner and logo policies on meta and there is no discussion yet. I tried to explain the issues at hand on the talk page last weekend but it did not start any discussion either. So last chance to be heard on a highly technical topic but with potential consequences for the autonomy of the projects. h-stt !? 14:35, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up! I have added hopefully constructive feedback that a one week limit on logo changes and one day limit on blackouts are unnecessary formalization of norms that would be unnecessary for the stated goals of protecting the branding and prohibiting political messaging, given that other content-specific aspects of the policy update already address them. I have also requested a guarantee that advocacy banners/blackouts rejected by the WMF Global Advocacy team will have an accompanying explanation, especially given the secrecy surrounding this week's trimming of the WMF Board election shortlist. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 02:55, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

It occurs to me that not everyone watches/reads the centralized discussion template and that mentioning the existence of the m:2025 WMF Board reform petition here would be relevant. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 12:10, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

from Ars Tech. Mostly repeating similar points about left-wing bias and trying to get the WMF to reveal the process to keep WP neutral and complaining about how Fox News is unreliable on WP:RSP and similar. WMF's response to that, quoted "Wikipedia is supported by strong safeguards and high-quality volunteer oversight; it is a living encyclopedia that is always improving. We welcome the opportunity to further educate policymakers on the important work of Wikipedia, and the Wikimedia Foundation stands by its unwavering commitment to protect editors' exercise of free expression. Through rigorous policies, editorial standards, user privacy protections, and transparent processes, nearly 260,000 volunteers have created over 65 million articles in 300 languages. Wikipedia seeks to inform, not persuade." Masem (t) 00:11, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

FWIW, regarding the Manhattan Institute study he quotes, I had taken a closer look at that in the Signpost/research newsletter last year. (On the other hand, the criticism of WP:RSP that immediately follows this in his letter to Maryana Iskander is likely influenced by Larry Sanger's recent writings and media appeances.) Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:32, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Everyone who accuses Wikipedia of anti-Israel bias has no idea how the first 18 years went, with unblockable admins such as Jayg suppressing Palestinian viewpoints with a heavy fist. Shortly after the big Polish holocaust revisionism arbitration case closed, the Board of Trustees' Community Affairs Committee hosted a Zoom call with the spokesperson for the group that was complaining the loudest about antisemitism at the time, and she couldn't articulate what alternative arbitration outcome they would have preferred, what policy or guideline changes they wanted, or even a list of grievances concerning article text beyond an objection to the use of the term "apartheid." Now days they are just as clueless, but have forgotten apartheid for objections to accusations of genocide, while the sources supporting the latter are now much stronger than the former was. So what I'm trying to say is, I think it's best the WMF just ignore Cruz and similar complaints. They aren't worth responding to. 2603:800C:1200:596A:9BFF:B043:AA5B:14FF (talk) 23:57, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Just say we're only going on vacation in Cancun ... Daniel Case (talk) 04:50, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

In case folks didn't see it: Jacob Rogers has responded in another Ars Technica article. AntiCompositeNumber (they/them) (talk) 01:41, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation since our last issue on September 26. Please help translate.

---

Upcoming and current events and conversations
Let's Talk continues

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

Annual Goals Progress on Infrastructure
See also newsletters: Wikimedia Apps · Growth · Product Safety and Integrity · Readers · Research · Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia · Tech News · Language and Internationalization · other newsletters on MediaWiki.org

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

Annual Goals Progress on Volunteer Support
See also blogs: Global Advocacy blog · Global Advocacy Newsletter · Policy blog · WikiLearn News · list of movement events

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

Foundation statements

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

Other Movement curated newsletters & news
See also: Diff blog · Goings-on · Planet Wikimedia · Signpost (en) · Kurier (de) · Actualités du Wiktionnaire (fr) · Regards sur l’actualité de la Wikimedia (fr) · Wikimag (fr) · Education · GLAM · The Wikipedia Library · Milestones · Wikidata · Central and Eastern Europe · other newsletters

Subscribe or unsubscribe · Help translate

For information about the Bulletin and to read previous editions, see the project page on Meta-Wiki. Let askcacwikimedia.org know if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement!

MediaWiki message delivery 14:50, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Because the search for funders of Antifa àre going to look at this foundation.[10]. Doug Weller talk 09:45, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

According to Tides_Foundation#Wikimedia_Foundation, yes. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:47, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, but it’s not clear from that if we still are. Doug Weller talk 15:11, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm told we aren't, that "The WMF split from Tides in 2023 and launched the endowment as a separate nonprofit" see [11] Looks like that article needs updating. Doug Weller talk 15:26, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, but is the "Wikimedia Foundation Knowledge Equity Fund" in some sense an ongoing thing? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:23, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

m:Knowledge Equity Fund says that was moved from Tides in 2023 too. Anomie⚔ 16:26, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

This was my understanding as well, I believe that we jumped ship over general internal backlash against donor advised funds (most average people seem to hold them as deleterious to democracy and the worst form of "dark money") more so than specific criticisms of this particular fund or related political complications. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:30, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

So "Not for a couple of years or so." Think that'll help? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:32, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Earlier this week, the BoT announced that of the candidates shortlisted for Board of Trustees election in 2025, two would be disqualified - Ravan (Ravan J Al-Taie) and User:Bluerasberry (Lane Rasberry). This means that out of 6 candidates shortlisted by Affiliates, only 4 are on the ballot, out of which 2 will be elected.

The reasoning included for this removal is the "Board of Trustees Candidate Review Process", a policy voted in by BoT 2 days before the removal was announced.

There is discussion on Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost#Lane_not_on_ballot_for_WMF_board_of_trustees, including comments from Lane Rasberry about why he was removed.

As this is the more proper venue for this, starting a thread here as well. This is drastic and needs discussion within the greater community. Soni (talk) 08:52, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

While we call these "elections", they are technically only "suggestions" to the WMF board. The board is in fact self perpetuating and while they can take into consideration the opinion of the communities they are under no legal obligation to do so. In my opinion this is not an ideal situation as it exposes us to take over by a board not aligned with our movement. The movement needs greater checks and balances in place to prevent such an event, one a movement charter I was hoping would play. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:57, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

I've been trying to learn more about the history of how the Board of Trustees operates and how vetting of candidates happens. I was quite apathetic and confused about all this before, but nothing like recent events to motivate me. I'm in the early stages of planning a petition to make things better. I think the way things currently are stifles true community representation. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 15:27, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps we should also be having this discussion at: meta:Talk:Wikimedia Foundation elections committee Hexatekin (talk) 16:23, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Well, as I said, early stages. I'm sure I'll comment there more once I have more of a plan. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 16:44, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

@Clovermoss, @Hexatekin, @Doc James, and @Soni: It's a fair guess that several users are warming to the idea of making a petition and/or an open letter. Having had success a couple of times with such a move to put pressure on the WMF, I think it would be an excellent idea. It shouldn't be rushed, in any case nothing is going to change anything for the current election - which is a total parody of a democratic poll. It should probably be prepared offline by a small collaborative task force rather than creating a public shitfest about how to do it , and to avoid a duplication of effort, and losing the impact it would have. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:49, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

I do like the idea of a boycot. If my vote is not going to count, I'd at least like my !vote to be a statement. RoySmith (talk) 23:16, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

6000-odd users voted in last year's election. Every watcher of this page could boycott, and sign a petition of no confidence besides, and the WMF wouldn't even notice. —Cryptic 23:57, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

There is also the Talk: page for the announcement of their disqualification (meta:Talk:Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard/October 2025 update); the update itself included We invite your questions on the talk page of this message on Meta. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 17:58, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Boards are required to do their due diligence about director candidates. Also, unless there's a confidentiality ageeement about the board selection process, Lane and Ravan can share what reasons the board gave for excluding them from the ballot. Until they do, we have no way of knowing what the board's concerns are. For those saying they want a public explanation from the board: if you applied and they discovered something about you that might be embarrassing/disqualifying, would you want the board to publicly disclose that? voorts (talk/contributions) 13:32, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I see now that Lane explained why. Ignore that part of my comment. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:39, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I still stand by my statement that the board should not share potentially incriminating information that causes it to remove a candidate, but that does not appear to be the situation here. voorts (talk/contributions) 03:26, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

I've signed the petition. As far as I can tell from the various comments from Board members, the concern was that Lane might want to publicly post internal information that the Board treats as confidential. Removing a good-faith candidate from the ballot on this basis is deeply objectionable. The proper solution would have been to require anyone elected (or anyone expected to be on the final ballot) to sign an agreement not to release private information. We have similar things that Oversighters and Checkusers sign, and that would not be a problem. But it sounds to me like Lane was kicked off without ever having been asked about that, just on the basis of innocuous things he has said about the importance of reporting, and Board members assuming the worst after reading that. It also sounds to me like Ravan was eliminated for having posted comments on social media about Israel/Palestine that (I infer) would not go over well with the Trump administration. I think it goes against every core principle of the Wikimedia movement to expect Board members to "speak with one voice", as opposed to coming to consensus after hearing differing views. And it's a very autocratic-seeming election process, when the number of candidates gets pruned down to the number of open seats. The WMF Board has lost my confidence, and it's hanging by a thread in terms of losing the confidence of the editing community. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:22, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

And it's a very autocratic-seeming election process, when the number of candidates gets pruned down to the number of open seats. Aren't there now four candidates for two seats? voorts (talk/contributions) 00:03, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Well, I'm taking in a lot of information, but I'm pretty sure I saw someone say that it's four candidates for four seats. If that's wrong, I'll strike it. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:06, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

@Tryptofish: Four candidates for two seats, which isn't much of a selection. Even if everybody previously approved ran, we would've only had six people in the election. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 00:14, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, both of you. I've struck it here, where the reason is given just above, and I'll correct it at the other two places I posted it. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:18, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

I would venture that the time spent reading through four candidate statements is likely longer than the average editor would want to spend even thinking about the board or elections. I don't think more candidates necessarily entails better quality or better choice. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:54, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Similarly to ViridianPenguin, below, my concern isn't simply about the number of candidates. It's who gets to decide, how they decide, and for what reasons. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:35, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

I think it would be good to have more diversity in perspectives. People who don't want to do a little more reading could always follow a voter's guide if they don't want to do that research themselves (not that I'd recommend that course of action, but I don't think we should cater the entire election process to that). But having limits on how many people can run prevents all that. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 03:07, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

If the six shortlisted candidates were trimmed to four by random draw to simplify the ballot, I would still disagree but could stomach the situation. It is Lane's disqualification for contributing to The Signpost, which was known from the start, on the basis of achieving a uniform WMF Board viewpoint that folks like me find especially disagreeable. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 14:34, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Personally I see the disqualification of Raven as much worse, as do other wiki communities it appears. Also well aware this isn't a competition of how controversial a disqualification can be. It also seems like nobody really cares, at least not compared to other issues. I assume the community lost faith in the WMF a long time ago to bother caring that much about their "election" these days. CNC (talk) 17:25, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

I’m not gonna lie - while I have my concerns with the board’s actions here (shouldn’t any possible issues have come up far earlier in vetting? Why are these two only being booted from things now, which, to put it bluntly, is grossly unfair to them after going through the entire process? Is this to appease the regime currently burning down the foundations of American democracy?), the argument that Ravan’s removal from the ballot constitutes a violation of her human rights under international statutes comes off as extremely tone-deaf. Remember, this is an election for a non-profit’s board of trustees, and not even a household-name one (ex. the NAACP, Red Cross, MSF, etc - while Wikipedia is a household name, I’d argue the Wikimedia Foundation isn’t even close).

Additionally, echoing statements above, the WMF and community are so out of step with each other at this point that I’ll lose little sleep about whatever happens. There’s far more pressing things for me and others to worry about in day to day life. The Kip ^(contribs) 02:08, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

The WMF Board adopted a human rights policy in 2021 that commits them to following the international human rights instruments cited in the objections. If the board, which is currently conducting a purportedly free, fair, and transparent non-profit board election, removed a candidate from the pool as a result of political/government pressure based on their advocacy, that would appear to violate article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which provides for "the right to freedom of opinion and expression", including the "freedom to hold opinions without interference". (I am skeptical that article 25 of the ICCPR covers non-profit board elections and I haven't evaluated the rest of the provisions at issue.) voorts (talk/contributions) 02:58, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Huh, TIL. Good to know that the objection has genuine backing/precedent, albeit I still personally find the “human rights violation” description lacking perspective; again, this is an election for a medium-profile nonprofit, not something the average individual would consider a matter of human rights. The Kip ^(contribs) 03:03, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

If true, I find it chilling for the future of the open knowledge movement and civil society writ large. voorts (talk/contributions) 03:05, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

When multiple states have (and are attempting to) wage disinformation campaigns on and off Wikipedia, I hardly think this is the most pressing issue regarding open knowledge and civil society on Wikipedia itself, let alone society as a whole (see: literally everything the current American government is undertaking domestically). The Kip ^(contribs) 03:11, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

This would be part of the literally everything the current American government is undertaking domestically. I agree with you, disinformation is bad; so is engaging in an agitprop pressure campaign to force a candidate out of a non-profit board election because of their political speech. voorts (talk/contributions) 03:18, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

I agree that this falls under that; my point is moreso it’s not even close to the most pressing issue at hand regarding that, and I disagree with making it out to be bigger than it is.

Anything further I can say would delve into WP:FORUM territory, so I think I’ll call it here. The Kip ^(contribs) 03:22, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

It still shouldn't be a competition over who can make the worst decisions and create the largest problems, nor is it necessary prioritising some of these and ignoring others, broadly speaking that is. A weighted approach to caring about these things is usually a more desirable and effective overall. And per voorts comment, if the board that oversees the foundation of the largest open encyclopedia in the world is breaching human rights in elections, there are probably much worse problems to come in the sphere of diffusion of free information. It's not a good look either way. CNC (talk) 12:46, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

• Nataliia, the chair of the BoT, has posted an update with answers to some of your questions on Meta. That update can be found here. She has asked for further questions or concerns to be voiced on that talk page, which is more actively monitored by the BoT since it's on Meta. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 13:30, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  Those of you who will be at WCNA next week might want to attend the Conversation with the Wikimedia Foundation trustees scheduled for 16:05 - 17:00 on Saturday. RoySmith (talk) 13:40, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  Thank you for boosting this - There will also be a Board Elections panel that will have a Q&A/suggestion board portion. It's on Sunday from 13:30 to 14:00. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 13:44, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  I'm guessing the answer is no, but do you know if that session is being livestreamed (or recorded and put online subsequently) ? — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 17:34, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  The proposals for both sessions say "Livestreaming is okay" so I would assume that will happen. RoySmith (talk) 17:48, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  Thank you for flagging this! I will be there, and I am happy to ask any questions that folks unable to attend have, though this frustrating situation has left me with many of my own. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 01:04, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

  Here's my write-up, which I also posted to meta:Talk:2025 WMF Board reform petition#WCNA: During today's Day 2 of WikiConference North America 2025, Wikimedia Foundation CEO Maryana Iskander led a discussion on the WMF with Board members Mayree Clark and Kathy Collins. This choice of panelists did themselves no favors, as our primary concern is that a ballot whose candidates are hand-picked by the Board makes community seats redundant with appointed seats, yet we did not have any community board members to explain why they joined the unanimous vote to drop Lane and Ravan. As Theklan put it here, folks are especially concerned that Chair-Elect Lorenzo Losa was elected by the community on promises that seem directly contradicted by wikt:eleventh-hour unexplained removals of two highly qualified candidates. Instead of getting a response from our representatives, we only heard from those who naturally support Board appointments.

  Mayree Clark, a recent appointee, began her remarks by noting her prior service on the board of Deutsche Bank, and she praised its similar structure of evenly dividing its members between typical businesspeople and union-elected representatives. When I asked why that recognized strength of Deutsche Bank should not encourage us to have freer community elections for WMF Board seats, Iskander claimed that early in her tenure, she found community-nominated Board members to be at odds with appointed ones. I fail to see why this history should mean the WMF Board should effectively appoint all the seats, rather than have the community elect a greater share.

  Most upsettingly, when Clovermoss disputed Iskander's view, she retorted that one could not question her decision-making until they served as CEO of such a large organization. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, but with great power comes great responsibility. When paid ~$500K USD per year, Iskander has a responsibility to explain the Board's decision-making beyond its finality, rather than blithely dismiss the concerns of someone so recently recognized for their value to the community.

  I ended my questions by noting that Deutsche Bank workers achieved their board representation with the threat of strikes. I highlighted that if the WMF Board only offers platitudes in the coming weeks without serious consideration of reform, then Wikimedia projects will be left to exercise our similar threat of blackouts. Let us hope that this round of criticism yields rooms for reconstruction. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 03:19, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

  I have compiled a series of events surrounding what is being discussed, as well as open questions that need to be discussed in response to these events at: m:Learning from events and reactions surrounding the removal of Lane Rasberry from the 2025 Board Elections candidate shortlist. I had help from a few others to copy-edit and verify details. Hexatekin (talk) 14:32, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

• The incoming board chair has left a new announcement. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:26, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

I suggest we write on their talk pages asking them to take a position. Current candidates:

• Bobby Shabangu User:Bobbyshabangu
• James Alexander User:Jamesofur
• Michał Buczyński User:Aegis Maelstrom
• Wojciech Pędzich User:Wojciech Pędzich

Hexatekin (talk) 17:19, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

I see you have done that. I, for one, will not vote for any of the current candidates who do not reply. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:54, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Isn't it time to have a "vote of no confidence" on the whole Board of Trustees? There is some limited precedent for this, see here for such a vote about one BoT member (who then stepped down). Fram (talk) 14:53, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

As that RfC noted, we lack the power to enforce a vote of no confidence. Whereas the Board could easily handle the resignation of one member based on their professional misconduct, the WMF being a board-only organization would mean that the only way they could resign en masse over election issues is if they first set a procedure for selecting their replacements, which brings us back to the present issue. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 15:03, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

It would at least make it clearer how the communities feel, and make it harder for them to continue as if nothing untoward happened. Fram (talk) 15:30, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

No, strikes me as childish and absurdly out of proportion. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:30, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Why is it out of proportion when the BoT decides which opinions are allowed within it and which are stifled? How is it out of proportion if people feel that that BoT doesn't represent the ideals of the WMF (or at least of Wikipedia)? What is more appropriate than a "vote of no confidence" if people have actually lost confidence in them? Fram (talk) 15:32, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Thats an interesting framing... But it seems fundamentally dishonest because that isn't what the BoT has done here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:39, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

As far as powerful institutions that affect my life go, the WMF, while not flawless, is about the last one that I would sign onto a no-confidence vote for. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 15:42, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

That's fine. Unlike the BoT, we do welcome disagreeing opinions. Fram (talk) 15:59, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

You're skating awfully close to a BLP issue here, hyperbole is no excuse either. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:04, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

"That strikes me as childish and absurdly out of proportion". Fram (talk) 16:24, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

"it seems fundamentally dishonest" Fram (talk) 16:25, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

"That/It" is not a person in either case, in the first it is the proposed no confidence vote and in the second it is the framing. You are casting aspersions about the board that aren't supported by either the facts or the complaints being made by other parties. You're going so far that I think you're alienating people who would otherwise agree with you... But the issue at hand here is a lot more nuanced than the BoT refusing to allow disenting opinions. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:29, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

To quote from someone's else opinion on this very page: "I think it goes against every core principle of the Wikimedia movement to expect Board members to "speak with one voice", as opposed to coming to consensus after hearing differing views. The WMF Board has lost my confidence, and it's hanging by a thread in terms of losing the confidence of the editing community." So at the very least it seems that my "aspersions" are supported by the complaints of at least some others. Looking at the open letters I linked to below, I see e.g. this from LGBT+ group: "By corrupting the defined democratic process for its own elections after an open call for candidates and the voting immediately due to start, the WMF Board has exposed itself as either incompetent or being misused to pursue an unstated agenda. " At the meta discussions, I see e.g. a post titled "Value of an election where candidates are vetted for unanimity", with others stating "pre-filtering choices for the sake of “unity” or “alignment.”"

Other statements I read there (from different editors, not just rehashing one person's opinion):

• "I find it really scary to read that candidates were possibly excluded because "the Foundation needs a strongly unified board committed to collective decision-making responsibilities". The strength of our movement is the diversity of opinion and being able to compromise without having the same opinions. In a world that's moving away from democracy, I'm saddened if we move the same direction."
• "A closed circle decides who can join them. The WMF board is an oligarchy. "

And so on... Fram (talk) 17:06, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

If only you would be so good as to tolerate my dissenting opinion... A letter or motion of objection is likely proportional (we will know better once we have more communication from the two excluded candidates), but a vote of no confidence still seems to be out of order here... The board is following its rules and procedures even if many (including me) would like to see those rules and procedures evolve. TLDR I have confidence in the board to follow its rules and procedures, what I lack is confidence in those rules and procedures... Does that make sense? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:13, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

I have no problem with your dissenting opinion, only with your "framing" of this as a borderline BLP violation which isn't supported by anyone. Fram (talk) 17:29, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Your comment was a borderline BLP violation, at best it was hyperbole. You responding to being told that with an attack on me simply isn't warranted... Take the criticism and adjust your argument accordingly, thank you. Now, does what I have to say make sense to you? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:21, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

FWIW, I had been under the impression that I was up to date on WMF-related drama, but evidently was not. I'm uncertain as to whether a vote of no confidence is the best response, but I do agree with the general thrust of the letters of objection. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:15, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

@Fram, forgive my ignorance, are there some examples of why you would want a mass resignation? Knitsey (talk) 15:42, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, I should have linked this in my opening post. See above, Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)#About the 2025 Board of Trustees Elections, and all the discussions linked from there. Basically, they have at the very last moment removed two of the 6 candidates in the BoT elections on very flimsy grounds. This page at Meta lists some of the groups which have negatively reacted to this intervention, e.g. meta:Objections to the 2025 WMF Board election removals/Arab Community has them boycotting the elections, as does a group of Spanish language wiki and a group of LGBT+ project members (so quite a wide range of voices). Fram (talk) 15:58, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

@Fram, thank you for the link, I appreciate it. I will have a read through it. Knitsey (talk) 16:01, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

@Fram, I've still got some more reading to do. Have I got this right? 2 days before the election, 2 people were removed from the ballot? There was no public reason given at the time? The reasons were pertaining to 1 candidate being a journalist and 1 candidate being an activist but this was then denied by the BoT? Knitsey (talk) 17:02, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

I don't think this was really denied, it is so far hard to find out what their official reasons for the rejection are (hiding behind "privacy" I believe). But yes, that's basically the gist of it. Fram (talk) 17:07, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Wouldn't there be privacy issues? Is that why the reasons were not published? Knitsey (talk) 17:11, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

The issue seems to be that the board can't disclose what it told the candidates... Only the candidates themselves can do that and the candidates so far have been rather vague about it (I may be out of date on that though, or more may have been published on another language wiki). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:16, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

I didn't want to make any assumptions but that would make sense.

It is difficult to see how this can be overcome, or if it should be overcome. Knitsey (talk) 17:25, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

It seems like the candidates should provide that information if they want the community to support them... What reason would they have for not being transparent? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:22, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

I can't seem to find the info on timing for removal vs when they applied. 2 days before an election, that I assume requires quite a bit of preparation, seems poor timing. That would depend on the gap between application and refusal.

The privacy issue would overide transparency in this instance. As you said @Horse Eye's Back, it would be up to candidates to disclose the removal reasons. Knitsey (talk) 19:31, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

What privacy issue? I can't come up with a legitimate reason for the candidates to keep that information private, can you? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:34, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

I meant that the BoT reason for removal of candidates from the list. Contacting them privately to explain why they were removed, rather then making it public would come under privacy issues? Then, if a candidate wants to make the reasons public, they can do so. Knitsey (talk) 20:20, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

The reasons for their removal are given here: m:Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/October_2025_update#Message_from_Victoria_Doronina_on_Wikimedia-l. Some1 (talk) 23:58, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

@Some1 thank you for the link. Knitsey (talk) 13:45, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

The WMF long ago lost my confidence, and recent events have only proven me right. Who owns the WMF anyway? Phil Bridger (talk) 19:06, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

To some extent, the donors. See for example Omidyar Network#Investees. —Rutebega (talk) 20:15, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

More so, the big tech corporate customers. 75.75.121.85 (talk) 00:57, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Support. sapphaline (talk) 12:27, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

No. IMO, that "precedent" turned into an internet mob trying to destroy and harass a living person (perhaps more than one living person, members of the board also). That's what regularly happens on the internet, and we should not give occasion for it. (The irony, here, is it is likely that attack, that, in part, made the board screen of new members even more searching, to protect the person and the foundation. So, board members are damned if they do, and damned if they don't, that's also the way of the internet (and the way of diffuse and contradictory communities).

That people don't know or refuse to know how boards work, and what is legally and constitutionally expected of board members as fiduciaries, is no good basis for attacking them. I get it, some disagree, they would exercise their own judgement, and even insist that the board do what they want, and only what they want, but it is the members of the board that have the legal duty to exercise their own independent judgement (not your judgement, and not people on the internet's judgement -- with respect to the board, people on the internet have no legal duty, no legal risk, and no legal responsibility, board members do). -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:27, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

No, I have my own problems with a bunch of what is being said and done within the construct of the BoT elections and as such have boycotted the elections. That being said, I don't see how veto/no-confidencing the entire board is in our interest at all. The correct approach would be to demand transperancy and move the board to reform the election procedure. -- Sohom (talk) 02:32, 16 October 2025 (UTC)