San Francisco-based outlet KQED reported U.S.-based Wikimedia staff's demand for recognition of their Wiki Workers United U.S. (WWU) union:

The staff who run the platform say they want a stronger voice in their workplace, better job protections and an end to common practices that make life "precarious for everyday workers" according to Jeremy Bernick, one of the union organizers.

WWU demanded a response from the WMF by July 24, i.e. before the end of the Wikimania conference. According to Law360, which also covered the recognition demand, the union is organizing with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and aims to represent about 235 U.S. employees.

A press release from CWA said recent events at the Wikimedia Foundation had led to drastically increased concerns regarding transparency, trust, the organization's future, and leadership's commitment to the free knowledge movement.

Union organizer Jeremy Bernick told KQED that the union represented WMF employees' third and so far most advanced attempt at unionizing, highlighting the Trump administration's attacks on public media, the cost of living crisis and concerns about artificial intelligence as some of the factors driving more staff toward unionization. WWU-UK, the UK branch of Wiki Workers United, sought voluntary recognition from the Foundation in June (see press release).

As 404 Media's Jason Koebler reported on July 27, the WMF declined to recognize Wiki Workers United U.S., waiting until after the end of the Wikimania conference to make its decision public. For further developments, see this issue's News and notes. – AK

Discussion of the many Wikipedia contributions of User:Ser Amantio di Nicolao, aka Steven Pruitt, begins and ends an in-depth article in the The New Yorker (not paywalled yet, except at archive.org). While Pruitt is interviewed, the charm of the article is his straight-forward modesty, as well as similar realistic commentary by other Wikipedians, including Justin Knapp (whose record as most active Wikipedian was overtaken by Pruitt), Jimmy Wales, and Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight. Going a step further the article gets into detail on AI and some of the recent challenges faced by Wikipedia. But the focus is, as it should be, on the Wikipedians. – S

• Too cryptic: Wikipedia doesn't have enough cryptocurrency articles because of its stringent notability policies, says deprecated cryptocurrency media company CoinDesk [1]
• Editors feel unsafe, receive "condescending" and "exclusionary" treatment: Aaron Bandler reports for the Jerusalem News Syndicate on another study by Israeli academic Shlomit Aharoni Lir.
• Guess the real fake article: Buzzfeed has a quiz that lists 20 triplets of purported Wikipedia articles, two of which are actual articles with one being a fake. Presumably, this means current articles. This reporter could only find 10 of the fakes, even though I could easily identify 16 of the real articles. Just unlucky, I guess! Let us know how you scored in the comments section. Probability professors are also invited to give the expected number of correct guesses as a function of the number of current articles known to be real, given complete ignorance of the fake articles, a random distribution of the known articles, etc. S
• This is wildly curious: Seattle isn't solely Starbucks and software; also pseudoscience: Discovery Institute blogger, summarizing The Federalist critique of the siteban received by Larry Sanger (see last issue), finds people still reading Wikipedia "beyond curious" and "a wildly Woke [sic] example of what can go wrong in an information society" [2]
• Wikimedians of the Year (from Diff): [3] — see News from Diff.
• Battling health disinformation: The Genetic Literacy Project features an interview with Dr. Netha Hussain, who "has been part of the last line of defense against public health disinformation on Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia".
• The New York Times visits a World Cup focused editing meet-up in NYC: Published on July 17, 2026 in the The Athletic, the New York Times' sports journalism department, Rebecca Tauber's article: Welcome to the high-stakes universe of World Cup Wikipedia editing covers the Wiki Loves Fútbol campaign and includes quotes from: Kunal Mehta, Pacita Rudder, Danilo Mendonça, and Jordan Trujillo. Tauber stopped by Prime Produce for a FIFA World Cup focused event, Foundation and Friends' Free Culture / Wiki Loves Fútbol Friday on July 10, hosted by Wikimedia NYC and WikiLatinos. – W540
• Television stats: A company is using Wikipedia pageviews as the primary source for its lists of the most popular TV shows, reports MediaPost.
• San Francisco Chronicle investigates importance of Wikipedia in AI-heavy landscape of the mid-2020s: Published July 14, 2026, Thomas Lee's article: In the age of AI slop and misinformation, we need Wikipedia more than ever emphasis the importance and challenges Wikipedia faces in 2026 and beyond. Lee investigates the cannibalization of Wikipedia's content by AI, interviews Marshall Miller, looks into the effect that the drop of page views has had on fundraising, explains some volunteer outreach programs, and also breaks down Wikimedia Enterprise. – W540
• Minnesota Wiknic welcomes new editors: Racket covers a longtime Wikipedia reader's attendance of the annual Minnesota Wiknic, expecting a gathering of graybead grognards but finding instead friendly faces.
• Wikipedia cited in R400 million arbitration dispute: Times Live reports on a PwC investigation finding that arbitrators relied on Wikipedia to accept double-counting in a disputed valuation of a stake in Lanseria International Airport, also faulting the Public Investment Corporation's preparation and expert testimony in a case costing it millions.
• Sleepy time, courtesy of ... us: The I can't sleep podcast features Wikipedia article "read slowly, in a soft monotone" with episodes covering Middle-earth, French fries, and concrete. The last one sounds particularly compelling. (Boing Boing) A bonus episode is the narrator, Utahn Benjamin Boster, explaining the podcast's origin story and how he turned the "problem" of people listening to his voice, instead of his ideas, into an opportunity – and a full-time job.
• Candidate's article edited before leadership bid: The Scotsman reports that shortly before announcing his bid for leadership of Scottish Labour, Joe Fagan's Wikipedia article was substantially expanded, including a rework of the "Controversy" section and blunting of criticism.