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According to Reuters, Jimbo suggested that Wikipedia is seeking to make deals similar to its arrangement with Google in order to monetize AI scraping, while planning on using technical tools to limit AI crawling. Seems like we're ending the year with a bang, isn't it? Oltrepier (talk) 20:37, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Bri @Smallbones @Jayen466 Is this notable enough to feature in the next issue's ITM?

I didn't have any update, so I just wanted to check in... Oltrepier (talk) 11:39, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've dropped a little piece into ITM. Thanks for flagging the story. Andreas JN466 12:03, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've also included Meehan's comments on the same issue from the piece below. (We'll need to arrange article sequence in such a way that readers encounter the news of Meehan's appointment before they come across her comments on that issue.) Andreas JN466 12:10, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Jayen466 Thank you, I appreciate it! Oltrepier (talk) 16:00, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note that the Reuters headline is rather insidiously wrong - these are not "AI licensing deals" like say the recently announced one between Meta and CNN+Fox News, or OpenAI and Disney (in the sense of giving AI companies a permission - i.e. license - to train on content).

Rather, Jimbo is quite clearly referring to the paid API access offered by Wikimedia Enterprise (where Google was one of the first customers), even though the word "Enterprise" is not explicitly mentioned in the Reuters article (a bit of a missed branding opportunity for WMF I guess). And whatever concerns one might have about Wikimedia Enterprise (and I do have some), they do not pretend to sell such licenses about the reuse of Wikipedia content. Nor would the Wikimedia Foundation be able to do that, considering that individual Wikipedia contributors own the copyright to this content, not the Foundation.

In fact, this is (commendably) clarified in bold print right on the Enterprise homepage (https://enterprise.wikimedia.com/ ):

Zero Licensing Fees
Over 99.9% of data available through Wikimedia Enterprise services is under a Creative Commons license, allowing you to put that data to work in the best way for your business.

Again, this is not to dismiss all possible criticism of the kind of content monetization that WMF is actually embarking on with its for-profit subsidiary. (I mean, I wrote a whole article in our last issue that was enabled by ChatGPT *not* yet being blocked from accessing Wikipedia, something that might well change if WMF joins Cloudflare's extremely aggressive anti-scraping scheme, as Jimbo indicates.) But our coverage should not uncritically promote this "AI licensing deals" misconception, and as always part of the value of ITM lies in adding context. I'll try to edit the article now to do that, including adding the link to the full interview that the Reuters article is based on [1] - I haven't had time to watch it yet though, so if someone else wants to check what Jimbo actually said there about this topic, please do (while it wouldn't be the first time that he bungled some wording when talking with the media, my first assumption is that he did not actually say "AI licensing").

Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:39, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Done, I also reviewed what Jimbo actually said in the full interview (I found a YouTube version with searchable transcript), and sure enough he was explicitly clarifying such differences and steering clear of "AI licensing" claims. Regards, HaeB (talk) 09:58, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-genocide-wikipedia

This came in after our deadline. I don't see it anywhere but Common Dreams – American progressive news website – and a CAIR press release, and would expect it to be in more media if it's noteworthy. Probably best to wait till next issue for more evaluation instead of trying to shoehorn it in now. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:55, 17 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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As usual, we are preparing this regular survey on recent academic research about Wikipedia, doubling as the Wikimedia Research Newsletter (now in its fifteenth volume). Help is welcome to review or summarize the many interesting items listed here, as are suggestions of other new research papers that haven't been covered yet. Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:05, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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Hello! I've finally managed to expand the In focus piece on the Jimbo and Larry controversies we started a few weeks ago. Very belatedly... but still, it's done now.

If @Soni, @Bri, @Smallbones or everybody else wants to take this home, now you should have an easier task in your hands! : ) Oltrepier (talk) 15:54, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pog. jp×g🗯️ 06:38, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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