Optional: write a lede — not necessarily a WP:LEAD. Interesting > encyclopedic.

Sed ut perspiciatis, unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam eaque ipsa, quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt, explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem, quia voluptas sit, aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos, qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt, neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum, quia dolor sit amet consectetur adipisci velit.

See related Signpost content in this issue's In the media.

Archive.today has been deprecated as the result of the Archive.is Request for Comment (5) (RfC 5) which closed February 20. The RfC closure begins with the following text:

There is consensus to immediately deprecate archive.today, and, as soon as practicable, add it to the spam blacklist (or create an edit filter that blocks adding new links), and remove all links to it. There is a strong consensus that Wikipedia should not direct its readers towards a website that hijacks users' computers to run a DDoS attack.

Further information on the decision and practical outcomes for editors can be found at WP:Archive.today guidance. – B

The Wikimedia Foundation has announced that it will delete all notes in the Wikimedia-hosted Etherpad instances at https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/ in April 2026. Since the adoption and recommendation of etherpads as a Wikimedia community notetaking platform in 2011, the Wikimedia community has used etherpads for notetaking during meetings of Wikimedia chapters and usergroups, Wikimedia conferences, and informal in-person or virtual meetings where community members have live voice conversations.

The Site Reliability Engineering team of the Wikimedia Foundation communicated the decision in Wikimedia Phabricator ticket T415237 on January 22, framing the issue as a technical matter. On 10 February 2026, the Wikimedia Foundation made an announcement an announcement to Wikitech-l sharing that the Wikimedia Foundation will delete all the texts on 30 April, 2026. The primary rationale for deletion is that this collection uses excessive resources. There is something odd here, as the filesize of Wikimedia etherpads is 233GB, which is about ten times the Wikipedia:Size of Wikipedia. Some of this content is the expected and familiar hand-typed notes from hard-working Wikimedia volunteer note takers, and probably the other 232GB is something unexpected.

Wikimedia dude and volunteer user:Audiodude communicated the matter to the Wikimedia community in venues including Talk:Etherpad and Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous).

While Wikimedia Foundation system administrators tend to start conversations as technical issues, Wikimedia users tend to think of software in terms of tools for achieving goals. While it may be the case that the etherpads are consuming more resources than anticipated, the point of the etherpads is to value and preserve discussion notes on important Wikimedia community volunteer concerns for user governance, strategic planning, and addressing the challenges we face in supporting global coordination of Wikimedia content development programs. The Wikimedia Foundation for years has recommended etherpad usage for event documentation, including at Wikimedia conferences including Wikimania, in discussions with Wikimedia Foundation staff and Wikimedia Foundation board members, and as a default notetaking service in all situations where notes can be public and collaboratively edited.

Looking ahead to deletion and to remember sample Wikimedia etherpad use, here are screenshots of typical notes documents, archived as PDFs in Wikimedia Commons. – BR

• 
  meeting notes, Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network, virtual, July 2024
• 
  Wikipedia editing & AI, WikiConference North America 2025 in New York City
• 
  Chat with the Wikidata development team, Wikimania 2025 in Nairobi
• 
  Future of Wikimania, Wikimania 2025 in Nairobi

Comment these items out if something happens.

• Milestones: The following Wikimedia projects have reached milestones: TKTK
• Articles for Improvement: This week's Article for Improvement is Reef (beginning 9 March). Please be bold in helping improve this article!