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.

On July 20, Wiki Workers United U.S. demanded voluntary recognition as a union from the Wikimedia Foundation, following a similar request for voluntary recognition made by WWU-UK, the UK branch of WWU, in June. The request by Wiki Workers United U.S. demanded a response from the Wikimedia Foundation by Friday, July 24, i.e. during the Wikimania conference. No response was received by that date, though the topic of Wikimedia staffers unionizing was discussed at the conference (see video on the right).

On July 27, the WMF published a statement declining voluntary recognition of Wiki Workers United U.S.

The statement said:

[W]e believe a secret-ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board is the appropriate path forward. This process protects individual choice and ensures that any outcome reflects the collective will of those eligible to participate.

The community response to the WMF statement has mostly been one of dismay, with fears that the Foundation will use the time gap between now and the secret ballot to discourage employees from union involvement, using union busting methods as described humorously in an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. A community petition to the WMF Board to recognize the union has been started on Meta-Wiki; as we were getting ready to publish this issue, it had passed 150 signatures. Two prior community petitions in support of the union, started in May 2026 on Meta-Wiki and on English Wikipedia, have attracted well over 1,200 signatures each.

Jimmy Wales said on the Wikimedia-l mailing list that he had looked into the process followed by WWU, which had resulted in a supermajority of employees signing a union card, and thought it imperfect:

One of the problems with the process so far is that it was not secret and we have heard from some staff members that they felt pressured because the organizers would know how they decided. That isn't a great process and it goes against our movement's values quite badly to have people in a situation where they are pressured into something one way or the other.

It's pretty easy to see the problem if we imagine it in the other direction - imagine some company asking staff to sign pledge cards not to join a union, and keeping track of who did or didn't in order to put pressure on those who didn't. Gross. It doesn't make it better for it to be the other way around in my own personal view.

I want a process where staff are safe to deliberate in the privacy of their own minds and make the decision based on all the available evidence that makes the most sense to them. So I don't think insisting on a proper vote is process for the sake of process and I say that with my own estimate that the staff will vote to support unionization. I think we'll be in a better place if it's really clear - a clean and clear choice with no chance of pressure.

In terms of time, energy, and money - I don't think it should take very long and again speaking only for myself I hope we get it done as quickly and efficiently as we can and I hope that everyone - staff, management, board, and community can come together to celebrate the outcome. I know I will.

WWU announced on 28 July that they would file for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board. The announcement also accused the Wikimedia Foundation of being disingenuous in their public communications:

Thousands of workers across the tech and nonprofit sectors have achieved voluntary recognition through this "card check" method. Our demand of the Wikimedia Foundation was simply that they live up to their values and be the high-road employer that they purport to be. They refused.

While the Wikimedia Foundation touts to the public that they plan to take a neutral stance in our organizing efforts, they have already proven that not to be the case behind the scenes. When the Foundation rejected our request for voluntary recognition this week, they immediately sent out to employees and the public statements couched in classic union-busting rhetoric, rhetoric undoubtedly provided by outrageously expensive union-avoidance law firms. This insulting and wasteful use of Foundation resources is both an insult to Foundation employees and to the Free Knowledge Movement as a whole.

Insisting that our right to organize be adjudicated by the National Labor Relations Board is not a neutral choice; it has nothing to do with election procedures or employee choice. It has everything to do with delaying the process and stalling the vote in order to give time to the union busters to launch a potentially coercive anti-union campaign against Foundation employees.

Community members expressed concern about the fact that the Wikimedia Foundation has a business relationship with the Jones Day law firm, which is particularly well known in the U.S. for aggressive union busting. In this context, it is worth pointing out that the WMF's relationship with Jones Day dates back over a decade and that Jones Day has primarily dealt with the Foundation's brand and trademark management. However, it eventually transpired that the Foundation has chosen to be represented by the law firm Littler Mendelson, which has an equally strong reputation for union busting.

Relevant links:

• June 24 press release from the Communication Workers Union (CWU, UK)
• FAQ, Wiki Workers United
• Announcements, Wiki Workers United
• July 20 press release from Communications Workers of America (CWA)
• July 27 WMF response, including an FAQ
• National Labor Relations Board case page (for U.S. users), archive link for users outside the U.S.

Community pages:

• Wiki Workers United/Solidarity Signatures on Meta-Wiki, started 12 May 2026, over 1,250 signatures
• Wikipedia:Wiki Workers United solidarity on English Wikipedia, started 21 May 2026, over 1,200 signatures
• Community petition to the WMF Board to recognize the union on Meta-Wiki, started 28 July, over 150 signatures

AK

Following the 2025 selection process for the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, which saw two of the candidates disqualified (see previous Signpost special report and interview as well as 2025 WMF Board reform petition), the WMF Board decided to review the selection process of new Trustees.

On 17 July, the board publicised its proposed new, significantly more stringent eligibility criteria. The main difference is that the proposed new criteria demand considerably more board or community experience, with ordinary community members who are not already office holders unable to stand for election. The proposed new criteria are as follows:

Feedback is invited on Meta-Wiki. AK, C

On July 26, Wikimedia Korea released an open letter calling for an investigation after allegations a Wikimania participant experienced unsought physical contact and sexual harassment.

Several key activists from Wikimedia Korea took part in this event. I had hoped that our participants would return from this event—which brings together Wikimedians from around the world—having gained a range of valuable experiences, and that they would continue their activities with even greater vigour. However, today I heard that one of our members whilst offering well-intentioned assistance to another participant, was instead subjected to unwanted, forced physical contact and sexual harassment. We find this deeply regrettable and are deeply dismayed.
— User:Jjw, president of Wikimedia Korea Wikimedia Korea/Open letter to the Wikimania community July 26 (translation)

Wikimedia Malaysia released a statement the next day, and said that one of their own members had experienced sexual harassment in a separate incident.

Their issue is not an isolated case. Earlier, one of our own community members who attended the conference in person has filed a Trust and Safety complaint to the conference team regarding a separate case of sexual harassment by another Wikimedian against another Wikimedian from a different region. Similar to the other case, this case also involved physical touch and forceful intimacy against a person who has expressed her discomfort at a breach of personal space.
— Tofeiku, Chair of Wikimedia CUG Malaysia, on Wikimedia CUG Malaysia's response in support of Wikimedia Korea’s statement on Wikimania (translation)

Vice President of the WMF Community Resilience & Sustainability team Maggie Dennis responded to the open letter, confirming communication with the individuals involved.

The Foundation is treating this matter seriously. You may be aware that we do not discuss Trust & Safety incidents in respect to the privacy of all individuals, but I can confirm that we are in contact with individuals involved in the reported incident and witnesses to other concerning behaviors. [...] While we will not be able to update community, including Wikimedia Korea, on the outcomes according to standard Trust & Safety policies, the person who made the report to us will be told the outcome directly.
— Maggie Dennis at Community Resilience & Sustainability/Response to Open letter to the Wikimania community July 26

The title of this entry is from the Abstract Wikipedia article on itself.

A Request for comment has opened over on Meta Wiki about Abstract Wikipedia. Discussion is ongoing about whether rolling out to more languages should be paused, the project should be closed, or the Foundation should have more "transparency" about the project. Originally approved by the Board of Trustees in 2020, the project aims to provide a way for smaller language Wikipedias to access articles in their language. The community has raised concerns about allowing the integration of Abstract Wikipedia into small-language Wikipedias given its current state. The Wikimedia Foundation has responded on Meta-Wiki, expressing confidence in its approach to natural language generation and the improvement of project quality over time, and acknowledging the difficulty of navigating documentation and reporting on the project's development.

Relevant links:

• Request for Comment on Abstract Wikipedia
• Response from the project team to the criticism

– M

• New administrators: The Signpost welcomes the English Wikipedia's newest administrators, MCE89 and Staraction, elected through "old fashioned" requests for adminship. Of note, a handful of editors opposed both RfAs explaining they saw open-ended support of the Wikimedia Foundation workers' union (see above and prior Signpost coverage) as potentially damaging to the project.
• Articles for Improvement: This week's Article for Improvement is Customer experience, and next week's (starting 3 August) is HDR10. Please be bold in helping improve these articles!

You can view a stream of the presentation here on the WMF's Youtube channel, starting at the 14:49 minute mark and concluding at the 1:12:00 minute mark.

On July 24th 2026, at Wikimania 2026, Noé Gasparini, User:Noé, gave a presentation titled: "Kurier, Signpost, wikipress: You can be a Wikimedia journalist" presenting on wikipress projects and the current state of Wikimedia focused journals & newsletters, from user-run to staff-run and the spaces in-between. The presentation included a Q&A session afterwards. This recap article will attempt to summarize Noé's presentation and the Q&A.

Highlighting user-run outlets, Noé explained that the presentation was originally a workshop collaboration with Lane Rasberry & Der Wir-Ing, who both couldn't make it to Wikimania 2026. In the presentation, Noé describes the active wikipress outlets and how wikipress projects can function.

From The Signpost and the German Kurier to the French Wiktionary publication, Actualités, to many others, Noé's presentation covered all active user-run publications, including less-known ones such as the Vikidia Gazette, the newsletter of Vikidia, an encyclopedia for youngsters. Noé described the Gazette Vikidia as "fun to read" with "lots of interviews."

Why do wikipress projects matter?

Noé explained how wikipress projects can be beneficial to the Wikimedia projects/communities they report on: “Some (Wikimedia) projects have these kinds of publication, others don’t, and the ones that have this kind of publication, have them for years. I think most of the projects should have these kind of spaces.” Noé also explained his thoughts on the historical place of wikipress reporting and also how wikipress publications reach a range of readers from the deeply involved to the slightly curious: “My idea is that people read it, and there's a cycle of people that know wikipress and read wikipress. The core is active editors, but also people from outside of the community… the Signpost is read by people that don't contribute to English Wikipedia but they want to know what's it happening there… It's also for the future because the issues are not read only when they're published, but they also read in the future, for the next generation to know what was happening at that time. It's like history ongoing, so it's not only a publication for the moment it's published, but for the long term.” Noé also touched on the lack of support for people writing about Wikipedia, explaining: “there's no wiki journalist, that doesn't exist as a position.” On the importance of a wikipress in relation to mainstream press coverage, Noé explained: “if we want people to talk about what we do… we have to… write it.”

What gets published in a wikipress?

Noé defined a wikipress as a “specific as a kind of press… that the readership can modify or can alter in a way.” He also highlighted the range of styles between the wikipresses between the different languages, explaining how some outlets publish columns with a point of view, encouraging debate while others don't. Noé explains that The Kurier is more like a village pump, with long debates while the French publications are less engaged in debate. Noé also explained how wikipress projects can be a space for discussion, sharing a slide of a list compiled by Lane Rasberry on the 10 most discussed articles on The Signpost. Noé explained how wikipress articles and projects can be places for discussion, which is one big positive effect from them.

Historically, wikipress projects have published a range of material including but not limited to: news, traffic report, media coverage, community reports, how to edit advice, help guides, edit suggestions, comics, interviews, games, jokes, job offers, and more.

In terms of positive reinforcement, Noé touched on how wikipress projects can amplify unsung maintenance work: “we also want to explain what is maintenance work, what is invisible jobs we do in the community to make the project, just not collapse and, no one tells this story, if we… don't do it. So we have to u take some time to say okay look… this people or this group made this work, no one knows they did that, but it's what made the project alive.”

Challenges of running a wikipress project

Noé listed some problems or hurdles that wikipress journalists and editors come against:

• Publishing is time consuming
• Writing stories also takes time
• Shoot the messenger effect when sharing bad news
• The Work is often thankless, Noé explained: “It's really rare that people (give) feedback about what we do, and it can be hard to maintain our motivations.”

How are wikipress projects run?

Noé shared advice on starting a wikipress. Usually managed by two to eight people, Noé expressed a desired to see new wikipress publications! Do you want to start a new wikipress project? Or contribute to an old one? Don't know where to start? Reach out to Noé, he can help!

After the presentation, Noé hosted a Question, Answer, & Comment session in the room, taking questions from audience members.

Q&A&C Session Summary

Question: Did you exchange with other people in German Wikipedia, or other languages, to know how they do it? Why are there so many people reading them and not in French? (Question background info from presentation: There are significantly more pageviews on the English and German wikipress outlets vs the French wikipress outlets.)

Noé Answer: Yes, I discussed (this) with my two coursers and for the German publication, for the Kurier, he told me because there's debates and it's like the village pump or the bistro for French one. So people go there, not that much for the news, but for the debates and controversies. Am I right? So that's why people are going there. And for the Signpost, it's also because the last issue is on the first page and they just change the content of the page dynamically. So if people want to read the the past issues, they arrived on the same page. So I think the number of people reading the last issue is not correct because it's also includes readers of the previous issues. But I don't know because there's no network of people doing this and most of those people are feral people. We don't talk to each other.

Q/Comment: hello… first question, what you think about wikipress? I think it's something which is important in our communities because we are the symbol of that our communities are living. There are people who are making some good initiatives, into interesting projects, and that's a way to put…the spotlight on the communities. That's something which is very very good, and thank you to have organized this session. What I see as a Wikijournalist is that we need different kinds of people, people who are motivated to write, but also people who are able to give some ideas. So if even if you don't participate in the wikipress, if you are listening about some projects or interesting news that you have hear, feel free to share it, and it can help to enrich the different newspapers and the newsletters.

Last point what you said Noé is that it takes a lot of time to write the wikipress and sometimes it can have a decrease of motivation. So if it's the the case, if you want to to stop, that's not a problem. We have seen in the French community newsletters with the Le Wikimag and the RAW, as we said before, for the RAW, we had two people we were publishing it (for) a few years, and then they stopped because they didn't have enough time. But it was not a bad point because it helped the opportunity for others to take charge. So if you if you want to pass the opportunity to other people, that's something which is not bad news, that other people can take take it afterwards.

Noé A: Yeah, you're right. It's a long run. We are doing this for 10 years now and we hope to do it for the next 10 years. So it will not be the same people that do all the issues.

Q/C: Adding to what you said about writing things, about writing things, about things you discovered. It's about making your community aware of things that you find relevant, you find useful, you find interesting… We read the press so we look at what the rest of the world says about our wikis. We read the bulletin, as well, published by the foundation and also tech news to know which changes are coming. We also read the other press outlets, of course, the Signpost, The Kurier, in order to get inspired by what other communities do. Something I know well, I work for the movement, so I know that a lot of communities are just alone, and very often you have no idea of the good ideas that are happening elsewhere.

Creating a press system, like this, allows your community to grow because you will open the minds by picking an essay that was interesting at the English Wikipedia, by discovering an initiative that was started by a WikiMedia Foundation team, for instance, or by a Wiki you have no contact with. This is really a way to enrich your community. So don't think big, I think looking at what exists is a good inspiration as a press system. Looking at a Signpost could be quite impressive. Looking at a Kurier or the RAW is equally impressive. Start small. Maybe you know just list things that were interesting and try to publish them regularly. It's a very good start, and then you will find friends that could also care about this and we will help, they will help you. We have a few users at French Wikipedia who make big contributions for the publication, like you, thank you, and we also have people who just come and say, "Hey, I found this." And that's all. And then we care about it. We read it. We put it into the issue. So don't overthink it. Think about starting something… Yes, I was the one who told Noé, "the goal is to have at least one new publication on a Wiki in six months" and Noé thinks it will be, well shorter than that, so please help (him) be right.

Noé A: I'm not an editor, I'm a maintainer, in some way, because the writing, the choices in the editorial part, are done by the community. (For Actualités) one other person is doing the stats, at some point we ask how many pages have pictures, he creates a query to have the quantity of pictures in the pages in the project because we never knew that before that. And every month we have the new number of pages with pictures. And at some point, we asked the English Wiktionary community about how many pictures they have. They did the math. They had much more. So we had a new challenge, to be better than them. But knowing this kind of thing only arrives when you have a place to publish it. Having it every month may create more motivation to go in this direction and say okay this is the kind of content we never knew we need, but knowing that, let's go. That's something that's great and… will make the community grow together.

Q: Hi, thanks Noe, for the presentation. My question is you talked about the fact that for French speaking projects, there are lots of different wikijournals, but some projects don't have them. I don't know if there is if there is one for Wikiversity or Wikisource but if people want to create them, it will be it will make more wikijournals in French speaking projects. Do you think we need one big journal for all the projects and try to all work together, in the same, like trans-projects wikijournal and, or, is it okay to have a lot of little wiki journals? Maybe it's one guy or like that maintaining it. So what do you think about it?

Noé A: Yeah, I have an idea, as a French people, about this. In France, we have the national publication and the regional ones, and a lot of people buy the national ones for large topic, and the local ones, because they talk about their life. I think the local publication is better for people because they talk about their local life, and having both is not something that force people to choose between reading one or reading the other, they will pick what they want to to read in those. And I'm quite sure most of the readers are just picking. I know the guy that make the mistakes check in the French Wiktionary is just coming for the pictures. Some people don't read it all and it's okay. People can just come for the pictures, and that's fine. So, I don't think if a community starts a new one, it will create a more messy situation. It will just talks to the people that are part of this community.

The other question, do we need a publication for French Wikisource or for the global Wikisource? So last year at the Wikisource Conference in Bali, I took part of a discussion with a lot of people about having a press something (session and notes). The common way of writing with a common ground for all the communities is to make it all in English, and it's not local anymore. So at some point it can be good to have more in Diff because Diff is this space but the local publications may bring more emotions for the people in these communities, I think, but it's a controversy.

Q: I'm not sure if you mentioned that already, when you started the act, how many were you like how many editors to get it go off the ground? Like because that's always a problem, getting getting it started. How many people do you need? One person is probably not good enough because it's a very limited perspective. But yeah, how many?

Noé A: In 2015, I was in the US, at this point, and I didn't start the French Wiktionary Actualités (wikipress project) actually, it was two other people, because they had a drink together. Most of the projects start in a bar, so they were drinking and saying okay, we need to start this, and so I participated in the first issue, and then, I got involved much more, but another guy made the logo, and it's kind of the logo of the Wiktionary but with colors. So it was like okay, we have a logo, let's go and the title was choose because in the past, someone created this page, so they refresh the name of the page, and yeah there was a couple of people, and it was just translation of the village pump of other Wiktionaries. We say, oh look this community is talking about this, this community is talking about that, and no one in the press is talking about our project, so we will not have anything from the press, but at some point we may. It was really short, and there were the top 10 of the most famous article of the past month, we didn't keep this section in the journal, but it was something like top 10 most active article, most read, and yeah it was very short, but two to three people are maybe enough. So have a drink (anything you want to drink) and just go for it with a blank page. And we start in March or April, and at first the issue in July was titled July/August, because the people that create the page say, okay, we're in vacation so we will not do like two issues because it's summer time and stuff, but some other people came and say, okay we have free time now so we're in! So we did two issues and we kept the rhythm, with one in July and one in August, because other people came and say okay now we can do it. So maybe, it may happen the same way that people arrived when they… can be part of it, you never know.

C: Hello, good morning. I have a question from the chat online, but also a comment from me. Just a little correction, because I work with GLAM and we do have an active newsletter, actually this month in GLAM, and just last month for example we had like 24 reports from countries in it. It's probably one of the most active ones and it has been published since 2011 by Romaine. If you have GLAM activities, museums, libraries, archives and museums, please contribute to it, because it's open for new members. I just wanted to like share that.

Q: Sophia from the chat asked: Can any user on Wikipedia contribute to the wikipress? Also, she asked later, do you have to talk exclusively about Wikipedia related content on the wikipress?

Noé A: So for the Signpost, there's a process, you suggest your idea and there's a committee that will accept the way you want to talk about and they will help you to write it, the proper way. For some other ones, you just add your words and anyone can participate. In the French Wiktionary one, we even had a publication by people that are not registered. So you don't have to have an account to participate, and also you can suggest a topic, and say look it can be nice to talk about this topic because I don't understand why you do this in this way. People can ask questions, and other people will write it, or you can co-author articles about the topics. Getting back to the slide with the list of the most commented articles: most of those are about ethical issues, or topics that are connected with what we do but not that much into our community. You can talk about all the other publications that may impact your work. So in French Wiktionary, we talk about the Académie française's dictionaries, that are outside of our world, but that may impact our work. In Wikipedia, you can talk discuss about AI, that may have an impact on your work and you could talk about all those topics that may be adjacent to the community. It's really up to you what you want to talk about.

C: There is also a newsletter for the Wikimedia library.

C: I think it should be more widespread because lots of the communities are isolated in every country and so it should be, you know, like on a banner when you go into Wikipedia, or something like that.

Noé A: I do agree and that's why I'm here right now! At some point I went to the French Wikipedia village pump and said, look we have this newsletter about French Wiktionary and the first reply was: but you are on Wikipedia here. So it wasn't nice and for each new post, I added "sorry for the disappointment, but we still do that. Please come. There is nice pictures." Well, after 10 years, I don't do that anymore. And no one complain about me posting this notice anymore. But at first, trying to make some advertisement about wikipress wasn't well received. And still on French Wikipedia, I know there's some intent, and some people that say, well, you do that. You're part of the community, I'm not part of. Yeah, you do that, but we don't really care. Uh, it's not a fight. It's just people ignoring this aspect of the project. And the large community on the Wikimedia projects, I don't know for people that have never heard of this, why they never heard of about this. And some answers may be that Diff is on another platform and you may never went to this platform. And for others, I don't know how we where to put the banners.

Q/C: To add to that, I'm curious as well, because you talk about on wiki and newsletter (platforms), have you experimented with other platforms or channels? Also, a question to all of you: do you prefer to read the journals on wiki or coming on your email newsletter? I help write for the Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin and it's on meta, and you can subscribe to it on your talkpage, but we also post the same thing on Diff, so that a wider community can also see it, and if you're subscribed to Diff on email, you can also see it. I don't know if you've experimented with channels, and you think some channels are better, or some channels are not worth pursuing, or how?

Noé A: Okay, there was a Planet Wikimedia at some point that was a place to federate all the press. But the problem is, for the one in French Wiktionary, we use templates, to make it fancy, and the templates will not move with it. So we don't publish it as a newsletter, or in another space, because of the templates.

Noé A: I had 10 questions on my first slide and one that was not on the list is the impact because I have no answer for this question. I'll be glad to discuss about this issue because we don't have measure of impact of what we do for 10 years now. When I say I think people are more concerned by the community or have more culture about the project or are involved in more collective project, I don't know for sure. Maybe it's for other reasons. I don't know and, for my own sanity, I think it's better to not have any measure of impact.

C: About acknowledging that other newspapers exist and knowing there could be a network, at the bottom of the French publication, we listed the other publications, and I believe we are the only ones to do this. So it could be nice if the Signpost, the Kurier or even the Actualités du Wiktionnaire could have that that link to other publications because it's a great way to know that other things exist within the movement. 

Noé A: In the past, one French Wikimedian made a live Twitch (stream) where he read the newspapers and he clicked on the links when he he wanted too. It was really his own way of reading the press, but it was really interesting to see him read the press and it was like 1 hour or more, like 1 hour and a half, and I think it was easier to read it, but most people may like it better seeing people displaying this and commenting and having his own way of reading this. And this is also a way to make it open to other communities. It's another way of consuming news… he did that for a year or two but he stopped then.

Q: What what about the communication by about, or by, affiliates? Some community are so small, they tends to be compact. So for example some of this type of communication can be moved to communication from affiliates, but in a way something like that, you can also see on Wikidata, like I suppose that Wikimedia Germany is the one doing something on that side. So what what about the communication from affiliates in this picture?

Noé A: Um I won't be able to answer for all affiliates. I will answer for one group of affiliates that are French speaking affiliates that create a structure that is WikiFranca and WikiFranca have a part about communication that is internal communication. So one part is about feedback about the activities made by the affiliates but it's different that the part that is about statistics, about what the community do, it's mostly about the outreach, or the collective workshop they did, and how it went well, and this is not what I want to read.

C: Definitely, I mean, but sometimes there's also something else, there's some similar content to this in some other situation.

Noé A: The way we may do it with internal communication, is also saying when (events) didn't go well, our failures or mistakes, or when we try to do a workshop and no one came, and we need to say this, to help other people to create activities that will be a success, and this is not what an affiliate will do, or they will do it, but not write it.

Noé A: At some point I (embraced) the word archive because I think these publications are part of the archive about what we do in the movement. We need to archive what we do. This is the kind of publication that creates archives, and when they are outside, they will just be closed at some point and we may lose some archive, and that's a problem.

C: That is absolutely true. At least for three (sources) that I mentioned, one is… archived on internet archive, but I think it's closed.

Noé A: Thanks to our friends, but it's our mission to do this. We can not rely on other people doing the archiving.

Q/C: Hello, on French Wikipedia I realize that we don't speak a lot about Wikimédia France's activities or Wikimedia Cameroon's or other affiliates, and they don't come either to write some papers about what they do, and so everyone communicates on their our channel, and the members of the French Wikimedia community who are not in an affiliate, not an affiliate member, do not know what affiliates are doing.

Noé A: Yes. And for affiliates in French, I can only say for the French community that the Swiss, Canada or France, affiliates don't publish on Wiki neither. So if you want to have knowledge about the activities of the Canadian French speaking community, you have to go to their own newsletter. This is the local part I talked about earlier, that it's also nice to have your own publication, and to go to it when you are interested in this specific area of knowledge… I'm really happy to answer to any or more reflections or questions. If you want to start your own wiki press, please come to me, or to other people that do that and ask for help, and we will be glad to help you. And thank you for attention in this session.

Sanger's new ideas for online encyclopedias continued through 2006–2010. An article in The Guardian about the Digital Universe, another encyclopedia website inspired by Sanger's work, appeared in July 2006.

A week later The New Yorker ran a long piece on Wikipedia, how its rules and admin corps had quickly grown. It also described the views of Sanger and those of Encyclopædia Britannica president Jorge Cauz.

A few weeks later the Signpost reported that Marshall Poe in The Atlantic Monthly took a deep dive into the early history of Wikipedia. Poe appears to have read Sanger's Memoir in detail and concluded that "Wales's part in [the founding of Wikipedia] was clear; he owned Wikipedia. Sanger's role was murkier."

In September 2006 Citizendium, another Wiki alternative, was announced. A Signpost reader commented that Sanger has "been trying different ideas based on this for a while, all fail because of no editing in them…. Funding problem perhaps."

A week later we reviewed the media's early reactions to Citizendium.

"Sanger said he was pleased that Wikipedia was accepting of his new project. 'We will take the best of their articles and edit them and hopefully make them better,' he said. 'And they are free to take from our articles. We're in a partnership to a certain extent, two parallel-thinking projects.'"
— San Diego Union-Tribune

By April 2007, Citizendium still hadn't fully opened.

Later that April a passing mention raised the heat, as Sanger mentioned that Wikipedia governance was "beyond repair".

By February 2008, the gloves were off. Sanger, while promoting Citizendium at Eastern Michigan University, according to the Detroit Free Press said "I sort of separated myself from that organization and that crowd…We can actually do better."

On April 8, 2009 Sanger posted an "Open letter to Wales" at User talk:Jimbo Wales and republished it in the Citizendium blog, among other venues. It's a long, impassioned complaint, demanding that Wales admit that Sanger was a co-founder of Wikipedia and that the Wikimedia Foundation officially endorse Sanger's claim.

Sanger appeared particularly incensed by a perceived slight in an interview which may have suggested that Sanger was fired from his position rather than just laid off like several other Bomis employees. The interview does not appear to have been archived on-line.

Sanger wrote in the open letter, "The interviewer asked: 'Sanger said that proof of his being co-founder is on the initial press releases. Are you saying that he basically just put himself down as co-founder on these press releases?' You [Wales] answered 'Yes.'" (Later Sanger called it "your simple 'Yes' answer".)

The press releases cited by Sanger can also be difficult to document since they were mainly crowdsourced, and every edit made in 2002 is not necessarily recorded in Wikipedia's existing edit records.^[c]

Wikipedia's first press release was issued on January 15, 2002 – Wikipedia's first birthday. It appears to have been written solely by Sanger and sent out the same day. Five other edits are shown for the file, but they all are simple formatting edits made a month or years after the original release date.

The text about "founders" is "The founders of Wikipedia are Internet entrepreneur Jimmy Wales and philosopher Larry Sanger. Wales has supplied the financial backing and other support for the project, and Sanger, who earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Ohio State in 2000, has led the project." This appears to minimize Wales's role while giving the greater part of the credit to Sanger.

Similar text was issued in two later Wikipedia press releases, in 2003 and 2004. The new Wikimedia Foundation's first press release, which mirrored much of the 2004 Wikipedia release, also contained similar wording on co-founders. The six remaining Wikipedia press releases either did not contain information on "founders", or only mentioned Wales as the founder.

The Signpost followed up and quoted Wales's talk page reply to Sanger, "As I have said many times, I think the entire 'controversy' is silly....Larry didn't make Wikipedia, and neither did I. It was made by the community, and lots of people played interesting roles. If other people feel a burning need to discuss this, please do so elsewhere other than my talk page; I'm not interested in discussing it at this time."

In October 2009 the "Sanger controversy reignited," according to the Signpost headline. This reporter cannot find any archives of the off-Wiki articles referenced, so I just use the quotations from the Signpost article.

Jason Calacanis and Sanger alleged that Jimbo Wales has downplayed Sanger's role on Wikipedia for financial motives. Calacanis, in an interview then on YouTube, stated:

[Wales] just got a bunch of people to give him a bunch of money thinking, 'Oh, this is the guy who created Wikipedia.' Well guess what? He didn't create Wikipedia. Larry Sanger did.

In another forum Sanger stated:

In 2004, at just the time when he was leaving out any mention of me in discussing the history of Wikipedia, he was starting Wikia...That's also when the star of Wikipedia really began to rise and started to enter into public consciousness. Jimmy Wales had a real financial motive to portray himself as the brains behind Wikipedia.

A very serious Sanger allegation about child pornography was covered by The Signpost in 2010. Sanger reported this allegation to the FBI and to his congressional representatives. He got a serious, if controversial, reaction from Jimmy Wales, the WMF, and the community as shown the next month in The Signpost.

In October 2014, in "The story of Wikipedia", The Signpost reviewed extracts from the book The Innovators, Walter Isaacson's then-new book, which gives a sympathetic view of the two co-founders narrative, supporting Sanger's view. Isaacson's view gains further support since he was an early Wikipedian.

Isaacson "waxes enthusiastic about Wikipedia's mechanisms of collaboration and consensus as it applies to both the development of articles and the governance of the project. He particularly stresses the principle of neutral point of view in producing articles," according to The Signpost.

In December 2014 Sanger launches a "Wikipedia for news" on the Infobitt launch, citing Newsweek. Unfortunately Infobitt ran out of money by July 2015, as reported by The Signpost.

In November 2015 Sanger was interviewed by Vice about how Wikipedia started. One problem according to Sanger was that "trolls sort of took over. The inmates started running the asylum." The Independent reprinted much of the interview with its own interpretation. Sanger said "they got the thrust of the interview wrong."

In December 2017 Sanger joined Everipedia as CIO, promising to put that encyclopedia on the blockchain and give editors tokens that would give them a financial reward for their editing. A dozen other Signpost articles mentioned Everipedia, but Sanger resigned in 2019 and returned his digital wooden nickels after contributing an article to it about his left thumb.

Also in 2019, Sanger introduced his new encyclopedia project, the Encyclosphere, writing that "Wikipedia has become an arrogant and controlling oligarchy."

An interesting podcast was mentioned in In the media in 2021. It questions Sanger's co-founding role, but examines both sides in excruciating detail over 45 minutes. The Signpost article's comments page gives a more Sanger-friendly interpretation.

Sanger gave up criticizing Wikipedia in 2013, according to one of his twitter posts at the time, but his political criticism of Wikipedia was just taking off in 2020, according to a long series of Signpost items in our In the media column. In Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-05-31/In the media § CBS on COVID-19, Sanger on bias, false noses, and five prolific editors (May 2020), we reported the comments he made on Fox News about Wikipedia's bias and lefty politics.

In November 2020 Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-11-01/In the media § The Christian Post, Sanger and the Breitbart newsletter shared a complaint about userboxes being removed on Wikipedia when they read "This user believes that marriage is the union between one man and one woman."

In February 2021 Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2021-02-28/In the media § Larry Sanger, Fox News, The Daily Mail, and The Washington Times take on Wikipedia's bias Fox News covered a Sanger blogpost decrying Wikipedia's purported lack of a neutrality policy. Sanger apparently means that Wikipedia's policy is the opposite of his own views on neutrality. For example, he writes "Wikipedia frequently asserts, in its own voice, that many of Trump's statements are 'false.' Well, perhaps they are. But even if they are, it is not exactly neutral for an encyclopedia article to say so, especially without attribution."

More bias accusations emerged in July 2021, this time called "propaganda". Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2021-07-25/In the media § Larry Sanger on bias in Wikipedia – with opinion orthodoxy, truth becomes more elusive was described somewhat differently by Fox News, The Independent and by The National Review.

See also October 2021 Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2021-10-31/In the media § Don't bite the newbies.

In 2022 Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-04-24/In the media § In brief Sanger was interviewed by Tucker Carlson on Fox News complaining about "the left's 'relentless' takeover of mass media and Wikipedia" and emphasizing his own dedication to neutrality.

In 2023 Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-01-16/In the media § Court orders user data in libel case, Saudi Wikipedia in the crosshairs, Larry Sanger at it again Sanger is quoted as saying "If you want to participate in the world's largest encyclopedia [Wikipedia], you must collaborate with a shadowy group of anonymous amateurs and paid shills on exactly one article per topic." The article then goes on to describe Sanger's increasingly complicated Encyclosphere.

2025 was the climax in Sanger's political commentary, with at least seven Signpost articles mentioning him.

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2025-03-22/In the media § Larry, Elon, and Don; or, will Wikipedia get its very own Executive Order? Sanger explains in a Fox News video why he asked Elon Musk to investigate whether US Federal employees are being paid to edit Wikipedia and help stop it. He continues by asking US President Donald Trump to prohibit such activities.

In an hour-long YouTube interview with James Poulos on Blaze TV, covered by The Signpost Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2025-04-09/In the media § In brief "Wikipedia scandal exposed: Big Tech manipulates what you see", Sanger calls Wikipedia "rank propaganda" and "the mouthpiece of the Establishment".

In May Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2025-05-01/In the media § Trump-nominated prosecutor targets WMF's tax status Sanger's statements against Wikipedia were used to justify the then-interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Ed Martin to investigate the Wikimedia Foundation's non-profit tax status. (Neither the investigation nor Ed Martin went very far after the original announcement.)

By September Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2025-09-09/In the media § US Congress probes Wikipedia Sanger stated "I am glad that Congress is investigating the use of foreign and U.S. government funds to pay for biased editing on Wikipedia."

The following three articles tell similar stories:

• Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2025-10-02/In the media § Degrees of bad The Free Press, "I Founded Wikipedia. Here's How to Fix It."

• Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2025-10-20/In the media § Sanger's accusations of left-wing bias reverberate among US conservatives

• Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2025-11-10/In the media § The Grok, the Bot and the Wiki

The blocking of Sanger in June 2026 is a different kind of story than this deep dive into The Signpost's archives, but two mentions of Sanger in the 2026 Signpost conveniently set the stage for Sanger's apparent last act on Wikipedia.

A Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2026-03-10/In the media § Video from Reason shows separate interviews with Wales, Sanger, and others, skillfully spliced so that it almost looks like they are debating one another. While this video might be taken as a slanted summary of Sanger's wiki-career as it was viewed in early 2026, a more conventional text piece from India's The Economic Times repeats the now common co-founder story, taking us back to the start of Sanger's career.

Larry Sanger has had a long and contentious relationship with the Wikipedia community. He feels that his contributions have been downplayed by those who don't recognize him as a co-founder of Wikipedia. It all started innocently enough when Wales hired Sanger to be editor-in-chief of Nupedia, but there was a problem with Nupedia, it was too slow producing articles. Wikipedia was started a year later and Sanger had the position of "chief organizer" where he made many contributions but could not control Wikipedia the way that he could control Nupedia. By all the usual indications he was not the co-founder of Wikipedia. He was "merely a grateful employee" of Bomis, hired, supervised, and later laid off by Wales.

Sanger expressed his discontent in his 2005 Memoir and later in an open letter to Wales. He used a personal idiosyncratic definition of founder to claim the status of co-founder. He has even said that he doesn't care about being recognized as a co-founder. He has had some success with members of the community supporting his claim. Perhaps he's had some success claiming that official Wikipedia press releases support his claim, but those are difficult to document and there is also some evidence that he was the sole author of one of them.

Over the last 24 years he has criticized Wikipedia for being anti-elitist, for not being enough like Nupedia, for being ungovernable, not having or maintaining a neutrality policy and most recently for having a liberal bias. Of course Sanger has a right to express those opinions and others have a right to disagree.

This article was originally published by Wikimedia Foundation on July 22, 2026 on Diff and licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0. Links, images, and captions added by User:Wil540_art.

The Wikimedian of the Year awards 2026 were given at the opening ceremonies of Wikimania 2026, which took place from July 21-25, 2026, in Paris, France.

This year we celebrate 25 years of Wikipedia. It is not only a celebration of knowledge, but of the humans who made it possible. Passionate fact collectors, conscientious citation checkers, enthusiastic organizers, patient patrollers, engaged article writers – it takes all of them, and more, to make the wonder happen.

So this year, once again, we celebrate the people behind the projects. The beloved Wikimedian of The Year awards shine the light on exceptional individuals, and through them, on the whole Wikimedia community. Presented by the Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, the awards honor Wikimedians in the Laureate category for longtime editors and pillars of our movement, the newly created Community Connector category for those who link people, roles, and corners of the wikiverse, and the central Wikimedian of the Year category, alongside the Honorary Mentions.

As we celebrate those individuals, we salute everyone around the world, who day after day come to our projects to add a citation, share a fact, fix a typo, create an article, revert vandalism, build a script, or organize a campaign. This wonder is yours.

Without further ado, we present the 2026 Wikimedian of the Year winners:

This year, as Wikimania comes to Paris, we celebrate one of the trusted editors who keep French Wikipedia reliable. Jules* is the 2026 Wikimedian of the Year, a longtime editor entrusted by his peers to keep the encyclopedia reliable, and someone who has made a lasting mark on its integrity.

He began his Wikipedia journey in 2010 with editing articles about his hometown and a beloved TV series. Those first, “clumsy” edits, as he called them, received a warm welcome from other editors, so he decided to stay. Now, he has almost 400,000 edits to date.

Almost exactly a year to the day after he started editing, the community entrusted him with additional rights—the extra tools that let experienced editors help maintain Wikipedia’s quality and security. Jules* became deeply involved in project maintenance because he cares a lot about Wikipedia’s dedication to reliable, neutral and verifiable knowledge. Much of his time goes to reverting vandalism, improving new contributions, helping newcomers, fighting undisclosed paid editing, and responding to community requests for help.

As an author, Jules* focuses on the topic of climate change. He approaches each article in true Wikimedian fashion—gathering good quality sources and verifying facts. A single article can take him several months to write. He is especially proud of his articles about the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report or the Charney Report.

What gives him joy, he says, is “being part of something bigger than me, or than us, in fact trying to give access to knowledge to everyone, which is somehow a tool for human peace and welfare.”

But his life is not all Wikipedia. Jules also loves hiking, and is interested in trains—he even used to drive one!

Congratulations, Jules and thank you for all that you are doing!

When Mari Avetisyan started editing in 2018, she was not sure if she would belong. Instead she found friends, a community, and a deep sense of belonging. Today she is one of the people building that same belonging for a new generation of young Wikipedia editors across Central and Eastern Europe, and one of our Honorary Mentions this year.

It started in 2018, when Mari, a university student at the time, joined a Youth WikiCamp in Armenia. She came to learn more about how Wikipedia works and how to make sure reliable knowledge is accessible not only in English, but in her own language too.

Mari, a shy introvert, was not sure how well she would fit in the WikiCamp group: “I thought that I would not integrate into the group and I would feel lonely”, she recalls. Instead, somewhere between editing workshops, board games and cultural events, she found friends, with whom she is still in touch years later, and a community that became her home. “Joining the Armenian Wikimedia community was the first time in my life that I truly felt a sense of belonging to something”, she says.

Today, Mari is the one creating that sense of belonging for others. She has been a core part of CEE Youth group, a group working on capacity building, peer learning, and leadership development among young Wikimedians from Central and Eastern Europe. As a member of the group, Mari played a key role in organising the CEE Youth meeting last year. Now she is developing a learning exchange program, where she will be mentoring the Slovenian community.

What gives her joy is watching young people join: “These are the next generation of leaders, trainers, and organizers of our movement, with whom I share my experiences and act as a guide, so that they never feel lonely or lost”.

Seeing Wikimedia grow in Armenia is what makes her proud, and she hopes others can learn from her community: “I believe that increasing the visibility of smaller communities helps create more opportunities for collaboration, learning, and growth”, she says.

When she is not editing Wikipedia, Wikidata or Wikimedia Commons, you can find Mari reading books in different languages, hiking across Armenia, making pottery, playing badminton or (in true Wikimedia fashion) learning about the roots of different words.

Wikipedia is celebrating its 25th anniversary, and with it, we are celebrating the people and communities who made its impact truly global and multilingual. Our Honorary Mention this year goes to Hijiri Umemoto, one of the very first editors of Japanese Wikipedia. In celebrating him, we also celebrate the Japanese Wikipedia community and its path over these 25 years, one that has made it the second most-read Wikipedia in the world.

Hijiri was one of the first registered users on Japanese Wikipedia—his user ID number is 5. He started editing soon after the software allowed the use of Japanese characters (initially it used only Romanized Japanese). He soon became the caretaker of the project’s mainspace and a creator of its early short articles, the so-called stubs. He thinks he might even be the first user to write a wiki article in the Japanese alphabet. And while he does not have many edits, he may be the earliest editor still active today.

Like the Wikipedia pioneers who launched projects in German, Catalan, Arabic, Chinese, French, and Esperanto in early 2001, he could not have imagined he was helping build what would become the largest source of knowledge in the world and the backbone of the internet.

He was able to observe the growth of his community, and watch new generations starting to contribute: “The fact that the project had outgrown its launch members and was now running entirely on its own momentum is something I am deeply proud of,” he reflects. “It means that the project has become larger and more important than any individual,” he adds.

He cares deeply about Wikipedia being a welcoming place for those who want to join: “We should never forget that new contributors are among Wikipedia’s most valuable resources. They are the people who will shape its future, and they deserve patience, encouragement, and respect,” he says, encouraging experienced editors to be kind to those who are starting out, and newcomers to be bold and not afraid to make mistakes. “Wikipedia has always been built by ordinary people learning from one another. I hope we never lose that spirit,” Hijiri adds.

While you can definitely spot Hijiri on a wiki, you can also find him on the radio waves. Amateur radio is his passion, and he holds ham radio licenses in four different countries! “I hope to catch some of you on the air!” he says to his fellow Wikimedians.

Wikipedia turns 25 this year, and so we knew we had to celebrate someone who has been here almost from the very beginning. Dreamyshade started editing the same year Wikipedia itself came to life, in 2001, and she has been a dedicated editor ever since.

Like many Wikipedians, her story began with a realization that something was missing, and that she might be able to fix it. A young and aspiring harpist, she went looking for an article about the harp, and when she couldn’t find one, she wrote it herself. Her other early articles included a browser game and entries on boy bands. That other editors took her work seriously, rather than dismissing it due to her age, was really meaningful for her.

At first, Wikipedia was a fun and productive way to procrastinate doing homework. Then it became an important part of Dreamyshade’s life. Today she has more than 13,500 edits on English Wikipedia alone, and has mentored many new Wikimedians at events in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work is all about quality: she likes to take an article in poor shape, fix it, and move on to the next. She cares especially about verifiability and has a talent for catching fake citations: references to sites that present themselves as reliable but aren’t.

Despite editing almost every single month for the last 25 years, she is still not done: “I really feel like my best work is ahead of me”, she says.

For Dreamyshade, Wikipedia is a great source of joy and meaning. “With every contribution, I help prove the value of this deeply human, collaborative, altruistic, global, nonprofit project. I help other curious people learn things! I get to be part of something that is flexible, meaningful, fascinating, and challenging”, she says.

Her advice is very simple: contribute long-term, try different ways of contributing, and if needed—take breaks and come back. She also encourages a sense of belonging: “try spending time with other people in the movement, ideally in person, and you’ll probably get inspired to contribute in a new direction”, she adds.

Thank you so much for your work Dreamyshade. Here’s to the next 25 years of contributing!

Barkeep49 is our Wikimedia Laureate 2026. He is a seasoned contributor to English Wikipedia, trusted by the community with multiple extended rights, and someone who has left an indelible mark on the safety of our movement. He dedicates his time to working on processes that ensure that Wikipedia is a place where everyone can feel safe, and encourages others to take on advanced roles in the projects. On top of all that, he has made more than 40,000 contributions, enriching Wikipedia with good articles and featured lists.

Barkeep49’s work embodies what Wikipedia is all about: free and reliable content, and a supportive project community.

We might not be having this celebration if it weren’t for an artist with a self-promotion agenda. It was 2018, and Barkeep49 was reading the Wikipedia biography of a comedian whose show he had just watched. He spotted some promotional content, decided to remove it, and in doing so reactivated an account that had sat dormant since 2005. Wikipedia’s mission of bringing high-quality information to everyone aligned with his values, but what made him stay was the community: “I both got help from experienced editors but just (perhaps more) importantly from a group of peers who were all trying to find our way in the project,” he reflects. Even as he expanded his wiki work to further areas, the social thread never broke for him. “I get great joy in interacting with my fellow Wikimedians, who I regularly learn from, am challenged by, and who I have the great privilege of collaborating with in so many different ways and places“, he says.

Barkeep49 has served the community in many roles: an English Wikipedia admin, a member of the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee (the project’s dispute resolution body), and a supporter of the adoption of the Universal Code of Conduct, the movement-wide standard for respectful collaboration. But through every lens through which he has been seen by others, Barkeep49 sees himself first and foremost as a content editor. His special love is US children’s literature, and one of his favorite pieces of work is the article about Black and White—a book he adored as a child and to which he came back as a Wikipedia editor. “It was so fun coming back to it as an adult and diving into not only the academic literature, but in figuring out how to write about what is considered a pioneering postmodern picture book, without violating [Wikipedia’s] core tenets like no original research.”

But he doesn’t just contribute to the encyclopedia. When not editing, Barkeep49 enjoys reading, watching movies, and baking. “If people ask nicely I might share my fantastic banana bread recipe and the recipe I made from scratch for oatmeal chocolate chip cookies”, he says.

The newly created Community Connector award goes to someone who brings people together and makes our communities stronger, and its first-ever recipient is Chlod Alejandro, a young student from the Philippines. He is also the first Filipino to be honored in the history of the Wikimedian of the Year awards.

Chlod’s impact on our movement can be seen in many forms: he is an engaged English Wikipedia editor, a prolific tech contributor, writer of many tools and scripts, helping to support the work of others, and he is a passionate organizer in the East, Southeast Asia, & Pacific region, where is helping to bring together the next generation of Wikimedians.

Chlod’s work connects people, connects different corners of the wikiworld, and most of all, connects serious movement organizing work, with a pure joy of being a Wikimedian.

English Wikipedia is a project that Chlod calls home: this is where his editing journey started, and this is where he edits most frequently. If you go down a video-game related rabbit hole on Wikipedia, chances are that you will stumble across Chlod’s articles!

With software programming being one of his hobbies, Chlod is also deeply involved in the Wikimedia technical community. He has created many tools and scripts that help Wikimedians in their maintenance work, and, as a tribute to those who mentored him in his early days, has trained others too. And all of that is added to his work with his beloved community in the ESEAP region, where he has taken on an organizer’s role, helping to organize projects and events and to celebrate Wikipedia’s birthday. Most recently, he has been one of the drivers behind organizing a community of young Wikimedians, the future generation of our movement. He is also a passionate singer from a musical family, known for his performances at one of the Wikimedia community’s most beloved social traditions: karaoke!

No wonder Chlod has trouble choosing one area that matters to him the most: “As someone who works on articles, develops tools, and interacts with communities, it’s hard to prioritize one over the other because all of these are what makes the gears of this movement work together”, he says. “If anything, I think my main contribution is just being myself and finding a place to excel. We all have our own strengths, and I think it’s up to us to make the most out of them for the benefit of the Wikimedia movement.”

What is constant across these areas is Chlod’s dedication to the Wikimedia mission: “Wikipedia, and the Wikimedia movement at large, is a testament to human determination, perseverance, and spirit; to what we humans can do when we work together. It’s one of the many manifestations of the indomitable human spirit against the indifferent universe. And it’s very moving seeing us all work together on ‘the sum of all human knowledge’ as our goal. It’s our gift to all mankind: the mankind of now and the generations to come. And I don’t mean to toot my own horn saying this, but that’s probably the best gift we can ever give to the rest of humanity”, he reflects.

Thank you to everyone who makes Wikimedia possible and especially to this year’s Wikimedia of the Year recipients. Please join us in celebrating them now and throughout the year.