User talk:Vysotsky

Highlights

• Community Wishlist: Weigh in on proposals and open questions on how the wishlist will operate in the future.
• Simplifying account creation: The Foundation is working on improving the account creation process to reduce potential friction for newcomers to create an account. Improvements include making "Create Account" icon more prominent on mobile, simplifying the registration form, and introducing real-time username validation.
• New U4C members elected: The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) has new members and has two remaining vacancies in Middle East & North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Wikimania conference program: The Wikimania 2026 program is now live! Take a moment to review the program, and, if you are logged in, you can mark your "must see” sessions with a star to start building your personal schedule. Register for a virtual ticket here, if you haven't signed up yet.
• Neutral Point of View: A proposal for a baseline NPOV standard for Wikipedias that do not have one was published, with a community discussion open until July 15, 2026.

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

• App Explore feed: The redesigned App Explore feed, now called "Home", has been released to all Android users. The update introduces a refreshed feed experience along with the first set of new content modules, including Did You Know, Places of Interest, Random Article, and a new end-of-feed experience. Additional content and improvements are planned in future releases.
• Wikipedia games: The Which came first? daily trivia game is now available in the beta version of the Wikipedia iOS app in English, German, French, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, and Turkish. The game uses historical events from Wikipedia’s “On This Day” content and challenges readers to guess which of two events happened first.
• Reusing references: Sub-referencing, a new MediaWiki feature that allows editors to reuse references with different details, has been rolled out to Group 1 wikis and French Wikipedia following a successful pilot phase.
• Article guidance: The Article guidance feature is being tested with some editors creating new articles on the Simple English, French, and Turkish Wikipedias. The experiment will soon begin on the Arabic and Bangla Wikipedias as well. The outlines guide less experienced editors in creating high-quality articles. A quick guide to markups used in outlines can be found on this page. Example outlines that can be adapted and instructions for how to adapt them are on this section of the project page.
• Mobile Page Previews: The Page Previews experiment on mobile web has concluded with the decision not to roll out the feature. The results showed no statistically significant impact on reader retention – the primary success metric. Page Previews, which are already available on desktop and in the apps, display a thumbnail, lead paragraph, and link to the full article when readers tap a blue link.
• Wikifunctions: You can now add images to Abstract Wikipedia and the loading and display of test results when viewing Functions has been improved.
• Wikidata: The Foundation is migrating the Wikidata Query Service (WDQS) away from the Blazegraph backend since it no longer scales efficiently with Wikidata’s growth. The migration will take place in several phases. Here is the timeline.
• Growth features: Growth features are now available at Wikidata!  Wikidata administrators are still configuring the features through Community Configuration, but this update enables access to Mentorship (if configured), Impact, the Help Panel, and a simplified Newcomer Homepage (without Suggested Edits).
• Mentors' management: The Growth team will soon provide a system to automatically suspend or remove inactive mentors from the list of mentors. Communities can already start configuring the process in the Community Configuration.
• Collaborative Contributions: If you need help setting up the Collaborative Contributions and the Goal setting features, check out these video guides. These features allow you to view which edits are made during an event and allows the group to track progress against a goal with a public progress bar. Learn more.
• Latest experiments: An upcoming experiment is testing whether we can serve readers better when a footnote click in read mode shows the full bibliographic information rather than flying them to the reference list. See all live, upcoming, and completed experiments in Product & Technology.
• Tech News: The latest highlights from Tech News week 24 and 25 include how the user interface icon library is being updated. Most of the ~300 icons have been slightly refined and ~30 new icons have been added. See also the 62 community submitted tasks that were resolved over the last two weeks.

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

• Digital Safety: Join a conversation about Using AI Safely. It'll explore risks & concerns of using AI tools in personal and organisational contexts and practical strategies to reduce those risks. It will take place at 03:30 UTC & 14:30 UTC on June 26. This session is not about using AI to edit Wikipedia. It's focused entirely on safe personal and organisational use.
• Don't Blink: Read the latest developments from around the world about protecting the Wikimedia model, its people and its values. Highlights include exploring the implications that new child safety regulations have on privacy online.
• Grantmaking strategy & Affiliate model: Members of the Global Resources Distribution Committee (GRDC) and the Affiliations Committee (AffCom) met to advance two key movement initiatives: the development of a new Grantmaking strategy and a refreshed Affiliate Model. They produced initial proposals and advanced work on both initiatives ahead of broader conversations planned for Wikimania 2026.

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

• Enterprise: SimPPL Uses Wikimedia Enterprise to Map Online Conversations and Fact-Check Social Media.

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 · Milestones · Wikidata · Central and Eastern Europe · other newsletters

Highlights

• Wikipedia 25: Wikipedia's 25th birthday was celebrated with various projects designed to grow awareness and support for Wikipedia and the people who make it possible. This includes the virtual birthday event on January 15, which garnered 10,000 live viewers and 15,000 reactions. Find more details on all related projects and results in the program report.
• Sustainable use of Wikimedia infrastructure: A valid user-agent string will now be required for automated dumps downloads from the dumps.wikimedia.org website. Automated requests that provide a generic or empty user-agent will be blocked. This extends enforcement of the long standing user-agent policy. Access to dumps through Wikimedia Cloud Services will not change.
• Increasing account creation: The experiment providing direct access to “Create account” and “Log in” actions on mobile increased account creation by about 20% without negatively affecting edit quality. The feature will now be rolled out to all wikis on mobile web.

Annual Goals Progress on Engage
See also: Growth · Product Safety and Integrity · Tech News · Language and Internationalization · The Wikipedia Library · list of movement events · Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia

• Add A Link: The Foundation deployed Add A Link as a default-on suggestion within Suggestion Mode. It is now launched on all wikis to all editors who have opted in to the Suggestion Beta Feature.
• Reusing references: Sub-referencing, the new MediaWiki feature that allows editors to reuse references with different details, was deployed to most small and medium-sized Wikipedia language versions.
• Wikifunctions: Check out the 71 new functions with implementations to get a taste of what functions have been created.
• Range calculator: The special page Special:RangeCalculator has been created. It allows users to find an IP range without needing to rely on external tools. Until now, this tool was only available to CheckUsers.
• Captcha verification: Abuse filters that are set to “require CAPTCHA verification” now also affect users with the skipcaptcha right, which includes most autoconfirmed users. Bots are exempted. This change only affects edits that trigger an abuse filter.
• Latest experiments: An upcoming experiment is testing two variations of a "thank you" badge shown to donors after a recent donation to deepen the relationship between donors and the Wikimedia movement. See all live, upcoming, and completed experiments in Product & Technology.
• Account security on private wikis: Two-factor authentication will become mandatory for user accounts on private wikis. This will protect private information from being exposed by an account with a compromised password.
• Tech News: The latest highlights from Tech News week 26 and 27 include users will now get a notification when they are blocked or unblocked from editing, or if this block changes. See also the 65 community submitted tasks that were resolved over the last two weeks.
• Team Challenges: The core organizing team for Wikimania is introducing Team Challenges, a different approach to Wikimania Hackathon. This year, Wikimedians and professionals from other fields will join forces to undertake one of the 2026 technical challenges.

Annual Goals Progress on Enable
See also: Research newsletter · WikiLearn News · other newsletters on MediaWiki.org

• Wikimedia Hackathon: A look at the 2026 edition of Wikimedia Hackathon which brought together 216 participants from 29 countries building, collaborating, and shaping the future together.
• Wikimedia Hubs: The Hub Fund will pause funding for new pilots in fiscal year 2026–2027 to align with the work on the Ecosystem of Movement Organizations and the Global Resource Distribution Committee. Existing pilots in transition will be offered an additional year of funding.

Annual Goals Progress on Protect
See also: Global Advocacy blog · Global Advocacy Newsletter · Policy blog

• Open Knowledge And Digital Rights: Wikimedians shared their reflections on how Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum reinforced the role of our movement within broader digital rights conversations.

Annual Goals Progress on Reach
See also: Wikimedia Apps · Readers

• Journalism Award: Wikimedia Foundation announced three journalists from Africa as recipients of the Open the Knowledge Journalism Awards, run in partnership with the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ). The awards celebrate the essential role journalists play in creating well-researched articles that volunteer editors can use as source materials to develop content on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. In total, 320 submissions were received from 40 African countries.

Other Movement-curated newsletters & news
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 · Milestones · Wikidata · Central and Eastern Europe · other newsletters

Highlights

• Reflections from around the puzzle globe: Wikimedia Foundation CEO, Bernadette Meehan shares her reflections from around the puzzle globe.
• Wikimania 2026: Wikimania is happening this week! After the event, all streamed sessions will be linked in the program on Eventyay and later uploaded to Commons.
• Grantmaking: The Global Resource Distribution Committee has published a Grantmaking Strategy draft that sets out a renewed approach to how the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Fund is distributed across the Wikimedia Movement. The GRDC is requesting feedback from volunteers and affiliates, regardless of whether they are grantees or not.
• Movement Ecosystem: A proposal that would update movement affiliate recognition and establish new, connected criteria for eligibility to receive Community Fund grants is now available for community review. You are invited to read the proposal and participate in the discussion until August 7.
• AI's impact on Free Knowledge: How AI threatens the social contract of free knowledge and what we can do about it.

Annual Goals Progress on Engage
See also: Growth · Product Safety and Integrity · Tech News · Language and Internationalization · The Wikipedia Library · list of movement events · Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia

• The Wikipedia Library: Five new collections were added to the Wikipedia Library and a course developed by leading experts in academic publishing and open knowledge was launched.
• Women+ contributions in Wikimedia Tech: A guide based on lived experience on how to address some of the invisible barriers for women+ in more technical Wikimedia spaces and recommendations to become more inclusive. Help further by filling out this survey to better understand technical contributions by women+ across Wikimedia projects until July 20.
• Structured Experimentation: A reflection on the first year of structured experimentation highlights successful experiments such as Paste Check, Reference Check, and Tone Check, which improved editing outcomes and have been rolled out to more users, as well as experiments that did not lead to product changes.
• Revise Tone test ended: The A/B test of Revise Tone ended on July 9. It showed that newcomer task completion rates increased by 38.7% compared to the default Copyedit task, with no decrease in edit quality. The feature is now available for everyone on the Arabic, English, French, and Portuguese Wikipedias. The plan is to release Revise Tone to more wikis.
• Keeping mentor list up to date: Administrators on wikis where Growth features are available can now automatically remove inactive mentors by configuring the settings at Special:CommunityConfiguration/Mentorship to keep the list updated. Mentors are experienced contributors who opt in to help new users on-wiki through the Growth Features.
• Wikifunctions: How Abstract Wikipedia fits into the Wikimedia Foundation's annual plan FY26/27.
• Wikidata: The latest Wikidata Platform newsletter (July edition) shares how to identify and rewrite queries that rely on Blazegraph-specific extensions and affected by the migration off Blazegraph.
• Discussion Tools: On English Wikipedia, DiscussionTools' Usability Improvements has now become default for talk pages. You can opt-out of these changes at any time in user preferences. With this, Discussion Tools are now fully available at all wikis.
• Tech News: The latest highlights from Tech News week 28 and 29 include the new Parsoid parser continues to be deployed to additional wikis, making it easier to introduce new reading and editing features. See also the 72 community submitted tasks that were resolved over the last two weeks. Overall, from April – June 2026 about 337 community tasks were resolved by the Wikimedia Foundation.
• Language inclusivity at Wikimania 2026: New approaches to translation and interpretation will be tested at Wikimania this year.
• Call for submissions open for Wikimedia Latin America Conference 2026: The Wikimedia community in Latin America has opened the call for session proposals for the Wikimedia Latin America Conference 2026. Community members are invited to submit proposals for the conference program by August 10.

Annual Goals Progress on Protect
See also: Global Advocacy blog · Global Advocacy Newsletter · Policy blog

• Advocacy: China again blocks the Wikimedia Foundation as a permanent observer to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
• UK Online Safety Act: Ofcom, the United Kingdom's Office of Communications, announced that Wikipedia is not designated as a Category 1 service under the Online Safety Act (OSA). This is an important and welcomed outcome as a Category 1 designation could have included privacy and safety risks to our global community of volunteers.
• UN Open Source Week edit-a-thon: Volunteers created 60 new Wikipedia articles and made nearly 700 updates to improve Wikipedia's coverage of UN and open source topics at the second UN Open Source Week edit-a-thon co-hosted by Wikimedia Foundation.
• "Don’t Blink": The latest developments from around the world about protecting the Wikimedia model, its people and its values.

Annual Goals Progress on Reach
See also: Wikimedia Apps · Readers

• "A Wiki Minute" videos: New videos are added to the series answering some of the most common questions such as "Do you still need Wikipedia when AI can answer anything?" and "Does Wikipedia push a political agenda?".
• Wikipedia 25 brand collaboration in Indonesia: On 4 July, the Jakarta-based street wear company Ageless Galaxy launched a Wikipedia 25 collection, the first ever Wikipedia Brand Collaboration in Asia. The apparel collection featured hats, t-shirts, and a jigsaw puzzle cardigan. Wikimedians in Indonesia joined Ageless Galaxy for a launch party.

Other updates

• Leadership: Reflections on 15 years at Wikimedia Foundation and a new chapter.
• Enterprise: GNOMI Partners with Wikimedia Enterprise to Bring Trusted Human Knowledge to Its AI News Agent.

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

• Board Elections Eligibility: There are new proposed eligibility criteria for standing as a candidate in Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election now available for feedback. The requirements are more specific and detailed than in years past, to both inform the community of what the Board needs and to create multiple pathways to the Board for Wikimedians.

Other Movement-curated newsletters & news
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 · Milestones · Wikidata · Central and Eastern Europe · other newsletters