The Wikimania program is now live! It’s time to start getting excited about what’s to come. Have a look through the program and see what offerings catch your eye. If you’re logged in while browsing, you can start building your personal itinerary by “star”ing your favorite sessions. 

This program was a labor of love from over 25 Wikimedians around the globe, who carefully reviewed nearly 700 submissions. Whether you are joining us in Paris, or participating online, the Wikimania 2026 conference program – with its theme of Liberty, Equity, Reliability – has something for everyone in the Wikimedia community. 

Some highlights:

• It’s designed to be highly interactive, with a heavy emphasis on workshops.
• It’s more multilingual than ever before, with 36 sessions (including pre-conference events and meetups) delivered in French, and a dozen more in Spanish and Arabic. Live interpretation will be available throughout Wikimania in four conference rooms in English, French, Spanish, and Arabic.
• For in-person attendees, we are offering cultural visits and guided tours at various Parisian museums and partner institutions. 

There are a multitude of sessions covering every facet of the topic du jour – artificial intelligence – and how AI is challenging and enabling the free knowledge movement in new ways. But that’s not all! You can look forward to:

• Keynote panel discussions featuring UNESCO and other partners and sponsors supporting the Wikimedia movement.
• Celebrations of our volunteers and projects, including the Wikimedians of the Year.
• Lightning talks and panels on topics ranging from human rights and online safety to structured data on Commons, and wild ideas.

Registration to attend Wikimania 2026 virtually is still open and we encourage you to sign up! And if you can’t wait for Wikimania, the good news is that you can sign up for our first-ever Team Challenges. The Team Challenges connect Wikimedians and non-Wikimedians with diverse skillsets to collaborate on innovation. The event kicks off online at the beginning of July.

Wiki Loves Folklore 2026 in Botswana provided an opportunity not only to document and celebrate cultural heritage, but also to reflect on how communities engage with open knowledge, cultural preservation, and digital participation.

As organizers (WikiVerse Botswana) and participants worked together throughout the campaign, several important lessons emerged that may help strengthen future heritage documentation initiatives in Botswana and across Africa.

Cultural Heritage Exists Beyond Museums

One of the most significant learnings from the project was that folklore and cultural heritage are not confined to historical records or museums. Participants demonstrated that folklore is a living and evolving part of everyday life, reflected in language, oral traditions, traditional attire, indigenous knowledge, customs, ceremonies, and community practices.

Many contributors initially associated cultural documentation with historical artifacts. However, through discussions and contributions, participants recognized that contemporary cultural expressions are equally important to document and preserve.

Communities Are Willing to Share Knowledge When Given the Right Platform

The project revealed a strong willingness among community members to contribute knowledge about their cultural backgrounds. Many participants possessed valuable information and experiences but had never considered that these could contribute to global knowledge platforms such as Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia.

Providing a structured and supportive environment helped participants see themselves not only as consumers of information but also as creators and custodians of knowledge.

Digital Skills Remain Essential for Cultural Documentation

A recurring observation throughout the campaign was the importance of digital literacy. While participants were enthusiastic about sharing cultural knowledge, some required additional support in areas such as uploading media, understanding free licenses, sourcing information, and contributing to Wikimedia platforms.

This highlighted the need for continued capacity-building initiatives that combine cultural preservation with practical digital skills development.

Representation Gaps Still Exist

The project also reinforced the reality that many aspects of Botswana’s cultural heritage remain underrepresented online. Several participants struggled to find existing Wikimedia content covering local traditions, folklore, and cultural practices.

This gap presents both a challenge and an opportunity. It demonstrates the importance of local contributors in ensuring that Botswana’s cultural narratives are represented accurately and authentically within the global knowledge ecosystem.

Partnerships Strengthen Community Impact

Collaboration with educational institutions, community leaders, and cultural stakeholders proved valuable in expanding participation and creating awareness. The campaign demonstrated that partnerships could help reach new audiences, build trust, and encourage sustained engagement beyond a single event.

Future heritage initiatives would benefit from even stronger collaboration with cultural institutions, educators, and local knowledge holders.

Looking Ahead

Wiki Loves Folklore 2026 reaffirmed that documenting cultural heritage is not only about preserving the past but also about empowering communities to share their stories with the world. The campaign contributed to expanding cultural representation on Wikimedia platforms while fostering skills, confidence, and community engagement among participants.

As Botswana continues to participate in global open knowledge initiatives, there is an opportunity to build on these lessons by creating more pathways for communities to document, preserve, and celebrate their living heritage.

The success of Wiki Loves Folklore 2026 demonstrates that when communities are given the tools and support to share their knowledge, they become active contributors to preserving culture for future generations.

The April 2026 edition of the EditHer Africa Contest brought together contributors from across the continent under the theme “African Women in Work and Leadership.” The campaign focused on improving the representation of African women on Wikimedia platforms by creating, translating, and improving articles and Wikidata items about women making significant contributions in leadership, entrepreneurship, academia, public service, science, technology, and the creative industries.

As a mentor during the contest, I had the opportunity to support participants, particularly new editors, as they learned how to contribute effectively to Wikipedia by training them on how to translate articles in Wikipedia.

Building Capacity Through Translation

One of my primary responsibilities was training participants on how to translate articles on Wikipedia. Translation plays a crucial role in making knowledge accessible to diverse communities, particularly in regions where local languages remain underrepresented online.

During the session I took participants around on how to translate articles. I showed them two ways of doing it, one being Wikipedia’s Content Translation tool and the other, which is just splitting tabs having both the source and the currently translating article. The reason why I taught these two distinct methods is because Wikipedia’s Content Translation tool was a way of getting most of the content down as quickly as possible but also worrying about inaccuracies. The other way was a good reference on what makes a good edit for beginners.

Documenting African Women’s Achievements

The contest focused on documenting African women whose work and leadership continue to shape communities and industries across the continent. Participants contributed articles about women leaders, entrepreneurs, academics, artists, activists, and professionals whose achievements deserve greater visibility.

Beyond article creation, contributors also improved existing content and enhanced Wikidata items, helping to make information more accessible and discoverable across Wikimedia projects. These efforts contribute directly to addressing the gender content gap that still exists on Wikimedia platforms, where women remain significantly underrepresented in both content and contributor communities.

Mentorship and Community Growth

Mentorship was an important component of the campaign. I was once a mentee myself and stepping in as a mentor was very rewarding. Having the opportunity to research and prepare myself for the session took me back to why I enjoy being a part of the movement. The experience demonstrated the importance of continuous guidance in retaining new contributors. Many participants who initially joined with little or no editing experience became active contributors capable of creating and improving content independently by the end of the campaign.

Looking Ahead

The EditHer Africa Contest continues to play an important role in promoting gender equity within the Wikimedia movement. By documenting the achievements of African women and empowering new contributors with the skills needed to participate, the campaign helps ensure that African stories are represented more accurately and inclusively online.

As a mentor, it was rewarding to witness participants grow in confidence and contribute meaningful content that expands knowledge about African women in leadership and work. These contributions not only improve Wikimedia projects but also inspire future generations by making the achievements of African women more visible to the world. A special thanks to Africa Wiki Women for ensuring that becomes a reality.

Through continued collaboration, mentorship, and community engagement, we can further close gender content gaps and build a more inclusive digital knowledge ecosystem for everyone.

African & Proud successfully hosted its first online community session in 2026 titled “Love, Culture & Community”, a special Valentine’s Day celebration designed to promote cultural appreciation, community bonding, and meaningful conversations around love within African communities.

The virtual gathering brought together participants from different backgrounds to reflect on the importance of love, identity, culture, and unity. The session also served as a strategic milestone for the African and Proud community as it continues expanding collaborations across Africa.The presentation explored the true meaning of Valentine’s Day beyond romantic relationships, emphasizing love as a tool for community building, cultural preservation, respect, care, and collective responsibility. Participants engaged in thoughtful conversations around how love can strengthen communities and preserve African identity through language and culture.

Key Highlight

One of the highlights of the session was the discussion on love expressions across different languages and cultures. Participants learned how words such as Soyayya (Hausa), Ịhụnanya (Igbo), and Ifẹ́ (Yoruba) represent more than language, but also symbolize heritage, identity, and cultural pride. The session reinforced the idea that language remains a powerful tool for preserving African stories and traditions.

To encourage interaction and participation, the program featured engaging activities including an icebreaker session on love languages and a fun colour memory challenge that created excitement and strengthened connections among attendees. These activities helped create a warm and inclusive atmosphere during the online gathering.

Beyond the public session, African&Proud also conducted several behind-the-scenes partnership conversations aimed at strengthening regional collaboration and sustainability. Private calls were held with representatives from the Tanzania team as part of preparations for the expansion of the Culture Connect 2026 initiative.

These conversations focused on cross country collaboration, knowledge exchange, and increasing cultural representation across African communities.

The session also reaffirmed African&Proud’s commitment to sustaining existing partnerships, particularly with the Dagbani community, whose continued collaboration has contributed significantly to promoting African languages, culture, and community engagement initiatives.

During the event, participants were also introduced to upcoming African&Proud programs scheduled for 2026. These include:

• Culture Connect 2026, which will focus on collaboration between Ghana, Tanzania, and Nigeria.
• Wiki Classroom 3.0, an initiative designed to promote Wikipedia and its sister projects as reliable educational resources within African secondary schools.
• Afroyanga Bootcamp 3.0, a capacity-building program focused on increasing African representation, languages, and content within the Wikimedia movement.

The session concluded with a final reflection emphasizing that love is intentional, cultural, and communal. Participants were encouraged to continue building communities rooted in respect, inclusion, cultural pride, and unity.

As African&Proud continues to grow, this first online community session marks an important step toward building stronger cultural connections across Africa while creating safe and engaging spaces for conversations that celebrate African identity and heritage.For those who may have missed the session, the link to access it is available here. . If you wish to become an active member of our community, please take a moment to complete the registration form. For those who may want to join our WhatsApp Community, you can do so here.

Let’s work together to bridge the gap in information about Africa on Wikipedia and sister projects. Together, let’s make African culture more visible by editing one article at a time!

For many educators, Wikimedia projects hold enormous promise but still feel like unfamiliar territory. The idea of bringing Wikipedia into the classroom is exciting, yet the path from interest to action is often unclear. Teachers may wonder where to begin, how to adapt Wikimedia tools to local curricula, or how to guide students safely and meaningfully through open knowledge work.

That gap between possibility and practice is exactly what the EduWiki Hub’s Newcomer’s Starter Kit is designed to address.

Launched during an orientation session on 29 May 2026, the Starter Kit brings together practical guidance, movement context, and community support in one accessible resource for educators, learners, and volunteers. More than just an introduction to Wikimedia, it offers a roadmap for turning open knowledge into a learning practice that is relevant, inclusive, and locally adaptable.

The launch event matched the purpose of the resource. With participants joining from Africa, ESEAP, South Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, and MENA, and with interpretation provided in four languages, the event demonstrated a clear, important point: if open education is truly global, then access must be designed with global participation in mind.

A resource built to remove barriers

The EduWiki Starter Kit was created by the Resource Curation and Development Working Group to support people who are new to the Wikimedia education space or looking for a clearer way to engage with it as part of the EduWiki Hub services. Its value lies not only in what it explains, but in the confidence it gives users to begin.

Too often, educational resources assume prior knowledge. They explain what to do, but not how the ecosystem works, who the key actors are, or how to navigate the relationships between projects, communities, and institutions. The Starter Kit responds to that challenge by offering a structured, practical, and welcoming entry point.

It is not a one-size-fits-all guide. It is a bridge.

The launch session highlighted three themes that stand out far beyond the event itself.

1. Open education is not just about access. It is about agency.

In the first chapter, Sally Latham of Wikimedia UK introduced the relationship between the Wikimedia Foundation, the people who power the movement, and the projects that make it visible. Her presentation also underscored the importance of Open Educational Resources and the “5Rs” framework: retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute. That framing matters because it reminds educators that open knowledge is not static. It is meant to be shaped, adapted, and improved for local realities. For teachers, this opens a powerful possibility: students are not only consumers of knowledge, but contributors to it.

2. Communities matter as much as content.

Chapter two, led by Shreya Dwivedi of the Wikipedia and Education User Group Board, moves beyond resources to focus on the human infrastructure that sustains them. While the distinction between the volunteer-led user group and the EduWiki Hub is important, the deeper message matters even more: successful education work in Wikimedia depends entirely on clarity, coordination, and support. Because newcomers need pathways into the community rather than just links and documentation, they must know where to ask questions, how to find mentors, and which spaces will help them grow. By clearly explaining governance, communication channels, and regional support structures, the Starter Kit bridges this gap to make the movement both legible and approachable.

3. Good educational projects are designed around learning, not just activity.

In the third chapter, Manavpreet Kaur offered a highly practical insight: the success of an education initiative should be measured by what learners gained rather than just what took place. This change in emphasis is essential because standard program metrics, such as edit-a-thons, contests, or participation counts, fail to tell the full story. Instead, we must ask what students actually learned, what skills they built, and how their understanding of knowledge, collaboration, and digital participation changed. By centering these learning outcomes, the Starter Kit encourages a more thoughtful, sustainable program design that naturally reinforces privacy, consent, and inclusive practices when working with minors. Ultimately, the kit does more than just guide action; it models genuine responsibility.

The EduWiki Starter Kit arrives at a time when education communities are looking for resources that are not only useful but usable. Many educators are curious about Wikimedia but need a clearer starting point. Many volunteers want to support education work, but need a better context. Institutions want evidence, structure, and practical tools before they commit.

This is where the Starter Kit has real value.

• For educators, it shows how Wikimedia can support digital literacy, critical thinking, and knowledge equity.
• For volunteers and organizers, it offers a framework for planning meaningful initiatives with stronger community support.
• For institutions, it demonstrates that Wikimedia is not simply a website students visit, but a living ecosystem that can enrich teaching, learning, and civic participation.

A launch that reflects a larger vision

The launch session highlighted the welcoming, multilingual, and collaborative culture the movement wants to build. The Kahoot activity and wide participation showed that people want approachable resources. This matters because the future of Wikimedia in education relies on more than just tools; it depends on how well those tools help people understand the movement, connect with others, and apply knowledge locally. The Starter Kit is a great step toward that goal.

What happens next

The launch may be over, but the work is only beginning. The EduWiki Hub is inviting the community to download the Starter Kit, translate it into local languages, and help extend its reach. A resource like this becomes more powerful when it is used, adapted, shared, and localized. The more people contribute to it, the more useful it becomes.

When I joined the On Wiki Skills Program organized by Africa Wiki Women, I was eager to learn more about Wikimedia projects and how I could contribute to free knowledge. Over the course of three months, the program equipped me with practical skills, mentorship, and confidence that transformed me from a reader of Wikimedia platforms into an active contributor.

Exploring the Wikimedia Ecosystem

One of the first things I learned was that Wikimedia extends far beyond Wikipedia. Through the training sessions, I was introduced to various Wikimedia projects and gained a deeper understanding of how they work together to make knowledge freely accessible to everyone.

Building Practical Wikimedia Skills

One of the most rewarding aspects of the On Wiki Skills Program was the opportunity to gain hands-on experience across different Wikimedia projects. Through the training, I developed practical skills that enabled me to contribute meaningfully to free knowledge platforms.

Creating and Improving Wikidata Items

I learned how to create and enhance Wikidata items, contributing structured and reliable data to the Wikimedia ecosystem. Some of the notable Wikidata items I created include:

• Diana Mutasingwa Nankunda Kagyenyi
• Beatrice Namaganda
• Assoc. Prof. Mucunguzi Abel

This experience helped me understand the importance of linked open data and how Wikidata supports knowledge sharing across Wikimedia projects.

Writing My First Wikipedia Article

A major milestone in my journey was writing and publishing a Wikipedia article about Fred Nyanzi Ssentamu. Creating an article from scratch strengthened my research, referencing, and article-writing skills while deepening my appreciation for Wikipedia’s content policies and standards.

Contributing to Wikimedia Commons

The program also introduced me to Wikimedia Commons, where I learned how to upload and share media files that can be used to support Wikimedia content and promote free access to educational resources.

Translating Knowledge into Runyankole

One of the most impactful experiences was translating articles from English into Runyankole, helping make knowledge more accessible to speakers of my local language. During the three-month program, I translated the following articles:

• Moroto District
• Ariaka Nguma
• Cinderella Sanyu
• Angwech Colline

Through these translations, I contributed to reducing language barriers and expanding access to information for Runyankole-speaking communities.

Each of these activities strengthened my understanding of Wikimedia platforms and reinforced the importance of preserving, documenting, and sharing diverse knowledge. The experience showed me that every contribution, whether through data, articles, media, or translations, plays a role in building a more inclusive and accessible knowledge ecosystem.

The Power of Mentorship and Community

A significant part of my journey was the mentorship I received throughout the program. The guidance from experienced Wikimedians helped me overcome challenges, improve my contributions, and build confidence in my abilities. Knowing that support was always available made the learning experience both enjoyable and rewarding.

Representing the Wikimedia Community

One of the highlights of my journey came on 23 May 2026 when I had the opportunity to represent Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda at thePearl of Africa Tourism Expo 2026 held at Speke Resort Munyonyo.

Participating in such a major event demonstrated how much confidence I had gained through the program and allowed me to share the value of Wikimedia projects with a wider audience.

Growth Beyond Technical Skills

Beyond learning how to edit Wikimedia platforms, the program helped me develop confidence, communication skills, and a stronger appreciation for collaborative knowledge sharing. I now view myself not only as a consumer of information but also as a contributor helping to document and preserve knowledge for others.

Celebrating Completion and Looking Ahead

Completing the On Wiki Skills Program marked an important milestone in my Wikimedia journey. The experience has inspired me to continue contributing to Wikimedia projects, support other newcomers, and advocate for open knowledge within my community.

Appreciation

I am grateful to Africa Wiki Women, the facilitators, mentors, and fellow participants who made this learning journey possible. Their dedication, encouragement, and support created an environment where I could learn, grow, and contribute with confidence.

A Message to Future Participants

To anyone considering joining the On Wiki Skills Program, embrace every opportunity to learn and practice. Be curious, ask questions, and engage with the community. The skills, connections, and confidence you gain can open doors to meaningful contributions within the Wikimedia movement and beyond.

The Dagbani Wikimedians User Group successfully organized a two-day Wikipedia training for members of the TACE Wiki Hub at Tamale College of Education on 13th and 14th June 2026. The training was designed to introduce participants to Wikimedia projects, build their understanding of Wikipedia, and equip them with practical skills for contributing to the free knowledge movement.

The event brought together students and contributors who were interested in learning how Wikipedia works and how they could actively participate in creating and improving content online. Through a combination of presentations, demonstrations, practical exercises, and interactive discussions, participants gained firsthand experience in editing Wikipedia and understanding the principles that guide the platform.

The training commenced with an orientation session that introduced participants to the Wikimedia movement and its various projects. The core team members explained the vision of Wikimedia and highlighted the important role volunteers play in ensuring that reliable and freely accessible knowledge remains available to people around the world. Participants were introduced to Wikipedia’s core principles, including neutrality, verifiability, and the use of reliable sources.

A major focus of the training was helping participants transition from being readers of Wikipedia to becoming contributors. The team members guided participants through the account creation process and demonstrated how to navigate the Dagbani Wikipedia platform. By the end of the session, fourteen new Wikipedia accounts had been successfully created, marking an important milestone for the TACE Wiki Hub and the Dagbani Wikimedia community.

Participants were also introduced to the process of searching for articles and identifying opportunities for improvement. Achiri Bitamsimli, one of the facilitators, demonstrated how contributors can add information, correct inaccuracies, improve article structure, and support content with reliable references. These sessions helped participants understand that meaningful contributions can begin with simple edits and gradually develop into more advanced forms of participation.

The practical component of the training formed the heart of the program. Participants worked with their newly created accounts and engaged in hands-on editing exercises under the guidance of one of the team members, Alhaj Darajaati. They learned how to make edits, save changes, write edit summaries, and review article histories. The exercises provided participants with the confidence to apply their knowledge in a real editing environment and reinforced the collaborative nature of Wikipedia.

Throughout the training, participants actively engaged in discussions and question-and-answer sessions. These interactions provided opportunities to address challenges faced by new editors and to deepen understanding of Wikipedia’s editing culture. The enthusiasm demonstrated by participants reflected a growing interest in contributing local knowledge, language, culture, history, and educational content to Wikimedia projects.

The training achieved several notable outcomes. Fourteen new Wikipedia accounts were created on the first day and eight on the second day; participants gained practical editing experience, and a new group of potential contributors was introduced to Wikimedia projects. The event also increased awareness of the importance of free knowledge and the role local communities can play in ensuring that their stories, languages, and experiences are represented online.

As the Wikimedia movement continues to grow in Ghana, initiatives such as this training remain essential for developing new contributors and strengthening community participation. The Dagbani Wikimedians User Group remains committed to supporting emerging editors through mentorship, capacity-building activities, and future training opportunities.

The successful training at Tamale College of Education represents another important step toward expanding access to knowledge and empowering more people to contribute to Wikipedia. With twenty-two newly registered editors and a growing interest in Wikimedia activities, the future of community-driven knowledge creation continues to look promising.

The Dagbani Wikimedians User Group expresses its appreciation to all the team members, volunteers, and participants whose dedication and commitment contributed to the success of the training. Their collective efforts have helped create new opportunities for participation in the Wikimedia movement and have laid the foundation for continued growth within the TACE Wiki Hub community.

When I joined Cohort 1 of the EduWiki Hub Mentorship Program (November 2025-May 2026), I came in with a question I wanted six months to help me answer: how do you turn scattered technical and community work into something structured, documented, and built to last? This is a reflection on what I built, what I learned, and what I am carrying forward.

A self-driven path, supported by a programme

I want to be honest about the shape my mentorship took, because that is more useful to future cohorts than a tidy story. I entered the programme already building an initiative of my own, and much of my time was self-directed execution rather than top-down instruction. I was matched with a mentor, Obiageli “Oby” Ezeilo, whose strength is education organising rather than technical work – so while the direction and delivery of my technical project were mine to carry, our conversations gave me something I did not have on my own: an education lens, and the steady accountability of someone expecting to see progress.

I share this not as a complaint but as context, because it points to something the programme does genuinely well. A mentorship does not have to hand you the work to be valuable. Sometimes its value is in giving your existing work a structure, an audience, and a reason to be written down. The monthly check-ins, the cohort deadlines, and simply being accountable to someone pushed me to formalise work I might otherwise have left informal. For that steady encouragement, and for the push to think about my work in educational terms, I am grateful to Oby and to the EduWiki Hub team – especially Rita Maliqi, who kept the whole cohort moving.

What I built: Wiki Open Learning

Wiki Open Learning is an open initiative focused on structured, project-based learning across Wikimedia projects. The premise is simple but, I believe, important: most learning material in our movement is scattered, text-heavy, and written for people who already know where to start. A student or first-time contributor rarely has a single place to understand what a project is, how it works, how to contribute, and how to grow within its community.

Over six months this grew into a documented body of work on Meta-Wiki: an initiative page, an events log, and a Learnings hub that organises tutorials project by project – Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata, and Wikipedia – each structured around what the project is, how to contribute, its governance, and its tools. I also began producing video-based tutorials uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, covering practical workflows such as account creation, the Commons Upload Wizard, and understanding the CC BY SA license – so that the learning lives inside the Wikimedia ecosystem itself, not on an external platform

I want to be honest about the shape my mentorship took, because honesty is more useful to future cohorts than a tidy story. I entered already building an initiative of my own, and much of my time was self-directed execution rather than top-down instruction. My mentor brought an education-organising background rather than a technical one, so the direction and delivery were mine to carry. I share this not as a complaint but as context – because it points to something the programme does genuinely well. It creates a supportive container in which a motivated contributor can take real ownership. The check-ins, the deadlines, and the simple fact of being accountable to a cohort pushed me to formalise work I might otherwise have left informal. A mentorship doesn’t have to hand you the work to be valuable; sometimes its value is giving your existing work a structure and a reason to be written down.

Six months at a glance

The numbers are modest by design – this was a pilot, built to be sustainable rather than to chase scale. What matters more than any single figure is that each piece is documented, reusable, and built so that others can join and extend it.

Reaching students where they are

Two events anchored the initiative in the real world rather than only on-wiki. The first was the Wiki for Students in India Workshop #01, held in December 2025 in Lalitpur, Uttar Pradesh. Rather than deliver it myself, I worked through a local teacher to organise an introductory session for school students – their first exposure to Wikipedia, open knowledge, and the idea that they could contribute to it. The full session is documented in a detailed report on Meta-Wiki.

The second was a celebration of Wikipedia’s 25th anniversary with the community in Vidisha. The most sustainable thing I did across both was not running events myself, but enabling others to run them – reaching out, supporting a local facilitator, and helping sessions happen that would not have happened otherwise. That is the model I want to scale: not me at the centre, but a structure that lets many people teach.

What I actually learned: four capabilities

If the events are the visible output, the real return on six months was a set of capabilities I will use long after the certificate. Four stand out.

Documentation. In a movement built on open knowledge, work that is not documented barely exists. I learned to write event reports someone else could learn from, to structure initiative pages a newcomer can navigate, and to record work transparently on Meta-Wiki. I came in able to do the work; I am leaving better able to show it – and here, showing the work is half of it.

Measurable impact. I learned to think in outcomes, not activity – to ask not “what did I do” but “what changed, and how would I show it.” Defining outcomes up front, and capturing evidence as I went, is a discipline I now apply to every event.

Grants and sustainability. Through the Nagarathna Memorial Grant supporting my technical work, I learned how grant-funded contribution actually works in our movement: scoping a deliverable, reporting transparently, and building something the community keeps using after the funding ends. Sustainability stopped being a buzzword and became a design constraint.

Outreach. Working through a local teacher, rather than parachuting in, taught me that the durable way to grow is to enable others. The goal is a structure that lets many people teach – not a single organiser at the centre.

One initiative, two purposes: the capstone

WhichTool Screenshot whichtool.toolforge.org

Two threads of my year then converged. Alongside Wiki Open Learning, I have been building WhichTool – a multilingual, natural-language search engine for discovering Wikimedia Toolforge tools, supported by the Nagarathna Memorial Grant. Toolforge hosts over four thousand community-built tools, and they are notoriously hard to discover; WhichTool lets you describe what you want to do, in any language, and find the right tool – surfacing the ones still actively maintained, and layering a human-verified core over the full index for accuracy.

I was already building WhichTool when the EduWiki Hub offered an optional capstone, with the suggested direction of developing a centralised resource for Wikimedia tools. By a fortunate alignment, the capstone the programme proposed was almost exactly the work I had already begun – so I took it on as my capstone and built on it directly. Rather than splitting my attention across two unrelated deliverables, the overlap let me pour concentrated effort into a single substantial piece of work, effectively at double the pace. It is a small lesson with wide application: when your independent work and your programme’s goals point the same way, you stop dividing your energy and start compounding it. My thanks to both the Nagarathna Memorial Grant for making the core work possible, and to the EduWiki Hub for giving it a second home as a capstone.

What I am carrying forward

I came into Cohort 1 as a contributor with scattered work. I am leaving with a documented initiative, real-world events, learning resources, and a piece of open infrastructure now headed for a demonstration at Wikimania. More than any single artefact, I am leaving with a way of working: build in the open, document as you go, and design so that others can join.

Next, I want to extend Wiki Open Learning to more projects – Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wikibooks – and into more advanced topics, while continuing to connect structured resources with student-focused workshops on the ground.

To anyone considering a future cohort, my advice is simple: come in with something you genuinely want to build, and let the programme give it shape. That is where the value compounds. And if you would like to help build open, structured learning for newcomers, Wiki Open Learning is open to join.

Dev Jadiya is a Wikimedia volunteer developer and community organiser from India.

A community report from the Wikipedia 25 Celebration in Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, India — organised by Wiki Open Learning, 7 June 2026.

For twenty-five years, Wikipedia has been the quiet companion of every student in India who ever opened a laptop the night before an assignment was due. In Vidisha — a small city in Madhya Pradesh, better known for the Sanchi Stupa and the Heliodorus Pillar than for tech meetups — Wikipedia was something people used every day, but had never met. No editor had ever stood in front of a room here and said: this encyclopedia is written by people like you, and you can be one of them.

On 7 June 2026, for the first time, someone did.

A first chapter, not a one-off

The Wikipedia 25 Celebration in Vidisha was the first community-led Wikimedia event ever held in the city. It was organised under the banner of Wiki Open Learning, a young India-based initiative focused on teaching the skills, tools and procedures that keep the Wikimedia projects running — everything around editing — and supported by a Rapid Fund grant from the Wikimedia Foundation.

We set out with a deliberately modest, honest goal: not to manufacture a hundred overnight editors, but to bring a real, local community into existence — to put Vidisha on the Wikimedia map and give a first generation of contributors their first account, their first edit, and a room full of people who care about the same thing.

The response told us the appetite was real. The call for participants drew more than 109 applications — far beyond what a first event in a tier-two city expects. Because this was a hands-on, first-timer-focused programme, we capped confirmed participation at 35, and prepared participation kits, swag and seating for all 35. On the day, around 28 people filled the hall; a handful of confirmed participants couldn’t make it for genuine last-minute emergencies, and their kits are reserved for the community going forward. We’d rather report that number plainly than round it up — the people who came are the story.

Who was in the room

The composition of the room is the part we’re proudest of, because it wasn’t engineered — it’s just who applied and showed up.

• Women were the majority. Of 26 participants, 14 were women, 11 men, and one non-binary — a gender balance that tech and open-knowledge events in India routinely fail to reach.
• Most had never been editors. 18 of 26 created their very first Wikimedia account around this event; only 8 arrived with an existing account. This was, for the overwhelming majority, day one.
• It bridged school and college. Roughly a fifth were school students (classes 10–12, ages 16–18), the rest from colleges — primarily the Samrat Ashok Technological Institute (SATI), Vidisha — spanning computer science, engineering, commerce and the sciences.
• It reached beyond Vidisha. Participants travelled in from Bina and Bhopal, not just the host city.

A full day, built like a conference — for first-timers

We designed the day to feel substantial without being intimidating. It opened with a welcome and introductions from the organising team, followed by breakfast and the first sessions.

Session one — “What is Wikipedia, really?” We started from first principles: that Wikipedia is written by ordinary volunteers, not companies and not AI; that it is free to read and free to edit; and that Hindi Wikipedia, with roughly 1.7 lakh articles against English Wikipedia’s 7+ million, is wide open for the people in that room to shape. A recurring thread ran through the morning: in the age of ChatGPT and Claude, the most compelling reason to edit Wikipedia is that these AI systems are themselves trained on it — to improve Hindi Wikipedia is to improve the source the machines learn from.

Session two — Wikimedia Commons and the sister projects. The session moved from Wikipedia outward to the wider movement: Commons, Wikidata, Wikisource, Wiktionary and more — what each is for, what belongs on Commons and what doesn’t, how licensing works, and how a freely-licensed photograph becomes part of an article seen worldwide.

After a community lunch, the afternoon turned practical with a walkthrough of how editing actually works — account creation, article structure, references, talk pages and mobile editing — laying the foundation for first edits without rushing anyone into the deep end on day one.

The team challenge: seven tiny “knowledge startups”

The centrepiece of the afternoon was a team activity that turned the whole room into builders. Each of the seven teams — seated under playful bilingual team names printed on their table cards — became, for one afternoon, a small “knowledge startup” with a single mission: design one small, real thing that would bring more people in Vidisha to Wikipedia. Not an app to build that day — an idea on paper, with a name, an audience, and a way it works.

Each team was given a distinct lens, mapped to a real function of the movement:

• विचार वाटिका (Vichaar / Ideas) — outreach: how to bring new people in.
• मंथन मोहल्ला (Manthan / Churning) — content: which Vidisha topics are missing and worth writing.
• ज्ञान Ganga — education: how to use Wikipedia inside their own schools and colleges.
• Soch सागर — design/UX: how to make editing less frightening for a first-timer.
• तेज़ तर्रार Team — tech: one tool or feature that would help (a natural fit for the CS students).
• जिज्ञासा Junction — trust: how to keep information accurate and counter misinformation.
• सार्थक’s Syndicate — media: a plan to photograph and document Vidisha for Commons.

Giving each team a real movement-function as a “lens” meant that, by role-playing a knowledge startup, they were quietly learning how the Wikimedia ecosystem is actually structured. Teams presented their ideas, the strongest were recognised, and the friendly competition fed into the prizes.

Cake, swag, and a room that didn’t want to leave

Because it was, after all, a birthday, the day’s flagship moment was the cutting of the Wikipedia 25 cake — twenty-five years of free knowledge marked together, with the whole room gathered for the group photograph. Prizes followed for the top teams, and every participant received a kit: a Wikipedia 25 t-shirt and cap, a personalised mug, a custom portrait cut-out, a sticker set, a badge and a thank-you card — alongside snacks and high tea.

The warmth in the room afterwards was the part no metric captures. We collected eleven feedback videos from participants, and the consistent note across them was simple: they enjoyed it, they learned, and they want a next one.

What we’re leaving behind on Commons

Everything from the day has been documented openly. All event media now lives on Wikimedia Commons, under Category:Wikipedia 25 Celebration Vidisha, organised into four subcategories:

• Participant photographs — 70 files
• Event videos — 29 files (including team activities, hall walkthroughs and feedback)
• Design kit — 16 files (banners, badges, swag and brand materials)

A full edited video of the day will follow on YouTube once post-production is complete.

What this means for a small-city community

Vidisha began 7 June with zero Wikipedians at this event. It ended with around thirty — most holding a Wikimedia account they didn’t have that morning, a majority of them women, and several still in school. That is exactly the kind of small, durable beginning that the Wikimedia movement in India has always been built on: not metropolitan spectacle, but one careful node of contribution at a time.

We’re sharing our learnings openly so that other organisers in tier-two and tier-three Indian cities can run their own celebrations. If your city hasn’t met Wikipedia yet, consider this an invitation — and proof that it works.

Wiki Open Learning thanks the Wikimedia Foundation for the Rapid Fund grant that made this possible, the SATI student community, and every participant who chose to spend a Sunday building free knowledge.

— On behalf of the Wiki Open Learning organising team

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Weekly highlight

• The Reader Growth team has launched an Image Browsing beta feature on the mobile web version of all Wikipedias. The feature shows an image carousel at the top of articles with 3 or more images. Editors can configure this feature with the following controls: to hide a specific image from a page, either use class=notpageimage excluding it from thumbnail previews, or class=noviewer excluding it from MediaViewer. The carousel can also be disabled from a page entirely, with the magic word __NOMEDIAVIEWERCAROUSEL__. To submit feedback or flag bugs, please visit the project page.
• Wikitables can now be sorted in descending order on the first click by adding data-sort-order="desc" to the header cell. Previously, by default, clicking a column header for the first time sorts it in ascending order. This addition to a Wikitable gives it more control and flexibility, while the default behavior for subsequent clicks remains unchanged. [1]

Updates for editors

• The Article guidance feature is currently 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. This feature gives editors community-curated guidance to help them create articles that follow community standards. Experienced editors can continue creating or adapting outlines for specific article types that are commonly created by less experienced contributors. 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.
• Wikis that wish to replace the “indefinitely” button in Special:Block for temporary accounts (for example, wikis that block temporary users only until account expiration) will be able to do so by creating MediaWiki:ipb-indefinite-expiry-temporary-account with the block duration they want. [2]
•  View all 41 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Updates for technical contributors

• By the end of June, a valid user-agent string will 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.
• The roll out of global API rate limits is now complete, with limits enforced across all APIs and at the documented levels for all groups. Bots running in Toolforge/WMCS or with the bot user right on any wiki remain exempt. All bots should continue to follow the documented best practices to avoid being rate limited.
• The API Portal wiki will be read only starting this week (June 15-18). The following week (June 22-25), all API Portal wiki URLs will redirect to Wikimedia APIs on mediawiki.org. Learn more on the project page.
•  Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

Meetings and events

• On June 17th at 6pm UTC the WMF will be holding Discord call focused on a code review. We’ve heard through the Developer Satisfaction Survey that volunteers are struggling with code review and we’d like to discuss these experiences with the goal of surfacing workable solutions. You can join the call via the Wikimedia Community Discord server.
• The Latin American Wikimedia Conference will host a regional hackathon that will bring together the Wikimedia movement’s technical community including developers, system administrators, data scientists, and users with extended rights. Interested technical contributors can apply for a scholarship to participate until June 21 at midnight (Bolivia time, UTC-4).
• Sign up for Wikimania Team Challenges to join this special event. The Team challenges will take place online and in person from July 21 to 22, before Wikimania conference. Everyone is welcome, regardless of skills or Wikimania registration. Teams will work on 10 important challenges supporting the Wikimedia community. For details, visit the Team Challenges page and register there. Registration closes on June 20th at 11pm UTC.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

Wikidata is a free and open knowledge base that anyone can edit. It is a sister project of Wikipedia and serves as a central repository for structured data, so rather than paving pages with text, it stores data in a structured format that can be queried and reused across different platforms.

One of the key features of Wikidata is its ability to handle deletion requests, which are known as RFDs (Requests for Deletion), a similar process happens on Wikipedia. These requests allow users to propose the removal of items from the database that are deemed unnecessary, incorrect, or otherwise unsuitable for inclusion.

I was recently asked if there was currently any “tracking of the amount of deletion requests on WD over time”, with a specific focus on promotional editing, number of requests, and administrator burden. I was not aware of any such tracking, so I decided to investigate the data and see what insights could be gleaned from it, and possibly help out with whatever then end up happening as part of T429036 [Analytics] [Request] Baseline data for Item deletions which looks like it will happen soon.

Approach

All of the requests for deletion go via the RFD page on Wikidata. This page is treated as a talk page, with each section being a request for deletion. Each section has a title, which is the item, or items being requested for deletion, and a body, which contains the reason and any discussion around the request. The page is often maintained by bots in terms of marking when deletions occur, and when requests are closed, so the page is a good source of data for analysis. And like many other talk pages, it is also archived, with older requests being moved to archive pages. The main RFD page has been around for a while, and the archive pages go back to 2012.

Data Gathering

I’m trying out marimo for my data gathering things time, when I would normally use a standard IPython notebook. It’s self described as “a next generation Python notebook”.

So first off, I started by iterating through the archive pages, and downloading them all into local .wiki files, to speed up further processing.

You can find the notebook in this gist, and this resulted in a bunch of files that look something like this…

{{Archive|category=Archived requests for deletion}}

=== [[Q259]] ===
This item is a duplicate of [[Q35]]. --[[User:Hydriz|Hydriz]] ([[User talk:Hydriz|talk]]) 11:45, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
:{{done}} (as staff) --[[User:Denny Vrandečić (WMDE)|Denny Vrandečić (WMDE)]] ([[User talk:Denny Vrandečić (WMDE)|talk]]) 12:27, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

=== [[Q292]] ===
Duplicate of [[Q2]] (Earth). [[User:Emijrp|Emijrp]] ([[User talk:Emijrp|talk]]) 12:21, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
:Oh I did it as a steward, does someone know if am I allowed to use my tools here? --[[User:Vituzzu|Vituzzu]] ([[User talk:Vituzzu|talk]]) 12:25, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
:: Yes, you are. The project has no admins of its own (only some staff who help out right now). If the stewards take over, staff would be happy to step down from that task.
:: And ideally, the users will soon have their own admins and bureaucrats to deal with it :)  --[[User:Denny Vrandečić (WMDE)|Denny Vrandečić (WMDE)]] ([[User talk:Denny Vrandečić (WMDE)|talk]]) 12:27, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
:::Yep, it's quite common for new wiki but this is a special one ;)
:::Anyway I'm quite interested in helping so if needed do not hesitate to poke me.
:::--[[User:Vituzzu|Vituzzu]] ([[User talk:Vituzzu|talk]]) 12:29, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

=== [[Q304]] ===
And [[Q254]]. Mozart. [[User:Emijrp|Emijrp]] ([[User talk:Emijrp|talk]]) 12:35, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
:{{done}} by Vituzzu. --[[User:Hydriz|Hydriz]] ([[User talk:Hydriz|talk]]) 13:48, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

In total this is around 185MB of text.

Analysis

Next, some actual analysis of the data. I used a combination of regexes and the mwparserfromhell library to parse the wiki text when iterating through the files.

Signals

The script analyzes the initial_reason and section heading using regular expressions to detect specific themes. It categorizes discussions by searching for keywords related to:

• Promotional content: (e.g., spam, marketing, self-promotion).
• Notability: (e.g., lack of references/sources).
• Duplicate/Vandalism: Identifying specific policy-based reasons for deletion.

Specifically using these patterns:

SHARED_SIGNAL_PATTERNS = {
    "is_promotional_signal": r"\b(?:promo|promotion|promotional|advert|advertisement|advertising|marketing|brand|company|business|self[- ]?promo|coi|spam|hoax)\b",
    "is_notability_signal": r"\b(?:notable|notability|reference|references|source|sources)\b",
    "is_duplicate_signal": r"\b(?:duplicate)\b",
    "is_vandalism_signal": r"\b(?:vandal|vandalism)\b",
}

These were extracted using some more code, which looked at the most common words that appeared in the RFDs. (notebook code)

Outcomes

Since administrative outcomes are often recorded in varying ways, the script uses a tiered approach to determine the result:

• Template Detection: Primarily looks for specific Wiki-templates (e.g., {{deleted}}, {{kept}}).
• Heuristic Fallback: If templates are missing, it searches for text strings in the comment history to “guess” the outcome (e.g., “not deleted,” “on hold”).
• Timeline Mapping: It uses the last identified outcome in a discussion to set the final state for that RfD.

Things get a little messy here, as the outcome is not always clear, sometimes there are duplicate outcomes, and sometimes the outcome is not recorded at all. The script tries to handle this as best as possible, but there are some cases where it is not clear what the outcome was, but for the most part, it is possible to get a good idea of what happened in a generalized way through the years.

Overall, the raw data summarized looks something like this, but the graphs below are far more interesting!

Aggregation & Visualization

So, what can we see? (You can run the notebook yourself too, and see the code)

Looking at RFDs over time, there are a high number from the early years, which skew the perspective of the last 10 slightly, and also it should be noted that we are only half way through 2026 right now…

I really don’t know what happened back in 2013 and 2014 for sure, but these spikes were spread out throughout the months of those years, and there were up to 40k RFDs in June 2014 for example. One of the peak days was June 18th, where I see lots of listings that show Merged with [[Q12345]], via The Game which seems to imply there was a tool aiding these deletion requests, and that this was prior to merging being a functionality of Wikibase on Wikidata.

So if we zoom in on the more stable data, and also project the second half of this year, we get a clearer picture showing and upward trend since 2019, with around 14k RFDs predicated this year, which is around 38 a day, and double the number back in 2018 and 2019.

In general this is between 7k and 15k per year, and if I had to guess, we would see merge edits from 2015 onward to replace

And if we have a quick look at the outcomes, we can see that most are deleted or done, generally around 85-90%, with a small slither of other outcomes.

On to the signals! The chart below tracks the percentage of deletion requests flagged with promotional or notability-related keywords over time.

Several clear patterns emerge from the data:

• Long-term Upward Trend: There has been a steady, significant increase in signal-bearing deletion requests since 2012. What was once a relatively quiet process potentially using other words, has become increasingly dominated by these specific types of issues.
• The 2020 Shift: A notable “step change” occurs around 2020. Before this, the rates were lower and more erratic. Since 2020, both promotional and notability signals have stabilized at a much higher baseline, rarely dipping back to pre-2020 levels. 2020 also aligns with the larger increase in baseline RFDs being recorded, but remember, this graphs is a % rate anyway…
• Promotional vs. Notability: While both signals have trended upward, they often move in tandem. This suggests that the issues driving deletions on Wikidata are frequently overlapping—many items flagged for notability concerns are often simultaneously flagged for promotional content, indicating a clear intersection between these two types of problematic editing.
• Recent Volatility: In the most recent months (2025–2026), we see higher volatility, and higher overall rates.

Now, what does this actually mean in terms of admiistrative load on the project? The below graph is interactive, and starts of with the total closed RFDs hidden.

We can see that the 2013/2014 period again stands out, and that large number of RFDs being created and closed during that period lead to the number of RFDs that an admin on average would close skyrocketing. This also highlight another interesting month, May 2017, which also has a spike in RFDs closed per closing admin. One of the largest days was May 22nd and it looks like many items that were empty were found, and reported for deletion.

If we again zoom into the time period after 2015, we can see a fairly consistent set of data in terms of unique closing admins per month, and also average RFDs closed by an admin per month. Note this is only an average, not an exact calculation on a per admin basis.

Taking a quick look at the users and bots that have interacted with the most distinct RFDs, the top 10 are:

User	RFDs
BeneBot*	245716
DeltaBot	98131
Succu	15156
Marcol-it	14230
Calak	8442
Ary29	8423
Lymantria	6676
AttoRenato	4875
GZWDer	4482
Dorades	4445

I’m down at number 202, with only 454 RFDs myself.

Further thoughts

This really only scratches the surface in terms of what could be determined from this treasure trove of archived discussions around deletions, a few things that would be well worth trying to determine in my opinion:

• There are many things deleted on Wikidata that do not end up having an RFD entry, as admins just go and deleted them, so that data should really be pulled in to get a full deletion rate picture.
• In terms of “overload” of the system, the time that a bad item exists for before it is deleted might be a very good indicator, this would likely require non public data sets however to determine the dates of deleted revisions of these deleted items.
• I decided to leave the signal analysis to the initial comment and or reason, and I imagine if the entire conversation around deletion was checked you’d end up with slightly inflated rates when it comes to the signals.

So, to whoever gets to look at T429036 [Analytics] [Request] Baseline data for Item deletions, good luck, and have fun!

And a note on marimo, its not terrible, I quite like it, the automatic sandboxing and vscode integration is rather neat.

04/06/2026-10/06/2026

Community

• Anne-Karoline Distel announced that a new video on mapping historic lifting stones is now available on YouTube. Historically, lifting stones were used to test the physical strength of men.
• The MapLibre May 2026 newsletter has been published, authored by Bart Louwers, Frank Elsinga, Harel Mazor, Ramya Ragupathy, and Stephanie May.
• HOT has published an open course on seagrass mapping to support coastal conservation efforts. The initiative outlines how seagrass imagery will be collected using drones and later mapped through an OpenStreetMap-based technology stack, including iD.
• Rtnf tried the newly released OSRM Trip demo page to solve a simple Travelling Salesman Problem that he encountered daily while living in Bandung.
• Raquel Dezidério Souto described in her user diary what it was like to sponsor the CityMapper externship project and how she got to know the OSM Africa community whilst attending SotM Africa 2024.

Local chapter news

• Katja Hafernkorn reported ► that FOSSGIS participated in the exhibitors’ forum at KonGeoS Dessau 2026, providing information about Open Source GIS, OpenStreetMap, and the FOSSGIS association.
• FOSSGIS e.V. advertised ► a vacancy for a position focused on OpenStreetMap training and community work. The application deadline is 8 July 2026.

Events

• An additional uMap has been published for the State of the Map 2026 (Paris), providing detailed information on the locations of various facilities at the event venue.The interactive map also includes public transportation guidance to the Musée des Arts et Métiers, which will host the conference’s Saturday evening social event. In addition, attendees can use the map to navigate between the SotM venue and Disneyland Paris, including access to the TGV station at Marne-la-Vallée.
• You can find information about the State of the Map 2026 on the uMap provided by the event’s organisers.There is also a call for sponsorship on LinkedIn and on the event’s promotional document.
• Andres Gomez Casanova reported that the State of the Map Colombia 2026 will take place at the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the National University of Colombia in Bogotá from 3 and 4 July 2026.

OSM research

• HeiGIT presented new research on training deep learning for land-use and land-cover mapping, with landscape metrics derived from OpenStreetMap, supporting more spatially consistent and interpretable GeoAI models.

Maps

• ^[1] With Spieli, m_fuhrmann has launched a new, user-friendly web map for playgrounds. The project is based on a fork of the ‘Berlin Playground Map’ and is firmly committed to an open ecosystem. While the playground data comes directly from OpenStreetMap, images are integrated via Panoramax and reviews via Mangrove Reviews.Particularly noteworthy is the technical architecture: Spieli is designed as a federated network of independent data nodes, enabling decentralized hosting and high scalability.For parents, the site offers helpful filters (e.g., by flooring type or accessibility) as well as suggestions for nearby points of interest (such as ice cream shops ).

  Mappers benefit from integrated data quality assessment and direct links to MapComplete, making it easy to improve the data.

  The project is currently seeking active support: Anyone with resources to spare is invited to host their own data nodes (https://mfuhrmann.github.io/spieli/) (e.g., for additional federal states or abroad). Discussion is possible via Matrix (https://matrix.to/#/#spieli:matrix.org), and the source code is available on GitHub (https://github.com/mfuhrmann/spieli).

• Christoph Hormann continued an in-depth discussion on non-locality in tiled rule-based map rendering, building on an earlier article that helped renew interest in OSM-Carto development.

OSM in action

• Bayreuther Tagblatt used ► an OpenStreetMap-based map to visualise road closure areas related to the 10th ‘Mainauenlauf’ running event, scheduled to take place on Sunday 14 June 2026.
• Niederrhein Nachrichten used ► an OpenStreetMap-based map to highlight parking areas available for visitors attending the Kleve Children’s Festival, scheduled to be held at the Kleve Zoo on Sunday 14 June.
• FerryGoGo helps travellers explore ferry routes worldwide through interactive maps, local route guides and practical advice built around real journeys by sea. It uses OpenStreetMap and shows ferry routes, ports and connections across each country.
• Phystech Mission have used an OpenStreetMap-based map to visualise the locations of technology companies and research institutes where graduates of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology are employed.
• Mediazona, BBC Russian Service, and a team of volunteers have created an interactive map showing the geographic distribution of confirmed Russian military casualties in their war against Ukraine. The dataset is compiled from open sources, including obituaries, media reports, local government publications, and other publicly available records, while the basemap uses OpenFreeMap tiles generated from OpenStreetMap data. Click the map icon at the bottom of the page to open the map.

Licenses

• Editora IVIDES ► has published a Swahili translation [sw] of Tout savoir sur la licence ODbL: la licence d’OpenStreetMap pour cartographier en commun, originally written in French by the Fédération des pros d’OSM, Kila Kitu Unachohitaji Kujua Kuhusu Leseni ya ODbL. The translation from English into Swahili was carried out by Hemed Lungo and Tatu Sultan Lungo (Tanzania) and edited by Raquel Deziderio Souto, who wrote about this on LinkedIn.

Software

• OsmAnd is celebrating its 16th birthday, and to mark the occasion they will be giving away a 1- or 3-month Pro subscription to anyone who answers the quiz correctly by Monday 15 June.
• Marina Petkova and François Lacombe have authored ► an article ‘Tracking and Promoting Contributions to OSM with Podoma’. Podoma is a programme for monitoring contributions to OSM, allowing users to measure and visualise activity related to a specific topic or area (we reported earlier).

Programming

• Timo Roest posted, on LinkedIn, about a custom PySpark data source to read .PBF files, seamlessly integrating osmium-powered OSM data ingestion into the Spark ecosystem. He explained how it works, and worked through a refresher on OSM data structures and why parsing them is a challenge.

Releases

• A new release of OSRM, version 26.6.1, is now available. Users can try out the updated demo ahead of its integration into the official front end.
• Alexis Lecanu has released Baba version 1.22.0, for contributing to Panoramax on Android, featuring several feature additions and bug fixes.

OSM in the media

• Danmarks Radio, Denmark’s national broadcaster, used an OpenStreetMap-based map to illustrate a major railway disruption caused by a damaged overhead power line near Sorø. The disruption was believed to have occurred after a train’s pantograph became entangled ► in an overhead wire, forcing rail services between Ringsted and Slagelse to stop.

Other “geo” things

• Patty Heyda outlined the concept of ‘counter maps’, describing them as cartographic reinterpretations that challenge established assumptions and broaden dominant narratives to include previously excluded perspectives. As mapping becomes increasingly shaped by political interests, remapping practices are presented as a way to expose underlying systems of power to public view. The concept has also influenced activists, who use counter mapping to re-integrate previously omitted information into mainstream representations.
• YellowMap ►, a company based in Karlsruhe (Baden-Württemberg, Germany) is sponsoring ► MapLibre. According to the company, the decision to migrate to MapLibre was driven by a desire to modernise and add functionality. At the core of YellowMap’s product offering is SmartMaps, built to address the strict data privacy demands of the European B2B market.
• Jeremy Hsu, of Ars Technica, highlighted a preprint paper by Todd Humphreys and colleagues investigating ‘continental-scale’ GPS interference across Europe.

Upcoming Events

Country	Where	Venue	What	When
	Oakland	Beauty Supply Arts	A Synesthete’s Atlas: Cartographic (& other) Improvisations	2026-06-13
	Chennai Corporation	Koyambedu Market	Come map Koyambedu Market, Chennai with us on June 14th, 2026!	2026-06-14
	København	Cafe Bevar’s	OSMmapperCPH	2026-06-14
			Missing Maps London Mid-Month (Without Training) Advanced Mappers (Online) [eng]	2026-06-16
	Budapest	Cartographia Kft.	OSM térképest – 2026 június 16	2026-06-16
	Madrid	Online	Mappy Hour OSM España	2026-06-16
	Lyon	Tubà	Réunion du groupe local de Lyon	2026-06-16
	Bonn	Dotty’s	201. OSM-Stammtisch Bonn	2026-06-16
	Chemnitz	Kaffeesatz, Chemnitz	OSM-Stammtisch Chemnitz	2026-06-16
	City of Edinburgh	Summerhall/The Royal Dick	OSM Edinburgh Social	2026-06-16
	Strasbourg	Bar La Perestroïka	1er Apéro du groupe local de Strasbourg	2026-06-16
		Online	Lüneburger Mappertreffen (online)	2026-06-16
		MJC de Vienne	Rencontre des contributeurs de Vienne (38)	2026-06-17
	Stainach-Pürgg	Online	21. Österreichischer OSM-Stammtisch (online)	2026-06-17
			Mapping missing buildings in La Paz, Bolivia	2026-06-18
	Essen	Verkehrs- und Umweltzentrum	Essen OSM-Treffen	2026-06-18
			UN 2.0 Week 2026: UN Mappers Mappy Hour	2026-06-19
	بلدية دمشق القديمة	Online	ReMapping Syria 2025: Humanitarian Mapping & Community Collaboration Webinar	2026-06-19
			UN Mappers Mappy Hour: Progress and Highlights of the UN Maps Community Ambassador Pilot Initiative	2026-06-19
	Torino		OpenStreetMap Mapping Party: Torino at a walking pace!	2026-06-19
	Stuttgart	Technische Hochschule Stuttgart	Missing Maps Mapathon in Stuttgart	2026-06-19
	Potsdam	Waschbar	Potsdamer Mappertreffen	2026-06-19
	Catania	@Localhost	Modifichiamo Wiki e OSM insieme!	2026-06-19
	Metz	l’Arob@se	Atelier du groupe local de Metz – Partez en voyage avec OpenStreetMap	2026-06-20
		Mitarbeiterparkplatz antonius, Fulda	Sommermapping 2026	2026-06-21
			Missing Maps : Mapathon en ligne – CartONG [fr]	2026-06-22
	Stadtgebiet Bremen	Online und im Hackerspace Bremen	Bremer Mappertreffen	2026-06-22
			Missing Maps Validathon	2026-06-23
	Magdeburg	Netz39 e.V. , Leibnizstraße 32, 39104 Magdeburg	2. OSM Stammtisch Magdeburg	2026-06-23
	Berlin	Online	OSM-Verkehrswende #76	2026-06-23
	Würzburg	FabLab Würzburg	Würzburger OSM-Treffen	2026-06-24
	Freiburg im Breisgau	CCCFR, Adlerstr. 12a, Freiburg/Brsg.	OSM-Treffen Freiburg im Breisgau	2026-06-25
	Dar es-Salaam		State of the Map Africa 2026	2026-06-26 – 2026-06-28
		[online]	Capacitação OSM 2026 – IVIDES DATA ® – Formulários Web com KoboToolbox	2026-06-26
			OSMF Engineering Working Group meeting	2026-06-26
	Düsseldorf	Online bei https://meet.jit.si/OSM-DUS-2026	Düsseldorfer OpenStreetMap-Treffen (online)	2026-06-26
		Biblioteca Alda Merini in via Edmondo De Amicis	Mapathon @ Casorate Sempione	2026-06-27
			OSM Mumbai Mapping Party No.11 (Trans-Harbour Line – South)	2026-06-27
	Hannover	Kuriosum	OSM-Stammtisch Hannover	2026-06-29
	Heidelberg	DEZERNAT#16	Rhein-Neckar OSM Treffen	2026-06-29

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This weeklyOSM was produced by MarcoR, MatthiasMatthias, PierZen, Raquel IVIDES DATA, Strubbl, Andrew Davidson, barefootstache, derFred, izen57, s8321414.
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• From the team: May Global GLAM Call Recording and June Call Announcement
• Australia report: Celebrating #1Lib1Ref Australasia
• Brazil report: GLAM Connection: Fashion, History, and Biodiversity in May
• France report: New Wikimedian in Residence
• Italy report: Connecting the Arctic and Sicily through Wikimedia Projects
• Mexico report: How the cultural, governmental, educational, and museum sectors contributed in unison to Wikimedia projects
• Netherlands report: Setting up your own platform (part 1): from wish to the creation of a wiki
• New Zealand report: ESEAP Conference 2026 and the NZBSI WiR update
• North Macedonia report: Wikimedia MKD Shares GLAM Experience at International Conferences
• Poland report: Partnerships, Participation, and Open Knowledge
• Serbia report: May in Wikimedia Serbia
• Spain report: El Prado en femenino III
• Switzerland report: Museum for Communication, Panel IMD, Wikipedia Day
• UK report: Early Qurans on the front page of Wikipedia
• Biodiversity Heritage Library report: Updates on work by BHLWiki Working Group members
• Special story: New tools for multilingual audio, video and metadata
• Memory of the World report: New articles in Urdu
• Calendar: June’s GLAM events

Screw worms and the plague are indigenous to the USA. When left untreated they are deadly. They appear regularly as key in the Youtubes the algorithm presents me. Consequently I often add data on Wikidata.

Recently I did some work on Kenneth L. Gage. He is/was with the CDC. Given the amount of papers to his name, he has/had a distinguished career. Mr Cage has/had many co-authors. Many of them work/worked at the CDC. They are the ones who protect/protected the USA against the plague.

At Wikidata we know about Mr Gage, his papers, his expertise. We could know about his career at the CDC and the careers of his co-authors. Given that these are facts that you do not easily find anywhere else it easily gives the WMF a platform with established facts, not necessarily neutral from a political point of view but verifiably true. 

With a platform where Youtubes get connected to Wikimedia sources we could provide information that the USA press no longer offers. They are bought and verifiably no longer bring the news, all the news.

Thanks,

      GerardM

Wiki Education is pleased to welcome a new staff member to our team, Derek Bigelow! 

As our new Programs Operations Specialist, Derek will manage the systems, data, and communications infrastructure at the heart of our programs. From guiding participants through their first engagement with Wiki Education to maintaining the data integrity that informs our decision-making, this role shapes the experience of our participants at every turn.

Derek brings a wide array of email, marketing, and operations experience to Wiki Education, including work across the tech, travel, and nonprofit sectors. Most recently he led merchandising strategy and operational efficiency as a program manager at Chewy and previously served as the Email and Digital Marketing Specialist at Cascade PBS.

Derek earned his Bachelor’s degree in Business Management and Marketing from Daemen University and is looking to further his education with a degree in Nonprofit Leadership in the coming years.

Derek has called Seattle home since 2005 where he enjoys exploring the city and natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest, playing sports with friends, attending concerts, and tinkering with his list of ever-growing hobbies.

The Release-Engineering-Team of the Wikimedia Foundation just deployed an upgrade of Wikimedia Phabricator.

If you use a web browser more than 11 years old: Please upgrade. Visiting Phabricator now requires Chrome 36, Edge 14, Safari 12, Firefox 39, Opera 23 or newer, in order to have the webfont rendered.

Some of the bug fixes and improvements:

• Projects UX:
  • Render project tags of archived milestones in Disabled style
  • Set parent project color for milestones in autocompletion fields
• Project workboards:
  • Milestone creation: Propose importing previous milestone's columns (by Valerio)
  • Scroll only long left sidebar instead of page (by A smart kitten)
  • Hide the arrow on collapsible column headers on Safari browser (by A smart kitten)
  • Do not create a second default workboard column on an existing disabled board
• Conduit API:
  • Many improved, clearer error messages for invalid input
  • Docs: List the available Supported Values for more select field options of Edit endpoints
  • Settings: Add a Copy button to Personal API Token dialog
  • Settings: Allow setting a custom name for Conduit Tokens
  • maniphest.search: Support outputting subtasks (dependsOn)
  • maniphest.search: Support outputting parent tasks (dependedOnBy)
  • project.search: Support outputting alternative project hashtags
• Dark Mode: Should be finally pretty usable under "Personal Settings > Display Preferences > Accessibility"
• Files:
  • Increase maximum Image File Transform pixel dimensions
  • Always show 'Authored By' (by Valerio)
  • Disable numerous interactions for temporary files
  • Fix wrong image file dimensions in "Default Alt Text"
• Diffusion repository browsing: Display associated project tags on repository main page
• UX:
  • Prevent accidental closure of some form popups (by Valerio)
  • Object selection dialog: Fix word-break on long titles
• Global Feed: Show Additional Details link in Feed (by avivey)
• Phame blogs: Add text/html self link in Phame atom feed
• Passphrase: Allow filtering credentials by author (by Valerio)
• Search:
  • Fix missing user results in "open items" search results
  • UX: Display Query Errors also below the Search form area
• Account Registration UX: Provide specific details why a username is invalid (by Pppery)
• Pholio Mocks:
  • Fix altered breadcrumb and header on validation error (by Valerio)
  • Do not allow to unset the image title (by Valerio)
• For Admins only:
  • Policies: Introduce Named Reusable Policies (by avivey)
  • Use Security Session instead of MFA Token for comment removal
  • Allow filtering Bulk Job Query results by status
  • Require Multi-Factor Auth to Disable/Enable apps (by Valerio)
  • Allow user account creators to send Email Invitations (by Valerio)
  • All Settings page: Grey out settings of disabled applications
• For folks who enjoy code interaction: "Personal Settings > Developer Settings" offers a "Developer Tools" mode
• Translations: Numerous internationalization support improvements (by Pppery)
• many other small fixes and future PHP compatibility improvements
• numerous small accessibility, performance, CSS fixes/improvements

Downstream deployment task: T410849: Update to Phorge/Arcanist upstream 2026-06-01

Upstream changelogs:

• https://we.phorge.it/source/phorge/history/master/
• https://we.phorge.it/source/arcanist/history/master/

If you have comments or questions about Phab, please bring them up on the Phabricator Talk page!