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Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin August Issue 2

Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation over the second half of August 2024. Please help translate

Upcoming and current events and conversations Talking: 2024 continues

Annual Goals Progress on Infrastructure See also newsletters: Wikimedia Apps · Growth · Research · Web · Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia · Tech News · Language and Internationalization · other newsletters on Mediawiki.org

  • Highlights of the Product & Technology department's recent work in improving the user experience.
  • Editor tools related to references & categories and more tech updates on the latest Tech News.
  • Outreachy (a paid, remote three-month internship to support underrepresented groups in tech) is open. Mentors should submit projects before September 11 at 16:00 UTC (more info).
  • The Campaign Events extension is now available on Meta-Wiki, Arabic Wikipedia, Igbo Wikipedia, and Swahili Wikipedia, and can be requested in other language wikis.
  • The Campaigns teams would like to learn more about how your communities do online collaboration such as WikiProjects, please take this Google Form survey or share examples of successful collaborations on Meta Wiki.
  • Editors using the iOS Wikipedia app who have more than 50 edits can now use the Add an Image feature. This feature presents opportunities for small but useful contributions to Wikipedia.
  • Applications for the Product and Technology Advisory Council (PTAC) are still open until September 16.

Annual Goals Progress on Equity See also a list of all movement events: on Meta

Annual Goals Progress on Safety & Integrity See also blogs: Global Advocacy blog · Global Advocacy Newsletter · Policy blog

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

  • Some next steps on a movement charter: A message from Wikimedia Foundation CEO, Maryana Iskander, Chair of Board of Trustees, Nataliia Tymkiv, and Chair of Governance Committee, Dariusz Jemielniak.
  • Elections for four community-and-affiliate elected seats on the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation will be held from September 3 to September 17. To learn more about the candidates, watch this short "Meet the Candidates" presentations.

Other Movement curated newsletters & news See also: Diff blog · Goings-on · Wikimedia World · Signpost (en) · Kurier (de) · other newsletters:

Subscribe or unsubscribe · Help translate

Previous editions of this bulletin are on Meta. Let askcac@wikimedia.org know if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement!


MediaWiki message delivery 21:06, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

WMF Board of Trustees Election Bug

A few minutes ago, shortly after midnight GMT, 3 September 2024, I saw a pop-up message saying that WMF Board of Trustees elections were open, and giving me a link to click. I right-clicked on the link to open a new page, and got a page saying that I was not eligible to vote because 300 edits were required, and I had 39 edits. I tried again, and got the same message. That page was on Meta:, and 39 is in fact my count of edits on Meta:. A few minutes later, that banner was no longer displayed at the top of my English Wikipedia pages. So I think I have at least four questions:

  • 1. Where can I vote for WMF Trustees?
  • 2. Is my analysis correct, that it was using the number of Meta: edits when it should have been using total edits?
  • 3. Was this error corrected promptly?
  • 4. What are the actual voting requirements?

Robert McClenon (talk) 00:26, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I have same bug, but eligibility is open to any-one Wiki project. I am not eligible via Meta, but I am via English Wikipedia (exclusive) or Wikidata. Eligibility check here. A direct link to voting should also be linked in meta:Wikimedia Foundation elections/2024 in case the pop-up was accidentally dismissed. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 01:41, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
Thank you. It now says that I am eligible to vote on English Wikipedia, although the number of edits that it says I have made is somewhat different from what CA shows, but still large. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:44, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
My mistake with a back-end setting on SecurePoll, should be OK now. Voter criteria are at meta:Wikimedia Foundation elections/2024/Voter eligibility guidelines. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 05:34, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
If you would like more info about this I filed a bug report, T373945. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 22:17, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
How does one get one of these invitations? From what's been said I'm sure I am eligible. Does one have to say nice things about the Foundation to be invited? DuncanHill (talk) 22:26, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
@DuncanHill Check this link, it will let you vote if you're eligible meta:Special:SecurePoll/vote/400. Further overview at Meta:Wikimedia Foundation elections/2024/Voter eligibility guidelines ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 22:37, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
@User:Shushugah thanks, will you be messaging every other eligible voter who hasn't been told? Tagging @User:JSutherland (WMF) too as he has WMF in his name. DuncanHill (talk) 22:41, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
The problem was a bug in the setup; everyone eligible should now be able to vote and doesn't need an exemption. If you're not able to vote even now (and you are eligible please email the Elections Committee. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 22:48, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
@User:JSutherland (WMF) but how does anyone KNOW they can vote if nobody has bothered to tell them there is an election for them to vote in? I only found out because I have this page watchlisted and saw Robert's question. DuncanHill (talk) 22:52, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
Enwiki is probably going to run a watchlist notice for a week. MediaWiki talk:Watchlist-messages#WMF Board of Trustees elections. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:55, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
There's also a CentralNotice banner, and an email was sent to Wikimedia-l earlier today. There will probably also be an email sent mid-vote, which is at this point customary in Board elections. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 23:00, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
I've had no notice and no email. And yes, I have checked my junk folder, I always check my junk folder. DuncanHill (talk) 23:02, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
I found out about the vote via a large WP:CentralNotice banner. If there is a bug, it would be worthwhile investigating, but being condescending makes me less inclined to want to investigate with you. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 22:55, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
I've not had any such notice. DuncanHill (talk) 22:59, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
Create a report at Meta:CentralNotice/Report an issue and include your operating system, screenshots, what skin you are using. And perhaps someone more knowledgeable can debug and figure out why this is happening. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 23:05, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
I've reported it here. This is the page to communicate with WMF. Monobook, Win 11, Edge. I do not feel safe on Meta after previous experiences there. I am sure I'm not the only editor not to have received notification. People on en-Wiki need to know. DuncanHill (talk) 23:08, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
Just checking: do you have "Governance" banners ticked in the banners tab of Special:Preferences? If you have unticked that, then you won't see election banners. the wub "?!" 23:35, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
@User:the wub I have them all ticked. And even if I didn't, I would rather have assumed that "Certain platform notices, such as those relating to site maintenance and special notices considered necessary to all users, will always be displayed" would cover WMF trustee elections as "special notices considered necessary to all users". DuncanHill (talk) 23:44, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
Are you saying that you think that who has ultimate control over the Wikipedia servers is really "considered necessary to all users"? Maybe you and we think so, but maybe some people think that is an abstraction, or maybe they think that the "movement" and the servers are only incidentally related. And I haven't seen statements or questions that seem directly relevant to our servers anyway. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:24, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
I was going to answer that but then I realised it would be pointless. DuncanHill (talk) 21:35, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
FYI I received an email just now about being eligible to vote and containing a link to vote. Looks like WMF is doing a massive email blast today to eligible voters. Hopefully this addresses concerns farther up in the thread about folks not being sufficiently informed. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:50, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Donation banners

Why are these banners so persistent? I've managed to get no less than 10 of these banners in the space of just a few minutes. 88.97.195.160 (talk) 19:28, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

88, do you allow tracking cookies from wikipedia.org in your browser? If not, the site won't remember that you've dismissed the banner already. Another option is to create an account (it's free and a single step; doesn't even require email confirmation), which will allow you to hide donation banners. Folly Mox (talk) 11:02, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin September Issue 1


MediaWiki message delivery 21:40, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin September Issue 2


MediaWiki message delivery 17:10, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Add A Fact malfunctioning

See Talk:JD Vance#Add A Fact: "Walz vs Vance in VP debate" where Add A Fact has recommended something that not only isn't a fact... It fails verification. Add A Fact doesn't appear to have pulled a fact from the source, Add A Fact appears to have made up a questionable fact. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:25, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Horse Eye's Back, thanks for flagging this. To clarify, the way this tool works requires the user (must be logged in and autoconfirmed on English Wikipedia) to manually select a snippet of text in a source (in this case, a Reuters article) to check against Wikipedia. That text snipped itself is not modified in any way by the tool (it's not even possible for the user to modify it once they've elected to look it up on Wikipedia via this tool). So I suspect what happened here is actually that the source itself (i.e., the Reuters article) was edited by Reuters after this user found the claim and sent it as a suggestion to the talk page via the tool. There appears to be an "updated a day ago" message at the top of the article, indicating that this may be the case. So I think the user of this tool unintentionally caught some possibly-fishy information that Reuters itself was putting out there and then walking back... Maryana Pinchuk (WMF) (talk) 19:40, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
Thank you for the explanation of how the tool works. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:47, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin October Issue 1


MediaWiki message delivery 23:30, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin October Issue 2


MediaWiki message delivery 23:52, 24 October 2024 (UTC)