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Official Wikipedia Roblox game and Generative AI use

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I considered whether to add this as a subsection to the above RFC on WMF AI development, but decided not to as I didn't want to further bloat that discussion. Regardless, just earlier today I came across a post on instagram from the official Wikipedia instagram account (facebook link for boomers who don't have instagram) showcasing a new Wikipedia Roblox game. The post was made almost two weeks ago so I'm not sure whether it has already been discussed before, but this is a continuation of the use of generative AI (the cover image for the game page, which is also included in the instagram and facebook posts is almost certainly AI) which has quite openly been discussed and decried by many users in the community. I also think that this is a different issue, though, as rather than this use of AI being even remotely justifiable as trying to improve the quality of the 'pedia, the use of generative AI images in what is basically marketing materials really only serves to costs while providing a worse product. I also echo users concerns about the WMF's environmentalism when they say things like The Wikimedia Foundation believes that a long-term commitment to sustainability is an essential component of our work towards the Wikimedia mission and vision here, but then use generative AI to create images for their Roblox game.

I'm aware that most folks on here are certainly not the demographic targeted by this sort of post, but in the end it still reflects on us, so I wonder what folks think. Weirdguyz (talk) 00:45, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would have added a link to the Roblox game as well, but roblox.com is on the blacklist, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Weirdguyz (talk) 00:47, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
https://www.roblox.com/games/99320538920886/Wikispeedia-the-Wikipedia-Speedrunning-Game * Pppery * it has begun... 01:06, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
the WMF, last week: Bringing generative AI into the Wikipedia reading experience is a serious set of decisions, with important implications, and we intend to treat it as such.
I guess the skibidi brainrot market technically is not the "Wikipedia reading experience" Gnomingstuff (talk) 01:45, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I guess the skibidi brainrot market technically is not the "Wikipedia reading experience", exactly! I'm aware that most folks on here are certainly not the demographic targeted by this sort of post, I think is the most important part. We don't know what folks who are actually in that segment want/use. The Future Audiences team is creating short-lived experiments to understand what kind of content the younger generation want. It obviously will be considered borderline by folks who are not the target demographic (which will be a large portion of the community base). I don't support Roblox's exploitative marketplace nor am I supporter of AI image generation, but I do recognize that these explorations are necessary to understand and figure out what kind of media for consuming Wikipedia is popular among the younger crowd (damn, that makes me sound old). Whether or not the WMF invests significantly more resources into that direction and decides to rewrite MediaWiki in Roblox-lang (I believe it is a flavour of Lua?) is up for debate and something that we should (and rightfully does) have a say on. Sohom (talk) 06:04, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Do my eyes deceive me, are you saying Roblox may be incubating a generation of Wikipedia coders? I might change my mind on that game. CMD (talk) 06:13, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The games on Roblox are written using a abridged version of Lua called Luau, so maybe yes :) Sohom (talk) 06:25, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh my gripe is certainly not with the fact that they've made a Roblox game, bringing in the younger generations is paramount to the continuation of our goal (I say this as one of the younger (relatively...) generations). My issue is solely with the generative AI used in said pursuit, because the only argument in favour of it is that it is cheaper than paying an actual artist. The quality of the work is worse than if you got an actual artist to make something, the environmental impact is a genuine measurable concern, and the number of people who will see the use of generative AI and be turned off the WMF and Wikipedia is not insubstantial. Weirdguyz (talk) 06:23, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If only we had a repository of free images they could have used instead, or a cohort of editors who might be willing to create and donate actual human work for this. Fram (talk) 07:16, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We don't really have any Roblox characters on commons (for better or for worse) that could have been used. Sohom (talk) 08:06, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is my stance as well. That, and the fact that it's terrible optics -- Wikimedia has already gotten a significant amount of negative PR for using generative AI in the "paused" summary feature. Gnomingstuff (talk) 15:47, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Sohom Datta Oooo fascinating! Where is this ". The Future Audiences team" to be found please? very curious to know as have some ideas on Wikipedia audio archiving. Much thanks I&I22 (talk) 12:58, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@I&I22 https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Future_Audiences Polygnotus (talk) 13:00, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Polygnotus thank you so much!!! super! will check I&I22 (talk) 13:02, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Future_Audiences#Monthly_conversations Polygnotus (talk) 13:01, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It there is a desire to productively engage on questions regarding the use of generative AI/llms/similar, it is probably not worth it in terms of both time and in terms of effective collaboration to respond to each individual use of gen AI. What is likely more effective is generating engagement with the processes behind them. In this case, the relevant initiative is meta:Future Audiences. You can see their stance on gen AI at meta:Future Audiences/FAQ: "The Wikimedia Foundation view of conversational/generative AI specifically is that we (Wikimedians, Mediawiki software developers, and WMF staff) have developed and used machine-assisted tools and processes on our projects for many years, and it is important to keep learning about how recent advances in AI technology might help our movement; however, it is equally important not to ignore the challenges and risks that commercial AI assistants may bring not just to our model of human-led knowledge creation and sharing, but to the entire ecosystem of digital knowledge." I stated somewhere during the discussion of meta:Future Audiences/Generated Video that there have been some flawed risk considerations, for example that "Experiment" (quoting to indicate this is the terminology they use, not a scare quote) page has a subsection on the risks of associating Wikipedia with TikTok, but nothing on associating Wikipedia with generative AI. (I might add that the first two bullet points at meta:Future Audiences seem to pose contradictory lessons, possibly worth digging into.) Now, what I haven't figured out and what perhaps we haven't worked out as a community is how to effectively channel feedback about broader themes rather than individual activities, and then perhaps more importantly how we remain continually engaged on that end. Say that the RfC on a statement on AI comes to a consensus, what happens next? It's quite a hard question as to how something as amorphous as en.wiki can be represented in these processes. The Future Audiences team has meetings every month, is an attendee there from en.wiki going to be representative? Should we be proactively trying to figure out statements here for such meetings in advance? How would that be most collegial/effective? A further complication is that the WMF is also not a monolith, the meta:Reading/Web team for example which is looking into the gen AI Simple Article Summaries is a different team with its own projects. Should we use this noticeboard to figure out statements that can be transferred to meta, or does that fall down as meta threads are also a discussion? We sometimes contribute to community wishlists, we have individual members who engage, but do we as a community have an overall approach? I'm rambling slightly, and I know some would prefer we did not have to engage, but we do have to and given the historical difficulties in communication maybe we could think of some ideas to create something a little more sustained. CMD (talk) 07:57, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think engaging is the only way forward for folks on the teams to know what the communities take on this matter is. Not engaging never was (and still is not) the answer especially if the expectation is for the WMF to reflect the views of the community.
I can/will try to be around during the next call for Future Audiences whenever that is but I don't think "proactively trying to figure out statements here for such meetings in advance" is the way to go in these kinds of situations, rather the idea would be for the enwiki representative to act as a steward/helpful member who is able to vouch for and provide context for the team's decisions while also guiding the team to not make major policy missteps and provide stewardship on where and when to ask feedback.
(Unrelatedly, is mw:Future Audiences/Generated Video about AI generated videos or just using generative text-to-speech software (which has been around for a while) ? My understanding was the latter, the former would be concerning) Sohom (talk) 08:29, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My understanding is that the short videos were mostly AI generated, in that the AI did the writing and the voicing (so to speak). I don't recall if the AI chose the images, or whether the final cut was done manually. CMD (talk) 08:37, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Sohom Datta & @Chipmunkdavis: to create these videos, we use AI to do an initial cut of selecting some images and text from a target article + "hook" (which either comes from DYK or we write ourselves) and summarize the text into a 30-secondish-length video. Members of our social media team then review and make changes to this first draft (ensuring that the summarization of facts from the article is correct and has the appropriate tone, selecting different images from the article or Commons if needed, etc.) before posting. The narration is indeed generative text-to-speech, though we've also gotten some of our staff to supply narration for a few of these. This use of AI helps us greatly reduce the time/cost to make these videos. We're also very happy to feature community-created content on these channels and have published several (example from the folks at Wikimedia Armenia). These take more time & effort, but in the longer term we'd love to get a bigger ratio of community faces to "fun fact" explainers on these channels, so if you or anyone you know is interested in creating some short video content, please get in touch! Maryana Pinchuk (WMF) (talk) 14:34, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Creating an AI generated image for social media doesn't bother me. As I said in another WMF related thread, enwiki only has so much political capital, and we should use it wisely, i.e. making a stink only about issues that are truly worth it. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:59, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is definitely true and we shouldn't be getting pissy everytime the WMF does anything outside of "make enwiki better". Is "AI" (read: chatgpt and LLMs) bad? 100% without a doubt. But if its used on a platform like Roblox, then I really don't care. Roblox is a cesspool anyway. Trying to connect with Gen Alpha and introduce them to Wikipedia (preferably as editors) is a good goal and is something that the WMF should be working on. JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 04:02, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Weirdguyz, member of the Future Audiences team here! TBC, the cover image for the Roblox game was created by the lovely humans in our Brand Studio team, not AI. The game itself also doesn't involve any generative AI imagery. I can understand the confusion, though, given the (for lack of a better word) "robo-blocky" nature of the Roblox aesthetic. Maryana Pinchuk (WMF) (talk) 14:15, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@MPinchuk (WMF) any secrets you can let us in on, is the cover character one of the team? CMD (talk) 14:25, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Chipmunkdavis Ha, I don't think it's meant to look like any specific person... just a cool Roblox guy Maryana Pinchuk (WMF) (talk) 14:37, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@MPinchuk (WMF): Forgive me for being cynical, but I have both seen too many AI-generated images, and played too much Roblox myself (I am quite familiar with the visual style of Roblox, going back over a decade...) to truly believe that generative AI didn't play even a small part in the creation of the cover image without any evidence. Just to illustrate what concerns me most, the design on the bottom of the shoe that can be seen exhibits many of the hallmarks of generative AI images, where it knows vaguely what it is meant to look like, but cant quite get the details correct, so it ends up with lines and structures that don't really go anywhere or don't match correctly. If any insight into the design process for the image could be shown that would be wonderful, but I completely understand that there are limitations to what can be made public. Weirdguyz (talk) 15:05, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Weirdguyz My apologies, I misunderstood your original question (I thought your concern was about whether we used AI in the design of the game itself, which we didn't) and I didn't address what the process looked like for making the Roblox marketing image specifically. For us, the team responsible for making the Roblox game, the process was: we needed a cover image to use in Roblox and in the social media posts about it that would convey the feel of the game and match the Roblox aesthetic, so we asked our Brand team (who are professional designers who make other marketing materials for our social channels) to help us. They provided a few different ideas, we workshopped which ones we liked and then chose the final design concept together, which Brand then refined and finalized. Honestly, I don't have insight into exactly what tools were used to create or refine the image, and the designer is currently out of office, but it met our needs of conveying gameplay, looking Roblox-y, and being the right size & resolution for social channels.

(Also: cool to hear that you're an avid Roblox player! Have you had a chance to play our game? Any thoughts/feedback? We're currently working on some refinements to help with stickiness and learning, i.e., adding some knowledge quizzes to the gameplay – would love to also get your feedback on those changes once those are out in a few weeks.) Maryana Pinchuk (WMF) (talk) 18:22, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@MPinchuk (WMF) Very confusing. Why does the WMF think the community wants it to develop Roblox stuff? If that isn't the case, why does the WMF think Roblox players, who are between 7 and 13 years old are a good demographic to target? Why in this way? How much money and time did this cost? How many billable hours? How will the return on investment be calculated? This seems like a massive waste of time for unclear (no) benefit. And Roblox is truly evil. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gXlauRB1EQ Polygnotus (talk) 16:09, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
7-13 year kids today will one day become 16-17+ year old who might edit Wikipedia (or atleast have a positive association with Wikipedia from a early age). Even if the community did not explicitly ask for a Roblox game, there is implicit consensus on allowing the WMF to experiment and try to attract contributors to the project. I assume this is being thought of as a Gateway drug instead of a thing unto itself. Sohom (talk) 19:11, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also this is explicitly important thing to do since more and more companies keep summarizing our info and conveniently forget to link to us decreasing the ability to convert folks into editors. Sohom (talk) 19:14, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Sohom Datta: 7-13 year kids today will one day become 16-17+ year old who might edit Wikipedia Agreed. But then it would possibly be more efficient (and cheaper) to reach out to them when they are 16-17+? Even if the community did not explicitly ask for a Roblox game, there is implicit consensus on allowing the WMF to experiment Maybe. But when I experiment I don't just randomly smash rocks together to see what happens; I have a hypothesis that I want to prove or disprove to build on underlying knowledge I have acquired over the years. And since I don't start every experiment at zero it is reasonable to ask things like: "What were your assumptions? Why? How will you determine if this was a success?". I assume this is being thought of as a gateway drug A debunked theory is perhaps not the greatest comparison; but I get what you mean.
Also this is explicitly important thing to do since more and more companies keep summarizing our info and conveniently forget to link to us decreasing the ability to convert folks into editors. That genie is out of the bottle. It would be weird to suddenly start demanding attribution. And using an LLM effectively "whitewashes" the use of licensed and copyrighted material. Polygnotus (talk) 21:38, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you know of an effective way to reach 16-17yos, please suggest it as I'm pretty sure anything slightly likely to work will have a good chance of being tried out. I believe the team tracked retention after the first play and stickiness of repeat players as metrics for the initial deployment, although I can't find the report. CMD (talk) 02:48, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Chipmunkdavis I think that the entire assumption that the kind of people we want are unaware of Wikipedia's existence by the time they have reached 18 is flawed (in the western world). Kinda difficult to keep a "compendium of all human knowledge" a secret from nerds; especially when Wikipedia is usually the top result for any search query on Google.
If you know of an effective way to reach 16-17yos, please suggest it Wikipedia contributors are a very specific kind of people. Marketing companies exist who specialize in this kinda thing.
I think the main problem is not brand recognition, but the fact that Wikipedia is shit at converting readers to editors and our tendency to bite even good-faith newbies. The whole set of uw- templates has depersonalized communication and has made human connection even more infrequent. Another problem is that we encourage children who are new to Wikipedia to do vandalfighting which results in them reverting a lot of goodfaith contributions. Polygnotus (talk) 03:16, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would guess the assumption is more that finding a way to better show the backend (in this case, the web between articles) might make people more interested. This is not a new discussion, and no-one has really figured out a 'solution'. New ideas are much more helpful that saying a current one might not be maximally effective. CMD (talk) 03:20, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Chipmunkdavis New ideas are much more helpful that saying a current one might not be maximally effective. That makes little sense. There are many situations in which an old well-known solution to a problem is superior to whatever new stuff you can come up with. Dismissing all ideas that aren't "new" is unhelpful at best.
Saying that a new bad idea is a bad idea is helpful because people can stop wasting time and money and ideally it would prevent us from making the same or similar mistakes over and over again. And if you read carefully you'll see I also explained why the idea is bad and provided both superior alternatives and advice that could be used to ensure that future plans would be better. Polygnotus (talk) 03:37, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I did not find your explanations convincing, especially as part of it seemed to rely on there not being any hypothesis. The advice going forward was also quite generic. We don't have an "old well-known solution" here. Nobody has dismissed all ideas that aren't "new". If I was to start somewhere my thinking is that a good part of the issue may be "known", and that the WMF should be doing way more regarding monitoring and evaluating affiliate actions to figure out what is "known". CMD (talk) 03:44, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Chipmunkdavis I did not find your explanations convincing I can explain stuff, but I can't understand it for you. We don't have an "old well-known solution" here. Yes we do, and I mentioned it already. Nobody has dismissed all ideas that aren't "new". See straw man. Polygnotus (talk) 03:48, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a strawman, it's a direct reply to your statement immediately above. CMD (talk) 03:50, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Chipmunkdavis Compare Nobody has dismissed all ideas that aren't "new" with my comment. Polygnotus (talk) 03:52, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is the underlying assumption here that I did not do that when actually writing the reply? "Dismissing all ideas that aren't "new" is unhelpful"->"Nobody has dismissed all ideas that aren't "new"" is almost as close as can be. If the discussion is going to be claims that a direct reply is a strawman coupled with swipes about understanding, then it is not going to be lead to any productive outcome. CMD (talk) 03:58, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Chipmunkdavis I do not know what you do or don't do. I do not work at one of those 3 letter agencies and therefore all I know about you is what you have written on your userpage, which is not much. Perhaps we both like chipmunks? You seem to interpret the sentence Dismissing all ideas that aren't "new" is unhelpful at best. as "You are dismissing all ideas that aren't "new" which is unhelpful at best." but that was not the intended meaning. If it was I would've written that. In my experience most goodfaith people who disagree with me either misunderstand me or do not have (access to) the same information. Especially in cases like this, where it is unlikely that goodfaith people have wildly diverging opinions. Polygnotus (talk) 04:04, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I interpreted "Dismissing all ideas that aren't "new" is unhelpful at best" as being related to something written prior in the conversation, but not necessarily by me ("You"). My reply "Nobody" was a general reference to all participants of the conversation, not just my comments. I don't think the Roblox experiment will be successful either, but it is relatively small, and does not impede editing or the direct experience of Wikipedia. If I had a better idea that fits the mandate of the Future Audiences team, I would raise it with them. Alas, I do not and right now only have my critical comments about the inherent conflict in their core findings and my related former comment about how their risk assessments have a substantial gap. I don't think either of these would impact the Roblox experiment anyway, and am quite happy for WMF to run relatively safe experiments even if they fail. (My shameful secret is that I have no unique affinity for chipmunks, as inherently valuable as they are, I'm simply stuck in decades of path dependency.) CMD (talk) 04:13, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Chipmunkdavis Are you familiar with Minecraft's redstone? The kinda kids who built computers out of them are the kind we want. But they'll probably already know of Wikipedia. I strongly believe that focusing on user retention makes more sense than focusing on user acquisition at this point.
Cheek pouch says: The cheek pouches of chipmunks can reach the size of their body when full. Polygnotus (talk) 04:19, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I hope we can establish the casual redstoners who just built a door as well as the ones who run Pokemon in Minecraft. I find that cheek pouch statement hard to believe. CMD (talk) 05:23, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Chipmunkdavis Same. Cheek_pouch#Chipmunks lists 3 refs. Polygnotus (talk) 05:55, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In marketing speak, there are brand awareness campaigns and remarketing campaigns. Its primary utility, which is to maintain the brand awareness, which to many people would seem inefficient as it is typically more spray (for awareness) than pray (for returns). As a brand awareness campaign, it is a long shot, but if a few years down the road and some new editors go 'yeah, Roblox! There was that Wikipedia game. I played that.' we know it had done it's work. For the efficiency that you sought, it would usually be remarketing campaigns where the marketers know that what audience to tap on, and what marketing message to design for (i.e. remember the Wikipedia game in Roblox? Here's how you can contribute to Wikipedia.). There is no guarantee that the older kids know Wikipedia in the same homogeneous manner(s) than that of the brand awareness campaigns. – robertsky (talk) 06:38, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
it doesn't whitewash diddly squat. jp×g🗯️ 06:02, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@JPxG Not sure what you mean. If X commits copyright infringement of Y's book, by publishing the exact same text without permission, Y can go to a court and get X convicted of copyright infringement.
If X trains an AI model on 100.000 books, including the book written by Y, Y cannot go to a court and get X convicted of copyright infringement. So the copyright infringement has been whitewashed (made untraceable). Hope that helps. Polygnotus (talk) 06:16, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Because it didn't occur? jp×g🗯️ 18:29, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@JPxG It was in response to Sohom. Sohom wrote: Also this is explicitly important thing to do since more and more companies keep summarizing our info and conveniently forget to link to us decreasing the ability to convert folks into editors.. So my reaction is in response to that, and not about this WMF/Roblox thing. Polygnotus (talk) 18:32, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's so sad to see the reputation of Wikipedia, built over so many years by volunteers working every day, squandered by the WMF's bad decisions without even consulting the community Ita140188 (talk) 12:27, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
citation needed Donald Albury 13:22, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
yeah its not like Wikipedia has a great reputation. Polygnotus (talk) 16:10, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Would love to see proof of our reputation being tarnished in any way by this. This roblox game has literally nothing to do with the editing process over here yet people are treating it like a thermonuclear bomb. Its a silly kids game. Thats it. Its not that deep. JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 04:07, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@MPinchuk (WMF): Great job! Any chance the game will be open-source?
Roblox has a lot of young people who also enjoy learning to code. Since the WMF isn't making the game for profit, you might end up with a competitive advantage by allowing the same people who like the game to contribute to it.
For the record, I do not care if generative AI is used to create cover art for the game. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 22:26, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Chess: Thanks for asking! Everything we produce is open source. Please see this GitLab repo. Johan (WMF) (talk) 12:05, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am on Roblox, and I'm currently on a 17 day edit streak and well on my way to EC. I think, yeah, we should have this game, and it should be about building things, and others can edit your builds, like here! Starfall2015 let's talk profile 08:04, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Starfall2015, if you have ideas for how the game could be built further, I'm sure they would welcome your thoughts at meta:Talk:Future Audiences/Roblox game. CMD (talk) 09:12, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • A lot the comments here are quite negative and insistent, so I think I ought to say that I don't really care if you guys slop an image for some Roblox game. Who cares? Has anyone in this thread actually volunteered to make a replacement image? Wikipedia has disproportionate representation of post-retirement college professors and stern librarians and elite programming wizards, which is great for basically every encyclopedic pursuit, but I don't think we are really subject matter experts on skibidi ohio sigma mewmaxxing to rizz quirked up aoomer shawties, or whatever the hell it is teens do on roblox. jp×g🗯️ 06:09, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That's because Wikipedia shouldn't do Roblox in the first place. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia not a bad imitation of Reddit or Tiktok Ita140188 (talk) 07:53, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Roblox is not part of Wikipedia. It is a separate website -- hope this helps. jp×g🗯️ 18:19, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    My question is why the WMF is using resources to develop Roblox games instead of using those developer resources to improve Wikipedia? We are always told there are not enough resources to fix charts, work on wishes, or fix the endless bugs and issues with the current software, but apparently resources are available for developing unrelated games for a for-profit corporation without even asking the community first? Ita140188 (talk) 16:56, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the amount of time spent was limited, and the person who developed it wouldn't otherwise have spent time on other things.
    So perhaps criticizing this specific Roblox thing is not the best approach, when you can criticize the WMF for hoarding gold like a dragon and not doing the things they are supposed to be doing. Polygnotus (talk) 17:00, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia has disproportionate representation of post-retirement college professors and stern librarians and elite programming wizards, which is great for basically every encyclopedic pursuit – Maybe. And maybe you are also true about us not being experts on Generation Alpha. But I think there is a significant bias on Wikipedia towards popular-culture content, as opposed to science content, at least amongst articles that reach DYK level. To paraphrase: Wikipedia's coverage of scientific topics (at least ones that are not so widely known) is very far from ideal. Janhrach (talk) 16:45, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

ToneCheck updates!

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Hello everyone!

Last week, a summary of ongoing discussions over ToneCheck was published at Wikipedia talk:Edit check/Tone Check#Summary of discussions so far. While many participants in previous discussions have already been pinged there, it can be a good opportunity for new folks to dive in, if you are interested in learning about the current development status and giving feedback on the direction the feature is taking.

Feel free to participate on the discussion page there! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 08:19, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin 2025 Issue 13

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Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation since our last issue on June 27. Please help translate.
Laptop with Wikipedia "W" illustration
The Wikimania Hackathon 2025 inviting project ideas.

Upcoming and current events and conversations
Let's Talk 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

  • Tech News: Temporary accounts have been rolled out on 18 large and medium-sized Wikipedias, including German, Japanese, French, and Chinese; The CampaignEvents extension has been enabled on all Wikipedias. More updates from Tech News week 27 and 28.
  • AbuseFilter: AbuseFilter maintainers can now match against IP reputation data in AbuseFilters. IP reputation data is information about the proxies and VPNs associated with the user’s IP address. This data is not shown publicly and is not generated for actions performed by registered accounts.
  • Favorite Templates: A new feature related to Template Recall and Discovery will be deployed to all Wikimedia projects: a template category browser will be introduced to assist users in finding templates to put in their “favourite” list. The browser will allow users to browse a list of templates which have been organised into a given category tree. The feature has been requested by the community through the Community Wishlist.
  • Wikipedia App: We have launched an A/B test of tabbed browsing in the Wikipedia iOS app. This feature allows users to open multiple articles in separate tabs, making it easier to switch between topics, explore, and return to previous reading spots. The test is currently running in Arabic, English, and Japanese in selected regions. We’re collecting feedback and plan to make the feature more widely available soon.
  • MediaWiki: The MediaWiki Platform team has introduced a unified Built-in Notifications system, as part of MediaWiki 1.44, that makes it easier for developers to send, manage, and customize notifications across the platform.

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

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

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 · The Wikipedia Library · Milestones · Wikidata · Central and Eastern Europe · other newsletters

Subscribe or unsubscribe · Help translate

For information about the Bulletin and to read previous editions, see the project page on Meta-Wiki. Let askcac(_AT_)wikimedia.org know if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement!


MediaWiki message delivery 18:54, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

End-of-year donation banner in July

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Why did I start getting the end-of-year donation banner when it's still July? 174.138.212.166 (talk) 20:37, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See this thread above. You were presumably part of a test group. Sdkb talk 20:41, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCite is back – Save the Date

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August 29–31, 2025 Bern, Switzerland & Online

After several years of silence, WikiCite is coming back — and it’s doing so with a fresh, hybrid format and a clear goal: to reconnect communities, institutions, and individuals working with open citations, bibliographic data, and the Wikidata/Wikibase ecosystem.

Whether you're a Wikimedian, a librarian, a developer, or simply passionate about the future of open knowledge, this is your chance to participate in shaping the next chapter of WikiCite.

Event Overview

Day 1 – Friday, August 29

In-person in Bern, Switzerland

Institutional sessions and showcases with invited speakers. All talks will be recorded and shared online.

Day 2 – Saturday, August 30

Fully online via live video conferencing

Technical discussions, community talks, and cross-timezone engagement.

Day 3 – Sunday, August 31

Online and community-driven

Interactive workshops, do-a-thons, and “Ideas for Tomorrow” closing sessions.

Key Topics

The event will explore major developments and shared challenges in the WikiCite ecosystem, including:

  • Federated Ontologies and Wikibase Federation – Coordination across decentralized Wikibase instances and aligning schemas across platforms
  • Wikidata and Library Catalog Integration – Case studies from ETH Zürich and Swiss institutions on using Wikidata for authority data and bibliographic infrastructure
  • Open Citations and Structured Bibliographic Metadata – Linking scientific publications, cultural heritage, and research outputs using Wikidata
  • Tooling and Technical Infrastructure – New tools for querying, editing, and visualizing WikiCite data (e.g. LOTUS, Scholia, SPARQL evolution)
  • Scalability and the Graph Split – Discussions on the Blazegraph replacement, SPARQL federation, and long-term architecture of Wikidata
  • Data Quality and Disambiguation – Examples like the “Swiss homonyms cleanup” and strategies for maintaining data integrity
  • Collaborative Models and Governance – How libraries, Wikimedia chapters, and research institutions are collaborating to co-maintain the bibliographic graph
  • Community and Innovation – Lightning talks, interactive do-a-thons, Wikidata games, and open proposal slots for emerging ideas

Who should attend?

  • Wikidata contributors and WikiCite supporters
  • Librarians, archivists, researchers, digital humanists
  • Developers and data engineers
  • Institutions interested in structured, open bibliographic metadata
  • Anyone curious about Wikidata and open citations

Want to join? Let us know

Register (non-binding, helps us plan): https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCite_2025/Participants

Program: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCite_2025/Programme

Event info: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCite_2025

Ilario (talk) 13:50, 18 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin 2025 Issue 14

[edit]
Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation since our last issue on July 11. Please help translate. The bulletin will be back after Wikimania with a special issue on the 19th August.
Matatu bus illustration.png
Get Ready for Wikimania 2025!

Upcoming and current events and conversations
Let's Talk continues

  • Wikimania 2025: Register to join virtually the 20th Wikimania taking place from August 6-9. The programme has highlights from across Wikimedia projects and communities including the reveal of who will be this year's Wikimedians of the year.
  • Strengthening a neutral point of view: An overview of NPOV policies across Wikipedia projects, shows that 153 Wikipedias out of 342 (45%) don’t have easily accessible guidance on neutrality. The research was conducted to help understand how neutrality is ensured in our projects. and to provide an opportunity for peer learning across project communities. Read the full research and join the conversation.

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

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

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

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

Foundation statements

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 · The Wikipedia Library · Milestones · Wikidata · Central and Eastern Europe · other newsletters

Subscribe or unsubscribe · Help translate

For information about the Bulletin and to read previous editions, see the project page on Meta-Wiki. Let askcac(_AT_)wikimedia.org know if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement!


MediaWiki message delivery 21:02, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Office action: Removals on the article Caesar DePaço

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Dear all,

I’m writing to let you know about recent office actions the Foundation has taken in English and Portuguese-language Wikipedias, related to the articles about Cesar DePaço. The Foundation was sued by DePaço to remove information in 2021 and was issued an order to delete content from Wikipedia and provide user data. Unfortunately, after several years of appeals, we have fully exhausted the options available to us in the Portuguese legal system and were only able to partially limit rather than fully overturn the order. We were therefore obligated to comply with the order based on the applicability of Portuguese law to this case.  

We consider this a regrettable outcome. The decision undermines the right to privacy and free expression of volunteers who contribute edits and share information on Wikipedia. Further, it removes access to knowledge for the millions of people who read Wikipedia in Portuguese and English.

We remain committed to defending the right of everyone to freely access and share knowledge, and we have asked the European Court of Human Rights to rule on whether this outcome violates the European Convention on Human Rights. More information is available below.

What actions will be taken

Parts of the articles about DePaço were ruled by the Portuguese courts to infringe DePaço’s rights to honour or privacy, relating to accusations of past crimes, an organization he was alleged to have founded, and his resignation (or dismissal) from a civil service post. Not all the material that was the subject of the original lawsuit, such as DePaço's political donations, was deemed to be illegal by the courts, so our office action has been limited to oversighting only the sections deemed illegal by the courts.

In addition, as noted, the original court order required identification of users. Because the courts subsequently reduced what content was illegal, we were also able to very considerably reduce the total user disclosure requirements alongside this change. Nevertheless, this order has required the disclosure of a small amount of user data for eight users who added the material that the courts deemed illegal.

We plan to support the affected users, and we will continue to pursue our multi-year international legal and advocacy strategy to enhance protections for Wikimedians and the Wikimedia projects.

Filing with the European Court of Human Rights

We remain committed to defending the right of everyone to freely access and share knowledge, and we have submitted the case before the European Court of Human Rights. In our filing, we argue that the decision violates the right to freedom of expression and would improperly chill users who were working to report on a public matter using available public sources. In addition, we argue that the Foundation did not receive the opportunity to properly defend the users or get important questions of EU law to the European Court of Justice that were critical to protecting the freedom of expression of Wikipedia users.

About Biographies of Living People (BLP) on Wikipedia

We think it is regrettable that a notable person was able to so carefully control information about them. The Foundation remains concerned that this is a case of strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) designed to suppress well-sourced public information. We believe that attacking Wikipedia is the wrong approach for navigating complaints with biographical content; rather, people should engage with Wikipedia about the sources referenced and seek to have corrections made to sources for allegedly inaccurate reporting. We believe that the law in Portugal and many other places should offer better protections to editors doing their best to research and write about living people. In the meantime, we encourage editors to take particular care in line with BLP policies in each language when writing and sourcing biographical articles: the courts here made clear that they were willing grant both content removal and user identification where they ruled that content was inaccurate and harmed a person’s reputation. Please also see the Digital Security Resource Center to better protect your digital security as a volunteer. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 22:12, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've boldly BLARed the article, since I think it's better we have no article at all then one that the subject can control. * Pppery * it has begun... 22:21, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps we could have a template to be used on articles where content has been removed by court order, like how Google search links to copyright removal action requests when search results have been removed? Jahaza (talk) 22:25, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with this, I think adding a template telling folks that a article was removed is going to a effective way of letting folks know that the content was/is being controlled. (Also would show that we are being transparent about it). Sohom (talk) 22:34, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have created {{Legal order}} and boldly restored the article. While for some articles I think our readers may be better served with nothing, in this case, and perhaps others, I think our readers are better served knowing the content issue the same way we let them know other content issues and having the remainder of the article. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:59, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Would it be a good idea to add a field to the template where we can link directly to the legal judgement? Or an article about the legal judgement? That could be helpful for maintaining context, without linking to any information deemed "illegal" by a court. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)Talk to Me! 23:29, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The judgment itself is quite long[1], I'm not sure that would be helpful. An article describing in detail the content that a court ruled defamatory might be a challenge to find. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 23:50, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is surely more helpful than not providing any information or context at all, no? ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)Talk to Me! 23:55, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I pray someone cleverer than I comes up with a better solution. In the meantime, I have added a link to the judgment. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 00:33, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)@Barkeep49: (and others): If the content deemed illegal in Portugal has been deleted, how are future editors to know what material not to include? I presume the missing content was sourced according to Wikipedia policies like reliable sources and neutral point of view, otherwise it could've been removed without legal action, which makes it likely editors will stumble upon this material in the future and try to add it. Ironically, the only way to keep it out is to, well, include a pretty clear description of it. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 23:30, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This question, more so than many that will be posted here, very much requires an answer. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 23:35, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Rhododendrites: I don’t see how users can be preemptively kept from adding certain types of referenced content to articles, and I don’t think we should go beyond the court order to make sure that happens. If new content happens to displease the plaintiff, he’s welcome to start a new lawsuit. It would be ironic (although actually kind of clever, in a Streisand Effect way) to clearly state in the article the specific claims that cannot be included in the article. Rkieferbaum (talk) 23:39, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's not about keeping users from adding the content but about informing users so that they aren't sued over material that's already been ruled illegal. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 00:03, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have some thoughts about this but I think it would be best for Joe to answer the question Very Polite offered below. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:45, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Rhododendrites: seems to me like the simplest solution is to cite the judgement itself, which states:
"a) The respondent is ordered to remove the content from the pages (as described in proven facts 6 and 7) solely in the following sections: facts of a criminal nature allegedly committed by the applicant in 1989 and the subsequent procedural developments; the existence of the AB Foundation; the applicant’s dismissal from the position of honorary consul of VC; and the claim that the applicant was barred from obtaining any Portuguese document;
b) The respondent is further ordered to identify in the case records all editors who added the content of the pages in the sections mentioned in item (a);"
Note that "AB" and "VC" are anonymized identifiers. As you can see, the restricted content is very specific; the fact that this is an open and official part of the ruling certainly means it can safely be quoted. And quoting it in the article should be sufficient warning to any other editors about the nature of this content (althugh, to be sure, the ruling doesn't bind Wikipedia regarding future edits; AFAIK this would require a new lawsuit and sentence). Rkieferbaum (talk) 00:47, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think we have a right to know what type of personal information the WMF chose to compromise. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 00:07, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Chose to compromise" is a really ugly and dishonest way of saying "complied with a court order after exhausting all appeals." Do you believe in the rule of law or not? Don't throw crap like this, tbua. It doesn't help anything and just creates a toxic atmosphere. We (the volunteers) need to be able to communicate with each other and with the WMF without dishonest finger pointing. Levivich (talk) 00:48, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the "rule of law" means that any government can unilaterally impose its will on a foreign entity, then we have different ideas of the rule of law. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 00:53, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's also calling a spade a spade. The WMF does not operate in Portugal. They could have told the Portuguese here to pound sand. That would have resulted, most likely, in Portugal blocking Wikipedia, but that was still an option as opposed to following a court order that they have no actual obligation to follow. They chose not to - and in so doing, both enforced a POV version of an article, and yes, they did, in fact, choose to compromise user information. - The Bushranger One ping only 01:02, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A few questions, JSutherland (WMF), some of which I know came up in discussions of the ANI case:

  1. Is this the first instance of a successful lawsuit to remove critical information about a subject that nonetheless satisfied Wikipedia's content policies (assuming the latter is true)?
  2. Can you talk more about the implications for affected users who do not live in Portugal?
  3. The overwhelming majority of people who access the English Wikipedia (and a majority of users accessing the Portuguese Wikipedia) do not live in Portugal. A ruling in Portugal would not have binding authority in the US, and there's a lot of precedent in the US for local law taking precedent when it comes to speech issues. Why, then, has the material been removed for everyone?
  4. Does the WMF have geoblocking abilities? (putting to the side whether it should, which I know is a messy ethical question)
  5. As with the ANI case, it seems worth discussing the implications for refusal of the order (and the timing of such a refusal, if applicable). It's one thing for a country's court systems to try to enforce a strategic lawsuit locally, but allowing one court system global censorship capacity seems like ... a big subject. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 23:12, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Also, in pt:César do Paço WMF office actions suppressed A LOT of edits, in the point that the attribution required by the according project licenses (CC-BY-SA 4.0 and GFDL) may be actually compromised. Augustresende (talk) 23:26, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Since usernames aren't suppressed WP:Attribution does not require blame applies. * Pppery * it has begun... 23:31, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Rhododendrites that I'd rather just block all of Portugal from Wikipedia than have to comply with something like this. SilverserenC 23:38, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. The WMF is not subject to Portuguese law. They suppressed this content because they chose to, not because they were legally required to. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 23:48, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
JSutherland (WMF), this is important. Don't bend over to laws that you don't have to follow, otherwise anyone in a foreign country could choose to censor anything and everything they want. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 00:02, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
While I am not from Portugal and can't speak for people there, I would prefer having Wikipedia be blocked in my country rather than having everyone see an enforced POV version of an article. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 00:20, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, I think blocking a country from Wikipedia or blocking Wikipedia from a country should be considered a horrible outcome. My question #4 is about the WMF's ability to deny certain pages based on user IP. That may be one way to satisfy a court order locally without affecting the rest of the world. If that doesn't exist, though, since most countries don't have a Great Firewall blocking on the nation side is kind of all-or-nothing since we went https. The question is whether it would escalate all the way up to that point, and what public opinion would be on the matter. Those are hypotheticals that I'd like to hear more about from people better versed in international (and Portuguese) law than me. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 00:03, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If a government is willing to side with someone who wants censorship, then we should give them that, and then some. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 00:16, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The judgment in question, for anyone wondering. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 23:47, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have a suggestion. Let's post this case on the In the News panel on the main page, on account of the fact that it would be really funny. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 23:50, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That would be WP:POINTY. - The Bushranger One ping only 01:02, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't surprised by this after seeing how the T&S team works and how they responded to my emails about users' security with generic, pre-made texts. Their so-called "commitment to user protection" fails when there is a real issue. It is just a myth. Let's see where else we'll witness their failures from now on. Nemoralis (talk) 00:28, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How is this article to be maintained going forward?

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@JSutherland (WMF): ... how are current and future editors supposed to do anything with this article, if years of content are removed per court order, but they also won't know what content is now deemed illegal in Portugal...? Isn't this basically now a de facto legal honeypot for any hapless editor?

It feels mandatory the WMF provide guidance on Talk:Caesar DePaço as a new rule or persistent requirement, unless "Office" intends to review all edits before they go live? What is protocol here? -- Very Polite Person (talk) 23:54, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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