This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
I support this, which should be fairly uncontroversial. The only real way to tell at the moment whether someone used the listing editor is the formatting of the edit summary, but changetags are far better in my opinion for this. //shb (t | c | m)21:10, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I support it. We had it in it:voy (now disabled) and it was useful especially during the initial phase to find & correct erroneous behavior caused by temporary bugs. Andyrom75 (talk) 14:50, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
One curiosity: in it:voy we have the tag "Listing Editor" "Defined by the software", while here in en:voy there is "wikivoyage-listingeditor" "Applied manually by users and bots". @Jdlrobson, I suppose the second one has been created using the Create button.
Yes, if you have the ability to uniform them that would be great @Andyrom75. I don't seem to have that permission! I don't mind what the tag is - as long as one exists! :-) Jdlrobson (talk) 00:52, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Jdlrobson, since I wasn't able to modify the one in it:voy (because it's "Defined by the software"), I've substitute the one in en:voy. Now both tags are "Listing Editor". Andyrom75 (talk) 08:26, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe some of you will want to read the project page and the discussion I'm having with Lucy Iwuala. I don't mean for anyone to gang up on her, so don't do that, but I shouldn't be speaking into a void with none of you knowing what we're discussing. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:24, 30 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We had this conversation before in April 2024. As I pointed out in that conversation back then, someone who's unfamiliar with our project didn't do consultation with the community before running an event. This time it looks like a "good intention, bad execution" event. OhanaUnitedTalk page04:43, 31 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I’d argue that there is a limit for how much we should tolerate events that are in good intentions. These events only waste time from project regulars trying to clean up all their mess for limited new travel content. If these bad executions are repeated (as has been the case with various Nigeria expeditions from this same group of editors), I sadly think we shouldn’t hesitate to potentially explore implementing community bans. //shb (t | c | m)05:37, 31 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What is a community ban and how could it be done? I'm not seeing it. Besides, the whole problem is that we didn't know about this project in advance, so it took us a while to deduce what was happening and figure out how much of it was plagiarism and/or violated WV:What is an article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:47, 31 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Community ban is basically synonymous with a user ban. There’s a few other things Lucy has done that I do not feel the slightest comfortable with her organizing an event on this project that I will nominate her for a user ban when I come home. //shb (t | c | m)13:40, 31 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with bannng Lucy. In the discussion, she's been cooperative and is doing what we are asking. The issues the Nigeria team have made are genuine mistakes, not bad faith vandalism, and can be corrected in the future if the event is repeated.
Lucy sits on the Regional Grants Committee. Members on the committee make funding decisions for grant applications in the regions, providing knowledge and expertise to applicants to support successful movement activities (emphasis are mine). I think we all agree that this event is harmful to Wikivoyage and unsuccessful due to most articles created being out-of-scope or copyright violations. Although the role is likely voluntary (i.e. not compensated), the event was covered by prizes that is likely paid through a grant by WMF. Given that she edited this project, she really should have known what is acceptable and what isn't, and should have proactively identified these issues with the event organizer. Is there a way to communicate to grants team that inexperienced editors with minimal Wikivoyage editing should consult with the community first and seek approval prior to approving the grant? In my real life work, I evaluate grants on Northern Canada research projects that includes Indigenous population. If the proposal doesn't consult with the stakeholders and local community members, the grant proposal gets a really low score or downright rejected. User:Piotrus/User:Hanyangprofessor2 does his classes the proper way: giving us a heads-up in advance, helps communicate rules to students and resolve issues soon after it emerges. This is the proper way to run engagement events. The WikiForHumanRights 2025 in Nigeria is a bad example of how an event was run (no notice, organizer abandons their duty to monitor, community has to spend time and effort to cleanup). How can a member of the regional grants committee not spot this issue? OhanaUnitedTalk page15:53, 1 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Why is no Wikivoyager on the Regional Grants Committee? Is there a way to appeal above their heads? Who is just above them on the Wikimedia hierarchy? Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:48, 1 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
How would we ban any of these projects effectively if a huge part of the problem is that we usually don't know about them in advance and just figure out they're going on because of the nature of a group of recent edits? Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:52, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Grants are usually not given if the lead organisers are blocked on at least one project with good reason, which is why I've brought it up in this thread before (though I now realise that wasn't super obvious). Or we could potentially explore making Wikivoyage:Organising events a full policy (a step up from a guideline) and mandate the notification (or the organisers risk facing a block, hindering their ability for future grants). Saves us a lot of time cleaning up their mess. //shb (t | c | m)02:21, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely. Let's make that a policy going forward and make it absolutely clear that they need to get and take into account our input while the project is proposed and not later. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:06, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Could this be framed such that it's a requirement for grants involving Wikivoyage from the grant side without needing to change guideline on our side? We're already a small project and I don't want to impose more roadblocks to innocent event organizers who will further bring more editors to our project just because WMF grant recipients didn't follow the rules. OhanaUnitedTalk page05:32, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
It would be good if it could, but as User:AlasdairW pointed out, this project was not funded, yet it still caused havoc on this site. So requiring due consultations for funding is not sufficient. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:13, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
It seems obvious that any project that wants to make substantial edits to a WMF project like Wikivoyage should consult with the community. WMF has a long history of accepting poor grants, some of then little better than scams, as long as they come from Global South or some broadly understood unpriviliged group :( This is just one of many, many examples (and that coincides with their reduction of funding to important stuff like WikiJournals). Now, everything can be done better, and nothing is perfect; so it would be nice to figure we can improve this. Side note: I do not get any funds for my class project, in case anyone is wondering, it's all done by me in my capacity as the volunteer (the university doesn't care either). One would hope that folks who actually get $$$ for this could try to at least match volunteers... Piotrus (talk) 06:06, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@OhanaUnited: I agree that what's happened is wrong — I'm only advocating against banning the organizer, not for supporting the event in its current state. I agree that we need to see changes from participating events. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 17:31, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@SHB2000 and also for the record, I feel like you have other personal grudges or whatever that hinders you from approaching this issue from a a neutral point of view even when it is clearly stated that this project was not organised by me neither was the page in question created by me. I find this offensive and would appreciate you approach this discussion neutrally without getting me mix-up in issues and if perhaps you have a personal problem with me, I suggest you reach out to me via my email, let's discuss rather than tarnishing my image and my name.
And for the record, based on this long thread, it is obvious that the people engaging in this thread has limited knowledge of the roles of Regional Funding Committee member with regards to Rapid Fund. Lucy Iwuala (talk) 13:06, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
You are the only name on that page that we recognized, you have a fair amount of experience on this site, yet you don't seem to understand basic things about it and instructed participants in a way that clearly did not produce good results. No-one has a "grudge" against you, and if you're mad at us for having this discussion that you didn't know about, you now understand how we feel about your being involved in the planning of an event that caused havoc here without ever informing us about its existence! There is no userban thread for you and if you notice, most of the discussion was against the idea and in my opinion it was dropped, but you are not helping yourself by how you reacted here, but more importantly by not even promising to give us advance notice of any future Wikivoyage-editing event you are involved with or know about! Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:35, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
You [Lucy] also couldn't even have the basic courtesy to even admit your projects were problematic. I did indeed drop the idea, but now your behaviour in this thread by failure to take responsibility makes me reconsider, certainly not helped by your past track record either. //shb (t | c | m)21:35, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@SHB2000 now you keep on getting me mixed-up once more. Now, I see no reason to claim ownership of project I am a trainer to and not even the creator of the page in question. I didn't see you dropping the idea in any of your comments so far and you have proven me right again that you might have a personal disposition in this context, hence your insistence on dragging me in to take responsibility for an action that has been specifically stated that I was not the originator of.
And I still say it again, if you have personal issue with me, do well to use my email and get me in the know rather than making allegation of past track record I am yet to figure out. It will be better you present your case in a clear statement so that I will admit my error than dragging my name to the mud. I expect that is what assuming good faith interprets to. Lucy Iwuala (talk) 22:15, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Instead of being defensive, you should confront the fact that there have been 3 major editing events involving but organized from outside this site having to do with Africa, and instead of helping us have a larger amount of reliable coverage of that vast continent, all 3 events have been disasters. You have given us no reason to hope that you will inform us at any point about another such event, if you are part of it or know about it. So what are we supposed to think about you? And now you're picking fights here, which -is- a basis for a userban nomination if someone wants to start one. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:37, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Ikan Kekek I responded to your suggestion of reaching out to the community and informing them about an upcoming WV event here. And from all my interaction with the community right from the onset of my contributing to the WV, I don't think there has been any point at which corrections are suggested and I declined.
What @SHB2000 translated as my fight is my requesting for what crime I committed that was not part of the current discussion he brought up. Which would have saved us all the stress if he had stated it earlier. Lucy Iwuala (talk) 23:50, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Ikan Kekek in this instance, I can only interpret is as a grudge as what I also expected from whoever that tagged me to first check who created the page in question and not just the name which was stated as TRAINER. If you can also go back to that discussion thread I responded of taking your advice into consideration and the next thing I saw is a question of what do I mean. Now tell me where I am getting it wrong in my response. Corrections were dished out which I also adhered to and even going to the said page to delete what was added by the user and now you are telling me that I am not compliant.
Your bringing this up here and saying that you're not bringing it up for me to be ganged up is quite understood, but I also believe that I should have been tagged so that I will be able to follow the conversation and clarify whatever accusation that will likely come out from this discussion. Lucy Iwuala (talk) 22:24, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@SHB2000 before you go ahead and make this kind of accusation (which I will interpret it as), I would also appreciate you go ahead and list out other ATROCITIES I have committed that would warrant me a ban so that I and others will know about it. I will also, expect you to adhere to the friendly space policy when you start listing out all my sins. Lucy Iwuala (talk) 12:53, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, but I don't believe you're in any position to talk about "adhering to the friendly space" when in that same breath you try to hunt for a possible conflict with another Wikivoyager. Not to mention that it's all about a message that they, just a few hours later, admitted being wrong about. Others have already suggested you familiarise yourself more with our project. I would like to suggest for you to add WV:FUN to your essential reading. Cherry-picking remarks just to get angry at someone is unbcoming of anyone with any kind of authority. ― Wauteurz (talk)22:18, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Wauteurz I didn't see any form of resolution on the part of @SHB2000 based on his response as when he was being informed that I was not actually the one that created this page. Now, for any none Wikivoyager stumbling on this thread, it is quite obvious that his response in this discussion is not one borne out of correction, as his first statement capture... as if I am on their radar and now is a perfect time to go at it, hence my citing the friendly space policy which I believe in this scenario I did not see being adhered to. Lucy Iwuala (talk) 22:31, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
SHB can defend himself if he so desires. I'm not here to do that for him. I like to think I know him pretty well though, and I belive he will not throw baseless accusations out into the open like that. I invite him to back them up if he wishes to.
It's your behaviour that I commented about though. I'd suggest you reflect on that instead of others' behaviour. This started as a simple discussion which you've now made all about yourself. We're all here to make a travel guide. How about you? ― Wauteurz (talk)22:56, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Lucy, I'm sorry, but did you somehow completely glaze over this? And I concur that if you're going to cite the Friendly space policy, you should at least apply the same courtesy to others yourself (which also, by the way, is a guideline for in-person events, not on-wiki, where our own policy takes precedent). //shb (t | c | m)23:20, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@SHB2000 I read this. I also expect fairness to be allowed to clear myself from whatever that you already allotted me. And if seeking for clarity on what you have mixed me up with is now tagged as fighting, then I wonder how one can clarify herself from issues like this. Lucy Iwuala (talk) 23:32, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Sure: serious copyright violations on enwiki, suspected paid editing (and your behaviour in that thread is the exact same you're exhibiting here...some things don't change I guess?) and writing an AI-generated U4C nomination (these are all things I found within 2 minutes). All of these things only waste the community's time, and while these are cross-wiki, what it demonstrates to us is that your behaviour fundamentally has not changed. We're a much smaller community and have fewer resources to be dealing with disruptive behaviour – disruptive behaviour you seem to be overtly defensive of, as indicated by your replies to Ikan. //shb (t | c | m)23:30, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@SHB2000 I'm glad you're bringing all these up here. Which I believe would have been very fair of you to have pointed it out all these while so that I can know where I err. I also believe that each of the pages tagged has my responses for everyone to read.
Even when events are badly organized, they have the potential to bring us new long-term contributors. There is value to us being hospitable even when we have to enforce important rules. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:11, 31 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In theory, but can you think of any truly helpful users who have become regulars as a result of bad projects organized outside of Wikivoyage without consultation with us? Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:06, 31 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, the number of new productive long-term editors we’ve gained from these poorly
To be fair, though, that's true of any expedition with a specified time duration, including the previous one in South Korea. However, that expedition still had a great impact on our coverage in several Asian countries.
And to be fair, I don't think any of my students became contributors (I don't keep tabs, but at least here, we would notice them). 99.99% of such projects pretty much are about one off effor; a few folks can make an occasional edit here and there, but to get a proper highly active volunteer, that's... one in a million? Don't expect it to happen. Piotrus (talk) 06:08, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
It's probably less than that, since Wiki Edu classes have had fewer than a million students and more than one reasonably active long-term editor (maybe not consistently 100 edits/month, but more than 100 edits/year). WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:48, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I had forgotten the specifics of that thread - thanks for linking it! But this has been a repeated problem with campaigns to add content on places in Africa without discussion on Wikivoyage beforehand. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:37, 31 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have been looking at some of the grant applications on meta:Grants:Regions/Sub-Saharan Africa. One of the questions being answered in applications is "11. How did you discuss the idea of your project with your community members and/or any relevant groups? Please describe steps taken and provide links to any on-wiki community discussion(s) about the proposal. (required) You need to inform the community and/or group, discuss the project with them, and involve them in planning this proposal. You also need to align the activities with other projects happening in the planned area of implementation to ensure collaboration within the community." Some application have said that they announced their plans on meta:Talk:Wikimedia User Group Nigeria, which does appear to get any actual feedback.
I think we need to have a clear policy on how we expect to be consulted before grant applications are submitted. This could be an addition to Wikivoyage:Organising events or a separate similar page. It would be better to have a dedicated page for the consultation rather than doing this in the pub. Then anybody can readily note an objection if a grant application is made for something involving WV without consultation - members of a grant committee should be able to quickly see whether or not our policy has been followed.
Thanks very much for looking into this and for your thoughts! I think it's fine for there to be a dedicated page to discuss possible editing events that would take place on or include Wikivoyage, but the thread on that page should also be linked here or possibly on Requests for comment for greater visibility. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:25, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Level of participation, borrowed from w:Public participation (decision making) I think I found the grant page for the current funded project, which is meta:Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/WikiForHumanRights 2025 in Nigeria (ID: 23478676). It lists semmy1960 as the applicant and Lucy being the trainer and reviewer for Wikivoyage. semmy1960 only has 191 edits in our project and has not edited here since January 2022. @AlasdairW Sorry for being blunt here. Posting a notice on the meta:Talk:Wikimedia User Group Nigeria doesn't really count as consultation or engagement with the community. That page appears to be lightly visited and monitored, as shown by lack of replies in overwhelming majority of the 580+ conversations in the past 4 years on that page. This type of informing or consultation ranks low in the public participation, and sometimes characterized as "tokenism" or "checkbox exercise". In my view, the "Wikivoyage Nigeria Awareness:Promoting Open Travel Knowledge" (POTK) would have scored higher than the "WikiForHumanRights 2025 in Nigeria" (WfHR 2025) that we're discussing because POTK organizer, Favourdare123 has more Wikivoyage experience than semmy1960 or Lucy. Favourdare123 has over 1000 edits here and last edited in November 2025. This highlights another uncomfortable question for the grant committee's evaluation process. Why is POTK, a project requiring fewer funding, well-planned and experienced contributor/organizer's rapid grant funding being denied while WMF funds projects with newbies training newbies? OhanaUnitedTalk page19:58, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds like some clarification might be in order to differentiate between "talk to your organization's members" and "talk to the project/website you plan to contribute to". Both of these could be "talk to your community".
I think what we're looking for is a step in the process that says something like "If you're planning to hold a training event or contest, please add a link showing that you announced this plan on the wikis where the editing will happen"?
How did you discuss the idea of your project with your community members and/or any relevant groups? Please describe steps taken and provide links to any on-wiki community discussion(s) about the proposal. (required) You need to inform the community and/or group, discuss the project with them, and involve them in planning this proposal. You also need to align the activities with other projects happening in the planned area of implementation to ensure collaboration within the community.
Often, this kind of notification includes relevant affiliate members and on-wiki communication notification spaces or listings of events, but the exact places varies depending on the project and Wikimedia community involved. What I am hearing here is a need for applicants to provide more direct notification on Wikivoyage, and potentially to revise the language of this question to make this requirement clearer. To support this, what page(s) are best to use for informing Wikivoyage community members about proposed events? One other related matter I wanted to note is that community notifications for Rapid Funds often result in no community feedback for the organizer. This is not necessarily a problem, but we still feel it is important to for organizers to extend an opportunity for community feedback and comments on funded projects where needed. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 22:53, 8 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I JethroBT (WMF), that sounds correct. We think that there needs to be a small clarification in the general process.
This page (our "village pump") is the best, most visible place to post about editing events (or anything, really) for the English Wikivoyage. I believe this is true for all the languages of Wikivoyage, but of course each language requires a separate notification, because they don't read ours, and we don't read theirs. Notifications don't need to be elaborate ("Hey, we're planning an event. See m:Link if you're interested in the details" will do), though for this particular Wikivoyage, event planners should expect us to give them lots of friendly advice.
I don't think that Willy's account is active here, so the ping probably didn't go through. Please pass him a link in Slack or e-mail when you have a moment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:30, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@WhatamIdoing: Thanks for this response, and I've already contacted him separately about this matter. I also wanted to offer one other consideration for the future. While Wikivoyage is focused on less compared to other Wikimedia projects in funded work, we do see it sometimes come up in proposals. Depending on how many proposals we receive, it could mean that this board will end up receiving a lot of individual notices from organizers. This might be OK for now, but in the future, if it ends up creating a lot of clutter so that it's challenging to read other notices or discussions relevant to Wikivoyage, the community may want to consider designating a separate place in the future specific to proposed events. Just something to keep in mind for the future. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 17:59, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I think we could handle an average of one notice per week on this board, but if we need to split it off, we might point them at the talk page for Wikivoyage:Expeditions.
I thought we had agreed above that all proposed events involving edits to this Wikivoyage should be announced on the talk page of Wikivoyage:Organizing events, with a link to the thread here in the Travellers' pub, but let's make a clear decision. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:24, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
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Annual review of the Universal Code of Conduct and Enforcement Guidelines
I am writing to you to let you know the annual review period for the Universal Code of Conduct and Enforcement Guidelines is open now. You can make suggestions for changes through 9 February 2026. This is the first step of several to be taken for the annual review. Read more information and find a conversation to join on the UCoC page on Meta.
Looks like a few moments ago, an attack (I'd rather name it "shooting in your own feet" :-) ) happened and wiki's are in degraded mode. No user javascript ATM. More info... -- andree18:33, 5 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Many wikis were in read-only mode (see phab:T419143). Glad at least the damage has been reverted. It was a genuine mistake, though; shit happens I guess. Must say though that trying to edit m:SRG without scripts feels...painful. //shb (t | c | m)21:05, 5 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
And running random code with staff privilege on internet connected machines as part of a security review sounds odd in itself, to say the least. I assume they cannot tell too much detail, at that might reveal vulnerabilities, if not in the system itself, at least in how privileges are handled by WMF staff. I still hope that they disclose as much as possible when such vulnerabilities have been handled. The vulnerabilities should be examined as a matter of urgency and dealt with as soon as practicable, but if a culture change is needed, the changes may need time to settle. However, the incident should not be forgotten until such a report is published. This is not a private company where such incidents can be seen as business secrets. –LPfi (talk) 20:35, 6 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
What I don't understand with all of this is why they needed to load a userscript onto the site js to test it for malicious code. //shb (t | c | m)22:38, 6 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
My understanding is that the malicious code copied itself to the site js, as it was run with sufficient privileges. Otherwise it had just infected the user's (common.)js. –LPfi (talk) 07:50, 10 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Could be, yeah (the edits are oversighted and I have no idea what bit of the .js code infected which). //shb (t | c | m)08:40, 10 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
There're test wikis for this reason. At the very least, even after loading this malicious userscript, the vulnerability would only be nuking pages on the test wiki and not on an actual wiki. OhanaUnitedTalk page06:44, 8 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I only found out about Special:EditChecks today, and I must say I'm pretty pleased with the PasteCheck.js script (which warns users for copypasted text). However, underneath it, I notice there's a ToneCheck.js script, which, based on the description, is based on a BERT model, linking to m:NPOV, which is not a policy on Wikivoyage. Is there a way to configure this such that it reflects Wikivoyage:Be fair instead of NPOV? (cc @Andyrom75, Jdlrobson:) //shb (t | c | m)11:52, 14 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
That's the Editing team's work, so you want to ping @Quiddity (WMF) and @PPelberg (WMF). Because the writing style is intentionally different, we might not want it here.
Several of the usual EditChecks are irrelevant, including addReference (we want the opposite: warn people if they add any), convertReference (we have no citation templates), externalLink (these are wanted), and probably yearLink (as irrelevant, because there are no articles for any years, and therefore no possibility of linking to the wrong one). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:32, 14 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, both. It looks like the ToneCheck issue is partially covered at phab:T419812 (ToneCheck is only active at 3 pilot-wikipedia projects currently, and only intended for Wikipedias for now), and I'll file some related bug-reports next week about improving the overall clarity/accuracy of that new Special page for non-Wikipedias. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 19:31, 14 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
+1, @Quiddity (WMF): thank you for making us aware of this issue, @SHB2000 + @WhatamIdoing. You should notice this fixed before this week is over.
Just to be clear, tomorrow's the date when the list will stop showing all the things that aren't being used here. Actually getting more of them to be useful here will take much longer. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:15, 18 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The SPTF is disbanded after running the public consultation for closing Wikinews. Well, I think Wikinews users still have to archive the content since the SPTF's decision doesn't get negated by being dissolved. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 02:28, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Task forces are meant to be short-term groups. Of course it was disbanded when its work was done. And as Sbb says, that doesn't invalidate any of its findings or negate any of its recommendations.
BTW, it's always been the Board of Trustees for the Wikimedia Foundation, and not the SPTF, that will be deciding whether to archive Wikinews. There are about four board meetings a year, and they also pass resolutions outside of meetings. The most recent meeting was in December, so it's possible that the decision has already been taken, but from a general how-boards-work POV, I'd actually expect it to happen in the next meeting. They'll probably want to make that decision before they set the budget for the next year (which is traditionally their second meeting of the calendar year), because their decision might affect the budget (e.g., one-time expenses if they decided to support a fork to a new organization). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:47, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
A bit of a late reply, but I do think it's safe to say Wikinews is dead. Despite issues with the consultation process, I don't think there's anything saving it now (and like you I also expect the decision to come anytime in the next upcoming month or two). But I do really hope that Board takes feedback from this, were a similar task force in the future to be appointed (and definitely not with 2 sanctioned/self-sanctioned members and 1 very inactive user out of 6). //shb (t | c | m)21:47, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The task force only had five non-Board members on it. One is a former WMF board trustee, one is a former steward, one practically is the French Wiktionary, and the other two I don't know well. One of those got into some trouble last year, but if it were possible for the WMF to magically know, in 2023, that an editor would be desysopped in 2025, then I think those powers could probably be put to better use than merely not appointing him to a temporary committee. (Victoria, who posted the list of appointed volunteers, is a community-selected WMF board trustee, having been a top vote-getter in 2021 and 2024. If you think that's a problem [I don't], then remember that the next time you hear someone saying that all WMF trustees should be elected by editors.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:14, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Late to the conversation. I wouldn't give much too much thought about the composition of the task force members. The task force selects members themselves without an open election so it's basically a cabal/echo chamber. New vacancies were not advertised and simply appointed via a secret process. I have given a bigger breakdown on why the task force failed (and not just from Wikinews's perspective) in this comment. OhanaUnitedTalk page14:04, 17 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder what makes you think that task force "failed". I suspect that they achieved the only thing they were really meant to do.
For that matter, what makes you think there were any "new vacancies"? Unlike the US Supreme Court, task forces don't have a set, limited size. If the group is working closely with someone, then it makes sense to make them be part of the group. The second most senior person for the WMF's entire technical division could not be easily replaced by any volunteer contributor, so your realistic choices are "appoint him", "keep it a secret", or "have an election just for show, with all the other candidates disqualified because they can't do what he can (e.g., assign WMF staff to study technical migration plans)". Which would you choose under those circumstances? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:34, 17 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I'll keep my reply here short since I have written extensively in the linked comment on Meta. The objective of the sister project was immense. It was, for the first time, allowing non-trustees to determine whether to open new sister project(s). At the same time, it's going to determine, for the very first time*, whether a project be closed. You absolutely need to ensure that the task force selection process is representative of the community and not selected through backdoor channels or knowing the right people because the result and impact is immense. The failure of the task force in both objectives further fracture the Wikinews community and set the adoption of new sister project process back by at least 2-3 years while proposals have been waiting for 7 years (and we're complaining about drop in human traffic because of AI while ignoring new ideas and projects that could counter the drop). Not to mention that the conduct by some of the selected task force members were less then stellar to say the least.
I don't think the objective was immense. I suspect that the actual, if unwritten, objective was to figure out whether Wikinews should be closed. The founder of Wikinews thought it was a failed experiment some 15 years ago. People have been talking about closing it for approximately forever. If you'd said to me five years ago, and especially at any point after Pi zero died, "Huh, the Board is setting up a committee to look at opening and closing non-Wikipedias", my first thought would have been "I bet they'll be looking at finally getting rid of Wikinews". This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to Wikinews.
The SPTF made recommendations to a Board committee. They did not make decisions. There have always been non-trustees making recommendations. It's now up to the committee to vote on whether to take this recommendation, or a different one, to the Board for a vote. (There are also 131 other closed wikis.)
I don't agree that all stakeholders have to be at the table when the question is whether to fire one of the stakeholders for under-performance. I bet you wouldn't expect that for a real-world job, either.
I was an advisor in the SPTF, not a full member, only BoT members had voting rights in the SPTF. In the limited meetings I attended, decisions were already made, so my contributions were minimal, mainly promoting community consultations about their decisions, which proved ineffective since SPTF decisions were pre-determined.
Upon my sanction, I was immediately removed, missing subsequent meetings. While I agree that sanctioned individuals shouldn't be part of such bodies, at the time I still had community trust and always focused on small communities.
Btw, there was a proposal for a Sister Projects Committee (SPC); I suggest promoting initiatives like this, because WMF should not have task forces that override community wishes.
I think the WMF should override some community wishes, because some of them are bad. Five or ten years ago, the WMF had to override a community decision to block all "out" gay editors on sight. Before that, they had to explain to another community that it wasn't okay for them to punish women for editing articles about sex, even if their culture thought that was immodest behavior. Each community must meet the minimum standards, even if it "wishes" to do otherwise. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:50, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Asamboi: Also not sure if anyone has alerted you on FtT's latest misdeeds with off-wiki harassment, but some of it does involve you (happy to send evidence by email if you want) //shb (t | c | m)04:43, 22 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
This Café meetup will be approximately two hours long. Attendees may choose to attend only for a part. Please see the Café page for more information, including how to register.
If you're thinking about attending: That's 10:00AM Saturday in New York, 7:00AM Saturday in California, 10:00PM Saturday in Perth, and 2:00AM Sunday in Auckland. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:17, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I've done the same where I can and made relevant phab: tasks. I still have the vain hope that we can come back some day: if Wikivoyage can be adopted, Wikinews could be re-adopted. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯06:22, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
There are several proposals to fork it to a new site; at least two groups appear to have plausible proposals, and everyone wants to get the rights to the trademarks (which the WMF has previously refused, but at some level, everything's negotiable). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:47, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I'm shocked to see this. Why can't we let enough users, to contribute to Wikinews, despite being in a normal state? In my own opinion, Wikinews should be kept active and editable. This project was launched in November 8, 2004, crazy that it lasted for about 22 years! Are there any WMF projects closed down also in the past, besides Wikinews anyway? Further beyond, I believe that a lot of users, are active on Wikipedia, Wiktionary, and here in Wikivoyage, rather than the Wikinews as of 2026. To have a feeling, I'm definitely going to miss this project, after it got set permanently to read-only mode. Unfortunately, there are not going to have as many articles or stories reviewed, since I heard from the WMF that this site only had about 2-3 reviewers a month. ~2026-69216-3 (talk) 03:44, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
More than 100 wikis have been shut down/made read-only over the years. However, AFAIK this is the first time that an entire multilingual content project has been shut down. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:05, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@WhatamIdoing Exactly, the first one for entire multilingual content project to shut down. But do you know another the reason on why did Wikinews shut down? We all read this announcement from the the Board of Trustees noticeboard, and I seen these responses that they consider migrating to Miraheze. Although there were some feedback, I believe that there should be more users contributing to Wikinews, since there are not much them active on this project. ~2026-69216-3 (talk) 21:48, 3 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
This is the reason that Wikinews shut down: The Wikinews project was a failure.
@Koavf @WhatamIdoing Thank you. Having few writers, news articles, and readers, is very shocking to me, since how much news stories and articles, can be accessible throughout the Internet under Google Search Engine, such as CNN, BBC, NBC News, The New York Times, Daily Mail, Voyage, Vox, Wired, NPR, SFGate, ESPN, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Huffpost, Daily News, and Forbes, which are read by millions of people. I don't understand the lower view count for Wikinews articles, despite being a free project since 2004. I guess that this project was a failure, and need to migrate to Miraheze. ~2026-69216-3 (talk) 03:07, 5 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The sister project Wikinews was scheduled to close in May. For context, each new page on that wiki is a news report and a few days after the event, unlike Wikipedia, it gets read-only and no longer editable. There were user engagement issues because it was hard to get new pages approved when there are only 2 or 3 reviewers active and news is not approved if it is over a week old , and also users lack awareness who else is from their own continent, do not make meaningful connections.
Main complaint from WMF is "Wikipedia does such a great job at news writing anyway" though I personally do not agree with it, their page format is not a news report as it stays editable forever and one page actually is an encyclopedic history page and not about one event. plus Wikinews allows photo essays about super local events which Wikipedia does not. I think they are all valuable additions to meet the content freedom and knowledge freedom mission of the Wikimedia movement.
And I am wondering if it would be suitable to make a News: namespace here and, unlike what Wikinews did, try to aggressively make visual maps of where the events are, as well as where the users are from (they add a point on a map and there is a map of all events, and another map with all users). Now with the Kartographer feature this may be visually appealing and doable from programming point of view.
Maybe that helps users to connect better and also then Wikinews does not have to move to external site like miraheze. For wikivoyage this could mean a bit more traffic and maybe more users expanding the pages about travel destinations.
Main software difference is usage of FlaggedRevs in that namespace and the volunteer peer reviewers would need to apply for access to be allowed to approve or decline page revisions.
this was not yet discussed within Wikinews itself and I am just wondering what you think.
Hoping this is helpful and you can support or give some ideas.
I'm not sure WV is the best place for generic news. Sure, most of the time news is about some place on the Earth, but likely there aren't enough people here (interested) to do any significant reviews? Thus probably quite a bit of politics stuff (which we seem to actively avoid around here) would flow in...
Maybe if we agreed that it's only news about local events (festivals, happenings, temporary exhibitions) and not "random events" (protests, wars, natural disasters...)? -- andree09:46, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
That might makes sense if local events like festivals, happenings and temporary exhibitions are covered here, and we already cover international ones like Olympic Games, FIFA World Cup, World's Fair, etc. Protests, wars and disasters may be covered, but they should be restricted to official advisories, which directly affect travel. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 09:55, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that posting news here is a big stretch, but for what it's worth, about a half-dozen Wikipedias host their own local version of Wikinews. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯11:13, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
We are excited to announce that Wiki Loves Bangla 2026 has started! This year’s theme focuses on Bengal festivals, inviting participants to capture and share images and videos of the diverse cultural celebrations across Bengal.
Wiki Loves Bangla is an international photography contest on Wikimedia Commons aimed at documenting Bengali culture and heritage worldwide. It is organised annually as part of the Bangla Culture and Heritage Collation Program, with a dedicated theme each year.
How You Can Participate, it's easy and simple, and every upload contributes to the world's largest free knowledge repository:
Seconded, would be even more amazing if some of those photos submitted can be used in some of our articles here. Either way, all the best, Moheen. //shb (t | c | m)04:52, 22 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I agree and stated as much in comments at the link. Why don't we adopt a local policy that _any_ use of AI, very much including for "basic copy editing" and machine translation, must be disclosed? I'd be willing to tolerate spellcheck and grammar check if those are considered AI, but nothing else should be accepted without disclosure (or at all, if I had my druthers). We don't want people's writing style to be chucked in favor of bots. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:50, 26 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Hence why I supported the opt-out policy. It might not be bad on this wiki where there is an active community to clean up after AI use, but I'm in the midst of a weeks-long effort of cleaning up after someone who mass-spammed AI translations of Interlingua (see this), which I've been slacking on a bit, but the whole mass translations are absolutely disruptive and something I'd never want to see again. //shb (t | c | m)09:25, 26 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
No, we don't. And even if they pass, we need to write our own. What bothers me about "disclosure" is that it adds deadweight to affected edits, especially when the edit itself is minor. Can a label be used for the purpose? –LPfi (talk) 11:51, 26 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Would you allow photos, where some obstruction has been removed by an AI tool? What about finding sources when researching some off destination? May I use AI to construct a table or diagram? May my dyslectic friend have an AI point out possible spelling errors? May one use a voice-to-text AI if typing is difficult because of that accident?
As AI is getting common, restrictions on its use will interfere with established workflows of some, soon many, contributors. Thus we need to identify the things we absolutely don't want done with AI or assisted by AI, and those where AI assistance isn't a problem.
I oppose all of AI's use as far as LLMs are concerned, but for researching off wiki you can't control that, and it is helpful. AI shouldn't be used to construct a table or diagram. A dyslexic person may use it to use this voice to text typing,
I think they should make the wording more specific and inclusive for this new regulation.
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