Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation since our last issue on August 28. Previous editions of this bulletin are on Meta. Let foundationbulletin@wikimedia.org know if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement!
Highlights
- Data center switch: All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on September 23 at 14:00 UTC as part of a scheduled switchover to allow for essential maintenance and improvements. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes in advance.
- Baseline NPOV Policy: The public conversation regarding the proposed baseline NPOV policy for Wikipedias that do not yet have one has been concluded. Read the summary report and the updated baseline NPOV policy text and enforcement guidance here.
- Save the date. Wikimania 2027 will be taking place in Santiago, Chile, and online from August 18 to 21, with the theme “The Internet we want”. See the Wikimania 2026 coverage highlights and a brief update on what’s ahead.
- Chart extension is now beginner-friendly: Creating graphs and charts previously required manual JSON editing. In response to a Community wish to make the Charts extension more user-friendly, a new Visual mode for adding values has been introduced.
Annual Goals Progress on Engage
See also: Growth · Product Safety and Integrity · Tech News · Language and Internationalization · The Wikipedia Library · list of movement events · Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia
- Introducing TextMatch: Communities are shaping Suggestion Mode with TextMatch to create custom suggestions that are tailored to their own policies and writing conventions. Share your feedback.
- Visual editor becoming default: Design work on the user experience for visual editing for newcomers is underway. This follows visual editor becoming default on English Wikipedia following a community discussion.
- Community Wishlist 2027 consultation: The consultation on the proposed new Wishlist process is closing this week. This year’s cycle plans for wish submissions in late October/early November, triage completed by late November, and voting in early to mid January. Share feedback in any language on the talk page.
- Improved Add a Link feature: Add a Link has been upgraded for English Wikipedia users with improved detection of links that have different capitalization. This will help reduce ambiguous suggestions caused by differences in capitalization in article titles, including articles about cultural goods.
- Wikipedia Android app: Latest release includes updates to the Saved feature, bringing the app’s saving experience closer to iOS and Web. The update redesigns the Saved tab with an “All articles” view, removes the default “Saved” reading list, renames reading lists to “Collections,” and modernizes the article-saving experience.
- Domain change for thumbnails: The domain of URLs for thumbnails is changing from
upload.wikimedia.org
tothumb.wikimedia.org
. The old URLs will continue to work but MediaWiki will advertise the new domain instead. Original files, videos, and transcodes will still be served fromupload.wikimedia.org
. - Reading lists rollout continues on desktop: Following the initial deployment to Bengali, Chinese, Czech, and Vietnamese Wikipedias, reading lists went live on Arabic, French, and Indonesian Wikipedias and will go live on English Wikipedia on Sep 14, with all remaining wikis following on Sep 28.
- New features of Pageviews Analysis: Several new features have been added to the Pageviews Analysis tool which allows users to compare pageviews across multiple pages. They include WikiNav which provides insights into how readers of Wikipedia explore the content, editing stats in Siteviews, the ability to lookup articles belonging to a WikiProject, and support for dark mode.
- Article guidance: As part of an A/B experiment, Article guidance is now available in Turkish and Simple English.
- Latest experiments: A current experiment for logged-out mobile readers on Bengali, Czech, English, Farsi, and Polish Wikipedias is testing whether simplifying the Minerva navigation bar improves reader retention. See all live, upcoming, and completed experiments in Product & Technology.
- Wikifunctions status updates: Thanks to all contributors, Wikifunctions has now reached 5,000 functions.
- Latest highlights from Tech News: Weeks 36 and 37 of Tech News include the Article guidance feature is now enabled by default for editors with less than 100 edits on Simple English and Turkish Wikipedia.
Annual Goals Progress on Enable
See also: Research newsletter · WikiLearn News · other newsletters on MediaWiki.org
- Affiliates and grant funding: Have your say on proposals establishing (1) a new model and set of expectations for movement affiliates; (2) new, connected requirements to determine eligibility for receiving Community Fund grants from the Wikimedia Foundation; and (3) updated criteria for affiliate recognition processes.
- Community Fund reflections: Read the reflections on the fiscal year 2025–2026 of the Rapid Fund and General Support Fund, covering $17.73 million across 427 grants in 90 countries, with 56.2% distributed outside North America and Northern & Western Europe.
Annual Goals Progress on Reach
See also: Wikimedia Apps · Readers
- World of Wikipedia launches: The World of Wikipedia game has been released. It is an online collectible card game where players sort fact from fiction across Wikipedia articles to build their card library. The game is the latest experiment in reaching younger audiences through familiar formats, following Wikispeedia on Roblox and Which Came First? on the Wikipedia app.
Other updates
See Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard · Affiliations Committee Newsletter
- Celebrate Women 2026: Read the impact of Celebrate Women 2026 as the campaign concluded with 112 events, 238,222 unreverted content edits and 2,499,773,577 bytes added.
- US staff union vote: On Sep 3, eligible Wikimedia Foundation staff in the United States voted in favor of union representation in a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election.
Other Movement curated newsletters & news
See also: Diff blog · Goings-on · Planet Wikimedia · Signpost (en) · Kurier (de) · Actualités du Wiktionnaire (fr) · Regards sur l’actualité de la Wikimedia (fr) · Wikimag (fr) · Education · GLAM · Milestones · Wikidata · Central and Eastern Europe · other newsletters
Can you help us translate this article?
In order for this article to reach as many people as possible we would like your help. Can you translate this article to get the message out?
Start translation
Facts Only
* A data center switch was scheduled for September 23rd at 14:00 UTC for maintenance.
* The public conversation regarding the baseline NPOV policy for Wikipedias without one concluded.
* Wikimania 2027 is scheduled for August 18 to 21 in Santiago, Chile, with the theme “The Internet we want.”
* A new Visual mode for adding values was introduced to the Charts extension for user-friendliness.
* TextMatch is being introduced to shape Suggestion Mode with community-tailored suggestions.
* Visual editor design work for newcomers is underway, following a decision on English Wikipedia.
* The consultation on the proposed new Wishlist process is closing this week.
* The "Add a Link" feature was upgraded for English Wikipedia users with improved capitalization detection.
* The Wikipedia Android app update includes changes to the Saved feature, renaming of reading lists to “Collections,” and redesigns.
* The domain for thumbnail URLs is changing from upload.wikimedia.org to thumb.wikimedia.org.
* Reading list rollout continues on desktop; live deployment expanded to include Arabic, French, and Indonesian Wikipedias, with English scheduled for September 14th.
* New features in Pageviews Analysis include WikiNav, Siteviews editing stats, and support for dark mode.
* Article guidance is now available in Turkish and Simple English as part of an A/B experiment.
* Wikifunctions has reached 5,000 functions.
* The World of Wikipedia game has been released.
Executive Summary
Full Take
The flow of updates demonstrates a consistent effort to balance essential infrastructural maintenance with significant user-facing feature improvements and community governance processes. The simultaneous focus on technical shifts (data center move, domain changes) alongside soft policy rollouts (NPOV, Wishlist consultation) indicates an organizational need to ensure stability while adapting to evolving community demands. The introduction of TextMatch and the shift towards a visual editor reflect a tension between maintaining strict technical foundations and improving accessibility for new and existing editors.
The pattern observed is one of incremental, high-leverage change deployment: foundational work (like infrastructure) is scheduled alongside user experience enhancements (like chart editing or app design). This structure suggests an underlying drive to increase the usability and engagement of the platform by making complex systems more intuitive. The consultation process for Wishlist reinforces a commitment to decentralized governance, acknowledging that evolving community priorities require structured input rather than unilateral decisions. The results, such as the success in reaching 5,000 Wikifunctions and the deployment of broad reading list rollouts, suggest that transparent contribution structures yield tangible, measurable results.
The implications point toward an ongoing negotiation between centralized maintenance protocols and decentralized community agency. While technical changes secure the platform’s operational health, the focus on personalized features like TextMatch signals a move toward empowering local communities to define their own standards within the broader framework. The challenge lies in ensuring that this rapid iteration does not introduce friction or create new barriers for less technically inclined contributors. What mechanisms are in place to ensure that community wishes and feature rollouts remain grounded in the principle of shared, deliberative agreement rather than emergent preference?