Comments

The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2025-05-14. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Comix: Collection (352 bytes · 💬)

Indeed - topical while the debate rages about the disgrace of losing one's coveted Autopatrolled status after not having edited Wikipedia for three years!

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:37, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Community view: A Deep Dive Into Wikimedia (part 2) (924 bytes · 💬)

Regarding Open source, I think the "whenever possible" is misleading. On production servers, everything is open source, whereas the Wikimedia Foundation seems not to prioritize open source over proprietary tools for their work, not even when interacting with volunteers. Ainali (talk) 06:53, 21 May 2025 (UTC)
Just want to note that Czech Wikivoyage and Indonesia Wikivoyage were both launched in 2024 and no longer stuck in Incubator, contrary to what this guide wrote. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 20:23, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

Debriefing: Goldsztajn's RfA debriefing (390 bytes · 💬)

Thanks for writing this! It's always interesting to read people's debriefs. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 22:04, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Disinformation report: What does Jay-Z know about Wikipedia? (4,980 bytes · 💬)

Not sure pasting Buzbee's business page with his permission would violate WP:COPYVIO, though probably a lot of other things. Probably an OTRS email would be a good idea though… All the best: Rich Farmbrough 23:02, 14 May 2025 (UTC).

@Rich Farmbrough: So how can copying your boss's business webpage (or even the boss copying his own webpage) be a copyright violation? It's one of the great mysteries of Wikipedia's rules. All the boss would have to do is create a userpage and say "Hey, that's my webpage and I own the copyright. I give you permission to use it." Otherwise, our copyright enforcing admins have no idea that we have permission to use it. So it's a copyright violation. Of course if the copyright owner did make that declaration, the page would get removed for being an advert. Six of one, half-dozen of the other.

The best admin for copyright violations is probably @Diannaa:. I haven't checked in with her, but she might be better at explaining this than me. Diannaa, as long as you're here, could you confirm that the first version of the article [1] is a copyvio of the archived webpage at https://web.archive.org/web/20120712222554/http://www.txattorneys.com/attorneys-3.html (July 12, 2012 or the next previous version). Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:39, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
Sorry for the delay in replying. I would not call this a copyvio, because it's job titles, military ranks, and the like. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 20:58, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

- @Diannaa: - Sorry for putting you on the spot. When writing this I figured I had enough detailed information that I didn't want to go into another long section about a copyright violation. I hadn't seen the software used on-Wiki. Here's the comparison I was using

Copyright vio?

Business website

Aside from his legal practice, Buzbee is heavily involved in his community as a property developer, working to revitalize historic downtown Friendswood. Buzbee is also a business owner, responsible for various well-known retail endeavors, commercial buildings, and hotels. Buzbee also serves on the Board of Directors of Hometown Bank, the Board of Directors for The Jesse Tree (a nonprofit organization that assists the homeless and those in need in Galveston and Brazoria counties), and has served on the Board of Visitors of Texas A&M Galveston.

In 2002, Buzbee was recognized by his peers in the Texas Lawyer, as one of the Top 5 “Go To” Lawyers for Commercial Litigation in the State of Texas, and has been repeatedly recognized as a Texas “Super Lawyer” by Thomson Reuters. Buzbee has been profiled in several books, and has appeared on the cover of the New York Times Magazine.

1st version Wikipedia article

Recognition

In 2002, Texas Lawyer named Buzbee as a Top 5 “Go To” Lawyer for Commercial Litigation in the State of Texas. He has been selected five times as a Texas “Super Lawyer” by Thomson Reu-ters (2004, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011).

…

Buzbee serves on the Board of Directors of Hometown Bank, the Board of Directors for The Jes-se Tree , and the Board of Visitors of Texas A&M Galveston.

Business interests

Buzbee is heavily involved in his community as a property developer , working to revitalize his-toric downtown Friendswood. He owns Buzbee Properties, a residential and commercial real es-tate firm focused on the south Texas communities of Friendswood, Pearland, Alvin, Webster, Pasadena, Clear Lake, League City, Kemah and Seabrook. Buzbee also owns various retail en-tities

So there is lots of duplicate text and some added text in the same sentences. Something like close paraphrasing IMHO. Then there are the odd dashes in the words, e.g. "Reu-ters", "Jes-se", and "his-toric". There's much more of that. I figure it's from copy-pasting text with justified margins. Thanks for the help. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:50, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

More like... Wikipe-djyeah! Sorry, that was so cheesy I should be sued for it. : D Oltrepier (talk) 09:29, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

From the archives: Humor from the Archives (1,472 bytes · 💬)

Jimbo and Larry walk into a bar (disambiguation). "Again? We should have ducked." - UtherSRG (talk) 22:24, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
Ok, I've had 6 years to think about this:
- Jimbo and Larry walk into a bar and see Sue Gardner. Jimbo tells Larry "Hey that's Sue Gardner - I'll introduce you." They belly up to the bar next to her, causing it to shake (they've been getting a bit older and put on some weight). The bartender rushes over and says "Hey don't break the furniture! Where do I recognize you from? Didn't you create Wikipedia, I've seen your pictures all over the Wiki! Let me buy you a drink!" Sue responds "Just a glass of white wine, please." Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:20, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
Roses are red violets are blue, I take Visa and Mastercard too! said by Trisha in Bob (TV series) The Lost Episode. ^Thanks,L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 16:18, 20 May 2025 (UTC)
Can someone explain to me what "if you display any knowledge of our products we'll fire you" means in article editing? I...don't get it. :P Thanks. Carlinal (talk) 17:35, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

In focus: On the hunt for sources: Swedish AfD discussions (4,814 bytes · 💬)

Fascinating and useful article, thanks for writing it. —Ganesha811 (talk) 22:23, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
Thank you! /Julle (talk) 22:32, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
For the service which goes back to the 1800s, wouldn't some of the older stuff be in the public domain? It would seem at least that material could be made freely accessible from anywhere. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 23:04, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
Yes, they do make anything older than one hundred years old publicly available – I should have been more clear on that point. This is sometimes convenient, but for the kind of Swedish topics which tend to turn up at Articles for Deletion, it's rare to find any useful sources that old in the newspaper archive. /Julle (talk) 23:09, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
Nice article, I feel your pain! Often a newspaper can't easily be used as a source for a claim because they word it in such a way that they could mean something else. An academic writer would be less likely to do this. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 23:09, 14 May 2025 (UTC).
Thanks, Rich! I'd prefer that we turned to academic sources rather than newspapers whenever possible, for the reasons I mention in the text, but it's far more common for musicians, writers, companies and so on to have been the subject of journalistic endeavours than having become part of the total sum of academic knowledge. /Julle (talk) 23:23, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
The work of Swedish Wikipedians on the English language Wikipedia's military history articles has been superb! Please convey my appreciation to your colleagues. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:29, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
When doing a before search for something from a foreign nation, I do searches in that nation's language and use my browser's translator to see if it's about the subject in question. Google Advanced Search lets you filter by some of the most common languages, and you can also look at the Wikipedia article of that respective language if it exists to see what it's called there. If offline sources dispute a delete vote's claim and it's not addressed, then WP:DRV might be appropriate. Regarding journalism, I agree that it is sub-optimal and have written an essay on why it often isn't sufficient when evaluating notability or due weight. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 22:47, 16 May 2025 (UTC)
Thanks for your insight! I interpreted Julle's Google News often omits Swedish news articles to mean that Google News sometimes doesn't index those news articles very well. Regardless, I appreciate this write up. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 18:16, 18 May 2025 (UTC)
Yeah, I'd say not finding a Swedish article in Google News is the norm rather than the exception. /Julle (talk) 20:13, 18 May 2025 (UTC)
The issue you raise with recycled journalism in highly respected outlets cuts both ways. I'm not sure to what extent this is still true, but I recall that during the '80s and '90s it was not uncommon to see what seemed to be a really well-reported, in-depth article on something going on in the U.S. by a European newspaper's U.S. correspondent, only for a very similarly-worded original to show up in the International Herald Tribune a couple of days later clearly identified as having come from the Times or the Washington Post. Smarter journalists learned to avoid this embarrassment by cribbing from The Los Angeles Times since in the pre-Internet era it had almost no European circulation and could be counted on for quality copy. Daniel Case (talk) 18:09, 20 May 2025 (UTC)
Daniel Case: Oh yes, it's completely normal. The problem arises when we start ascribing credibility to the rewrites according to where they happened to turn up rather than the quality of the original piece of journalism. /Julle (talk) 19:59, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

In the media: Wikimedia Foundation sues over UK government decision that might require identity verification of editors worldwide (8,500 bytes · 💬)

I think it's fairly obvious that forwarding and sharing is likely to imply the sort of mechanism used when one shares or forwards a social media post. That doesn't necessarily resolve the issue, because one would need to know what the courts would decide about specific mechanisms (are they "of that sort"). However I hope it moves things a step forward. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 22:44, 14 May 2025 (UTC).

As you indicate, the expression "fairly obvious" is pretty dangerous in this kind of legal context - regarding lawsuits, it can become "famous last words", as it were.

This is part of a broader problem where Wikipedia (or, here, specific parts of it) may end up as collateral damage when regulation-happy governments and legislators in many countries try to crack down on "Big Tech" social media sites, and fail to consider that there are still a lot of other websites around which might get hit too. Over the last few years, WMF and local chapters like Wikimedia UK or Wikimedia Europe have done lots lobbying about that kind of legislation, explaining to lawmakers things like "you may be intending to do X, but for Wikipedia it will mean Y" (similar to your point here). In other Western democracies this has helped avoid some of the worst possible things, but the United Kingdom seems an especially problematic country in this regard. (I hear WMF and/or WMUK have been in conversations with Ofcom - the UK's ~~censorship authority~~ telecom regulator - for years, but that their words have been fallen on deaf ears. Hence, presumably, this Hail Mary lawsuit.) See also this part of the WMF's Medium post:

for services like Wikipedia to thrive, it is essential that new laws do not endanger charities and public interest projects.
Thankfully, new laws, like the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), are usually written flexibly. Others, for example in Australia, France, and Germany, can be more specific, but then avoid collateral damage by exempting nonprofit organizations or educational projects.
That was also the intention for the OSA. Its long and difficult creation, however, led to what has been called a “Frankenstein” law. It is around 300 pages long, and imposes more duties than any other online safety law of which we are aware. It has even accumulated over 1500 pages of supplemental Ofcom guidance and Codes of Practice—with more yet to come.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 00:15, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Cheers for the Indian SC. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:59, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

This is incredibly concerning. Wikipedia and the other wikiprojects are bastions of truth for knowledge. I know we're not perfect, and I certainly sound like an idealist, but we have our merits. I hope that we don't have to possibly break our anonymity, because of UK law. But that is just my gear thrown in. TheClocksAlwaysTurn (The Clockworks) (contribs) 18:15, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

I hope that the WMF chooses to cease operating in the UK so that it doesn't have to follow UK laws, rather than impose identity verification on worldwide contributors. I recall a lot of British editors saying that OSA was no big deal, clearly they were wrong. (t · c) buidhe 03:30, 16 May 2025 (UTC)
It's pretty crazy that the WMF might either have to stop operating in the UK, or force all editors to verify their identities. Let's hope that this identity verification thing doesn't end up happening. Opm581^{(talk | he/him)} 10:00, 17 May 2025 (UTC)
I suspect many UK editors are, like me, more-or-less resigned to losing access to Wikipedia. Our government is hell-bent on monitoring the online activity of all its citizens under the mantra of 'keep the children safe', which is a laudable aim but which many believe is being implemented with undue zeal. The crazy thing is, I've thought long and hard about posting this comment because I don't want to risk arrest by saying too much. Such is the UK at the moment. Neiltonks (talk) 08:33, 18 May 2025 (UTC)
Perhaps some British editors could use a VPN and request IP block exception, but that is not an option for many of our editors and readers that would be affected. (t · c) buidhe 22:37, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, I hope that too. Especially because it would mean editors who are kiddos (Using kiddos to mean those under the age of 18), would also have to register with the UK's government. That really seems nightmarish, and I'd hate to see literal children have to register with their government just to use Wikipedia. TheClocksAlwaysTurn (The Clockworks) (contribs) 17:07, 20 May 2025 (UTC)
Was Nineteen Eighty-Four a lesson for the rest of the world--or a playbook for those currently in power in the developed world? And we don't want to give that latter group any more ideas than they actually deserve! (Inspired by recent memories of Techdirt's comments sections.) --Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 06:26, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

I object to the headline "Wikimedia Foundation sues over UK government decision that might require identity verification of editors worldwide". The tacit assumption is that the encyclopedia would just have to shrug its shoulders and implement a system Orwell might have described. I would have gone with "Wikimedia Foundation sues over UK government decision that would require the encyclopedia to cease providing services to IP addresses in the UK". Marcus Markup (talk) 09:58, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Respectfully, it's the opposite. The current headline uses might to warn of a danger, whereas your suggestion's use of would assumes how the WMF will respond if it loses in court. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 23:05, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Oooh! Wikipedia's first fashion line? Tell me please, did someone buy something there already? What's it like? Plan to cop a hat and shirt there as soon as I can. I be whackin' off like Walsh. Carlinal (talk) 17:47, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

When I wrote this up, I didn't realize that Armedangels is notable. They are the vendor, I guess? Or designer? I'm not sure how the fashion t-shirt business works. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:51, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

News and notes: WMF to kick off new-CEO quest as Iskandar preps to move on — Supreme Court nixes gag of Wiki page for other India court row on ANI — code-heads give fix-up date for Charts in lieu of long-dead Graph gizmo (12,816 bytes · 💬)

I have a revolutionary idea. Why not hire a CEO for the Wikimedia Foundation who is an experienced editor on Wikipedia? Smallchief (talk) 22:14, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Interesting... All the best: Rich Farmbrough 22:32, 14 May 2025 (UTC).

Agreed. I made a potential suggestion and was shot down like a passenger pigeon, and told I was "cruel" for even saying so. Beware the hive mind. Viriditas (talk) 00:06, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

They don't care about Wikipedians. Their T&S doesn't work, they are not interested in it working. They are mainly interested in transferring 100 million dollars of wiki donations to aside organization and also they are interested in their expensive celebrations around the world when they praise each other for not caring about Wikipedians. Lyalya Tretikov, the preceder to Iskander, was very much interested in implementing ads in Wikipedia to earn big money. That's what they really think about. --ssr (talk) 15:08, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Lila Tretikov preceded Katherine Maher, not Maryana Iskander. Mz7 (talk) 20:02, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

"Preceded" doesn't necessarily mean the very next preceder. It doesn't matter in this context how many people were in between. --ssr (talk) 05:09, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

On the other hand, using the definite article in "the predecessor" generally does (in English) mean the immediate predecessor. Anomie ⚔ 11:04, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Also, {{citation needed}} on the claim that Tretikov tried to get ads on Wikipedia. Not sure I was aware of that before now. Mz7 (talk) 20:05, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Ask. Amir Aharoni told me so. --ssr (talk) 05:05, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Are you aware that "WMF staffers widely attribute a series of high-profile employee departures from the WMF to issues with Tretikov's leadership"? Maybe you also unaware of that both Tretikov, and J. Wales, were both caught on plain lies? Citation needed? Here it is. --ssr (talk) 05:34, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Where do these Signpost articles mention advertising?

And you might want to ping User:Amire80 directly if you attribute such claims to him.

(Perhaps there is some confusion with the Wikimedia Foundation's efforts to monetize particular forms of access to the community's content, via its for-profit subsidiary Wikimedia LLC. But that was not started under Tretikov, although she did launch efforts that were similarly driven by concerns about tech giants "borrow[ing] information from Wikipedia".)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:39, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

I do not remember his username because he was talking in a Telegram chat under Telegram account. There are things that do not involve Wikipedia usernames and talk spaces. The abovementioned Signpost articles clearly show us that there are things in WMF staff that are kept top secret. So you may be unaware of something. Or may not. --ssr (talk) 06:00, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

lila's obsession with secrecy was probably one of major causes of her being fired. I don't think the current regime is particularly open either, but lila was on another level, and the current regime should probably not be judged by her sins. Bawolff (talk) 21:29, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

For those not aware of the context, I was the Wikipedian they suggested (see User talk:Clovermoss#Chief Executive Officer). I definitely recommend the foundation to consider someone from the community, I just don't think I'm the best choice. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 21:08, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Tech companies risk ridicule when they hire a revolving door of CEOs who know nothing about tech. That's more or less what the WMF has done. Now, I'd be hesitant to put a power user up there even if they have an offwiki resume that would be worth consideration. There should be some degree of separation between the editors and the leadership to avoid personalization. But a base level of familiarity with how Wikipedia and its sister projects work should be a prerequisite. I'm curious if there's anyone currently at the WMF who has other necessary qualifications and could be a possible candidate. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 22:40, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

There are some current WMF staff who are both long-time editors and also IMO qualified for the job, but AFAICT the group that is current staff + qualified + long-time editors + willing to take the job is zero. It is not a fun job.

Almost every senior manager at the WMF is either already an editor, or is taught how to edit Wikipedia soon after they're hired. Most, but not all, of them edit the English Wikipedia. They mostly do so from accounts whose usernames will not be recognized. This protects them from special treatment (both of the overly polite kind and the overly critical kind) and gives them a realistic impression of how the communities behave. I remember one senior manager, who had not edited Wikipedia until she started at the WMF, being shocked when I told her that her volunteer account was now among the top 5% of accounts at enwiki by volume. She didn't think she had done nearly enough to rank so high. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:10, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Lila knew about tech and that was a disaster. Tech is a big world with lots of types of stuff in it. I think some knowledge is important but its not the be all and end all. More important is understanding wiki[mp]edia culture and knowing what we are trying to accomplish. In the tech world, most software failures are not because the tech is misunderstoood. The people who make tech generally understand their domain. The problem is understanding what their users need and want. It doesn't matter if you created the greatest piece of software ever if you made the wrong thing. This is true across the industry and wikimedia is no exception. Bawolff (talk) 21:11, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Coming late to this, but WhatamIdoing has a valid point: it takes a special kind of person to be a successful CEO of the Foundation. I may be unduly influenced to say this, but Iskander has been the best head of the Foundation so far. (COI admission here: she is the only Foundation CEO I have met in person.) If for no other reason than there was no major crisis between the Foundation & volunteer community during her tenure. Under Sue Gardner the volunteer communities were allowed to become estranged from the Foundation; Lila Tretikov was hired thinking that she was managing a software project & not an information project, which led to significant staff turnover; Katherine Maher remained so uninvolved with the communities that when there was accusation that undue Board influence led to the ban of an established volunteer, she mocked reports about the unrest -- & there was also the disastrous "rebranding" of the Foundation. I'd like to say that Iskander managed to keep everyone relatively content due to her experience with nonprofits, not her experience with technology or Wikipedia, but as I admitted I may be biased about this. And IHMO we need a leader of the Foundation who has the skills to balance the needs & desires of everyone involved -- both volunteers & employees -- while being able to keep our implicit goal of providing free information to everyone. -- llywrch (talk) 21:23, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

Well i agree that Iskander has succeded in the sense there was no disasters, i would also say the foundation didn't really do much either under her watch. Sue does bear the blame for allowing community-wmf relations to falter, but at least wmf was ambitious under her tenure. We got e.g. visual editor, Echo, pending changes, Vector. Things we take for granted now. Sure there were definitely also failings, but there were also big succeses too. One way to not screw up is to never take risks, and i can't help to feel both katherine and iskander kind of fall into that bucket. (As far as lila goes, i actually think a big part of the problem there was she was also terrible at managing it as a software project too) Bawolff (talk) 20:01, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

Not that I have been around for so long to be able to compare the pros and cons of various CEOS, but I heard about this at some point. I think that anything moving in the direction of listening to community perspectives more often is a good thing. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 20:59, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

I've noticed a lot of people talk about wishing that wikipedians were hired into WMF management (something i agree with). I think its interesting that the last time that was true was during Sue's era and that is also when people think wmf-volunteer relations went off the rails (e.g. User:Eloquence, a wikipedia admin, was the deputy director at the time, a role roughly equivalent to the CTO in modern times. Lots of other staff were wikipedia editors or at least a much wider percentage than modern times). I wonder if wmf staff being part of the community might make them consult less, since they feel like they already know what the community wants, and wikipedia's ethos of WP:BRD encourages people to act first ask second. Bawolff (talk) 22:09, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

That's the best explanation I've seen so far. Thanks for the insight. Viriditas (talk) 22:17, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

+1. The issues with Lila went far, far deeper than any misconceptions she might or might not have held when she was hired.

Ten years ago, I would guess that many Wikipedians were looking back on Sue's tenure with disdain because of those "risks" you've named. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 22:48, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

I see no great charm in preferring an insider in the top job. Our little WP:WMNYC chapter hired its first Executive Director, who brought several skills but not WP editing. She merely had to learn some elementary Wikitext skills to carry on correspondence and write announcements. The skills we learn in proofreading, settling disputes, organizing subsections and the like have only slight relevance to the work of an executive. Managing an org, small or large, is its own art, and it's a people art, not a technical one so I see no great disadvantage from brining in someone whose previous experience is in organizations whose methods and goals differ somewhat. If they worked previously in newspapers or advertising or some other kind of publishing, perhaps they will bring us useful insights that we relatively large number of editors have missed. I mean, whom are they meant to represent? Us specialists? What's wrong with them being more like the consumers who read our fine work, the outsiders? Jim.henderson (talk) 23:14, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

Counterargument: Several years ago, I spent a marathon session across three days hunkered down listening to the Nixon White House tapes (1971–1973), most of which are online and freely available to the public to download or stream. The big takeaway I got was that these executives were completely detached from average people and the mission of the country. Viriditas (talk) 23:22, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

Obituary: Max Lum (User:ICOHBuzz) (1,958 bytes · 💬)

May he rest in peace. Pyramids09 (talk) 05:17, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
Deepest condolences from Vulcan. –Vulcan❯❯❯Sphere! 08:52, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
Max was a great supporter of the development of medical content for Wikipedia. I appreciated that he took the risk of advocating that professionals with subject matter expertise should use Wikipedia editing as a strategy to share knowledge. Although editing Wikipedia seems like an obvious benefit to Wikipedia editors, there are not many experts or research institutes which have enough belief in open knowledge to commit to sharing content. Max took positions that were important precedents. He was also unusual for coming to Wikipedia community events and actually talking with editors, and trying to understand how to better collaborate with them. Among organizations which do collaborate with Wikipedia, they often use Wikimedians in Residence as their sole point of contact with Wikipedia editors. Max supported Wikimedians in Residence, but also he himself was a bridge between the knowledge of his institution and Wikipedia's community of editors. He was a great supporter and a part of a major success story in open knowledge sharing. Bluerasberry (talk) 20:15, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
R.I.P. --ISometimesEatBananas (talk) 22:10, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

Technology report: WMF introduces unique but privacy-preserving browser cookie (1,195 bytes · 💬)

The Wikimedia foundation is now rolling out an update where you're able to get a QR code for a page on some Wikimedia projects Why? It is %CURRENTYEAR% and no one uses QR codes and everyone hates them (right?). Polygnotus (talk) 16:07, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

I mean, people still do use QR Codes, for surveys, registrations, recruitment, but, a QR code to a Wikipedia page? I wonder who would do that (Probably me!) Myrealnamm (💬Let's talk · 📜My work) 23:51, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

It could be useful for offline engagement for on-wiki activities, like an editathon poster at the host institution with a QR code to link to the sign up page. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 06:12, 29 May 2025 (UTC)