Are large language models widening the digital divide between majority and minority languages? Or can they be harnessed in preserving language diversity?
On Day 3 of Wikimania Paris, representatives of many different language and cultural communities shared their experiences in working within the Wikimedia movement.
Respect for indigenous communities
Erroneous information about indigenous languages and cultures can alienate potential contributors. During the keynote panel, Michelle Collipal, a member of the indigenous Mapuche community in Chile, shared how she has started to motivate Mapudungùn speakers and cultural authorities to engage with the Mapudungùn Wiki project.
Moderator Dr Terri Janke underscored the importance of involving indigenous communities, respecting their knowledge as well as their right to self-determination. What this means in practice for wiki spaces is discussed in the white paper “CutureStrong Platforms: Setting the Standard at Wikimedia”.
Automating and improving translation
During “Language Diversity in the Digital Commons”, Pau Giner of the Wikimedia Foundation shared that the MinT (Machine in Translation) was designed from the start to support diverse language models. The platform currently supports 200 languages.
His ideas for the future include making Wikipedia articles more accessible on mobile phones, and to offer a collection of tools to help people create their first wiki, going beyond translation.
During the Q&A, Kepa Sarasola (User:karasola) of University of Basque reflected on the improvement of translation tools available since he started working on Basque Wikipedia in 2011. The tools, he said, had made it possible to grow minority language Wikipedias – while giving them the flexibility to choose which parts of articles to translate and where to start from scratch. The integration of AI tools has accelerated the process significantly.
Collaboration across communities
The need for collaboration across language communities was a recurring theme across multiple sessions. One example of a cross-border network is Linguatec-IA, an EU project for the digitization of languages in communities in the Pyrenees region, including Basque, Catalan, Occitan, and Aragonese.
David Castillo Parra of UNESCO discussed the launch of the New Commons Incubator for indigenous-led capacity building programs. Applications will be accepted for indigenous-led teams through 14 August.
The need for the Wikimedia movement to remain true to its mission – and to aligning on milestones that matter – was an inspiring message from Audrey Tang in “The State of Wikimedia & AI 2026”. “Don’t let it be a race…Wikipedia never tried to win. We tried to make sure there were many winners at any one time.”
As Jimmy Wales told Le Monde, “It’ll be all right. We’ll adapt, change, use AI in our own way. We’ll find a way.”
For the second time in a row a Ukrainian edition of Wiki Loves Monuments international photo contest had a special category dedicated to Polish heritage in Ukraine — almost 4600 photos by more than 100 authors were submitted. This special category was a joint project of Wikimedia Polska and Wikimedia Ukraine.
A collage of the winning photos of the 2025 Polish Heritage in Ukraine campaign
Mykola Kozlenko (NickK), a member of Wiki Loves Monuments Ukraine organising team, Board member of Wikimedia Ukraine, commented:
“As a background, Wikimedia Ukraine has been organising Wiki Loves Monuments since 2012, with a goal to collect photos of all cultural heritage monuments of Ukraine on Wikimedia Commons, notably for use on Wikimedia projects. One of the main problems we encountered early on was that our official state lists are biased, especially regarding communist heritage, which was the main reason to have monuments protected or not back when Ukraine was under Soviet rule. And it really matters, as participants are more likely to upload pictures of monuments they associate themselves with.
So we started to organise special categories for less represented monuments of national minorities in Ukraine as early as 2013 — Armenian, Greek, later Crimean Tatar, Jewish, German, Polish, and the most recent one, Bulgarian. It does require more work from us, as we also need to find information about monuments that are not listed officially, or read additional sources to add this or that object to the special categories lists. But it helps us to expand the database of cultural heritage, make it less biased. And it helps us to increase awareness, and motivate veteran participants to continue taking part in the contest, and attract new participants, either interested in the multicultural past of Ukraine, or being a part of those national minorities themselves.
The Polish Heritage in Ukraine campaign was conducted for the second time, and we are very pleased with the results — almost 4600 pictures uploaded by more than 100 authors, depicting 373 monuments, and out of them — 41 are not officially protected by the state, so they are even more endangered, as they can be not only destroyed or damaged by russian drones or rockets, but they can be demolished or repurposed with no oversight by the cultural heritage protection authorities.
The main purpose of a separate special category continues to be to draw attention to these monuments and their condition, and to document them for Wikipedia. And we are very grateful for the support of Wikimedia Polska, that made this project possible, and also to our volunteers and participants for their continued active involvement in the project”.
The Polish Heritage in Ukraine campaign was happening alongside the main contest period for Ukraine in October 2025. Volunteers updated the lists for the special category, so as of now it is containing 1358 monuments (488 out of them with no official protective status). During the campaign itself 102 participants submitted almost 4600 photos, picturing 373 monuments (41 out of them are not registered as monuments) from 15 regions of Ukraine. 24 monuments were pictured for the first time.
A Wiki Loves Monuments Ukraine barnstar
Due to a considerable number of submitted works, there was a pre-selection round. 16 volunteers from Poland took part in reviewing the images. Some Polish volunteers shared their reflections on the photos, their motivation to help, and the process.
Piotr “PMG” Gackowski, Polish volunteer helping with preselection, an editor with almost 9 mln edits on Wikimedia Commons, a Polish Wikipedia administrator, reflected:
“I participated in the preselection of photos for many reasons. One of them is patriotism. In this way, I can support the memory of Poland and the Polish people. The second point is the curiosity typical of every Wikipedian: I took part in the Polish WikiLovesMonuments and wanted to see what photographs from other countries look like. For me, the difference was that the photographs from Ukraine that I was rating much more frequently showed objects in rural areas. In Poland, large cities dominate, so in my opinion it was a significant difference. At the same time, it is important to me that I can help Wikipedians from Ukraine in their work. I am aware that every monument they commemorate by taking photographs could be destroyed”.
Teukros, a Polish pre-selection volunteer, and a Polish Wikipedia administrator, commented:
“I have participated in the photo preselection process for the Wiki Loves Monuments campaign (Polskie Dziedzictwo w Ukrainie) twice now, and I have genuinely enjoyed doing so. To be honest, I did not have any particularly special reasons for joining this initiative – the simple fact that the Wikimedia community in Ukraine had asked for assistance was reason enough for me.
My experience of participating has been a mixture of sadness and joy. Sadness, because it is plainly visible that Polish heritage sites in Ukraine are often damaged, neglected, and that there is little indication that this situation will improve in the near future. Joy, because the very fact that the Ukrainian community has taken on such a challenge allows us to believe that at least the memory of the Polish presence in these lands will endure.
If I were to say what inspired the greatest sympathy in me during this project, it would, paradoxically, be the photographs that I had to reject. Crooked, overexposed, blurry, taken by amateurs without any special preparation – they were perhaps the strongest testimony that, among completely ordinary people, the memory of the shared history of Poland and Ukraine is still very much alive”.
The pre-selection volunteers reviewed 4571 images (the organising team removed images submitted by the participants with conflict of interest, like organisers and jury members), divided in such a way, that each image was viewed by 3 volunteers.
Archiwald, a Polish pre-selection volunteer, and a Polish Wikipedia administrator, commented:
“In February of this year, I received an offer through WMPL to participate in the preliminary selection process as a person assisting with the initial evaluation of photos. I was happy to join the effort, especially since I already had some experience with similar initiatives at the time. As an editor who focuses, among other things, on historical matters, I realize just how useful the files I’ve been reviewing will be. I’m not just referring to the winning photos here; even those that ultimately didn’t receive any awards add significant value to the Commons resources.
It’s a very pleasant feeling to look through the contest results and notice instances where the judges rated a photo just as highly as I had earlier. I felt that way, for example, when I noticed that the photographs of the palace in Pryozerne by Oleksandr Malyon had been recognized. Photographs like these have immense historical value, which usually becomes apparent only after many years; therefore, the author’s decision to make them available under free licenses deserves recognition”.
Adrian Tync (Gower), another Polish pre-selection volunteer, active on Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, and Polish Wikipedia, shared:
“I got involved in the photo pre-selection process because I’d taken part in the ‘Wiki Loves Monuments’ competition a few times myself as a photographer, and I was curious to see what it was like from the other side. I enjoy browsing and evaluating other people’s photos on Commons, for example in the Quality Images nominees section, so this was the perfect task for me. I’m interested in Polish historical monuments and Polish cultural heritage, and thanks to the pre-selection process, I got to see many of them”.
Out of this round 815 photos proceeded to the next round. The organisers reviewed the images more closely, and removed the ones that were not up to the technical standards (like lower resolution), so 711 images proceeded to the main jury, which included Polish Wikimedians and partners of Wikimedia Polska:
Damian Kujawa — Wikimedian, volunteer, activist;
Julia Szablowska — photo editor, photographer, curator;
Magdalena Lachowicz — Assistant Professor at the Department of Eastern Studies at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland;
Each work was viewed by all three jury members. 120 pictures made it to round two, where each jury member was asked to evaluate each work from 1 (minimum) to 10 (maximum) points. The guidance when evaluating pictures was:
from 0 up to 3 for technical quality (sharpness, use of light, perspective etc.);
from 0 to 3 for usefulness of the image for Wikipedia;
from 0 to 3 for originality.
1 additional point for something special in the picture.
The results are presented below, and they are grouped thematically, to showcase the breadth and depth of Polish Heritage in Ukraine, so the awarded works are from different regions of Ukraine, and are grouped by different objects depicted (churches, castles etc). No separate award for active participation — people awarded are among active contributors.
Best photos – Churches (pol. Najlepsze fotografie – Kościoły)
Holy Trinity Church (2022). Velykyi Ostrozhok, Vinnytsia Oblast
The author uploaded the first ever pictures not only of the church, but even from the village itself. And his pictures are now illustrating the article about the village on Wikidata and local Wikipedias (Wielki Ostróżek in Polish Wikipedia, for example). The version in Ukrainian did not even contain the mention of the church, as the building is not a listed monument officially.
Best photos – Palaces, Estates (pol. Najlepsze fotografie – Pałace, Majątki)
Potocki Palace (2025). Tulchun, Vinnytsia Oblast
Rej manor (2025). Pryozerne, Ivano-Frankivsk
Best photos – Other Buildings (pol. Najlepsze fotografie – Inne budynki)
The building was built by a Polish architect Mikołaj Tołwiński, there is no article about the school itself on Polish Wikipedia yet. Due to the Russian occupation of Mariupol, getting new free pictures (or even up to date information about the state of the building) is not going to be a trivial task.
Former house of the Branicki estate manager (2022). Rozkishna, Kyiv Oblast
This is also not a listed building, which makes its status to be more endangered — it is now privately owned, and there were news about it being on sale.
Best photos – Chapels (pol. Najlepsze fotografie – Kaplice)
The results of the joint project and winners were celebrated at the Wiki Loves Monuments Ukraine hybrid awards ceremony on May 30, 2026.
At the 2025 Wiki Loves Monuments Ukraine Awards Ceremony
Polish heritage in Ukraine Special category statistics
Winners present offline
Olena Suhak, one of the winners, commenting on her works
Serhii Plakhotniuk, one of the winners, commenting on his photo
Volodymyr Tarasov, one of the winners, commenting on his contributions
Oleksandr Malyon (on screen), one of the winners
The winners absent at the event will receive their prizes by post.
Iryna Boiko, communications manager of Wikimedia Ukraine, commented:
“This is the second time we are organising the “Polish Heritage” special category in the Ukrainian edition of the Wiki Lobes Monuments contest. The request to organise a separate category for Polish sites has been repeatedly expressed by the participants themselves, because many such sites are now falling into disrepair and simply collapsing in the absence of an active community to care for them.
The main focus of the special category was churches, Polish cemeteries, castles and fortresses, but the jury also paid attention to residential and other buildings. Of course, the parameters of inclusion in the contest lists are quite wide, because the very idea of the “Wiki Loves Monuments” competition is to collect photos to illustrate Wikipedia articles, and in order for the article to illustrate the life of a community or a certain period, the parameters of inclusion should be quite wide. So, the special category lists contain buildings created by Polish architects for Polish activists, or buildings where Poles lived, or buildings that were important for the Polish community of a particular settlement — like a bookstore in Kharkiv, that became a center of a local Polish community life.
My personal favorite photo, a very symbolic embodiment of what we are trying to achieve through this joint project with Wikimedia Polska, was the work of Valentyn Mahovkin, our long-time participant, which depicts the process of restoring an epitaph on a tombstone in a Polish cemetery in the village of Chornyi Ostriv in Khmelnytskyi Oblast. And, by the way, this cemetery is not officially protected, and only its gate has an official status as a cultural monument…”
Restoration of the epitaph (2024). Polish cemetery. Chornyi Ostriv, Khmelnytskyi Oblast
Wikiquote training in Bandung (Hasnanf, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons)
When people think about Wikimedia projects, most only know the world’s largest online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Many do not know that Wikipedia has dozens of sister projects, including Wikimedia Commons, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikisource, and Wikiquote. One of the lesser-known projects is Wikiquote. It is a collaborative project that collects and preserves notable quotations from famous people, films or series, fiction and non-fiction books, proverbs, and well-known sayings.
In Indonesia, Wikiquote is currently available in three languages, Sundanese, Banjar, and Gorontalo. In Wikimedia Bandung Community, we believe that community collaboration is essential to enriching Wikiquote’s content and introducing the project to more people. With this goal in mind, we launched WikiSuarana, a community initiative to enrich the Sundanese Wikiquote with quotations related to memorable events and popular trends from 2025.
Project outcomes
WikiSuarana project was carried out by four members of Wikimedia Bandung community: Hasnanf, Raflinoer32, Zulaihamaryam, and Sonofbrahma from March to May 2026. Together, we created 224 Wikiquote articles featuring quotations related to events that took place throughout 2025. Each team member contributed 56 articles to Sundanese Wikiquote.
In addition to our work on Wikiquote, we also contributed to Sundanese Wikipedia by creating 56 articles about notable events from 2025. We know that many Sundanese speakers still use Sundanese Wikipedia as a source of information. By enriching Wikipedia with these articles and linking them to the related Wikiquote pages, we make it easier for readers to discover and explore our collection of quotations on Sundanese Wikiquote.
Community outreach through training and meets up
Community outreach for Wikisuarana was carried out during the month of April 2026, consisting of a series of training and meet-up activities. As a warm-up activity, in the first week of April, we conducted a community meet-up to edit on Sundanese Wikipedia together focusing on creating new articles regarding remarkable events that happened throughout the year 2025 and the notable figures related to it. This event was attended by 13 participants, both online and offline, which created 14 new articles on Sundanese Wikipedia. By starting WikiSuarana with this thematic edit activity, it was expected to provide a thematic context regarding the purpose of this project, which is to document remarkable events and notable figures in Sundanese Wiki projects. Some of the articles that were the results of this event, for example Tambang Grasberg, Satelit Nusantara Lima, and Sri Rejeki Isman.
On April 18, the Asia-Africa Conference is annually commemorated in Bandung, since the city was the first host of the conference back then in 1955. On that day this year, we conducted a Wikiquote training activity partnering with an independent library in Bandung, which carried out the theme of anti-colonialism spirit. In this activity, we focused on training new contributors to edit and create new quotation articles on Sundanese Wikiquote regarding anti-colonial figures, anti-colonial literatures, and those related to the Asia-Africa Conference. The training was attended by 13 participants, which created 15 new articles. Hopefully, other than attracting new contributors, this event could be the beginning of a consistent effort to amplify and document the voice of anti-colonial figures through Sundanese Wikiquote. Some of the articles that were the results of this event, for example Behind The Scenes – Story of The Bandung Conference Committee, Teh dan Pengkhianat, and Leila Khaled.
The series of WikiSuarana was concluded with another community meet-up as a continuation of the prior training, which was focused to create and edit quotation articles on Sundanese Wikiquote regarding the theme of anti-colonialism and remarkable events that happened during the year 2025. This event was attended by 11 participants, both online and offline, which was also attended by some of the participants of the previous training event, and produced 14 new articles. Some of the articles that were the results of this event, for example Jawaharlal Nehru, Mohammad Yamin, and Ali Sastroamidjojo.
Lesson learned
Through WikiSuarana project, we all learned two valuable lessons:
The first is the importance of partnerships. As a local community, collaborating with organizations that share our mission is essential to promoting free knowledge, especially about the Sundanese language and culture. These partnerships help introduce Wikimedia projects and our community to a wider audience. During this project, we collaborated with an independent library in Bandung. In the future, we hope to work with more partners to organize Wikimedia activities such as workshops, research projects, and community meetups.
The second lesson is about promotion and outreach. In today’s digital world, many people get information through social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. Throughout the project, we created promotional content, from the project launch to activity announcements. However, we learned that relying on just one or two social media platforms is not enough. Recently, Threads has become increasingly popular, and one of our team members found that project posters shared there reached a wider audience and received positive engagement. Based on this experience, Wikimedia Bandung plans to use Threads alongside our other social media channels to promote future Wikimedia activities.
What’s next?
Documenting and amplifying the voices of the people who are part of history is a way to preserve our collective memory. By narrating them in their own voices, hopefully we can make sure that the history being told is honest-to-goodness. Through contributing it to Wiki projects, especially Sundanese Wikiquote, we also hope to be able to preserve them in our mother tongue.
Our plan forward is to keep documenting other voices that are still unheard while also promoting the sister projects of Wikipedia, which already has the Sundanese version, such as Wikiquote. We also plan to reach outward to other parts of West Java to attract many other contributors so that our community can keep growing while also adding much other knowledge to the Wiki projects itself.
I started working as a volunteer community manager for Wiki for Human Rights, Nigeria, in November 2025 with a focus on organizing trainings and retaining LGBTIQ+ Nigerian editors as active contributors to Wikimedia projects. Although I created my Wikimedia account on 1 March 2024, I did not understand how editing worked and never made any contributions after creating it.
The same year, I attended a Wikimedia session on Queerpedia. As a writer who is passionate about volunteering, particularly in the open knowledge movement, I still left without knowing how to contribute. The session ended with participants creating accounts but without a practical understanding of how Wikimedia actually worked. This is something I have observed among newcomers: navigating Wikipedia, the most well-known Wikimedia project, can be a daunting experience.
After-session group picture
That changed when I attended Wiki Loves Pride 2025, held on 29 June. It was my first in-person Wikimedia event, and with my laptop beside me, everything about contributing to Wikipedia suddenly became much clearer. Through editing Wikipedia, I also discovered the wider Wikimedia ecosystem and its sister projects. Even after the training, I still encountered a few challenges, particularly with adding awards, information tables, and infoboxes. However, through conversations on WhatsApp with the Wikimedia Nigeria Project Officer, Ayokanmi Oyeyemi (user: Kaizenify), who facilitated the training, as well as guidance from Wikipedia help pages and Wikimedia Commons documentation, I was able to overcome those challenges.
Since assuming the role of Community Manager and Project Officer for Wiki for Human Rights, Nigeria, I organised monthly virtual and physical training sessions aimed at improving editor retention. Organising both the physical and virtual Wiki Loves Pride campaign this June felt like a full-circle moment; déjà vu. It also became an opportunity to reflect on the learning experiences from reviewing participants’ contributions and identifying areas where new editors commonly struggled.
Tony Obinna facilitating a session
Since becoming an active Wikimedia contributor in July 2025, I have made more than 3,000 edits across Wikimedia projects, with a primary focus on LGBTIQ+ and Nigerian topics. Beyond editing, I have also taken on leadership positions, including serving as a committee member for the Nigerian National Funding program and as a core organizing member for Queering Wiki, scheduled to take place later this year in Canada.
Alongside the online Wiki Loves Pride campaign, we partnered with the Centre for Population Health Initiatives (CPHI), a health organization that serves both the general population and minority communities, to host Wiki Loves Pride. The program combined a Pride celebration with Wikimedia training for both experienced and new editors. It also marked the first time I independently facilitated an entire Wikimedia training session from the beginning to the end: account creation, making edits, and introducing participants to the broader Wikimedia ecosystem.
Participants engaged throughout the session
As someone who has always dreaded public speaking because of a minor speech impediment, becoming part of the Wikimedia movement as a community leader has helped me grow tremendously. Standing in front of more than 15 participants and leading a session on documenting queer knowledge, I did not freeze or lose confidence. Community advocacy for LGBTIQ+ people in Nigeria has always required me to speak publicly from time to time, but Wikimedia has made it a consistent part of my work through monthly virtual and physical trainings. It has taught me that confidence in public speaking is often built through practice, and that many of the fears we carry can gradually be overcome through repeated experience.
How can the Wikimedia community defend freedom, equity, and reliability on the internet? Are we in a global information crisis?
Several sessions on Day 2 of Wikimania Paris explored these questions from different angles. The morning kicked off with breakout sessions on how global trends are impacting government regulation – with attendees joining Wikimedia Foundation board members in small group discussions. Protecting free knowledge was a core theme throughout the day.
Many readers have also shifted from reading about climate change to reading more about other issues such as the cost of living crisis. Dr. Femke Nijsse (User:Femke) discussed the importance of meeting readers where they are – and explaining the science related to these issues.
While AI-generated content may have the sheen of reliability, it often turns out that the sources they cite are hallucinations or that they do not actually verify the claims made by the LLM. Editors on Wikipedia are now starting to use tools such as AI Source Verification (which itself uses LLMs) to predict the verifiability of claims made in a article.
AI crawlers: Encroaching on creativity?
“Collateral Damage? Human Creativity and Interaction in the AI Crawling Era” explored how organizations in the free knowledge ecosystem are responding to the massive increase in AI scrapers.
There was a consensus among panelists that attribution is a critical concern for authors. Creative Commons CEO Anna Turnadóttir and Monica Westin of Cambridge University Press discussed the need to educate authors about the benefits of open access models – while also acknowledging the need to experiment.
Mark Graham discussed how the Internet Archive is reaching out to news organizations to discuss alternatives to blocking the Wayback Machine, such as rate limiting and allowing access only for certain uses.
Striking a balance
Throughout the day, speakers debated the complexities of regulation – and how the rush to “do something” can backfire. Turndóttir said, “What used to be the internet handshake online is now the middle finger. And that sort of environment forces lawmakers to reach for blunt tools like regulation. The community needs to establish norms, but sometimes regulation does cause real harm.”
The keynote session on “Protecting Free Knowledge – The New Battlegrounds of Digital Freedom”, Nnenna Nwakanma (from the internet) discussed the discourse around regulation – and how European approaches may not be applicable in Africa. Panelists during the session, including Axelle Lemaire, architect of the 2016 loi numerique, emphasized the need for balance in protecting openness and freedom online, while also protecting the privacy of individuals.
The conference is making waves in France with media coverage in 25 outlets – including La Croix‘s print edition, a Radio France podcast, and more.
Group photo of the Indic Wikimedia Hackathon Hyderabad 2026, Image by Nivas
Program Purpose
Fifty-six contributors gathered at IIIT Hyderabad for three days to improve Wikimedia’s technical ecosystem. Unlike traditional hackathons that focus primarily on rapid prototyping, the Indic Wikimedia Hackathon 2026 introduced dedicated refinement sessions that encouraged participants to improve code quality, documentation, usability, and long-term maintainability.
Wikimedia hackathons are spaces for developers, designers, content editors, and other community stakeholders to collaborate on building technical solutions that help improve tools, workflows, and overall user experience across Wikimedia projects.
This hackathon is designed for:
Technical contributors active in the Wikimedia technical ecosystem, which includes developers, maintainers (admins/interface admins), translators, designers, researchers, documentation writers, etc.
Content contributors having an in-depth understanding of technical issues in their Wikimedia projects, like Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wiktionary, etc.
Contributors to any other open-source community or those who have participated in Wikimedia events in the past, and would like to get started with contributing to Wikimedia technical spaces.
Participants worked on a curated set of technical tasks prepared by mentors and organizers. They were also encouraged to propose their own project ideas, provided they included a clear problem statement, implementation approach, and were reviewed by mentors before the event.
Building on the experience and learnings from previous hackathons, this event was more efficient, inclusive, and collaborative.
The event aimed to involve more developers who have experience with the Wikimedia ecosystem and had prior experience already contributing to tools, extensions, gadgets, or other technical projects. Editors were paired up with developers to provide domain knowledge, helping them better understand editing workflows, user needs, and the intended behaviour of the applications/ extensions/ gadgets being developed.
Unlike other hackathons where rapid development is the primary focus, this event was not completely hacking but also incorporated dedicated refinement sessions.These sessions encouraged participants to improve the quality of the works by refining design, UI, data privacy, code optimization, documentation and overall maintainability. Additionally, the program also included brainstorming sessions, group discussions, workshops to help participants understand a broader perspective of this ecosystem beyond their individual projects.
Scope and Timeline
The hackathon was conducted as a three day in-person event at the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-H), a long-standing partner that provides space for technical and community events. The venue supported collaborative work through dedicated hacking spaces, mentor interactions, and discussion areas.
The scope of the event was flexible enough to encourage participants to work on a curated set of Wikimedia-related technical projects and tasks suitable for a hackathon which prepared by mentors or a custom project proposed by their own and reviewed by experienced developers and organizers, along with Team Challenges from Wikimania Hackathon 2026.
The program was structured into distinct phases. The first half of the event (approximately one and a half days) focused entirely on development where the first part of the first day was catered to some introductions and welcome notes, ground rules, ice breaker activities, followed by continuous hacking. On the second day, the event had a social activity and the morning session was mostly catered to workshops, brainstorming sessions, and getting to know about OKI work. The second half started with refinement phases. The third day focused completely on refinement, wrap-up and showcase.
Attendance
Total Attendees: 56
Organisers: 11
Mentors: 15
Participants: 25
Editors: 5
The majority of participants were developers with prior experience in the Wikimedia technical ecosystem. A smaller group consisted of experienced Wikimedia editors with technical knowledge, who collaborated with developers by providing domain expertise and user perspectives during the hackathon.
Activities Conducted
Prior to the hackathon, an orientation call was conducted for participants to give an overview of the program, the Wikimedia technical ecosystem, team formation details, and some logistical and operational arrangements. The session also introduced participants to Wikimedia, its technical ecosystem, guided them through basic account setup, and explained the overall hackathon format.
Following the orientation, participants were encouraged to have a call with their specific teams and mentors. These discussions helped participants better understand their assigned projects, including the scope, objectives, expected outcomes, and technical requirements. Mentors introduced project-specific workflows, outlining the scope, objectives, and tasks for each participant to help them engage effectively during the hackathon.
During the event, participants worked on pre-curated tasks across multiple Wikimedia-related projects and collaborated closely with mentors to understand issue tracking, patch submission, and debugging workflows. Mentors supported participants across different projects, helping them navigate both technical challenges and Wikimedia-specific contribution processes.
To complement the technical program, the hackathon also included community-building activities. An icebreaker session at the beginning of the event helped participants interact and build connections. On the second day, interested participants joined a social walk around Hyderabad, providing an informal opportunity for networking. A dedicated women’s dinner was also organized to foster stronger connections among women participants, encourage inclusion, and support long-term retention within the Wikimedia technical community.
Towards the conclusion of the event, a project showcase and presentations session was conducted, during which participants demonstrated their work and shared learnings with fellow participants, mentors, and organizers.
Outputs and Outcomes
The hackathon enabled participants to work on pre-identified tasks across multiple Wikimedia-related repositories, resulting in code contributions, feature enhancements, bug fixes, and documentation improvements. Throughout the event, participants gained practical experience with Wikimedia development workflows, including issue tracking, patch submission, code review, and collaborative problem-solving, with guidance from experienced mentors. Several participants continued engaging with their assigned projects after the event, indicating effective onboarding into Wikimedia technical workflows.
During the hackathon, participants submitted a total of 56 Phabricator tickets across multiple Wikimedia-related projects. The distribution of contributions is summarised below:
Clip2Commons: 9
Deployr: 7
Language Selector Rewrite: 1
Lingua Libre: 5
Montage: 4
NPOV Drift Detector: 1
Observability Tool: 7
Onboarding of New Wikipedia Editors : 2
OpenSpeaks Subtitler: 5
OpenSpeaks Tome: 3
Pywikibot : 3
Scribe: 6
Translate Tagger: 8
ULS Extension :8
Wanda Extension: 4
WikiEval Tool : 3
Wikievol Tool : 3
WikiLinkua : 2
Wikimedia Commons Android: 4
Wikisource Reader App: 2
Total: 87 Repo/Phabricator tickets linked
As part of the Indic Wikimedia Hackathon Hyderabad 2026, several teams worked on projects that directly align with the official Team Challenges announced for Wikimania 2026.
Lingua Libre – Boost multimedia experience, Connect multilingual knowledge
WikiLinkua – Gamify knowledge, Stream data with Wikidata
Wiki Translate Tagger – Connect multilingual knowledge
Wanda / WandaScore / WandaScribe – Welcoming newcomers, Fix the sources / Update the obsolete, The editor of the future
Scribe – Stream data with Wikidata, Connect multilingual knowledge
WikiEvolution – Explore knowledge
WikiNPOV Drift Detector – Deciphering biases
Language selector rewrite – Connect multilingual knowledge
These contributions included code changes, improvements, and related updates submitted under mentor guidance.
What went well:
Program design:
The overall event design enabled participants to collaborate with peers from diverse backgrounds and work effectively on technical projects.
The combination of structured onboarding, continuous hacking, and dedicated refinement sessions supported steady progress throughout the event.
Refinement sessions encouraged participants to improve code quality, documentation, user interface, and maintainability rather than focusing solely on completing tasks.
Mentorship and technical contributions:
Clear project introductions and continuous mentor support helped participants engage confidently with their assigned tasks.
Most of the identified hackathon tasks were actively worked on during the event.
Several participants continued contributing to their assigned projects after the hackathon, demonstrating successful onboarding into Wikimedia technical workflows.
Collaboration:
Pairing editors with developers proved valuable, as editors helped developers better understand user workflows, expected tool behaviour, and usability considerations.
Workshops and discussion sessions complemented the hacking sessions by providing participants with a broader understanding of the Wikimedia technical ecosystem.
Diversity and inclusion:
The hackathon achieved approximately <>% women participation, the highest among events organized by the User Group to date.
The women’s dinner helped foster stronger connections among women participants and contributed to a more welcoming environment.
What can be improved/Learnings?
Program schedule
Participants requested additional time for the project showcase and presentations.
Fifteen-minute breaks were considered too short and could be extended in future editions.
Starting sessions at 9:00 AM posed challenges for some participants because of commuting time.
Project selection
Hackathon tasks require more review before the event to reduce duplication of effort.
Greater emphasis should be placed on improving existing Wikimedia tools rather than developing new ones where similar solutions already exist.
Mentorship
Participants experienced delays when waiting for scheduled online mentor support.
Increasing mentor availability or ensuring more mentors are physically present during the event could improve the overall experience.
What’s next:
Based on the outcomes and observations from the Indic Wikimedia Hackathon Hyderabad 2026, the following recommendations are proposed for future editions of the event:
Prioritise improving existing Wikimedia tools and applications over developing new ones, where appropriate.
Continue incorporating dedicated refinement sessions to improve the quality and sustainability of contributions.
Allocate more time for project showcases, presentations, and participant discussions
Review the event schedule by extending break durations and considering a later start time where feasible.
Continue initiatives that promote diversity and inclusion, including activities that support participation and retention of women contributors.
Strengthen post-event follow-up and mentorship to encourage continued contributions beyond the hackathon.
Explore organizing additional hackathons, workshops, and technical events in college campuses to improve accessibility and encourage new technical contributors.
When people think about hackathons, they often imagine coding sessions, project demos, and late nights spent debugging. For me, Wikimedia Hackathon 2026 in Milan was something much more meaningful: a reminder that some of the most impactful ideas begin as simple conversations between passionate people.
Like many Wikimedia Commons contributors, I have often found it difficult to discover media through traditional search. Commons hosts millions of images, videos, and audio files, but today’s search relies mostly on filenames, categories, descriptions, and structured data not on what is actually visible or audible in the file itself. Hundreds of campaigns, contests and content initiatives add new media every year, which only makes the problem bigger. I kept wondering, half as a joke and half seriously: what if we could search Commons based on what an image or video actually shows, rather than what someone happened to type into its metadata?
It felt like a wild idea at the time, so I shared it with the Wikimedia technical community mostly to see if anyone else found it interesting.
Eugene, David and Gopa at WMHACK 2026
A researcher and developer named David, who had recently joined the Wikimedia community, came across the discussion. David had been working on a technology called WISE.. at the University of Oxford research focused on semantic understanding of visual and multimedia content, enabling people to search images, videos, and audio using natural language. What started as a random online exchange quickly turned into a collaboration. David hadn’t originally planned to attend the hackathon in Milan, but as we kept talking, we both got excited about bringing this kind of search to the Wikimedia ecosystem, and decided to meet in person and try to build it.
Looking back, that decision changed everything.
For two intense days at the hackathon, we worked side by side to integrate and demonstrate WISE for Wikimedia Commons — architecture, datasets, search quality, the usual string of small technical fires. One moment that stuck with me: the first time we typed “horse in an airplane” into the prototype, half-expecting nothing, and watched it actually return the right video. That was the point it stopped feeling like a demo and started feeling like a real tool.
What inspired me as much as the technology was David’s approach to problem-solving. In an era where most developers reach for an AI assistant the moment something breaks, David would just as often dive into technical documentation, research papers, and manuals first. Watching him methodically work through a problem rather than skip to an answer was a good reminder that strong engineering fundamentals haven’t gone anywhere.
What we built
The result of those two days is WISE, a new experimental search experience for Wikimedia Commons. It currently indexes Media of the Day content around 5,000 videos and is built to understand the actual visual and audio content of a file rather than its metadata.
Project Wise showcasing Semantic Image Search
Semantic search. Search using natural language and find media based on what appears in the image or video itself. A few examples that worked surprisingly well:
“man at a train station”
“horse in an airplane”
“man with a flower”
“pirate with a pistol”
Audio search. Search within audio content to find relevant recordings and segments.
Face search. Upload a photo of a face, and WISE can locate that person across images and videos… for video, it can even surface the timestamps where they appear.
Multilingual search. Queries work in multiple languages, including Hindi and Telugu. This matters more than it might first appear: most of Commons’ existing search tooling is built around English-language metadata, which quietly shuts out a large share of Wikimedia’s global, non-English-speaking contributor and reader base. A search experience that understands a query in Hindi or Telugu as well as it understands one in English is a small but real step toward making Commons more usable for the movement it actually serves.
This is only the beginning. We’re already discussing:
Expanding indexing beyond Media of the Day to cover Commons at a much larger scale.
Finding visually similar images after an upload.
Suggesting categories, filenames, and metadata based on visual similarity.
Improving search quality and broadening multilingual support further.
Most of all, this experience reminded me why I love being part of the Wikimedia movement. A passing idea shared on a community forum connected two people from different backgrounds and different parts of the world. An online discussion became an in-person collaboration. A concept became a working prototype. And a hackathon became the place that vision came to life.
Sometimes the most valuable outcome of sharing an idea isn’t the idea itself it’s the people who find it, connect with it and decide to build something together. For me, WISE for Commons is more than a search tool. It’s proof of that.
When I applied for Train the Trainer (TTT) 2026, I expected to learn how to organize better events, facilitate workshops, and become a more effective trainer.
Over three days in Hyderabad, I certainly learned those skills but I also came away with something far more valuable: a new understanding of how strong Wikimedia communities are built and sustained.
Rather than focusing only on editing or technical skills, the program explored the people behind Wikimedia the contributors, organizers, mentors, and volunteers who make free knowledge possible. Through discussions, hands-on activities, and collaborative exercises, TTT encouraged participants to think beyond individual contributions and toward building welcoming, resilient communities.
Here are some of the lessons that stayed with me long after the program ended.
Communities come before content
One of the biggest surprises on the first day was that very little time was spent talking about editing, and all.
Instead, sessions explored trust, belonging, leadership, contributor motivation, and community participation.
The panel discussion “What Makes Us Stay? Trust and Participation in Communities” highlighted something every Wikimedia community experiences: attracting contributors is only the first step. Helping people feel welcomed, supported, and valued is what encourages them to stay.
Another activity challenged participants to analyze contributor data across language communities. Looking at the gap between the large number of people who consume knowledge online and the relatively small number who actively contribute made me rethink community growth. I realized that successful outreach is not measured only by how many people join an event it is also measured by how many continue contributing afterwards.
The sessions on leadership, trust, and the Universal Code of Conduct reinforced another important message: healthy communities are built intentionally. Trust is earned through respectful collaboration, inclusive spaces, and consistent support for newcomers.
Wikimedia Commons is about preserving knowledge not just photographs
Before attending TTT, I believed I already understood Wikimedia Commons.
I had uploaded photographs, organized Wiki Science competitions, and knew the basics of licensing and file uploads.
The Commons sessions completely changed that perspective. Rather than focusing on uploading more images, the discussions emphasized documenting knowledge in ways that remain useful for future contributors. We explored why metadata, categories, descriptions, geolocation, and licensing all play an essential role in making media discoverable and reusable. One idea particularly stayed with me. Commons does not necessarily need another photograph of a monument that has already been documented hundreds of times. It needs photographs that document the subject well.
That simple idea changed the questions I ask before uploading an image. Instead of asking whether I can upload a photograph, I now ask whether it genuinely helps someone understand a place, object, or tradition better.
The photo walk around the IIIT Hyderabad campus gave participants an opportunity to apply these ideas immediately. Rather than simply taking attractive photographs, we practiced documenting subjects from angles that communicated information clearly and added educational value.
The licensing session also helped demystify Creative Commons licenses through practical examples, making it easier to understand how open licensing enables collaboration across Wikimedia projects.
Good communication keeps communities growing
The final day focused on communication an area that is often overlooked but essential for sustaining volunteer communities.
A session on Visual Storytelling in Practice demonstrated how photographs and personal stories can help communicate knowledge more effectively than facts alone. It reminded me that contributors often remember stories long after they forget presentations.
Another workshop explored communication strategies for different audiences. Working in groups, participants designed outreach plans tailored to specific communities rather than relying on a single approach for everyone. That exercise reinforced a simple but important lesson:
There is no single Wikimedia audience. Students, teachers, heritage enthusiasts, language learners, and professionals all engage with Wikimedia for different reasons. Effective outreach begins by understanding those motivations.
The session on Wikivoyage also introduced me to another Wikimedia project that I had not previously explored in depth. It demonstrated how documenting travel knowledge, local culture, and places contributes to the broader free knowledge ecosystem.
Finally, a session on community communication platforms highlighted how mailing lists, Telegram groups, discussion forums, and social media help communities stay connected long after events have ended.
Building a community is not only about organizing an event. It is about creating ongoing conversations.
Learning by doing
One aspect of TTT that I particularly appreciated was its emphasis on practical learning.
Rather than relying entirely on presentations, participants engaged in group discussions, storytelling exercises, communication planning, case studies, and hands-on Commons activities.
These exercises encouraged us to apply ideas immediately instead of simply listening to them.
The collaborative nature of the program also created opportunities to learn from participants representing different language communities, projects, and experiences across the Wikimedia movement.
That diversity of perspectives became one of the most valuable parts of the training itself.
What changed after TTT?
The impact of Train the Trainer extended well beyond the three days of the program.
It changed how I think about community building.
Instead of focusing primarily on organizing events, I now think more about contributor retention, mentorship, and creating welcoming spaces for newcomers.
It changed how I contribute to Wikimedia Commons.
I now pay much greater attention to documentation quality, metadata, licensing, and preserving local heritage through meaningful photographs.
It also influenced my later work within the Wikimedia movement. Many ideas that I developed while preparing proposals for WikiConference India, as well as my growing interest in documenting local heritage and strengthening community communication, can be traced back to discussions and activities during TTT.
Most importantly, the program encouraged me to think beyond individual edits and toward strengthening the communities that make those edits possible.
Why programs like Train the Trainer matter
Every Wikimedia community faces different challenges, but many of those challenges share common themes: welcoming newcomers, retaining contributors, building trust, documenting knowledge responsibly, and communicating effectively.
Train the Trainer creates a space where volunteers can exchange experiences, learn from one another, and return home with practical ideas that can be adapted to their own communities.
For me, the greatest takeaway was not a single workshop or activity.
It was a shift in perspective.
Wikimedia is sustained not only by articles, photographs, or software, but by people who collaborate, mentor, listen, and continue learning together.
That is what I brought home from Train the Trainer 2026 and it is why I believe programs like TTT continue to play an important role in strengthening the Wikimedia movement.
This conference is a space to create, share, and lead, not only to attend. This year, we are building around the theme Re-imagining the Knowledge Commons, and extending an invitation to you to find out together how we build and care for shared knowledge. We’re looking for proposals that go further than traditional editing, uploading, and coding, trying out new ways of taking part and making knowledge as a community.
WikiConference India will happen in Kochi, Kerala on 4th- 6th September 2026, in the spirit of Namukku Othukoodam (Let’s meet!).
The Evolving Knowledge Commons
The Knowledge Commons, in its digital form, has come to be defined by the Wikimedia ecosystem. Emerging trends in AI-based search and summarization, content generation, language translation, and new forms of interaction have brought new challenges to the way in which we contribute to the knowledge ecosystem and the way in which consumers unknowingly draw from it.
To ensure that knowledge remains open, inclusive, safe, and accessible, we cannot simply maintain what exists: we must actively shape ourselves to tackle what comes next and this is at the core of our Programming vision. Our theme aligns closely with broader Wikimedia movement priorities and also the global trends tracked by the Wikimedia Foundation. In a time of declining trust in online information and the rapid rise of AI-generated content; strengthening community-led, human-created knowledge becomes more critical than ever.
Key Questions We Are Exploring
How efficiently are we bringing traditional stores of knowledge- from people, libraries, academia, galleries, and museums- into the Knowledge Commons?
How do we protect the integrity of our knowledge, keep the Knowledge Commons verifiable, and protect the agency of our contributors?
What do all these changes and future possibilities mean for those of us contributing to Wikimedia projects focussing on Indic languages?
Core Focus Themes
We welcome submissions that address our core objectives and align with the following strategic directions:
Strategic Roadmap Building: Sessions that help us navigate the shifting digital landscape, the rise of new technologies, along with Sustainability and future pathways for Wikimedia in India and South Asia.
Community Leadership and Governance: Sessions that highlight community-led initiatives and how grassroots leadership can sustain open knowledge.
New Models of Participation and Contribution: Sessions related to technological enhancement, GLAM, EduWiki, and Knowledge-resource-content partnerships.
Knowledge Equity and Inclusion across Languages and Regions: Sessions focused on strengthening Indic-language projects and ensuring underrepresented histories remain at our heart.
Technology, Tools, and the Evolving Digital Knowledge Ecosystem: Exploring infrastructure, platform engineering, and the role of AI.
We especially encourage proposals that:
Share collective practical experiences and learnings, offering generalizable knowledge.
Highlight independent/community-led innovations that are reproducible in wider contexts.
Create space for dialogue, skill-building, and co-creation that travels beyond a single community.
If you have received a scholarship to attend, we especially encourage you to propose a session or be a part of one! Whether you are an experienced contributor or a newer community member, your ideas and experiences are essential to building a meaningful and inclusive program.
Submission Tracks & Formats
To help organize our collective program, we invite proposals across a variety of formats. Please review the session formats and suggested durations below to see where your idea fits best:
Poster presentations: Posters will be presented at the Conference Venue, allowing one-on-one discussions with participants.
Community meetups
Note: Unconference sessions are intended for informal meetings after 5:00 PM (following main conference hours) and will not be listed in the primary program schedule. Even if your idea does not fit perfectly into one of these exact buckets, we still want to hear it!
“WikiConference India is, at its core, a space for communities to meet, reflect, and reimagine- not just a conference, but a moment where communities see themselves and the impact of their work more clearly. WCI 2023 brought that vision to life by bringing Wikimedians from across India and South Asia together in Hyderabad for the first time since 2016, under the theme ‘Strengthening Bonds.‘ It reminded us that reimagining the knowledge commons is ultimately about people, how we connect, collaborate, and care for the spaces we build together. We hope WCI 2026 continues this journey forward.” – Nitesh and Nivas, Organisers of WikiConference India 2023
“WikiConference India 2026 is shaped by the community, and the program is at its heart. Through this call, we invite contributors to bring their ideas, experiences, and questions to the table and help co-create the conversations that matter most.”
As we prepare to meet in Kochi this September, remember that the “Knowledge Commons” belongs to you. We cannot reimagine it without your voice, your leadership, and your creativity. Submit your proposal today and help shape the roadmap.
The Wikimedia movement’s commitment to preserving and sharing knowledge took on a uniquely South African flavour last month as newly appointed Wikimedia Foundation CEO Bernadette Meehan embarked on one of her first major international visits since assuming the role.
Accompanying her was Bobby Shabangu, a respected South African open-knowledge advocate and the first African ever elected to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. Together, they spent time with Wikimedia South Africa volunteers, partners, and community members, exploring how local initiatives are helping ensure African languages, histories, and cultures are represented online for generations to come.
Cape Town: Where Ancient Stories Meet the Digital Future
The South African tour began in Cape Town with a visit to the Iziko Museum, where participants experienced a guided tour that perfectly reflected the Wikimedia movement’s belief that knowledge is created, shared, and preserved by people.
Among the highlights was a presentation of some of South Africa’s oldest rock art. Created over centuries by multiple generations, these artworks offered a striking parallel to the way Wikipedia itself is built today — collaboratively, incrementally, and collectively. Just as countless hands contributed to preserving stories on stone, volunteers across the world continue to build humanity’s largest collection of freely accessible knowledge.
Conversations with Cape Town-based Wikimedia South Africa board members and partners took visitors further “down the WikiRabbit Hole,” exploring innovative language preservation projects currently underway. Particular interest was shown in efforts supporting the incubation of Afrikaaps, a Cape Town dialect of Afrikaans, as well as initiatives enabling KhoeKhoe language speakers to contribute directly online through the development of specialised keyboards and editing tools.
Johannesburg: Showcasing Local Innovation
The visit continued in Johannesburg, where Wikimedia South Africa members presented a range of projects addressing the digital knowledge gap facing African languages and communities.
Many South African languages have rich oral traditions but limited representation in written and digital archives. Community members demonstrated how Wikimedia projects are helping address this challenge through locally led initiatives.
Decolonising Language Through Knowledge Creation
Editors showcased work on smaller and underrepresented language editions of Wikipedia, including Siswati, Tshivenda, Sepulana, and Xitsonga. Through the creation of high-quality educational content in local languages, volunteers are helping ensure that knowledge is accessible to communities in the languages they speak and understand.
Jo’burgpediA and Community Partnerships
The chapter also highlighted collaborations with universities, libraries, museums, and cultural institutions. Through initiatives such as Jo’burgpediA, students and community members are trained to document local history, ensuring that communities can tell their own stories rather than having them told by others.
Preserving Oral Knowledge
Discussions also focused on innovative approaches to documenting verified oral histories and indigenous knowledge. These efforts challenge traditional archival models that have often excluded African perspectives and lived experiences, creating new pathways for preserving cultural heritage within Wikimedia platforms.
A Global Mission Powered by Local Communities
Addressing chapter members, Bernadette Meehan emphasised the Foundation’s commitment to community-led knowledge creation and governance:
“Wikimedia’s global mission relies entirely on the local communities who understand the nuances of their own culture. Listening to the brilliant initiatives run by Wikimedia South Africa proves that the future of free knowledge is inherently multilingual and diverse.”
Her remarks recognised the vital role that local volunteers play in ensuring the internet reflects the richness and diversity of the communities it serves.
For Bobby Shabangu, the visit was also a reminder of how far the African Wikimedia movement has come.
Reflecting on his own journey, which began with editing Siswati Wikipedia because, as he puts it, “if I didn’t edit it, no one would,” Shabangu highlighted the growing influence of African contributors within global internet governance and knowledge-sharing spaces:
“We are moving past the era where Africa is merely a consumer of global knowledge. Through the hard work of our chapter members, we are ensuring that our grandfathers’ stories, our traditional customs, and our beautifully diverse languages are permanently archived for the next generation.”
Looking Ahead
The visit reaffirmed the importance of community-driven knowledge creation and the growing role South Africa is playing in shaping the future of free knowledge globally.
From ancient rock art in Cape Town to digital language preservation projects in Johannesburg, the message was clear: preserving knowledge is not only about recording the past — it is about ensuring that future generations can access, contribute to, and share their own stories.
As Wikimedia South Africa continues to champion linguistic diversity, cultural heritage, and open knowledge, partnerships between local communities and the Wikimedia Foundation will help ensure that South Africa’s rich tapestry of languages and cultures remains visible, accessible, and thriving online for decades to come.
Wiki Indaba 2026: Passing the Baobab
Joining the Wikimedia South Africa chapter were members of the core organising team for Wiki Indaba 2026 from Côte d’Ivoire, including Emmanuel Gueh and Donotein. Their participation provided an opportunity not only to engage in discussions with the South African community but also to share an update on preparations for Wiki Indaba 2026, Africa’s premier gathering of Wikimedians.
A special highlight of the visit was the ceremonial handover of the Wiki Indaba Baobab Tree statue to the new organising team. The Baobab, often referred to as the “Tree of Life” in Africa, symbolises wisdom, resilience, community, and the sharing of knowledge—values that closely align with the spirit of Wiki Indaba and the Wikimedia movement.
Wikimedia South Africa leadership proudly passed the statue to the Côte d’Ivoire organising team, marking the beginning of what is hoped will become a lasting Wiki Indaba tradition.
As the creator of Wiki Indaba, Wikimedia South Africa Board Chair and long-time Wikimedian Dumisani Ndubane reflected on the significance of the moment. He expressed his pride in inaugurating this new tradition and shared his hope that, in years to come, the Baobab statue will continue its journey across the continent before eventually returning to South Africa when Wikimedia South Africa once again hosts Wiki Indaba.
The handover symbolised more than a transfer of responsibility—it represented the continued growth of the African Wikimedia movement, the sharing of leadership across communities, and a collective commitment to ensuring that Africa’s knowledge, languages, cultures, and stories remain visible and accessible to future generations.
For years, rites and rituals have shaped the identity of communities across Nigeria. From naming ceremonies and traditional weddings to religious observances and everyday customs, these practices preserve values, beliefs, and collective memories. Yet many of these cultural expressions remain underrepresented on Wikimedia projects.
Wiki Loves Africa 2026 for Creatives in selected Nigerian universities broughtt together photographers and storytellers to document and share Nigeria’s rich cultural heritage under the theme “Rites and Rituals.” The campaign was held from February to April 2026.
Creating awareness and recruiting creatives
Between 1 and 28 February 2026, the campaign focused on awareness and participant recruitment. Outreach activities targeted creatives across six institutions and communities, while social media campaigns and sponsored advertisements on Facebook and Instagram helped expand participation.
These efforts introduced creatives to Wikimedia Commons and encouraged them to contribute freely licensed media that celebrate Nigeria’s diverse traditions.
Flyer for Awareness
Launching the campaign and introducing Participants to Wikimedia Commons
The campaign officially kicked off with a virtual launch held on 4 March 2026. The session introduced participants to the Wiki Loves Africa 2026 theme, “Rites and Rituals,” and provided an orientation on contributing to Wikimedia Commons.
Participants learned about:
Wikimedia Commons and its role in preserving open knowledge;
Creating Wikimedia accounts;
Understanding free licenses;
Best practices for successful contest submissions.
The virtual launch provided a foundation for participants, which some were first-time contributors to Wikimedia projects.
Training sessions
Throughout March and April, participants joined several training sessions organized by the international Wiki Loves Africa team. These sessions equipped creatives with technical and ethical skills required for documenting cultural heritage responsibly.
Audio creation and sound design training for Wikimedia Commons on 19 March 2026;
Ethical storytelling training on 27 March 2026;
“Documenting our Rites and Rituals with Respect and Integrity” on 28 March 2026;
Pattypan mass upload training on 4 April 2026;
Uploading photographs, videos, and audio files to Wikimedia Commons on 10 April 2026.
These learning opportunities strengthened participants’ understanding of visual storytelling, copyright, ethical documentation, and the technical processes involved in contributing multimedia content to Wikimedia Commons.
Taking the campaign to communities through photowalks
Beyond virtual engagement, the campaign emphasized practical documentation through physical meetups and photowalks.
Creatives in Rivers State held their meetup and photowalk between 3–5 April 2026, where participants explored their communities and documented the Easter Rites.
On 11 April 2026, creatives in Abuja gathered for their meetup and photowalk, providing opportunities for collaboration, peer learning, and hands-on experience in capturing images related to the theme. Gombe creatives hosted their physical meet-up on 25th April 2026, and so did Edo State and Oyo State.
Physical meet-up of creatives in AbujaDuring physical meet-up
Every photograph, audio recording, and video uploaded to Wikimedia Commons contributes to a growing repository of freely accessible knowledge, ensuring that Nigeria’s rites and rituals are visible to people around the world and preserved for future generations.
As participants continue contributing beyond the campaign, Wiki Loves Africa remains a reminder that documenting culture is not only about preserving the past. It is also about ensuring that African stories are represented and shared openly with the world.
For 25 years, the Wikimedia movement has been constantly innovating to promote the values of free and universal sharing of all human knowledge for the benefit of humanity. In 2026, as we face the challenges of connectivity, misinformation, and the rise of AI, our ability to innovate collectively is more essential than ever.
To address these developments, we are introducing a new program focusing on Team Challenges in the lead-up to Wikimania. This year, we are inviting experts and newcomers to the Wikimedia community to join forces with participants in our Wikimania Hackathon. The idea is not to replace the hackathon format, but to offer a different approach. We want to bring together diverse perspectives and skills by pairing Wikimedians from all walks of life (not just developers!) with professionals from other fields. The goal is to share our best practices and design digital tools that are sustainable, inclusive, and accessible to all.
Next week, we are kicking off our first online orientation sessions training newcomers on wiki tools. In the coming weeks, they will form teams with Wikimedia community members to undertake one of the 2026 challenges. Stay tuned for further updates as the teams work together toward the Team Challenges showcase concurrent with Wikimania Paris.
We can’t wait to see what the cross-pollination between different disciplines, perspectives, and skill sets will bring. Good luck to all!
10 challenges for maximum impact
The goal is simple: To turn the community’s needs into concrete solutions. We have selected 10 major technical challenges that address the complex issues encountered on a daily basis across Wikimedia projects.
These challenges are based on the three pillars of Wikimania 2026:
FREEDOM: Ensuring the interoperability of free software to facilitate its reuse and maintenance, and to guarantee its long-term viability.
EQUITY: Promoting multilingualism. Designing tools capable of overcoming language barriers to bridge gaps in sources and contributions on a global scale.
RELIABILITY: Developing AI-based detection tools to assist volunteer moderators in their work of verifying and protecting information.
Discover the 10 Challenges
Fix the sources Automatically detect outdated, retracted or broken sources in articles, and facilitate their updating or archiving.
Welcoming newcomers Reinvent how we onboard newcomers through chatbots, guided micro-edits, and gamification lower the barrier to entry on wikis.
Update the obsolete Identify and flag outdated articles, obsolete illustrations and screenshots, and outdated graphics to: encourage the community to update them.
Boost multimedia experience Enhance the audiovisual experience on wikis: playlists on Commons, a modernised video player, annotation of audio segments, and games focused on accents and pronunciations.
Deciphering biases Develop tools to detect gender, geographic, and cultural biases in Wikimedia content to: encourage the community to correct them.
Gamify knowledge Create serious games and playful experiences using Wikimedia data to: learn, contribute, and explore in new ways.
Stream data with Wikidata Take advantage of Wikidata content to: generate lists, tables or up-to-date visualisations, semi-automatically, for other projects in the Wikimedia galaxy or further.
The editor of the future Improve the editing experience: search & replace in the source editor, a standardized citation toolbar, a better visual table editor, and text alignment in VisualEditor to modernise and streamline contributions.
Explore knowledge Design and experiment new ways of sharing knowledge, in interactive and visual ways…for the modern web!
Connect multilingual knowledge Facilitate translation, the reuse of content across Wikimedia projects, and collaboration with other Open Source projects so that knowledge can flow freely in all languages.
For more information on the Team Challenges and how to participate, please visit the Team Challenges section of the Wikimania wiki. Please note that registration for the Team Challenges does not grant access to the rest of Wikimania.
WikiConference North America 2026 will take place in Edmonton, Alberta (Canada), on September 25–27, 2026, with the Culture Crawl happening on September 24.
We expect around 250 people to attend. This will include scholarship recipients, guest speakers, and affiliates from across the region. The conference will feature workshops, presentations, and networking opportunities, fostering connections among Wikimedians, educators, and cultural organizations.
Building the Future of the Commons
“Building the Future of the Commons” is about reimagining how we create and share free knowledge in a rapidly changing world. As technologies like AI reshape how information is produced and consumed, the Wikimedia movement has a unique opportunity to ensure the commons stay open, human, reliable, and inclusive.
This theme aims to spark conversations across communities, the tech world, and cultural and educational ecosystems. Together, we will explore the evolving relationship between Wikimedia and AI, highlight underrepresented voices in our communities, and deepen our work with GLAMU institutions.
One of the conference days will also focus on empowering contributors at every level: from newcomers making their first edits, to everyday contributors looking to develop or improve their skills, to experienced users with extended rights and the issues that are most relevant to them.
Registration will open on Wednesday, June 3, 2026.
Wikimedia Korea and Wikimedians of Japan User Group held 「日本・韓国 友好編集月間」”the Korea-Japan Friendship Editing Month” from March 23 to April 17, 2026. This was the second Korea-Japan editathon, following the event held during Asia Month in 2024.
Results report
It appears that 106 articles were created and edited by 29 participants. Thank you all for your participation.
When organizing events like this, I often worry about what will happen if there aren’t enough participants, but Wikipedians are so kind that they always end up joining in before I even realize it.
From the perspective of someone who reviews articles as part of the management team, there are benefits to this kind of opportunity, such as gaining knowledge that you wouldn’t otherwise learn, and satisfying your intellectual curiosity. It’s very educational and good. Wikipedia is a wonderful tool that allows you to share the knowledge you have and the things you want to know with people all over the world.
Article introduction
It would be impossible to introduce all the articles contributed to this editorthon, so I will only introduce the articles that were selected for the April Monthly New/Improved Article Award.
・「老松堂日本行録」…上野ハム…This article was written by Ueno Ham. It is said to be the oldest surviving travelogue of Japan written by a Korean. Apparently, it is something that is studied in high school Japanese history, and when a certain Wikipedian showed me a glossary of Japanese history terms, I was excitedly saying, “This is in there!”
・「朝鮮半島のヒスイ製勾玉」…のりまき…This article was written by Norimaki. I wonder if his experience writing about 「糸魚川のヒスイ」 “Itoigawa Jade” is proving useful. According to the article, it seems that these magatama (comma-shaped beads) may be of Itoigawa origin.
・「朝鮮半島の建築」…犭…This article was written by 犭. It’s surprisingly difficult to summarize such a broad topic into this size, so I think it’s truly impressive.
・「柳川一件」…This is an article I wrote. I will explain more later.
summary
When I first joined Wikipedia (around 2019), my impression was that the only editing event on Wikipedia was “Asia Month,” so I’m very happy to see an increase in these kinds of international events. I’m not very good at socializing, so I’ll leave the initiation of those kinds of conversations to those who are good at it, and I’ll focus on organizing these kinds of events.
Quokka (ESEAP’s mascot character) and souvenirs from Korea（Lin Xiangru, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia commons）
Perhaps because of this connection, at the ESEAP Conference in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, I received a gift related to Korea (probably a notepad) from, 韓国のウィキメディアン, a Wikimedian in Korea, and I really like the design of it.
My own view
「朝鮮通信使」狩野安信 “Korean Envoys to Japan” by Kano Yasunobu（I, PHGCOM, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia commons）
Now, this is my own view. I thought it would be strange to criticize the merits and demerits of other people’s articles without writing one myself, so I completely revised one of my own articles. It’s an article called「柳川一件」 “The Yanagawa Incident”
I usually write about the various feudal domains of the Edo period, so I didn’t want to stray too far from that if possible. However, 「対馬府中藩」”the Tsushima-Fuchu Domain”, which has some connection to Korea, was too heavy for me. While searching for a subject of just the right difficulty level, I came across this theme.
The Tsushima clan Sou, determined to repair the broken Korea-Japan relations caused by the Bunroku-Keicho War. But couldn’t find a way. They even resorted to tampering official documents to the capital in Japan(apparently they had been doing so regularly before), and managed to send a Korean envoy again, and restore diplomatic relations. However, one of their retainers (Yanagawa), who played a key role in this effort, became dissatisfied with his position and sought independence, ultimately taking the outrageous step of exposing the forgery of the official documents. This family feud is known as the “Yanagawa Incident.” It’s a very interesting story, and I enjoyed writing it. I was thinking, “These guys are tampering with official documents again (lol),” while I was writing it.
It was selected for 月間強化記事賞 “the Monthly Featured Article Award for April”. All’s well that ends well.
For close to two years, my involvement in the Wikimedia ecosystem was mostly technical. I contributed through code during hackathons as a member of Wiki Mentor Africa. I understood the connections among platforms such as Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Wikimedia Commons. I knew their importance, but I also felt there was more I could do. Something was missing in how I was contributing.
I came into the program with one clear goal: to gain a deeper, practical understanding of how to contribute beyond the technical side of Wikimedia. I wanted to move from simply supporting the ecosystem to actively building knowledge within it.
The training opened my eyes to the structure and responsibility behind Wikimedia contributions. I learned that every Wikimedia project is guided by strong principles that protect the quality and reliability of information.
On Wikipedia, content must be notable, verifiable, and supported by reliable sources. On Wikidata, data must be structured, accurate, and referenced. On Wikimedia Commons, files must follow copyright and licensing policies.
These are not just guidelines; they are what make Wikimedia a trusted global knowledge resource.
Learning Through Practice
One of the strongest aspects of the mentorship program was its practical training. The program did not simply explain policies and standards; it required us to apply them through real contributions.
I learned how to properly reference articles, structure content, improve neutrality, and contribute according to Wikimedia standards. At first, this process was challenging. Finding reliable sources, understanding notability requirements, and writing neutrally required patience and attention to detail.
However, through continuous practice and guidance from the trainers, these concepts gradually became clearer and easier to apply.
The trainers also played a major role in making the experience impactful. Complex policies and technical concepts were broken down into simple, understandable steps, making the learning process accessible and encouraging.
Milestones That Changed My Confidence
One major milestone for me during the program was creating two articles and receiving a barnstar in recognition of my contributions.
That moment shifted my confidence completely.
For the first time, I felt that I was no longer just observing how open knowledge is built behind the scenes. I was actively contributing to the preservation and sharing of knowledge myself.
The experience helped me see Wikimedia differently. It became more than a technical ecosystem I contributed to during hackathons. It became a collaborative space where I could directly improve content, document knowledge, and support representation online.
Growing Beyond the Program
Beyond technical editing skills, the mentorship program also changed my perspective on community contribution and leadership.
Looking ahead, I plan to share what I have learned with my community and support the onboarding of new contributors. I am also stepping into a new role as a trainer for an April editathon, which reflects how much this experience has shaped my growth within the Wikimedia movement.
This journey has been both challenging and rewarding. It pushed me to learn, adapt, and contribute more meaningfully.
Wikimedia is more than a platform. It is a collective effort to make knowledge accessible to everyone.
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