Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2025-02-07/News and notes

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|caption = The CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, Maryana Iskander, wants your feedback!

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The executive team at the Wikimedia Foundation, led by CEO Maryana Iskander, presents periodic updates about the states of their projects. The January 2025 update presents and links to narratives categorized as technological developments, legal challenges, the state of Wikimedia Movement fundraising, the budget for spending those funds, staff-organized communication into Wikimedia audiences, and the Wikimedia Foundation–developed pilot projects which are the alternative direction from the now deprecated Wikimedia Community Movement Charter.

The Wikimedia Movement has always aspired to community governance and oversight. As such, letters such as this one are Wikimedia Foundation staff responses to Wikimedia user community requests, petitions, and calls for action. As is usual for these things, the letter is rich with links to even more documentation, and that documentation is often the present culmination of hundreds of Wikimedia user community discussions over years. Aspects of this kind of shared governance which work well include mutual good will, the intent of transparency, invitations for community inclusion, and the Wikimedia platform's history of success in inviting and collecting community conversations which often satisfy the volunteers who participate and the Wikimedia community organizations which promote and observe them.

Any Wikimedian who has participated in these process will be able to offer either criticism or suggestions for improvement, but whatever anyone says, they will want to know that the Wikimedia Movement empowers staff, volunteers, and allies of all backgrounds to grow their ability to advance Wikimedia project goals and to distribute power and resources appropriately.

Interested readers should check out the update, and are invited to post questions on the talk pages of various projects. Those with lots of questions are invited to interview Wikimedia Foundation staff for upcoming articles in The Signpost, and outspoken commentators are invited to submit opinion pieces for publication here. – {{small|Br}}

In its [https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/publicpolicy@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/P2XQJ2KEMMIOGAHEQBJJWMIMUQV5OYXO/ European Policy Monitoring Report for January 2025], Wikimedia Europe shared smaller updates on several legal developments in the European Union, including regarding AI liability rules, geoblocking, anti-SLAPP measures, and obligations for online platforms, including Wikipedia, under the Digital Services Act (DSA) – see prior Signpost coverage here and here.

Concerning child protection, the chapter highlights recent comments by a representative of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CNCT):

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| text = - Age verification is a central issue, and we [the EU] need to work towards a European solution by mid-2025.

- Other ideas than age verification can be implemented, and it's a work in progress. We want to have a public consultation on the DSA guidelines soon.

- We are in close contact with the Australian authorities [these might include the Ministers for Communications, Cyber Security and Social Services] and with Ofcom in the UK [both countries have seen extended debates about mandatory age verification systems in recent years]. Banning seems effective, but it's excluding minors from useful areas. There are other means that are less intrusive. Different platforms pose different issues. Age verification is essential for adult content, but it isn't the answer for social media.

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– {{small|TB, O}}

In a controversial decision, the German Wikipedia's Café (archive) was recently deleted. Unlike the English Wikipedia's Teahouse, the Café, opened in 2005, was a place for off-topic discussion and socialising. Controversial IP contributions were part of the chain of events that led to the decision to delete – subsequently reviewed and upheld, but still the subject of ongoing discussion as many lament the venue's loss.

– {{small|A.K.}}

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler image-v2|image=File:Diversity icecream 072518 (7 of 57) (41846966250).jpg|size=300px|caption=You can join other editors in editing Ice cream social. And maybe enjoy an actual ice cream social afterwards.}}

• Turbulent times over at he.wiki: Meta:Requests for comment/Severe Problems in hewiki is an active discussion concerning an alleged takeover of Hebrew Wikipedia (he.wiki) by POV editors, "admins, checkusers and bureaucrats".
• Wiki-guests at FOSDEM: Wikimedia projects were at the center of several discussions and initiatives during the [https://fosdem.org/2025 2025 edition] of FOSDEM, a volunteer-organized European event about free and open-source software development held yearly in Brussels, Belgium. The related events included [https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-6006-creating-an-open-knowledge-graph-for-climate/ a project] involving the use of ontologies enhanced with Wikipedia and Wikidata to create Open Knowledge Graphs about climate change – see this issue's "Recent research" for more information – planned [https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-4867-enhancing-airflow-for-analytics-data-engineering-and-ml-at-wikimedia/ improvements] for the Airflow data engineering platform used by the WMF, and game stands dedicated to 0 A.D. and Luanti, with this last project receiving [https://wiki.wikimedia.it/wiki/Microgrant/2025/Luanti_al_FOSDEM_2025 a microgrant] from Wikimedia Italia.
• Articles for Improvement: This week's Article for Improvement is Ice cream social, followed by Peninsula (beginning 10 February). Please be bold in helping improve these articles!

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