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The Signpost: 2 August 2026
[edit]- In the media: Union drive, most prolific editor make headlines
AI's impact on Wikipedia, World Cup editing, and encyclopedia's place in public life.
- News and notes: Foundation rejects voluntary recognition of union, proposed board eligibility rules sharply restrict candidates
Further: harassment allegations at Wikimania, and new RfC for Abstract Wikipedia.
- WikiConference: "Kurier, Signpost, wikipress: You can be a Wikimedia journalist" - Wikimania presentation by User:Noé Recap
A recap of Noé Gasparini's Wikimania 2026 presentation on the variety of wikipress outlets
- In focus: Is Larry Sanger the co-founder of Wikipedia?
A look over the years.
- Arbitration report: Think, and not just about content
ArbCom continues business.
- News from Diff: Meet the Wikimedians of the Year 2026!
Wikimedians of the Year 2026 announced at Wikimania 2026 - Paris
- On the bright side: The beautiful game
2026 Men's FIFA World Cup, Wikimania music, and wikipress.
- Traffic report: Odyssey and Oyarzabal
To take you in the sun to (Ithaca), to show you the World Cup, it's the time of the season for editing!
- Comix: Well-spotted
You dasherdly—dash–dash−dash-dash!
Tech News: 2026-32
[edit]Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Updates for editors
- The Reader Experience team has developed a patch demo that wraps the page toolbar onto two lines when there is not enough horizontal space for all the buttons. This aims to reduce crowding in the Vector 2022 toolbar, which can occur on some language Wikipedias at certain screen widths.
- The Reader Experience team is planning to launch Reading Lists, a Community Wishlist item, which is currently available to try in beta, as a full feature in September. Before then, volunteer translator help is needed for string translations into a number of languages. The feature supports reading and learning goals on Wikipedia.
- Next week, the table of contents on Wikimedia Commons file pages will be improved by consolidating the file page table of contents with the page table of contents. This will make it easier to understand a file page’s structure, navigate to specific sections, and share links to individual sections.
View all 24 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, an issue where some TIFF images failed to load after clicking their thumbnail, causing a broken image to be displayed instead of the full-size image, has now been fixed.
Updates for technical contributors
- The variable and function selector in AbuseFilter has been updated to support search and autocomplete. It will allow filter maintainers to find the desired variable or function more quickly.
- The MJPEG and VP8 formats are removed from the video player. The MP4 format (MPEG-4 Part 2) is added instead, which provides higher quality videos to older iPhone devices. It may take a few weeks to retroactively update all existing videos. The default format for modern devices stays the same (VP9/WebM).
- Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
Wikidata weekly summary #743
[edit]
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata in the
week leading up to 2026-08-04. Missed the previous one? See issue #742.
week leading up to 2026-08-04. Missed the previous one? See issue #742.
Discussions
- INAPerson 1 - Task/s: Create Wikidata pages entries for mostly French journalists, using INA (French National Audiovisual Institute) catalogue as reference.
Events
- Upcoming events:
- Wikimedia & Research conference in the CEE region: programme coming in August, registration open - follow link for registration instructions, (onsite) open until August 26, (online) open until at least October 5. Event takes place Katowice, Poland, October 9-10, 2026.
- Workshop: Wikidata for Open Innovation - DCMI 226. Held on August 3 by Kalliopi Mathios, participants will get hands-on experience of Wikidata for use in Libraries, Industry and Communities.
Press, articles, blog posts, videos
- Papers:
- the proceedings of the conference Wikidata and Research (cf. Meta page), held in Florence (Italy) on June 5-6, 2025, have been published on July 2026 and are available in CC-BY 4.0 license: Wikidata e la ricerca. Condividere esperienze / Wikidata and Research. Sharing Experiences; 32 papers, 25 in English and 7 in Italian, deal with the usage of Wikidata and other Wikibase instances in different fields of academic research
- Detecting Knowledge Inconsistencies Across Text, Tables, and Knowledge Graphs by Wei et al., (2026). This paper introduces Kontrast: a tool for comparing Wikidata's statements against Wikipedia tables (and text) to find conflicting information or inconsistencies and missing data.
- Videos: LIVE Wikidata Editing #123 with hosts User:Ainali and User:Abbe98
Tool of the week
- Leximap: Create a colour-coded map of Lexemes from a Wikisource page's text, roll-over individual words to discover more about the lemma
- Filmmap: a free interactive map of filming locations built from Wikidata. Search the title to see where it’s shot or a place to see what was made there
- Cradle-gadget – A new user script embeds the Cradle form editor into Wikidata item pages, enabling schema-based editing with ShEx.
Other Noteworthy Stuff
- Job vacancy: (Remote) Software Engineer for the Wikidata Platform team.
- Wikibase Cloud has a new hosting policy (pilot version)
- Subster - a timeline-based Wikidata-powered game that plays songs from your own music collection and asks you to rank it against other songs in your hand. Like a digital, cardless version of Hitster. Requires a subsonic-compatible music server to connect to.
- Uyen developed a tool in which you can visualize and inspect content gaps and shared content between different Wikipedia editions, as well as topic distributions: https://wiki-gap-finder.toolforge.org/ Check it out and give them feedback.
Newest properties and property proposals to review
- Newest properties:
- General datatypes:
- tabular data series (A tabular data series in Commons that models the given concept)
- infobox chronology (indicate the place of an item in an Infobox chronology, as seen on the Wikipedias.)
- OpenType script tag (identifier for a script in OpenType, without trailing spaces)
- Fediverse app (Fediverse platform of the instance or address)
- Fediverse instance URL (Ferdiverse instance of/about the subject)
- External identifiers: Viberate artist ID, Brussels Inventory of Architectural Heritage style ID, Brussels Inventory of Architectural Heritage designer ID, radio.net station ID, radio.net podcast ID, Sokmil AV performer ID, Scent Base brand ID, Scent Base notes ID, Scent Base perfumers ID, PISAI ID, CIDIM Artist ID, Etsy shop name, Open Language Archives Community language code, OpenStreetMap Wiki item ID, Ko-fi page ID, KinoRating ID, Korean Classification of Administrative Districts, UNESCO Observatory of Killed Journalists ID, SofaScore tournament ID, RIA Novosti organization ID, MFL player ID, MissEvan username, Soccer365.net referee ID, Soccer365.net stadium ID, Soccer365.net tournament ID, IGN producer ID, kicker.de coach ID, Kicker.de referee ID, Lithuanian movie register ID, LFL player ID, BeSoccer referee ID, BeSoccer team ID, OpenParliamentTV organization ID, OpenParliamentTV person ID, OpenParliamentTV term ID, Foot Mercato referee ID, Foot Mercato club ID, FootballFakts.ru stadium ID, Chess Games tournament ID, Chess.com tournament ID, Camping.se ID, Garance item ID, OpenType language system tag, Okko movie ID, Grillplatser.nu ID, Número de Registre Tributari, MissEvan sound ID, MissEvan drama ID, Flemish educational institution number, Norwegian Athletics athlete ID, RPGnet Index ID
- General datatypes:
- New property proposals to review:
- General datatypes:
- ENS name (Ethereum Name Service (ENS) domain associated with a person or entity)
- Inventaire régional du patrimoine en Wallonie ID ()
- member of musical group (member of musical group)
- name type (type of noun or name the sense is)
- External identifiers: CINE21 Program ID, Rakuten TV adult maker ID, DMM maker ID, sukumizu.tv actress ID, GAS actress ID, Paradise TV Parson ID, syukou-club(X-DIABLO) actress ID, Brazilian Fauna Taxonomic Catalogue ID, CINE21 company ID, STAPI Book ID, STAPI Comics ID, STAPI Episode ID, STAPI Performer ID, Qidian Author ID, Medieval Unicode Font Initiative ID, Apple Maps place id, Filmycast person ID, EORI, GBIF Specimen (occurrence), d anime store Parson ID, d anime store work ID, Crank-in! Parson ID, Crank-in! drama ID, Crank-in! animation ID, Crank-in! movie ID, Elite Prospects team ID, r-hockey.ru team ID, Elite Prospects stadium ID, izohli.uz word ID, Dubbinfo ID, DBNL chamber of rhetoric ID, BLS Code, JoJo's Bizarre Encyclopedia article ID
- General datatypes:
You can comment on all open property proposals!
Did you know?
- Query examples: Retrieve all Belgian writers without an article on French Wikipedia (source)
- Schema examples: Swedish barbecue areas (E408)
- Newest WikiProjects: Project Occitan
- WikiProject Highlights:
- Project Broadcasting - after 10 years of inactivity, the project has been revived with a flurry of activity . Of particular interest is the change in broadcasting scope from primarily airwave to internet transmission.
- Wiki x K-pop 2026 • Editing Party - Japan Week Datathon
- Newest database reports: Wikidata Terminator - find items that lack Label, description or sitelink.
- Showcase Items: Oman (Q842) - state in western Asia
- Showcase Lexemes: cheche (L648863)
Development
- Wikidata integration in the other Wikimedia projects:
- We reviewed samples of Wikidata-related entries in Recent changes and watchlist on Wikipedia and co in order to see which additional changes we can remove because they don't change the article.
- We are preparing for the migration of the entity usage table to the extension database cluster to address database scalability issues (phab:T424133)
- Wikidata Query Service: We are continuing to adapt the Query Service UI and the Quality Constraints extension for the upcoming move from Blazegraph to QLever.
- REST API: We are continuing to add support for Lexemes, specifically retrieving a full Lexeme (GET) (phab:T429332)
You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.
Weekly Tasks
- Add labels, in your own language(s), for the new properties listed above.
- Contribute to the showcase Item and Lexeme above.
- Govdirectory weekly focus country: Seychelles
- Summarize your WikiProject's ongoing activities in one or two sentences.
- Help translate or proofread the interface and documentation pages, in your own language!
- Help merge identical items across Wikimedia projects.
- Help write the next summary!
Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin 2026 Issue 14
[edit]
Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation since our last issue on July 18. Please help translate.
Special Wikimania issue
This is a special Wikimania issue of the Bulletin. We'll be back to our regular format in the next issue
- Wikimania Paris: Paris hosted Wikimania 2026 as Wikipedia celebrates 25 years of free knowledge. Catch up on missed sessions of Wikimania 2026 by checking session pages in the program.
- Meet the Wikimedians of the Year 2026: The beloved Wikimedian of The Year awards shine the light on exceptional individuals, and through them, on the whole Wikimedia community. Learn about all of this year's winners.
- Daily highlights from Wikimania:
- Public policy advocacy: Overview of Wikimania 2026 sessions about public policy advocacy. While not all sessions are recorded, you can watch some by clicking the session.
- Users with extended rights pre-conference: 190 users with extended rights from all around the world gathered at a Wikimania pre-conference, to exchange experiences, learn from each other and connect.
- Media coverage: The event was mentioned in many media outlets as part of wider coverage about the Wikimedia projects including in Le Monde, El Nacional and Radio France.
Annual Goals Progress on Engage
See also: Growth · Product Safety and Integrity · Tech News · Language and Internationalization · The Wikipedia Library · list of movement events · Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia
- Improvement to Reading Lists: Community feedback around the placement of watchstar and watchlist buttons for the Reading Lists beta feature has been incorporated. 93% of participating users reported that it was useful. This feature allows saving articles for later reading – a wishlist item to bring the functionality to web.
- Creating custom edit suggestions: With the TextMatch feature, volunteers can now create custom local suggestions within the VisualEditor for improving Wikipedia articles. You can find examples from other communities for inspiration. Share your feedback.
- Dark mode for Content Translation: Content Translation now supports dark mode, fulfilling a Community Wishlist request. This brings the tool in line with the accessibility features available in the Vector 2022 and Minerva skins, helping reduce visual fatigue for users translating content.
- Mobile page preview: Based on the conclusion of the experiment, mobile page previews feature will not be rolled out. The experiment showed flat retention and negative indicator metrics, suggesting that mobile web readers preferred navigating directly to linked articles rather than using page previews.
- Scaling of Explore Feed to iOS: The Explore Feed Refresh initiative was tested with new and casual Wikipedia app readers. The refreshed feed helps readers discover new and relevant content. After a 10.5% increase in engagement with the feed, Home Feed redesign will be scaled to iOS by applying the learnings from the Android release.
- Improving Account Creation process: After running several Account Creation Experiments to improve registration completion rates, a new version of the username field on Create Account has been rolled out. Read more.
- Latest experiments: An ongoing experiment is testing to better guide Temporary Account users toward full account creation. See all live, upcoming, and completed experiments in Product & Technology.
- Tech News: The latest highlights from Tech News week 30 and 31 include that now wikis can restrict editing in the “User” namespace to only the page owner and certain user groups. See also the 50 community submitted tasks that were resolved over the last two weeks.
- New bot detection system for all wikis: After a successful trial, which showed evidence of both deterring bots and being easier to use, hCaptcha (our new bot detection system) has been rolled out to all wikis, for account creation, and for most newcomer edits.
Annual Goals Progress on Protect
See also: Global Advocacy blog · Global Advocacy Newsletter · Policy blog
- Online age verification: Around the world, governments are adopting different approaches to online age verification. Learn more about it and how it is shaping our experiences online in a new three-part blog series: "What is it, a timeline of age-based restrictions, and why it matters", "What means what, how it's done, and balancing child rights and safety", and "Age-based restrictions, draft bills to watch, global complexity, and engaging with lawsuits".
Board and Board committee updates
See also: Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard · Affiliations Committee Newsletter
- Affiliation Committees: Celebrating 20 Years of the Wikimedia Affiliations Committee.
Other updates
- Enterprise: How Wikimedia Enterprise protects Wikipedia in the AI era.
- Unionization: Wikimedia Foundation Statement on US unionization request.
Other Movement-curated newsletters & news
Diff blog · Goings-on · Planet Wikimedia · Signpost (en) · Kurier (de) · Actualités du Wiktionnaire (fr) · Regards sur l'actualité de la Wikimedia (fr) · Wikimag (fr) · Education · GLAM · Milestones · Wikidata · Central and Eastern Europe · other newsletters
Subscribe or unsubscribe · Help translate
For information about the Bulletin and to read previous editions, see the project page on Meta-Wiki. If you have feedback or suggestions about the bulletin, let us know at foundationbulletin@wikimedia.org. For questions about the Wikimedia Foundation's work, contact us!
Online meeting August 11, 2026
[edit] |
| Wikimedia US Mountain West |
We will host an online meeting for Wikipedia users in the U.S. Mountain States from 8:00 to 9:00 PM MDT, Tuesday evening, August 11, 2026, at meet.google.com/kfu-topq-zkd. Help is available for new users, and all guests are welcome.
We will discuss the organization of the new CANCUS North American Hub and how it can help individual users and organizations. The Wikimedians of the U.S. Mountain West will be represented at WikiConference North America in Edmonton, Alberta, on September 24-27. We hope you can join us. We also have several controversial topics to discuss. Please see our meeting page for details.
If you don't wish to receive these invitations anymore, please remove your username from our invitation list. Thanks.
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:11, 6 August 2026 (UTC)
Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia Newsletter #259: Congratulations Jules*. An apple is a fruit
[edit]There is a new update for Abstract Wikipedia and Wikifunctions. Please, come and read it!
In this issue, we congratulate Wikimedian of the Year and we discuss his favourite article in relation to Abstract Wikipedia, we introduce a new Type of function on Wikifunctions, and we take a look at the latest software developments.
Want to catch up with the previous updates? Check our archive!
We also remind you that in the next weeks these newsletter reminders will be paused, and that they will resume in mid-August.
Enjoy the reading! -- User:Sannita (WMF) (talk) 13:19, 10 August 2026 (UTC)
Wikidata weekly summary #744
[edit] Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata in the
week leading up to 2026-08-10. Missed the previous one? See issue #743.
week leading up to 2026-08-10. Missed the previous one? See issue #743.
Discussions
- The order of properties on Wikidata is governed by MediaWiki/Wikibase-SortedProperties. We propose moving (P2559) Wikidata usage instructions to the top, so important guidance is more visible and less likely to be overlooked. To comment on this change, please visit MediaWiki_talk#prominently displaying (P2559).
- Closed request for comments: 19 RfC's were closed recently, too many to list here. Please see the RfC page for more information.
Events
- Upcoming events:
- (Deutsch) nfdi4 / Workshop: Make Research Software Findable using the Software Marketplace Wikidata, 18.08.2026, 14:00–16:00 CEST (register for Zoom-link)
- Improving Wikidata References: The hands-on session will explore how to identify and improve broken references on Wikidata , 15.08.2026, 17:00–18:00 WAT (UTC+1).
- Looking ahead: (Deutsch) Freie Universitat / Tidy data version control - Wikidata in research: 22.10.2026, 09:00 - 16:00 CEST.
- Previous events: August 04 - Blazegraph Migration office hour - see the Etherpad notes for questions and answers.
Press, articles, blog posts, videos
- Blogs:
- gdottv / The Weekly Edge article: demonstrating the Wikidata Query Logs (WDQL) Dataset talks about a paper released in February this year, (Wikidata Query Logs Dataset)
- LinkedIn - User:Orthodoc10 describes their experience mapping and modelling knee replacement surgical practices into Wikidata
- Wikisignals.org: Helping Editors Evaluate Reference Reliability
- Zero-budget programs you could start tommorrow - Lessons from Wikimania Paris]
- OpenSpeaks Tools Update: Subtitler, Tome, and Bento Go Stable — Meet Media Dashboard
- [[Diffblog:a-look-at-a-2026-wikimania-hackathon-project-wikidata-bias-detector|A look at a 2026 Wikimania Hackathon Project – Wikidata Bias Detector]
- nlnet Foundation / Inventaire Split - a short article on this standalone Wikidata-federated Bibliographic database.
- Maltese national Book Council and WM Malta renew partnerhship: Wikidata to support and feed Maltese Wikipedia.
- [Diffblog:wikisignals-org-helping-editors-evaluate-reference-reliability|Wikisignals.org: Helping Editors Evaluate Reference Reliability] - the project aims to add to news-related organisation entities to help feed Wikipedia infoboxes with structured data.
- Videos:
- India's Software Stories: A Hands-on Workshop with Software Heritage, Commons and Wikidata - a Wikimania Lightning talk with Mathilde Fichen and Pavan Santhosh. (Session page)
- The Art of Editing Wikidata (Africa Wiki Women) - Guest host David Palfrey will share valuable insights and help newcomers uncover the mysteries of editing Wikidata, this session is in collaboration with Art+Feminism.
- (no audio) Tutorial: Add Geoshape to Wikimedia Commons and connect it to its Wikidata Item - Anne Chen gives a visual demonstration of the steps provided in this google doc, found on the WikiProject IDEA page.
- LIVE Wikidata Editing #124 is streaming today, 20:00 CEST (18:00 UTC)!
- (Bahasa Indonesian) Wikimedia Indonesia have released 4 short videos on editing practices, querying, basic structure and data quality of Wikidata.
- (Deutsch) ZB MED LAB | The Carpentries - aimed at researchers and professionals who work with data, a series of tutorials and workshops to teach you Wikidata, Python, R, OpenRefine and more.
Tool of the week
- Cradle-gadget is a tool by User:DanielyepezgarcesThis is an interactive, schema-based form editor that works directly within Wikidata item pages. It allows users to check, view, add, modify, or delete claims in a modern sidebar drawer or a dedicated special page, aligned with the Wikimedia design guidelines. This is the easiest way to exploit the benefits of Wikidata entity schemas, powered by ShEx.
Other Noteworthy Stuff
- The 2026 OpenRefine User Survey is now open. (Note that a link to a feature-prioritization survey is provided at the end of the Google Form so don't miss that if you want to influence what should get more focus.)
Newest properties and property proposals to review
- Newest properties:
- General datatypes:
- particularly (qualifier for statements to refine a value that applies more generally, when the statement applies especially to a more specific value; a more specific qualifier than "including" (P1012))
- incumbent before dissolution (entity incumbent in a position before its dissolution for an election)
- External identifiers: CINE21 TV program ID, GCD character ID, ODiD ID, 365chess.com tournament ID, NHK ONE program ID, CINE21 company ID, Fmfenxiang seiyuu ID, Fmfenxiang sound ID, Elite Prospects team ID, Elite Prospects stadium ID, r-hockey.ru team ID, Classicalive artist ID, Apple Maps place id, HAND ID, Brazilian Fauna Taxonomic Catalogue ID, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa ID, Giovani Artisti italiani ID, MusiciansPage artist ID, LinkedIn numeric company ID, MissEvan voice actor ID, Music & Opera artist ID, Dubbinfo ID, GAS actress ID, EU Treaties and Agreements database ID, syukou-club(X-DIABLO) actress ID, sukumizu.tv model ID, Paradise TV Person ID, Regional heritage of Wallonia ID
- General datatypes:
- New property proposals to review:
- General datatypes:
- filing unit code
- has Member (has member)
- introduced to (region outside the natural range of a taxon into which it was introduced through direct or indirect human activity)
- External identifiers: Lift-World lift ID, Schiffsdatenliste ID, marketswiki, National Palace Museum Digital Archive ID, Information Commissioner's Office registration reference, Registry of Type Design ID, Ariana Museum ID, Emulation General Wiki article ID, Georgian Cultural Heritage GIS Portal immovable object ID, Sofia monuments register ID, Georgian Cultural Heritage GIS Portal museum ID, Georgian Cultural Heritage GIS Portal movable object ID, Georgian Cultural Heritage GIS Portal stone carving ID, Georgian Cultural Heritage GIS Portal protection zone ID, Georgian Cultural Heritage GIS Portal wall painting ID, Georgian Cultural Heritage GIS Portal documentation record ID, Georgian Cultural Heritage Portal movable object ID, RIdIM ID, Weibo ID, Weibo username
- General datatypes:
You can comment on all open property proposals!
Did you know?
- Query examples: Ten longest State of the Union adress in the USA
- Schema examples: object with inscription - schema for objects with inscriptions (Q1640824)
- Newest WikiProjects:
- WikiProject Highlights: Project Ontology added a Metaclasses page
- Newest database reports: Sitelink statistics by User:Pasleim.
Development
- Sustainability: We continued the work on migrating usage tracking on Wikipedia and co to the extension database cluster (phab:T424185)
- Watchlist and recent changes on Wikipedia and co: We finished our review of a sample of Wikidata edits sent to Wikidata and co in order to better understand which remaining ones are not useful. It will soon be published on Commons.
- Query Service: We continued the work on preparing the Query Service UI for the migration from Blazegraph to QLever and will move to Query Builder and Quality Constraints next
You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.
Weekly Tasks
- Add labels, in your own language(s), for the new properties listed above.
- Contribute to the showcase Item and Lexeme above.
- Govdirectory weekly focus country: Seychelles
- Summarize your WikiProject's ongoing activities in one or two sentences.
- Help translate or proofread the interface and documentation pages, in your own language!
- Help merge identical items across Wikimedia projects.
- Help write the next summary!
Administrators' newsletter – August 2026
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2026).
Administrator changes
CheckUser changes
Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, the 30-day requirement for extended-confirmed status now begins after an account's first edit instead of its registration (T431060).
Technical news
- Inactive editors can now be removed as mentors at Special:CommunityConfiguration/Mentorship automatically.
- The Suggested Edits' Revise Tone feature is now enabled. It encourages editors to identify and revise non-neutral language in articles.
Miscellaneous
- The Unreferenced articles August 2026 backlog drive is underway. Help to add references to 47,000 articles.
- The Articles for creation August 2026 backlog drive is under way. Help to review 4,500+ drafts.
Tech News: 2026-33
[edit]Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Updates for editors
A new ChartWizard is now available on Wikimedia Commons for users interested in creating charts from their own data. The wizard makes the Chart extension more beginner-friendly by allowing editors to create charts, such as bar and pie charts, without needing to use JSON. Users can still switch to the JSON editor if they prefer. Feedback on the new tool is welcome on the wish talk page.- View all 19 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, an issue where the Wikipedia iOS app’s Picture of the Day widget displayed the same image every day instead of updating daily, has now been fixed.
Updates for technical contributors
- Math formula SVG images will soon be generated in the browser instead of on the server. MathML continues to be generated on the server and renders in the browser without JavaScript. Wikibooks will see this change on 12 August, Wikisource on 19 August and Wikipedia from 20-27 August. You can try this by selecting "MathML with SVG image (client side MathJax rendering)" in your preferences. This change is part of deprecating RESTBase and deprecating Mathoid.
- Category pages will soon support sorting entries by the time they are added to a category. This will make it easier to find recently or long-standing categorized pages. It will also improve workflows for maintenance categories such as deletion backlogs and other time-based review tasks. You can use
cldsort=timestampURL argument in category view to sort the entries. - Gadgets and user scripts on Wikimedia wikis may now use ES2018 features and ES2019 features in JavaScript code. Previously, the platform only allowed up to ES2017. MediaWiki validates the source code to protect functionality from syntax errors and to ensure scripts are valid in all supported browsers.
- Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia Newsletter #260: Shoutout to User:99of9
[edit]There is a new update for Abstract Wikipedia and Wikifunctions. Please, come and read it!
In this issue, we congratulate our own User:99of9 for his extensive work with the Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia communities, we discuss what happened at Wikimania, we introduce a document for interested communities to join Abstract Wikipedia, and we take a look at the latest software developments.
Want to catch up with the previous updates? Check our archive!
Enjoy the reading! -- User:Sannita (WMF) (talk) 15:55, 13 August 2026 (UTC)