Hello everyone,
The next Wikidata + Wikibase Office hour is scheduled for Wednesday October
7. Join us on Telegram at 18:00 CEST (in your time zone
<https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1791388800/1791392400?zdl=hY9PiwIxDMU_TecSW…>)
to:
✅ Hear about what the WMDE development team has been working on and our
plans for the year ahead
✅ Ask questions, discuss topics that matter to you, and share your thoughts
on all things Wikidata and Wikibase
✅ Connect with fellow community members and discover what everyone’s been
up to.
Event details can be found here Wikidata:Events#Office hours
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Events#Office_hours>
Cheers,
--
Mohammed S. Abdulai
*Senior Community Communications Manager, Wikidata*
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Phone: +49 (0) 30 577 116 2466
https://wikimedia.de
Grab a spot in my calendar for a chat: cal.com/masssly.
A lot is happening around Wikidata - Keep up to date!
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Status_updates> Current news and
exciting stories about Wikimedia, Wikipedia and Free Knowledge in our
newsletter (in German): Subscribe now <https://www.wikimedia.de/newsletter/>
.
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. Help us to achieve our vision!
https://spenden.wikimedia.de
Wikimedia Deutschland — Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Charlottenburg, VR 23855 B.
Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin,
Steuernummer 27/029/42207. Geschäftsführende Vorstände: Franziska Heine
Dear Wikidata community,
We're excited to announce the release of *Dustpan*, a new tool to uncover
WikiProjects that can be improved on Wikidata. Dustpan makes it easy for
anyone interested in finding possible improvements to structured data
across WikiProjects.
Try Dustpan: https://dustpan.toolforge.org
Documentation: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Dustpan
What can you do with Dustpan?
Dustpan currently helps contributors discover Items with missing statements
across several WikiProjects:
- Music (e.g. Musical releases missing publication date (P577), record
label (P264), language of work or name (P407), title (P1476), performer
(P175))
- Podcasts (e.g. Podcasts missing language of work or name (P407), genre
(P136), presenter (P371), producer (P162), production company (P272),
official website (P856), web feed URL (P1019))
- Sum of All Paintings (e.g. Paintings missing creator (P170), made from
material (P186), inception (P571), genre (P136), collection (P195))
In Dustpan, each WikiProject is associated with one or more categories
representing particular types of missing information. Some categories also
support an additional scope, such as a geographic scope, which allows
contributors to focus their contributions on a particular region or area of
interest.
Explore Dustpan and try to find contribution opportunities that match your
interests. *We welcome suggestions for which WikiProjects the tool should
support next* and we would appreciate your help in translating Dustpan into
your language on translatewiki (
https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Dustpan).
We'll also be joining the LD4 Conference session on Tuesday, September 29th
at 13:30 UTC with a presentation about Dustpan (and Broomstick!). You can
find the link to join and more details about the conference here:
https://2026ld4.sched.com/event/2Wj7A/finding-where-to-contribute-on-wikida…
Best,
--
*Raisha Abdillah*
Lead
Wikicollabs
Jakarta, Indonesia
Hello everyone,
Wikidata's 14th birthday is fast approaching. On 29 October 2026, we
celebrate 14 years of open knowledge, community collaboration, and the
incredible work of volunteers around the world.
There are many ways you can get involved:
*Host or join an event*
Meetups, editathons, workshops, and online gatherings are happening
throughout October and November. Check the calendar
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Fourteenth_Birthday/Calendar> to
find one near you, or add your own.
*Prepare a birthday gift*
Every year, community members create "presents" for Wikidata: tools,
visualizations, blog posts, videos, and more. Add yours to the list
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Event:Wikidata_Fourteenth_Birthday/Presents_%…>
.
*Join the online celebration call On 29 October*
We'll gather on Jitsi to unwrap gifts, share updates, and celebrate
together. Save the date <https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1793293200>.
*Spread the word*
Share your event on social media using #WikidataBirthday and #Wikidata14.
Whether you're organizing, contributing, or just celebrating with us, thank
you for being part of this amazing community.
Do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.
--
Mohammed S. Abdulai
*Senior Community Communications Manager, Wikidata*
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Phone: +49 (0) 30 577 116 2466
https://wikimedia.de
Grab a spot in my calendar for a chat: cal.com/masssly.
A lot is happening around Wikidata - Keep up to date!
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Status_updates> Current news and
exciting stories about Wikimedia, Wikipedia and Free Knowledge in our
newsletter (in German): Subscribe now <https://www.wikimedia.de/newsletter/>
.
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. Help us to achieve our vision!
https://spenden.wikimedia.de
Wikimedia Deutschland — Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Charlottenburg, VR 23855 B.
Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin,
Steuernummer 27/029/42207. Geschäftsführende Vorstände: Franziska Heine
Hi everyone,
We're conducting research to better understand how we can improve the
interoperability of Wikidata with Wikibase Cloud and Wikibase Suite. As
part of this, we want to hear from you about how we can make the full
Wikibase ecosystem viable for existing use cases.
Whether you've used a cloud- or self-hosted Wikibase instance or not, we
would like to hear your thoughts. The survey takes 5 to 10 minutes, all
questions are optional, and responses are anonymous by default.
-
Take the survey:
https://wikimedia.sslsurvey.de/LOD-Interoperability-Migration
-
More information on the background of the questions: Wikidata:Requests
for comment/Mass-editing policy#Context
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Requests_for_comment/Mass-editing_po…>
If you have any questions do not hesitate to reach out to me.
Many thanks for your time.
--
Mohammed S. Abdulai
*Senior Community Communications Manager, Wikidata*
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Phone: +49 (0) 30 577 116 2466
https://wikimedia.de
Grab a spot in my calendar for a chat: cal.com/masssly.
A lot is happening around Wikidata - Keep up to date!
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Status_updates> Current news and
exciting stories about Wikimedia, Wikipedia and Free Knowledge in our
newsletter (in German): Subscribe now <https://www.wikimedia.de/newsletter/>
.
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. Help us to achieve our vision!
https://spenden.wikimedia.de
Wikimedia Deutschland — Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Charlottenburg, VR 23855 B.
Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin,
Steuernummer 27/029/42207. Geschäftsführende Vorstände: Franziska Heine
Hi all,
We are glad to share that a new tool, Starter Kit
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Language_Onboarding_and_Development/Starter_…>,
is now available for new and small language Wikipedia communities!
If you are working to grow a new or small language Wikipedia, this new tool
may be useful to you. Starter Kit brings together guided tasks, tools, and
resources to help new and small language Wikipedia communities get started,
monitor their progress, and collaborate with the broader Wikimedia
community. The tool is currently hosted on Wikimedia Toolforge and is
designed for Wikipedias with fewer than 50,000 articles.
Some Starter Kit tasks can be completed by autoconfirmed contributors,
while more advanced tasks require administrator, interface administrator,
or translator rights.
Past community discussions and research have repeatedly identified
challenges in establishing and growing new and small language Wikipedias.
Research from the Languages Onboarding Experiment 2024
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Languages_Onboarding_Experiment_20…>
found that graduating wikis more quickly from the Incubator does not, by
itself, guarantee that a new wiki will grow. The research recommended
improving support for new wikis through better onboarding resources and
more automated ways of enabling essential tools.
Earlier work through the Small Wiki Toolkits
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Small_wiki_toolkits> project also
developed resources and supported technical capacity-building for small
wikis. Starter Kit builds on these learnings by exploring how parts of wiki
setup can be automated and supported through guided workflows, reducing
technical overhead while communities focus on developing content, policies,
and local participation.
Over the past few months, through a series of community office hours and
meetups, 53 contributors from 46 wikis tried Starter Kit, with more than
half of the participants holding administrator rights. Contributors
completed 24 Starter Kit workflows, generating approximately 77 on-wiki
contributions. These included importing infoboxes, customizing Main Pages,
translating interface messages on Translatewiki.net
<https://translatewiki.net>, categorizing articles using the HotCat gadget,
and adding Five Pillars policy pages.
Participating communities included Fon, Ganda, Tyap, Fula, Karekare, and
Igala Wikipedias, among others. At the time of the pilot, most
participating wikis had fewer than 5,000 articles.
We would love for more communities to try Starter Kit. You can follow the
guidance in the user manual
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Language_Onboarding_and_Development/Starter_…>
and share your experience on the project talk page
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Language_Onboarding_and_Development/Sta…>.
Your feedback will help shape the next iteration of the Starter Kit.
If you would like us to host a remote demo for your user group or local
community gathering, we would be happy to join. We will also be at the Language
Diversity Conference in Ghana
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_Diversity_Conference> from
October 2–4, 2026. We hope to see some of you there!
You can learn more about the background, how Starter Kit works, and how
communities have been using it so far in this Diff blog post
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2026/09/18/introducing-starter-kit-for-new-and-s…>
.
Cheers,
Srishti
On behalf of the Language Onboarding and Development
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Language_Onboarding_and_Development> &
Starter Kit project team
Srishti Sethi (she / her)
Senior Developer Advocate
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Hi everyone,
This is your reminder that next Tuesday, 22 September, is the next Global
GLAM Call. These are monthly community calls with a collaborative agenda
that usually covers all kinds of culture and heritage related topics in the
WIkimedia movement. Every month, for more than 2 years, dozens of community
members have gathered online to exchange ideas and projects and discuss
different ongoing activities.
This month there is a very interesting agenda that will include a few
project updates as well as a cultural commons dialogue with partners such
as the Open Knowledge and Open Future!
Hope you will be able to join! Register here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:Global_GLAM_call_2026-09-22
ICMYI here is a Diff post as well about many recent GLAM Newsletters and
other community calls:
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2026/07/29/a-glam-culture-and-heritage-roundup-f…
All the best,
Connor
Hello everyone,
We're delighted to announce that WikidataCon 2027 will be hosted in
Istanbul, Türkiye.
After an open call for expressions of interest to host, we received three
strong proposals from Wikimedia Ghana User Group (Accra, Ghana),
Wikimedistas de Uruguay (Montevideo, Uruguay) and Wikimedians of Turkic
Languages User Group (Istanbul, Türkiye). We selected the proposal from the
Wikimedians of Turkic Languages User Group.
WikidataCon 2027 will take place from 29 to 31 October 2027, opening
exactly on Wikidata's 15th birthday.
Hakan, on behalf of the host team, shared this welcome message:
"Many languages, one shared knowledge. We look forward to welcoming the
Wikidata community to Istanbul, where cultures and continents meet."
More details, including the theme, program and scholarship information,
will follow in the coming months. We look forward to celebrating this
milestone together in Istanbul.
Cheers,
--
Mohammed S. Abdulai
*Senior Community Communications Manager, Wikidata*
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Phone: +49 (0) 30 577 116 2466
https://wikimedia.de
Grab a spot in my calendar for a chat: cal.com/masssly.
A lot is happening around Wikidata - Keep up to date!
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Status_updates> Current news and
exciting stories about Wikimedia, Wikipedia and Free Knowledge in our
newsletter (in German): Subscribe now <https://www.wikimedia.de/newsletter/>
.
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. Help us to achieve our vision!
https://spenden.wikimedia.de
Wikimedia Deutschland — Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Charlottenburg, VR 23855 B.
Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin,
Steuernummer 27/029/42207. Geschäftsführende Vorstände: Franziska Heine