Hello everyone,
I’m happy to invite you to the next Global GLAM Call, happening on Tuesday,
28 July!
If you haven't joined one before, it's a monthly community meetup where
Wikimedians from across the movement come together to share updates and
discuss all things GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums), Culture,
and Heritage.
📅 Register here on the event page: Global GLAM Call 2026-07-28
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:Global_GLAM_call_2026-07-28>
This month's agenda includes the following:
- An update from the Wiki+GLAM+Gender initiative
- Metabase and MEOW
- The UN resolution on Reparative Justice
- GLAM Tool Hospital
- GLAM User Group updates
And if there's time at the end, we'll open the floor for anyone who'd like
to raise additional topics.
This month the call will be hosted by Alice Kibombo.
Want to contribute? You're welcome to submit agenda proposals via the GLAM
page on Meta at any time. You can also request simultaneous interpretation
or ask to host a session in the future— just get in touch through the same
page.
Hope to see you online.
All the best,
Connor
(sorry for cross posting this invitation)
Hi everyone,
July is shaping up to be a very exciting month for the GLAM, culture and
heritage community and the Wikimedia movement at large!
Wikimania is taking place in Paris from 21-26 July, with numerous GLAM
related activities taking place throughout the days, including a culture +
heritage focused meetup taking place on 23 July.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:M%C3%A9lange_%E2%80%94_A_Content_Part…
The following week is the monthly global GLAM Call, on Tuesday 28 July at
13:30 UTC. Be sure to register in advance via the meta-wiki page. This
month there will be discussions and presentations about GLAM + gender, a UN
Resolution on Reparative Justice, the GLAM User Group, and the GLAM Tool
Hospital.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:Global_GLAM_call_2026-07-28#Agenda
As a reminder you can always submit proposals and request topics via the
forms on Meta-wiki as well, and watch the recordings from previous calls at
anytime.
Best,
Connor
Community Coordinator, Wikimedia Content Partnerships Hub
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Content_Partnerships_Hub
Dear all,
Hope this email finds you well! The Content Partnerships Hub is bringing an
in-person Helpdesk to Wikimania this year and we’d love for you to stop by.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Content_Partnerships_Hub
The Helpdesk is designed to support any member of the Wikimedia community
to make a content partnership successful. This could be uploading content,
creating meta data structures, drafting a project plan together, or
supporting a new partner with their uncertainties with Wiki-tools and
platforms or even copyright clearance.
This is your opportunity to talk to an expert directly and get your
questions answered. Book an appointment now, or stop by the Helpdesk in
Foyer S2 during Thursday, 23 July.
https://calendar.app.google/jfuYvU3LTMikZcBr5
Looking forward to seeing you there!
Best,
Connor
Hello,
Next week on tuesday, 23 June, at 8:00UTC is the next Global GLAM Call.
Please be sure to register in advance to receive the Zoom link in time to
join the call.
This month we’re very happy to count on simulatenous interpretation in
Arabic, French, and Kiswahili! Spread the word.
On the agenda we have info about the Wikimania Hackathon, a GLAM Tool
Hospital, Spatial Reconstruction, info about Event Registration extension
from WMF, and a preview of the new Content Partnerships Hub visual identity!
Hope to see you online.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:Global_GLAM_call_2026-06-23#Introduct…
Best,
Connor
Hi there,
Tomorrow is the next Global GLAM Call, 26 May at 13:30 UTC.
This month we will have an update about a Commons Upload tool that was
re-discovered at the NWE Hackathon, an update about the Open Heritage
Statement from Creative Commons, and then also a tutorial for submitting a
request for Translation Admin privileges; + plenty of time for other
updates from you and anyone else in the community.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:Global_GLAM_call_2026-05-26
Please remember to register in advance to receive the zoom link in the
registration.
See you online!
All the best,
Connor
(appologies for cross posting on various GLAM, Culture and Heritage related
mailing lists)
Hello,
Over the last few months the Global GLAM Calls
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_GLAM_calls> have grown
significantly! This month in April there were more than 100 registrations,
and 50 attendees on the call. This is incredible!
All this is thanks to your contribution, curiosity, and continued
engagement with culture, heritage, and Wikimedia projects.
In case you missed the call the recording is already available
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:Global_GLAM_call_2026-04-28> on
Commons. The topics, presenters, and documents, are also neatly organized
in Metabase <https://metabase.wikibase.cloud/wiki/Item:Q43731> for easy
search and reference.
But now’s the time to build out the agendas for the coming months. Do you
have a topic you’d like to present on or have a request for? Send it to the
organizers via the request form
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_GLAM_Calls/Topic_Requests> on
Meta-wiki.
In 2026 there’s special focus on topics from the Strategic Pillars (Small
GLAMs, Minority Languages, Robust Technical Infrastructure, and Community
(mental) Health, and GLAM Recognition) but all kinds of presentations and
discussions are welcome.
Registration for the May call
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:Global_GLAM_call_2026-05-26> is
already open, though the agenda is not 100% ready. See you online!
All the best,
Connor
Hello!
This is a reminder that next week 28 April is the monthly Global GLAM Call.
The topics include AI-Bridges, the connection between AI tools and
platforms and cultural heritage collections, CommonsDB, a registry of
public domain and open access materials, as well as info about partnerships
in the ESEAP and SA regions! There will of course also be time for general
discussion and questions.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:Global_GLAM_call_2026-04-28
Don’t forget to register ahead of time. Hope to see you online!
Best,
Connor
Hello everyone,
I am Quinn (User:SuperGrey) from Chinese Wikisource (zh.wikisource.org). I am writing to request advice and precedent from the wider Wikisource community and the Wikimedia Foundation regarding a proposed large-scale import of Chinese court judgments from the national database known as China Judgments Online (中国裁判文书网, often abbreviated as CJO).
I would like to begin with some background, because many non-Chinese Wikimedia contributors may not be aware of how significant CJO has been for judicial transparency in China and how sharply access to it has been reduced in recent years.
China Judgments Online was launched in 2014 by the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) as a major transparency initiative. For nearly a decade, courts across the country uploaded tens of millions of decisions, creating what was widely regarded as one of the world’s largest publicly accessible judicial databases. At its peak, CJO hosted over 140 million documents and received tens of billions of page views. Researchers inside and outside China used the site extensively to study judicial behavior, local governance, criminal justice, and institutional changes.
However, since around 2021, and especially in 2023–2024, the Chinese government has significantly reversed this openness. Multiple independent investigations and media reports have documented the systematic removal of previously public judgments, particularly those that reflect poorly on local authorities, expose procedural misconduct, involve politically sensitive issues, or contradict preferred political narratives. In late 2023, leaked SPC documents revealed instructions to migrate judgments into a new internal-only database accessible solely within the court system, while sharply reducing what remains publicly visible. Studies have shown that vast numbers of cases have already disappeared from public view. Major news organizations such as MIT Technology Review, Radio Free Asia, the South China Morning Post, and Reuters have all reported on this rollback of judicial transparency:
– https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/12/20/1085741/china-judgements-online…
– https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/china-court-records-12142023132626.h…
– https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3246067/china-cut-back-acc…
– https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-vows-judicial-disclosure-after-ou…
For our purposes, the important point is this: CJO has removed or restricted access to large portions of its historical archive, including documents that were originally public, legally non-copyrightable under Chinese law, and crucial for understanding the functioning of China’s legal system. Many judgments that were once easily verifiable on the official site can no longer be checked against their original source. These documents are at risk of disappearing entirely from public access.
An independent archiving project, caseopen.org, has preserved a large HTML snapshot of CJO’s judgments spanning 2013 to October 2024. The maintainers of caseopen.org have donated this dataset to Chinese Wikisource. The files capture the “online version” as it originally appeared on CJO, including formatting and errors, and therefore represent a unique opportunity to preserve a historical record of China’s legal system prior to this wave of censorship and delisting. In practical terms, this may be the last comprehensive public snapshot that will ever exist.
On Chinese Wikisource, I have proposed importing this dataset through a bot (User:SuperGrey-bot). The local discussion, including technical details and code links, is here (in Chinese):
https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:机器人#User:SuperGrey-bot
The scale of the corpus is extremely large: tens of millions of judgments, potentially more if we include non-judgment document types such as 裁定书 (ruling document) and 通知书 (notification document). We are planning a staged import, beginning with small test batches, then individual months, and only later the full corpus, once the community settles questions about formatting, titling, metadata, and scope.
Because this project includes politically sensitive material and an unusual archival value, and because the scale is unprecedented for our language Wikisource, I would greatly appreciate advice and precedent from the international community. This is not only a technical or organizational task; it is also a preservation effort. We are attempting to safeguard public domain legal documents that have been systematically removed from public access. Wikisource may be one of the last neutral, open, global platforms capable of preserving this historical record.
Given the potential size of the import, I would also appreciate input from the Wikimedia Foundation on any operational considerations. A multi-million–page import may affect storage, dumps, CirrusSearch indexing, and overall site performance. Before proceeding beyond small test batches, I would like to understand whether such an import is feasible within the current technical limits of Chinese Wikisource, and whether coordination with SRE or Cloud Services is recommended.
Specifically, I would like to ask for input on the following areas:
1. Scope and suitability
Have other Wikisources hosted similarly massive, uniform corpora of government or legal documents? How did you determine whether they fit the mission of Wikisource? Were there concerns about overwhelming the project or changing its character?
2. Verifiability and provenance
In our case, the source is an independent mirror of a government website that is now selectively removing documents. While Wikimedia projects have long preserved public domain government documents after originals were taken down or censored, I am unsure how Wikisource communities have handled this scenario in practice. Are mirrored datasets acceptable when the original public source has been altered or removed? How should we document provenance and authenticity for future readers?
3. Organizational and technical considerations
If we proceed, how should we structure this corpus so the project remains usable? Are there recommended practices for:
– titling, metadata, and Wikidata integration for legal documents,
– organizing millions of pages so they do not overwhelm categories and search,
– mitigating strain on job queues, dumps, and indexing,
– making future partial deletions or corrections feasible if political pressure or legal demands (e.g., DMCA takedown notices) ever arise?
4. Political and archival importance
Wikisource has historically preserved documents at risk of censorship or disappearance, whether due to authoritarian restrictions or institutional neglect. Do other communities have experience with politically sensitive archival projects where the preservation value itself was a central motivation?
At present, Chinese Wikisource is still deliberating basic formatting and policy questions. No large imports will be performed until a local consensus is clear. Although we are working from the independent caseopen.org snapshot rather than relying on ongoing availability of the official CJO site, the broader context is that public access to Chinese judicial decisions has already been substantially reduced in recent years. Because our dataset preserves a historical record that may not remain accessible through official channels, we believe this is an appropriate moment to seek broader input and learn from other Wikisource communities with similar archival experiences.
Thank you very much for your time, advice, and any examples or concerns you can share. Even understanding which questions we should be asking would be extremely helpful.
Best regards,
Quinn Gao (User:SuperGrey)
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:SuperGrey
Hello,
On 24 March at 13:30 is the next Global GLAM Call — I hope you will join!
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:Global_GLAM_call_2026-03-24
This month’s call will be hosted by Lutherking Petercan and features topics
such as an introduction to the new Pattypan release 26.02, Metrics on
Wikimedia platforms, the IGO Partnerships with the Content Partnerships
Hub, and a new GLAM project in Venezuela!
This call will also feature simultaneous interpretation between spanish and
english!
Hope to see you online,
Connor