Wikitech-l May 2026

wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org

28 participants
29 discussions

The API Portal is shutting down in June 2026
by Alexandra Paskulin 11 Jun '26

11 Jun '26

Hi all, Summary: The API Portal wiki[1] is shutting down. API keys created on the API Portal will continue to work (rate limits apply). api.wikimedia.org endpoints will be deprecated gradually starting in July 2026. Documentation on the API Portal is moving to mediawiki.org[2]. == Context == Started in 2020, the API Portal is an experimental wiki available at api.wikimedia.org. It was designed by the Wikimedia Foundation as a home for Wikimedia API docs and related functionality. The Wikimedia Foundation has decided to shut down the API Portal as part of a new strategy for Wikimedia APIs[3] and to focus on new ways to make API docs easy to find, use, and create. == Changes == Endpoints: api.wikimedia.org endpoints will continue to work as currently documented until at least June 2026. Starting in the second half of 2026, these endpoints will be migrated to new routes, and the old routes will be deprecated gradually. Deprecation information will be communicated through the mediawiki-api-announce mailing list[4], Wikimedia API changelog[5], and on the project talk page[6]. Rate limits: Starting in late March or early April 2026, api.wikimedia.org endpoints will have the same rate limits[7] as other Wikimedia APIs. The new rate limits are higher than the current rate limits[8], so this change should not create any issues. The Lift Wing API will continue to have the same custom rate limits[9] with only minor clarifications. API keys: We expect API keys created through the API Portal to continue to work normally within the API rate limits[7]. You can manage your API keys through Meta-Wiki[10]. If you encounter any issues, please reach out using the contact information below. Documentation: Documentation from the API Portal is currently being consolidated and moved to other technical documentation wikis. Starting in June 2026, the API Portal will be inaccessible. To learn about Wikimedia APIs and find links to docs, visit the new landing page (work in progress) on mediawiki.org[2]. == Contact == If you have any questions, want to share your feedback, or have any issues with functionality related to the API Portal: - Post to the project talk page[6] - Email techdocs(a)wikimedia.org == Learn more == For a timeline, background behind the decision, and the latest project information, see the project page[12]. Best, - Alex Paskulin on behalf of the Wikimedia Tech Docs Team and MediaWiki Interfaces Team [1]: https://api.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page [2]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_APIs [3]: https://techblog.wikimedia.org/2025/06/12/apis-as-a-product-investing-in-th… [4]: https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/mediawiki-api-announce.lists.wi… [5]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_APIs/Changelog [6]: https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:API_Portal/Deprecation [7]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_APIs/Rate_limits [8]: https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/API_Portal/Deprecation#API_Portal_histo… [9]: https://api.wikimedia.org/wiki/Lift_Wing_API/Rate_limits [10]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:OAuthConsumerRegistration/list [11]: Special:OAuthConsumerRegistration [12]: https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/API_Portal/Deprecation -- Alexandra Paskulin Technical Writer Wikimedia Foundation

1 1

Brooke's departure from Wikimedia Foundation
by Brooke Vibber 01 Jun '26

01 Jun '26

Hi all - As of May 26, 2026 I am no longer an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation. I'll be taking some time off before I get back to the grind; I will remain part of the Wikimedia volunteer community and MediaWiki open-source development, and will see many of y'all at Wikimania in Paris this summer, which I will be attending as a volunteer. My current public contact information is available on my user page: < https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Brooke_Vibber> To everyone who’s reached out privately about my departure: you’re all brilliant each and every one of you and you give me so much hope for the Foundation and the projects. <3 I'd like to take this opportunity to invite every member of Wikimedia Foundation staff to join the unionization progress that is underway in several of the countries where the WMF has employees. Every worker deserves representation in how their workplace operates, and every workplace deserves a union. The folks organizing Wiki Workers United < https://wikiworkersunited.org> are passionate about the projects we work to support, and about people helping each other to be more effective while treating each other fairly; and if you work at WMF, that effort won’t be complete without your voice. -- brooke vibber Volunteer developer, 2001-2005 Chief Technology Officer, 2005-2009 Volunteer developer, 2009-2011 Staff Software Architect, 2011-2026 Volunteer developer, 2026-

4 3

June 3rd maintenance of CI servers
by Daniel Zahn 28 May '26

28 May '26

Hello developers, in a week, on June 3rd 2026, between 15:00 and 16:00 UTC (8am - 9am PST) we are going to perform maintenance on our Continuous Integration servers. We are switching Jenkins CI to a new host and will upgrade Java on integration nodes. While we are trying to keep the period as short as possible please expect some downtime to CI and getting patches verified. The maintenance has been added to the deployment calendar. Best, SRE collaboration services & Release Engineering teams -- Daniel Zahn <dzahn(a)wikimedia.org> Site Reliability Engineer

1 0

Tech News 2026 - Issue 22
by Nick Wilson (Quiddity) 26 May '26

26 May '26

Latest *tech news <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News>* from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2026/22> are available. *Weekly highlight* - Following a successful account creation experiment <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Contributors/Account_Crea…>, an improved logged-out edit warning message will be deployed to all Wikimedia wikis in the first week of June. The change will only affect logged-out users on mobile web who open an editing session. The updated experience is designed to encourage account creation more clearly, while still allowing users to edit with temporary accounts. Results from the experiment showed a significant increase in account creation, with a 27% relative lift among users shown the updated message. As expected, as more people funnel into account creation, temporary accounts decreased by a relative 16%. The experiment did not show any significant changes in constructive edit rates or other monitored contributor metrics. [1] <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T424595> *Updates for editors* - For security reasons, members of certain user groups are required to have two-factor authentication <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Mandatory_two-factor_aut…> (2FA) enabled. Members of these groups will be unable to disable the last 2FA method on their account, and it will be impossible to add users without 2FA to these groups. Users will still be able to add new authentication methods or remove them, as long as at least one method is continuously enabled. In the next few weeks, users without 2FA will be removed from these groups. Notably, this applies to bureaucrats. See the linked tasks for deployment schedules. [2] <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T423119> [3] <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T423120> - WMDE Technical Wishes <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/WMDE_Technical_Wishes> will run an A/B test <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:A/B_testing> on 10 wikis <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T415904>, testing potential improvements for Reference Previews <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/References/Reference_…>. The experiment will run for ~2 weeks at the end of May / beginning of June and will affect 10% of desktop readers on the participating wikis. - After two successful experiments, the Reader Growth team is rolling out an Image Browsing <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Readers/Reader_Growth/Ima…> beta feature for all Wikipedias on mobile on May 25. This means that anyone who has all beta features on by default will start to see this feature, and others can check the box to turn it on in their preferences. The beta feature will include a carousel of all an article's images at the top of the article, with controls for editors to exclude images from the article's carousel or to exclude an article from the feature entirely <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Readers/Reader_Growth/Image_Browsing#Phase_2…> . - [image: Recurrent item] View all 30 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/Recently_resol…>. For example, three dimensional STL files were being rendered incorrectly by the media viewer 3D extension which is now fixed. [4] <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T416723> *Updates for technical contributors* - The legacy CSS classes tleft and tright have been replaced with floatleft and floatright as the former do not work consistently across all MediaWiki platforms, notably mobile web and mobile apps. Projects relying on these classes are encouraged to review related usage and plan for migration. Please note that floatleft and floatright may also be deprecated in future, although there are currently no plans to do so. Read more <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T426452>. - [image: Recurrent item] Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.47/wmf.4> *Tech news <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News> prepared by Tech News writers <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/Writers> and posted by bot <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/User:MediaWiki_message_d…> • Contribute <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News#contribute> • Translate <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2026/22> • Get help <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech> • Give feedback <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Tech/News> • Subscribe or unsubscribe <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_message_delivery/Targets/Tech_ambass…>.*

1 0

Etherpad cleanup, save your pads now!
by Jelto Wodstrcil 25 May '26

25 May '26

Hello everyone If you don't use etherpad, you can ignore this message. We will *delete all pads after 1st March 2026*! If you need any of your pads, please make a local backup. We will not be able to recover the data after 1st March. The pad cleanup helps to reduce the size of the database and the footprint on our infrastructure. After the cleanup, etherpad can still be used for real-time collaboration but please do not expect long term storage. Additional cleanups might happen after that unannounced. See also https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T415237 for more information. Greetings and thank you Jelto

13 20

Global GLAM Call 26 May
by Connor Benedict 25 May '26

25 May '26

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)

1 0

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Re: [All-affiliates] Re: Community response to WMF layoffs and labor concerns
by Pine W 23 May '26

23 May '26

(removed wikimediaannounce-l from the distribution) Hi Selena, Thank you for engaging at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Community_Wishlist#c-SDeckelmann-WMF-2…. I will understand if there are no further updates until next week. Indeed, I highly encourage people to take occasional time for their personal needs ( burnout <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnout_(disambiguation)> can be a problem), and also for US-based staff for the Memorial Day holiday <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day>. When you return next week, I'd appreciate you commenting further on concerns being raised regarding the organizational restructuring and the Community Wishlist <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist> (I understand trying to improve the Wishlist process, although disbanding the team and displacing its members before there's consensus on what to do next might have been the wrong order of operations), but also a troubling cluster of issues in P&T this year. 1. 10 February 2026: "etherpad.wikimedia.org cleanup: April 30, Save your pads!": https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org/… 2. 5 March 2026: "March 2026 User Script Incident": https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Product_and_Technology… 3. 30 March 2026: "Mass-abandonment of many 2+-year-old Gerrit patches to mediawiki/core": https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org/… 4. Concerns being expressed regarding this reorganization. Each of these events in isolation is concerning. The clustering of them in the space of a few months makes me wonder if there are deeper issues which should be addressed by the C-suite <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Executive_and_Leadersh…>. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on that, perhaps in a separate thread. Also, if you think it would help, I'm willing to schedule a Wikimedia Café <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Caf%C3%A9> session to for a public live discussion of any or all of the above. Thank you, Pine🌲 On Sat, May 23, 2026 at 7:24 AM James Heilman via Wikimedia-l < wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> wrote: > One issue with trying to move community tech work outside the foundation > is how do we get improvements approved by those within the foundation? We > for example have consensus for MP4 upload and conversion on Commons via the > upload wizard. But are waiting now on the WMF, maybe legal team. > > J > > > Sent from Gmail Mobile > > On Sat, May 23, 2026 at 03:57 Gnangarra via Wikimedia-l < > wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> wrote: > >> What I find troubling is that the Community Tech caught a lot of tasks >> that have fallen through the gaps between teams or when teams have been >> remodelled and staff move to new areas. >> >> What is most troubling is that the team being laid off and told to apply >> for new positions within the new hiring framework that mean some of these >> will be ineligible under the current hiring policies. When those change >> were announced it was said that existing employees would not be affect yet >> here we are only a couple of months past that and it to being applied to >> existing employees. >> >> While 10,000's of are just volunteers every staff loss is painful >> especially highly experienced technical staff because we know that it the >> front end and volunteers who sufffer from these changes. If the new CEO >> wants to rattle employee cages dont do it to the detriment on the community >> thats make these project viable. >> >> On Sat, 23 May 2026 at 03:14, Kimmo Virtanen via Wikimedia-l < >> wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> wrote: >> >>> > Many of you have likely already seen the Wikimedia Foundation's >>> announcement that the Community Tech team is being dissolved and that five >>> engineers and one manager are losing their roles as part of a restructuring >>> of the Community Wishlist process. >>> >>> Based on previous years' experience, WMF software development teams >>> focus on specific tasks and generally avoid tasks outside their immediate >>> focus. This means for examplke that extensions such as Maps and Upload >>> Wizard largely lost support because the responsible team was dissolved. The >>> Community Tech team also handled tasks that did not specifically fall under >>> any other team's responsibility. (such as >>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist but not only that, >>> for example, the Upload Wizard was afaik picked up by community tech) >>> >>> In any case I would have liked to see that number of Community Tech >>> people would have increase instead of decrease. >>> >>> Br, >>> -- Kimmo Virtanen, Zache >>> >>> On Fri, May 22, 2026 at 9:15 PM Jaluj Wikipedista via All-affiliates < >>> all-affiliates(a)lists.wikimedia.org> wrote: >>> >>>> I understand the anguish of those who will lose a paid job but I don't >>>> see why the volunteers who have never been paid for their work and are the >>>> ones who build wikipedia and sister projects should be bothered that >>>> Community Tech will become a cross-team program rather than a dedicated >>>> team. >>>> >>>> El vie, 22 may 2026 a las 14:04, James Heilman via All-affiliates (< >>>> all-affiliates(a)lists.wikimedia.org>) escribió: >>>> >>>>> I always thought we should double the community tech team. One for >>>>> Wikipedia and one for the sister projects. >>>>> >>>>> I guess the question is should the community try to take on this work? >>>>> With movement funds of course. >>>>> >>>>> J >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Sent from Gmail Mobile >>>>> >>>>> On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 22:30 Nemoralis via All-affiliates < >>>>> all-affiliates(a)lists.wikimedia.org> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Fellow Wikimedians, >>>>>> >>>>>> Many of you have likely already seen the Wikimedia Foundation's >>>>>> announcement that the Community Tech team is being dissolved and that five >>>>>> engineers and one manager are losing their roles as part of a restructuring >>>>>> of the Community Wishlist process. >>>>>> >>>>>> The official explanation is that Community Tech will become a >>>>>> cross-team "program" rather than a dedicated team, and that this model will >>>>>> supposedly allow more teams to work on community wishes. However, many >>>>>> editors, functionaries, and technical contributors across Wikimedia >>>>>> projects have raised serious concerns about both the substance and timing >>>>>> of this decision. >>>>>> >>>>>> Several issues are driving alarm within the community: >>>>>> >>>>>> • The Community Tech team was one of the few WMF engineering groups >>>>>> explicitly focused on community-requested technical work. >>>>>> • The engineers affected include highly experienced contributors with >>>>>> deep institutional and community knowledge, including former stewards and >>>>>> longtime technical volunteers. >>>>>> • WMF leadership has stated that this is not a budget reduction, >>>>>> which raises the question of why layoffs were necessary at all instead of >>>>>> reassignment. >>>>>> • The restructuring was announced amid ongoing organizing efforts >>>>>> connected to Wiki Workers United (WWU), leading many contributors to fear >>>>>> retaliation or union-busting behavior, regardless of WMF denials. >>>>>> • There is currently little concrete information about >>>>>> accountability, staffing, or ownership under the new “program” structure. >>>>>> >>>>>> This is no longer being viewed by many contributors as merely an >>>>>> internal staffing change. It is increasingly seen as part of a broader >>>>>> pattern of disconnect between WMF leadership and the volunteer communities >>>>>> that build and maintain Wikimedia projects. >>>>>> >>>>>> In response, editors have begun organizing solidarity actions and a >>>>>> strike mandate petition expressing willingness to support Wiki Workers >>>>>> United if collective action becomes necessary. >>>>>> >>>>>> The petition is not itself a strike. It is a statement that >>>>>> contributors are prepared to stand in solidarity with Wikimedia workers and >>>>>> defend community accountability if requested. >>>>>> >>>>>> You can read the ongoing discussions here: >>>>>> >>>>>> - >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Community_Wishlist#May_20_update >>>>>> - >>>>>> >>>>>> https://w.wiki/Nt5V >>>>>> >>>>>> If you are concerned about: >>>>>> >>>>>> - >>>>>> >>>>>> the future of community-driven technical development, >>>>>> - >>>>>> >>>>>> the treatment of Wikimedia staff, >>>>>> - >>>>>> >>>>>> possible anti-union retaliation, >>>>>> - >>>>>> >>>>>> or the growing disconnect between WMF leadership and the editing >>>>>> community, >>>>>> >>>>>> please consider joining the discussion, spreading awareness, and >>>>>> signing the solidarity petition. >>>>>> >>>>>> Take action: https://wikiworkersunited.org/take-action-community/ >>>>>> Sign the petition: https://w.wiki/Nt5n >>>>>> >>>>>> In solidarity, >>>>>> Nemoralis >>>>>> >>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>> All-affiliates mailing list -- all-affiliates(a)lists.wikimedia.org >>>>>> To unsubscribe send an email to >>>>>> all-affiliates-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org >>>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> All-affiliates mailing list -- all-affiliates(a)lists.wikimedia.org >>>>> To unsubscribe send an email to >>>>> all-affiliates-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org >>>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> All-affiliates mailing list -- all-affiliates(a)lists.wikimedia.org >>>> To unsubscribe send an email to >>>> all-affiliates-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines >>> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and >>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l >>> Public archives at >>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org… >>> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org >> >> >> >> -- >> Boodarwun >> Gnangarra >> 'ngany dabakarn koorliny arn boodjera dardon nlangan Nyungar koortabodjar' >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines >> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l >> Public archives at >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org… >> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines > at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > Public archives at > https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org… > To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org

1 0

Toolcounter – a privacy-friendly hit counter for Toolforge tools
by Suyash Dwivedi 22 May '26

22 May '26

Hi everyone, I've always been curious about how many people actually visit my Toolforge tools - and I suspect I'm not alone. So I built Toolcounter ( https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/), a lightweight, privacy-friendly hit counter designed specifically for Toolforge-hosted tools. *What it tracks* 📄 Page views - counted on every page load (including refreshes). Good for total traffic. 👤 Sessions (unique visit approximation) — uses sessionStorage in the visitor's browser. First open in a tab = 1 session. Refresh = not counted again. New tab = counted again. No cookies, no IP, no personal data stored. Both counts appear separately on the dashboard with a per-day bar chart. *Quick integration (replace YOUR_TOOL and PAGE)* Option 1 - SVG badge (no JS, image only, shows page views): <img src=" https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/badge.php?tool=YOUR_TOOL&page=PAGE" alt="Page views"> Option 2 - JS embed (shows both views + unique sessions): 👁 Views: <span id="tc-views"></span> 👤 Unique: <span id="tc-sessions"></span> <script src=" https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/embed.js.php?tool=YOUR_TOOL&page=PAGE "></script> An embed code generator is available on the homepage. *Privacy* The database stores zero personal data, only anonymous counters per (tool, page) pair. No cookies are set. No IP addresses, User-Agent strings, or usernames are ever written to the database. Full privacy policy: https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/privacy.php Source code is publicly available and open for audit. Feedback and contributions are very welcome. Happy to answer questions here or on my talk page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Suyash.dwivedi Cheers, Suyash Dwivedi https://toolcounter.toolforge.org/ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikis_Lazy_Coders

6 5

May 2026 Wikimedia Café meetups regarding the the Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan
by Pine W 22 May '26

22 May '26

Hello! There will be two Wikimedia Café <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Caf%C3%A9> discussion opportunities during the last weekend of May. Both sessions will focus on the the 2026-2027 Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2026-2027>. Participants may attend either or both sessions. 1. Saturday, 30 May 2026 at 15:00 UTC (timestamp converter <https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1780153200>), at a time friendly to the Americas, Africa, and Europe 2. Sunday, 31 May 2026 at 05:00 UTC (timestamp converter <https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1780203600>), at a time friendly to Asia and the Pacific Café participants are highly encouraged to read in advance at least this summary of the plan <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sohom_Datta/annual_plan_guide>. Optionally, Café participants are encouraged to read portions of the plan that interest them and ask questions or provide feedback on the Annual Plan talk page <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2026-…>. Please see the Café page for more information, including tables of timestamp conversions for both sessions <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Caf%C3%A9#May_2026_meetings_with_…>, the agenda <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Caf%C3%A9#Agenda._This_will_be_an….>, and how to register <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Caf%C3%A9#How_to_attend_the_sessi…> ! Pine🌲

1 0

Community response to WMF layoffs and labor concerns
by Nemoralis 22 May '26

22 May '26

Fellow Wikimedians, Many of you have likely already seen the Wikimedia Foundation's announcement that the Community Tech team is being dissolved and that five engineers and one manager are losing their roles as part of a restructuring of the Community Wishlist process. The official explanation is that Community Tech will become a cross-team "program" rather than a dedicated team, and that this model will supposedly allow more teams to work on community wishes. However, many editors, functionaries, and technical contributors across Wikimedia projects have raised serious concerns about both the substance and timing of this decision. Several issues are driving alarm within the community: • The Community Tech team was one of the few WMF engineering groups explicitly focused on community-requested technical work. • The engineers affected include highly experienced contributors with deep institutional and community knowledge, including former stewards and longtime technical volunteers. • WMF leadership has stated that this is not a budget reduction, which raises the question of why layoffs were necessary at all instead of reassignment. • The restructuring was announced amid ongoing organizing efforts connected to Wiki Workers United (WWU), leading many contributors to fear retaliation or union-busting behavior, regardless of WMF denials. • There is currently little concrete information about accountability, staffing, or ownership under the new “program” structure. This is no longer being viewed by many contributors as merely an internal staffing change. It is increasingly seen as part of a broader pattern of disconnect between WMF leadership and the volunteer communities that build and maintain Wikimedia projects. In response, editors have begun organizing solidarity actions and a strike mandate petition expressing willingness to support Wiki Workers United if collective action becomes necessary. The petition is not itself a strike. It is a statement that contributors are prepared to stand in solidarity with Wikimedia workers and defend community accountability if requested. You can read the ongoing discussions here: * https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Community_Wishlist#May_20_update * https://w.wiki/Nt5V If you are concerned about: * the future of community-driven technical development, * the treatment of Wikimedia staff, * possible anti-union retaliation, * or the growing disconnect between WMF leadership and the editing community, please consider joining the discussion, spreading awareness, and signing the solidarity petition. Take action: https://wikiworkersunited.org/take-action-community/ Sign the petition: https://w.wiki/Nt5n In solidarity, Nemoralis

1 0

2026

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

Wikitech-l May 2026