An RfC is open on whether use of emojis with no encyclopedic value in mainspace and draftspace (e.g., at the start of paragraphs or in place of bullet points) should be added as a criterion under G15.
An RfC is in progress to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the Arbitration Committee election and resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.
The WikiCite 2025 conference took place in Berne, Switzerland. It showcased WikiCite-related efforts across multiple wikis, disciplines, languages and countries. Most of it was both streamed and recorded, and the videos are currently being processed.
Wikidata's 13th Birthday update: Funding applications are now closed, and the review process is underway. Applicants will be notified about the status of their submissions shortly. Are you planning to organize an event for the birthday but haven’t added it to the calendar yet? You can do so here: Wikidata:Thirteenth Birthday/Calendar 🎉
The deadline for the Fall 2025 MediaWiki Users & Developers Conference CfP is extended until September 15th. The conference will be held on October 28 - 30th, and hosted by the TIB Leibniz Centre in Hanover, Germany.
Press, articles, blog posts, videos
Blogs: Past, Present and Future: a Wikimedian-in-Residence at the Biodiversity Heritage Library: TiagoLubiana reflects on their tenure at the BHL (Q172266), integrating the biodiversity collections into the Wikimedia projects. Read on Diff Blog
Papers: Revealing hidden figures within natural history collections by empowering students with data sleuthing skills - Mabry et al.,(2025) Read here
Videos:
WiLES Wikidata Lexicographical Event Semantics modeling for natural languages (LD4 2025) YouTube
Wikidata presentations and lightning talks (LD4 2025) YouTube
On Wikiskills 1st Wikidata Training (Africa Wiki Women) YouTube
(French) Lors de la 1ère formation Wikidata de Wikiskills YouTube
Plugging into the WikiVerse: A Plug for a Wikidata Plug-in for ArchivesSpace YouTube
Dacit is a listening-training app for cochlear implant users, built as part of a Master's Thesis for LMU Munich, it is powered by Wikidata-lexicographical data. Practice with 3 different excercises; identify (German-language) speakers, words and minimal pairs in your browser or as an android app
LexToWiktonaryis a userscript that adds a Wiktionary links button on Wikidata Lexeme pages. It checks the lemmas of a lexeme, finds matching entries across different Wiktionary language editions, and shows them in a popup for quick access, with an option to expand to all Wiktionaries.
Other Noteworthy Stuff
The submission deadline for WikidataCon proposals has passed. Proposals that were submitted in time can still be edited until Sep 9. Proposals are hidden by default, but a page for sharing submissions is available and can facilitate coordination.
Help Panel has been deployed on Wikidata Beta.🎉 This is a feature designed to guide contributors with quick links to relevant help pages. It currently appears in read mode across most pages and can be configured by admins. You can enable it in your Beta preferences under "Newcomer features". To help shape its future on Wikidata, we're inviting you to test it and share feedback on this talk page.
Newest WikiProjects: WikiProject ASBS 2025 - Aims to Engage the botanical community at the 2025 ASBS Conference to promote and enhance contributions to Wikidata, Wikipedia, and Wikimedia Commons.
Showcase Lexemes: PC (L739282) - English noun (ˌpiːˈsiː) meaning "Personal Computer", "Printed Circuit", or "Peace Corps"
Development
We're investigate options for improving information saved while publishing (phab:T403149)
Mobile Editing Experience: we added multi-language support (T402630)
Wikidata integration in the other Wikimedia projects: We are continuing to look into reducing the number of changes that show up on Wikipedia and co's Recent changes and Watchlist from edits to aliases (phab:T401288), more info
If still "non-free", then the past revisions shouldn't be undeleted. We still want the image be as free and accessible as possible for especially American users (of English Wikipedia). Also, consistency matters still, and I don't want users to be confused between PNG and JPEG. George Ho (talk) 23:02, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The New Linked Data for Libraries LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group project series introduces participants to Wikidata/EMCO. The session guides attendees through creating a project and project page, followed by an open working hour for creating and editing in Wikidata and asking questions. Join on Tuesday, September 16th at 9am PT / 12pm ET / 16:00 UTC / 6pm CEST. More details and Zoom links are on the project page.
Virtual course: Wikidata and public domain (in Spanish). On September 25th start this online course until March 26, 2026. Registration open on this form.
WikidataCon 2025 proposal reviews are about to end. We are currently building an initial programme and will soon inform Speakers before publishing a first Schedule!
Press, articles, blog posts, videos
Blogs: GLAM Newsletter: Biodiversity Heritage Library update, harvesting Wikidata identifiers and improving the BHL2Wiki Tool - Read the article
Wikidata Lab XLVI: Wikidata and Semantic Memory, don't miss the workshop! (scheduled: 18.09.25, 1700 UTC) - YouTube
WikiCite 2025 Presentations:
Extracting citation relations from legacy publications, by David Lindeman - watch on Commons
A proposal for managing personal collections in Wikidata, by Tania Maio - watch on Commons
Tool of the week
Paulina is a Wikidata-based tool for the GLAM community that facilitates searching for authors and works, helps identify their copyright status in different countries, and provides access to works when available.
The Wikimedia Foundation launched a new team, the Wikidata Platform Team, to lead development and maintenance of query services, aiming for stable, scalable data access in collaboration with WMDE and the community.
Showcase Lexemes:blow (L4476) - English verb (bloʊ) meaning "to push air", "to explode", or "to perform fellatio"
Development
Scalability/sustainability: We have rolled out changes to minimize the number of entries stored in the recent changes tables of Wikipedia and co that are edits coming from Wikidata. This also reduces the number of changes from Wikidata you will see showing up in Recent changes and watchlist on Wikipedia and co further.
MCP for Wikidata: We are getting it ready for first testing.
Dumps: We are continuing to investigate how to provide smaller/subset dumps.
Mobile statement editing: We are continuing the work on making statements editable, especially qualifiers and multiple references.
Anubis (Q134301689) anti-bot software was deployed on Wikibase Cloud and XTools to prevent site outages caused by bot traffic. (T399851, T400229)
Exploring Seediq: A Journey through Translation and Linked Data Documentation 25 October .This event will showcase the Seediq communities’ translation of the OCLC white paper on Wikibase, followed by an overview of the full paper. It will conclude with an open discussion on the lessons learned during the translation project and broader reflections on linked data.
FREE virtual 1hr Wiki webinar focusing on plant biodiversity. Open to anyone wanting to improve their digital outreach skills by enriching Wikidata. Tuesday 14th of October at 3pm NZST. Register to get link.
Wikidata’s 13th Birthday is just around the corner! Are you planning to host a celebration but haven’t added it to the calendar yet? Join the party! Thirty-nine (39) events are already scheduled, and yours can be too: Birthday Calendar. It’s also the perfect time to contribute a birthday present or message to this list. Gifts can be anything that celebrates Wikidata and its amazing community like a script you’ve written, a tool improvement, a visual, a poem... 🎉
Duplicity This tool can pick a random article on a wiki without associated Wikidata item, and offer some possible matches on Wikidata, so you can add it to an existing item, or create a new one.
Other Noteworthy Stuff
Call for Projects and Mentors for Outreachy Round 31! If you have some ideas for coding or non-coding (design, documentation, translation, outreach, research) projects, share them by Sept. 26, 2025, at 4 pm UTC
Showcase Lexemes: Waage (L37547) – German noun (‘ˈvaːɡə’) meaning "scale (device for measuring mass)", "Libra constellation", or "equilibrium"
Development
Mobile statement editing: We are working more on the editing state of statements, especially qualifiers and progress indicators during saving (phab:T402620)
Dumps: We fixed an issue with some of the dumps (phab:T403882) and are improving the monitoring
GraphQL: We are working on making it easier to get labels of linked entities in an API response, starting with Items (phab:T404692)
Sustainability: We have now rolled out improvements to the tracking of Wikidata changes on the other Wikimedia projects on all projects in order to decrease the size of the database table that tracks these changes (phab:T401288)
Bug fixes: Tacsipacsi submitted fixes for two issues in error messages on Special:SetSiteLink. Thank you! (phab:T404499, phab:T404500)
New Linked Data for Libraries LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group project series! Mark your calendars for our first session of our WikiProject Personal Pronouns event series, which will provide a high-level overview of WikiProject Personal Pronouns' goals, past work, and implementation plans. The session will also serve as a practical orientation to the implementation work for this project, ending with a demonstration of the workflow to be used in subsequent sessions. No previous Wikidata experience is needed to participate. This session will be recorded. Slides and recordings will be found on the project page after the session. Join us Tuesday, September 30th at 9am PT/ 12pm ET/ 16:00 UTC / 6pm CEST (Time zone converter). Please see our project page for more information and Zoom links.
Wikidata are hosting a webinar on the Embedding Project: AI/ML Project Manager Philippe Saadé (WMDE) will introduce the project, including early experiences, wins and pitfalls, and open up the floor to your questions.
🎁 Countdown to 13!🎁 Wikidata's 13th Birthday is fast approaching and this week marks the start of the first Birthday Events! For a full rundown of all Birthday Events, please see the Birthday Calendar.
Starting the month of celebrations this week include: Wali Wikimedians Community, Latin America in Wikidata 2025, Hausa Wikipedians User Group and the language communities of Zambia, Twi and Kinyarwanda and regional celebrations from the Northern Nigerian, Dagbani and Ghanaians Wikimedian communities!
Wikidata Workflows: with ORCiD and OpenRefine - a Binghamton University Case Study By Sasha Frizzell - This lightning talk outlines Binghamton University Libraries’ pilot project to convert ORCID faculty data into Wikidata entries, showcasing linked data integration, data cleaning workflows, and strategies for enhancing institutional research visibility.
Showcase Lexemes:Knoten (L298686) - German noun (ˈknoːtn̩) meaning "tied fastening of ropes/strings", "speed unit in aviation/shipping", or "tangled clump of hair"
Development
Mobile statement editing: We continue to make good progress, which you can check out on beta Wikidata. Specifically it is now possible to
save changes to edits made to string Properties on statements (without losing qualifier / reference information) (phab:T401405)
GraphQL: We are continuing to make labels of linked entities accessible in the GraphQL endpoint (phab:T404692)
Wikidata in Wikipedia and co: We are continuing to work on improvements to how we technically track the use of Wikidata in the other Wikimedia projects in order to reduce the amount of changes from Wikidata in the watchlist and recent changes on Wikipedia and co.
The October 2025 issue of the Project Newsletter is now available.
Delivered 1 October 2025 by MediaWiki message delivery.
If you do not wish to receive the newsletter, please add an N to the column against your username on the Project Mainpage.
Hi. I was the original tagger of this page, but self-declined after it came to my attention that the author may hold the copyright here (see my talk). I don't know what's going on behind the scenes with VRT, but as far as I was aware they were in the process of donating the text of that sandbox, hence the {{permission pending}} on the talk. I'm a bit out of my depth here and the editor seems quite frustrated, so I was wondering if you could help me out? Thanks, UpTheOctave! • 8va?21:40, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Where do you get off deleting a submission that had already been confirmed?
My name is D J Forsyth, I wrote the article you just out of hand deleted from my sandbox. What you didnt do evedently was ANY work to see if the copy-write was mine. Oh wait, IT IS!
Not only had I emailed in the required information to this, I was able to document all work done by me as it even STATES ON THE FREAKING DHR WEBSITE I AM THE AUTHOR! As well I am the photographer who took the photos. I gave them freedom to use MY writing for educational purposes and for submission to the historical depts needed to get historical status on MY FARM as I now own it.
You are not an editor you are the opposite of one.
I am an internationally published writer who has dealt with editors my last 30 years. An editor investigates any possible allegations by reaching out to the writer.
You are not an editor and should be ashamed of yourself. Dfblizz (talk) 21:45, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
