Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2025-02-27/News and notes
Administrator elections up for reapproval and 1bil GET snagged on Commons
Administrator election RFCs conclude, reapproval RFC begins
After a long process of discussion and consensus brought us the first-ever crop of SecurePoll-elected administrators last November (see Signpost coverage of the creation of the process and its first trial), the first set of requests for comment regarding the administrator elections (AELECT) process have come to an end, having reached the following key conclusions:
- The pass percentage will remain at 70%.
- There will not be a limit on the number of candidates who can run in each election.
- Elections will be scrutineered by three CheckUsers from the English Wikipedia.
- An official voter guide for each election will not be made; the main election page will host a link to a list of unofficial guides, instead.
- Editors will be required to be extended confirmed to vote in elections, the same requirement as for standard RfAs.
- Candidates will require at least 20 votes in support to meet the pass threshold.
- Nominations must be made within a specific window of time before the election.
- Candidates will be ordered alphabetically, both on the election page and in SecurePoll.
- The discussion phase will last five days and occur prior to the voting phase.
- Unsuccessful candidates will not be restricted from running in future elections.
- Ideally, elections will be held every five months, with no minimum number of candidates.
A second RFC has now begun to decide whether the admin election process will become permanent or will be discontinued. As part of the discussion, three options have been brought to the table: do not hold future elections, approve a second trial run, or unconditionally approve future elections. As of the time of writing, the RFC has not concluded, but consensus seems to be trending towards unconditional approval. – QJR
French Wikipedia fights intimidation by journalist
An open letter has been created on the French Wikipedia in response to reports of harassment against a long-term contributor, known as FredD, by Erwan Seznec, a journalist for the French news magazine Le Point. An English translation of the letter, which has collected over 1000 signatures as of February 25, can be found in this issue's Community view.
Seznec emailed FredD on February 15, threatening to contact his employer and publicly reveal his identity because of a dispute relating to FredD's edits to the French Wikipedia article about Le Point; he had specifically added content about the magazine's denial of the existence of climate change. Back in December 2024, Seznec had also written an article for Le Point revealing personal details about several other editors.
Seznec has already published another article on the same magazine responding to this open letter. This response, however, is simply yet another bias complaint, going so far as to threaten legal action against FredD. His attempts at intimidation have also been publicly commented by the president of Wikimédia France, Antoine Srun, who denounced the magazine's threats.
On February 17, Le Point's lawyers also sent a formal notice to the Wikimedia Foundation, alleging, among other things, that Wikipedia is in violation of the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), and "questioning the very functioning of Wikipedia" (as reported by Marianne).
On February 20, Le Point published a petition of its own, whose signatories include four former ministers, two former presidents of the National Assembly, editors, journalists, an important Publicis board member (Élisabeth Badinter), a former member of the Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel, and a number of well-known intellectuals. The petition expresses "deep concern about unopposed campaigns of systematic denigration by anonymous activists". The full list of signatories (as of 26 February), with links to their respective fr.wp entries, can be found here: (permalink).
Sadly, intimidation of Wikipedians is not a new issue. This has been a major issue in India lately, with another similar incident occurring on the English Wikipedia last year, resulting in an open letter that received over 1300 signatures and an ongoing court case; plus, there is another ongoing issue regarding the encyclopedia's coverage of an Indian historical figure – see this issue's In the media for the latter case. It has also recently been revealed that US-headquartered Heritage Foundation elaborated a plan to "identify and target" Wikipedia contributors (see prior Signpost coverage). – QJR, H, SR
One billion Commons revisions
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On February 18, Wikimedia Commons achieved one billion GET — at least as measured by revision IDs. Revision 1,000,000,000 was contributed by User:DPLA bot, and consisted of uploading a photo of a house in Central Ohio — without further information about the image's subject, except for the title "Powhatan Ave" — as part of a contribution by the Columbus Metropolitan Library facilitated by the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA).
Ombuds commission announced
The selection process for Ombuds commission has concluded. This commission investigates violations of the privacy policy and use of CheckUser and Oversight tools across projects. The commission will consist of 12 members and one Steward-Observer, with new members being set to serve in the position for two years.
The newly selected members are:
- User:Galahad
- User:Revi C.
- User:Teles
- User:Zafer
- User:Vermont (Steward-Observer) – term expiring in 2026
Further information on all the members of the commission can be found at the page for the official meta announcement. – S
Universal Code of Conduct news
The annual review for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is currently ongoing. Editors are encouraged to leave comments and feedback on different aspects of the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC), as well as the enforcement guidelines and the U4C Charter. It is not currently clear how long this feedback process will go on for, or what the future steps from here will look like. This review process is necessary before the UCoC charter or any associated pages can be modified, since they were first ratified by the various bodies.
The U4C also added Jacob Rogers, an Associate General Counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation, as a non-voting member. – S
Steward elections
2025 Steward Elections are currently ongoing on meta. There are 9 eligible candidates currently standing for elections, and the voting phase will continue until 27 February, being held via public vote, similar to our RfAs. Voters can check their eligibility for voting through this Toolforge page.
Also as part of the steward elections, all 32 current stewards are currently being evaluated for confirmation. Every current steward goes through this confirmation process on a yearly basis; once the current community consultation is completed, the right may be removed by a majority vote of other stewards. – S
BoT news: Interim GRDC is taking nominations, while PTAC recommends prioritising mobile contributor experience
The Global Resource Distribution Committee (GRDC), proposed by the Board of Trustees earlier last year, has started its nomination process on meta. The Committee will consist of eight volunteers (one for each region), one thematic volunteer, two nominees from affiliates, and two nominees from WMF; selected nominees will serve for two years. Nominations for the Interim GRDC were open until February 25; the selection process started the following day, with the final announcement being due on March 19.
The committee is theoretically responsible for managing the Wikimedia Community Fund, overseeing the Regional Fund Committees and advising the WMF on funding and grants. The Signpost last covered this subject back in August 2024, when the WMF Board of Trustees had first announced the GDRC as part of its three experimental measures in lieu of passing the Movement Charter.
Among the aforementioned measures, there also was the Product and Technology Advisory Council (PTAC), which was first appointed in 2024 for a one-year pilot phase – see prior Signpost coverage from the 19 October issue. The council is supposed to advise the WMF on product and technology development over the long term.
Following a recent meeting, the PTAC published its draft recommendations: of four potential directions, PTAC recommended prioritizing the mobile contributor experience. Feedback for this specific recommendation can be left on its talk page. – S
News from WMF
News from WMF and the rest of the movement have arrived via the WMF's January Newsletter. Nine Wikimedia Conference proposals were approved for 2025. The WMF Research Team published their report on administrator recruitment and attrition as a 70-page document. The WMF Board of Trustees appointed Lorenzo Losa as its Chair-Elect.
News from the February newsletter includes the Wikimedia Foundation joining the TAROCH Coalition – TAROCH stands for "Towards an Open Cultural Heritage Recommendation" – a campaign led by Creative Commons to advocate for access to open culture and knowledge. WMF Legal is collecting examples of banner and logo changes in local projects; Wikimedians may submit them on the project's meta page. The executive team from the WMF, including CEO Maryana Iskander, has published an email reflecting on 2025 and summarising their last year of work.
The Thirduary newsletter includes the newly-launched Community Updates module from the Growth team, similar to the other "Community Configuration" tools. Launched in February, the module allows admins to deliver updates on Wikiprojects and events directly to newcomers' "homepages". Wikimedia Enterprise, a service maintained by WMF (see prior Signpost coverage), has partnered with "green" search engine Ecosia. March will also be the month for Celebrate Women, with cross project events to bridge the gender gap. Finally, the Affiliations Committee has officially recognised Wikimedia Brasil as a Chapter and Wikimedia Community User Group South Sudan as a user group. – S
Brief notes
- Milestones: The following Wikimedia projects reached milestones in February 2025:
- 1,000 articles: Central Kanuri Wikipedia
- 2,000 articles: Tswana Wikipedia
- 5,000 articles: Norman Wikipedia
- 10,000 articles: Saraiki Wikipedia
- Articles for Improvement: This week's Article for Improvement is Jewish deli, followed by Kerosene (beginning 3 March). Please be bold in helping improve these articles!
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Discuss this story
"1bil GET snagged on Commons" in the headline does not seem to have an associated story. I assume some obscure jargon is being used. DuncanHill (talk) 11:25, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]