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Last week, I embarked on an inspiring initiative to harness the potential of the Catholic Youth Organization of Nigeria (CYON), a vibrant and dynamic arm of the Catholic Church composed of young, energetic individuals. The CYON represents a diverse group of youth eager to contribute to their communities and the world at large.

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Recognizing their enthusiasm and potential, I partnered with the Igbo Wikimedians User Group to launch a project aimed at introducing CYON members to the Wikimedia Foundation and its mission of fostering free, accessible knowledge globally.

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The project brought together a select group of CYON members for an immersive training program. Participants received hands-on instruction on editing and creating high-quality articles for Wikipedia, the world’s largest free online encyclopedia. The training covered essential skills, including how to research credible sources, adhere to Wikipedia’s content guidelines, and craft well-structured, neutral articles. By contributing to Wikipedia, these young participants became active stewards of open knowledge, helping to expand the availability of reliable information for a global audience.

The enthusiasm of the CYON members was palpable throughout the program. These young individuals demonstrated a keen desire to acquire new skills, embrace digital literacy, and make meaningful contributions to the global knowledge ecosystem. Their passion for learning and commitment to excellence were truly inspiring, underscoring the immense potential within Nigeria’s youth population.

This initiative aligns closely with the Wikimedia Foundation’s mission to empower individuals worldwide to collect and develop educational content under a free license. By guiding these new contributors, I aim to nurture their talents and support their growth as confident, skilled editors. This project also seeks to amplify underrepresented voices, particularly from Nigeria and the Igbo community, ensuring that diverse perspectives are reflected in Wikipedia’s vast repository of knowledge.

Looking ahead, I am committed to mentoring these young talents, providing ongoing support to help them navigate the Wikimedia ecosystem and achieve greater success. Future plans include expanding the program to engage more CYON members, fostering collaborations with other Wikimedia user groups, and exploring opportunities to document Nigeria’s rich cultural heritage on Wikipedia. By equipping these youths with the tools to contribute to open knowledge, we are not only empowering them but also building a brighter, more informed future for communities worldwide.

This initiative marks the beginning of an exciting journey. With the continued support of the Igbo Wikimedians User Group and the dedication of the CYON members, I am confident that we can achieve remarkable milestones in advancing the Wikimedia Foundation’s vision of a world where knowledge is freely shared and accessible to all.

In 2024, Egypt Wikimedians User Group began planning for a big GLAM project in Egypt. There may have been limited GLAM activities in the past years, but they were very few and did not meet the desired level in terms of size and results. It was unfortunate that our group was late in GLAM activity, especially since Egypt is a country with a rich history and ancient civilizations, and has a huge amount of heritages and cultural content. Therefore, the group had already begun planning for the activity last year, according to the famous saying (better late than never), as the plan includes 3 museums, 2 libraries, and 2 archives.

Over the past few months, the group organized three significant museum visits—Luxor Museum (February 2), Alexandria National Museum (April 24), and the Museum of Islamic Art (May 10) to document and upload high-quality images and information to Commons, Wikipedia and Wikisource.

Luxor Museum: Capturing Ancient Egyptian Treasures

The first stop in this series was the Luxor Museum, home to an exceptional collection of artifacts from ancient Thebes. During their visit to Luxor, members of the Egypt Wikimedians User Group organized a photo trip to the city’s museum. They photographed and documented key exhibits, including statues of pharaohs, tools, jewelry, and relics. The group ensured that students, researchers, and history enthusiasts worldwide can access and utilize these resources by uploading these images under open licenses. This initiative aligns with Wikipedia’s mission of free knowledge dissemination while promoting Luxor’s cultural significance. (Read more about the Luxor Museum phototrip)

Alexandria National Museum: Showcasing Hellenistic and Maritime History

Next stop was the Alexandria National Museum, which houses artifacts from Egypt’s Greco-Roman, Coptic, and Islamic periods. The Group’s members focused on photographing rare pieces, such as Alexandria’s underwater discoveries, Hellenistic sculptures, and medieval manuscripts. These contributions enrich Wikipedia articles related to Mediterranean history and archaeology, ensuring that Alexandria’s multicultural heritage is well-represented online. This event came after the closing session of the WikiMed and Wikidata workshops. (Read more about the photo trip)

Museum of Islamic Art: Highlighting Arts in Medieval Egypt

The final visit was to Cairo’s Museum of Islamic Art, one of the world’s largest repositories of Islamic artifacts. Members photographed calligraphic works, astrolabes, textiles, and architectural fragments, spanning over a millennium of Islamic civilization. These uploads support Wikipedia’s coverage of Islamic art, science, and history, bridging knowledge gaps for researchers globally. (Read more about the Museum of Islamic Art visit)

Through these GLAM activities, the Egypt Wikimedians User Group has demonstrated a strong commitment to preserving and sharing Egypt’s cultural heritage. By collaborating with museums and leveraging open-access platforms, they ensure that historical treasures remain accessible to future generations. Such initiatives not only enhance global knowledge equity but also reinforce the importance of digital preservation in the modern age.

Title: Building Inclusive Communities Through Language
Date: TBD, Wikimania 2025 – Nairobi, Kenya
Format: One-day preconference

🌍 About the Event

Languages are more than tools of communication; they are vessels of culture, identity, and knowledge. At Wikitongues, we believe building inclusive communities begins with embracing linguistic diversity in all its forms.

Join us for a one-day preconference at Wikimania 2025 focused on exploring how language documentation, multilingual tools, and community storytelling can foster inclusion within the Wikimedia movement and beyond.

🎯 We Invite You to Submit Proposals For:

• Lightning Talks (8–10 minutes): Share a project, story, or tool that advances linguistic inclusion.
  
• Workshops (45–60 minutes): Facilitate skill-sharing or collaborative learning on language documentation, multilingual editing, oral history, etc.
  
• Community Showcases: Display posters, tools, or media projects during our exhibit-style networking session.
  

🔍 Suggested Topics

• Indigenous and endangered language initiatives
  
• Oral history, storytelling, and documentation ethics
  
• Building multilingual Wikimedia projects
  
• Language justice in free knowledge
  
• Tools like Lingua Libre, Wikidata Lexemes, Wiktionary
  
• Bridging language and accessibility gaps
  

🧾 Submission Guidelines

Please include:

• Title of your session
  
• Abstract (max 100 words)
  
• Format (Talk / Workshop / Showcase)
  
• Language(s) used
  
• Presenter bio
  
• Any technical needs
  

🗓️ Deadline to Submit: [July 5, 2025]
📬 Submit via: SUBMIT A PROPOSAL HERE

Notifications of acceptance will go out by July 15, 2025.

📩 Contact

Questions? Reach out to [email protected] or message us.

Let’s build a more inclusive future through language together..

YOU will always be a part of the YOUth.

It can be a fancy word play but I think everyone, regardless of their status as well as background, have been in the spirit of the youth. What I mean by being part of the youth is, we have similar problems, and challenges we dealt with in the community, but here’s the catch: we can also solve these together.

The first of its kind, Wikimedia Youth Conference 2025, is a fusion of both empowerment as well as finding solutions workshops. But instead of feeling it like the usual set-up of sharing from a speaker and thinking afterwards, it was done in a way that everyone’s situation is considered. A more inductive approach—speaking first of what you feel and think, before generating results.

And what does this mean: being “you”. More than what data implies is the context as to why youngsters are being limited in the movement. From this, it gives everyone an opportunity to rethink why we do things the way we do.

When I applied for this, about five months ago, I just thought this would be just the same academic conference I have been to outside of the movement. More of a lecture, less of interaction and keeping minds with knowledge. But to my surprise, what makes this conference “youthful” is doing something while in the conference. 

The side talks with partners, the rethinking with silence, as well as the group activities made me realize things that I haven’t had the privilege of time to think of. 

Primary and most important perhaps is my realization on the well-being chart activity on the second day. Just for the background, the activity asks everyone to fill in a color wheel from 1-10, one being the lowest, of what kind of environments and stresses do you have. The activity made me think thoroughly. 

I realized how grueling my life had been in the last years. From coping up with academic demands, emotional insecurity, as well as keeping myself from numerous adult and life pressures; it made me think more about where I am heading to. I would really like to do this in the local user group I am affiliated with since I think it would be better to also make them aware of their own overall well-being. 

From that activity, I found the importance of keeping “you” in youth. To keep yourself and remind yourself why you joined the movement—to leverage as well as make knowledge more freer. To capacitate and ensure growth inside of the movement. To love and care for the world and to make one’s well-being secure. And alongside this is the need for a supportive environment through peers as well as an established framework of care and safe space. 

In line with this, the ESEAP youth members came up with making a ESEAP Youth Hub, where youth will be connected and more empowered through meet-ups, knowledge sharing, skills development, as well as keeping everyone in touch—making bonds as well as friendships that last. 

Speaking of bonds and friendships, I am just amazed by the greatest human decency ever displayed. More than the content, I remember the hugs that keep me welcomed. This is my first conference in Wikimedia, and certainty won’t be the last.

I don’t know but, my tears suddenly dropped as TK 0084 arrived in my country.  As I get back in my province, I see now a redirection or at least my eager effort to rebuild what was lost in me during those grueling years— eagerness, dedication, and pursuit of excellence. 

Never in my wildest dreams that I have the chance to talk with all young wikimedia-leaders in the world. Conversations were really insightful and I learnt much from them.

These are the photos that speak most of my experiences. 

At this point, I want to extend my gratitude to the organizing team, CEE Youth, and Wikimedia Czech for a very nice event. Also, a million thanks to Wiki Advocates Philippines User Group for being my home who motivated me as well as for introducing me to the movement. Lastly, I would like to remember the people I have meet in the conference.

YOUr presence make this youth event “me”, and I hope you also make this event YOUrs.

On the occasion of the ninth edition of the Osiane Fair, the largest digital event in Central Africa, held in Brazzaville from May 13 to 16, 2025, the Wikimedians of Republic of Congo User Group actively participated to promote free knowledge, raise public awareness about the world’s largest encyclopedia (Wikipedia), and present the projects of the Wikimedia Foundation.

The community’s participation at Osiane 2025 was structured around several key areas:

Public Awareness

More than 1,000 people from various backgrounds (students, professionals, digital sector actors, teachers, and the general public) were sensitized to the importance of Wikipedia as the world’s largest encyclopedia and a platform for free access to knowledge, as well as to the values and objectives of the Wikimedia movement.

Workshops and Demonstrations

The community organized practical workshops on creating and improving Wikipedia articles, contributing to Wikimedia Commons, highlighting local content, and even creating the Osiane Fair article live during the event here.

Promotion of Inclusivity and Multilingualism

Emphasis was placed on the importance of linguistic and cultural diversity in the production of free content, encouraging contributions in French, Lingála, and Kikôngo.

Network Strengthening

This presence made it possible to establish new partnerships with digital actors, educational institutions, and civil society organizations, in order to strengthen the visibility and impact of the Wikimedia movement, as well as to highlight the importance of Wikimedians of Republic of Congo User Group.

This participation is fully in line with the mission of the Wikimedians of Republic of Congo User Group: to promote the free sharing of knowledge, recruit and train new contributors, and enrich the quality and diversity of Congo-related content on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.

The commitment of the Wikimedians of Republic of Congo User Group at Osiane 2025 confirms its key role in the Congolese digital ecosystem, serving education, innovation, and inclusion.

In Iran, the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom” (Zan, Zendegi, Azadi) became a symbol of resistance and hope during the 2022 protests, sparked by the death of Mahsa (Jina) Amini while in police custody. Since then, it has come to represent a broader struggle for gender equality and civil rights in the country. Women in Iran still face many restrictions—in the media, in public life, and even in how they are remembered.

In this context, Wikipedia plays an important role. It gives people around the world the chance to share knowledge, correct imbalances, and make sure that women’s stories are not left out. The Women in Red project helps address this by focusing on “red links”—topics about women that don’t yet have articles—and turning them into “blue links” with well-sourced content.

Since 2021, the Iranian Wikimedians User Group has organized an annual Women in Red campaign on Persian Wikipedia to increase the number of articles about women. The 2025 edition marked the fifth year of this effort, bringing together new and experienced editors who believe that writing about women is one way to support freedom, equality, and justice.

The Campaign: How it Worked

The 2025 Women in Red campaign on Persian Wikipedia ran for one full month—from March 8 to April 6, 2025—to coincide with International Women’s Day and the start of the Persian new year. The campaign was hosted on the Fountain platform, where participants could submit their articles and track their progress.

As in previous years, the event was organized by the Iranian Wikimedians User Group, with User:Persia and User:Darafsh serving as coordinators and juries.

To ensure that contributions were meaningful and met the quality standards of the Persian Wikipedia community, the campaign followed a clear set of rules. Each article had to be directly related to women or women-centered topics, and it was required to meet a minimum length of 5,000 bytes and 500 words. Articles needed to be based on reliable sources, written in clear and proper language, and satisfy Wikipedia’s notability guidelines. Submissions that consisted of lists, relied on machine translation, or carried maintenance tags were not accepted.

Outreach and Preparation: Connecting with Communities Before the Campaign

Before the campaign officially began, we organized two key events to engage the community and raise awareness—both inside and outside the Wikimedia movement.

The first was a public webinar on International Women’s Day, streamed live on YouTube, Kick, Twitch, Instagram, X, and the Iranian Wikimedians website, with 546 live viewers. The event opened with a talk by Mahnaz Afshar, an artist and activist, who spoke about the everyday struggles and resilience of Iranian women. She highlighted how women continue to balance personal roles with creative and professional ambitions despite social restrictions. Sahar Tousi, an athlete and member of the “Girls of Tomorrow” campaign, then shared her story as the first Iranian woman to cycle solo from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf to promote girls’ education. She emphasized the shared responsibility of making women’s achievements visible. Finally, Darafsh from the Iranian Wikimedians User Group introduced the Wikipedia platform, explained the contest’s purpose, and gave a step-by-step guide to article creation—helping newcomers gain confidence to contribute.

The second event was a training session for new editors, designed to introduce the goals of the campaign and provide practical guidance on how to create high-quality articles. During the session, experienced users WASP-Outis and Harold Krabs led tutorials on how to write articles from scratch and how to translate content from other languages into Persian using available tools.

To support participants throughout the campaign, we also created a Telegram support group, where community members actively answered questions and helped troubleshoot issues. This real-time interaction proved especially helpful for newcomers, including women who were contributing to Wikipedia for the first time.

In addition, a set of short instructional videos was produced by user Artin and published on YouTube. These videos offered clear, step-by-step explanations of how to write and submit articles for the campaign, how to use the Fountain tool, and where to go for help.

Participation and Impact

The 2025 Women in Red campaign on Persian Wikipedia saw 57 users take part, collectively creating 1,530 new articles over the course of one month. These contributions significantly expanded the encyclopedia’s coverage of women and women-related topics in Persian. The campaign attracted both seasoned Wikipedians and newcomers—some of them women contributing for the first time. Outreach events, training sessions, and ongoing support through Telegram and YouTube helped participants feel confident and informed. The shared goal of amplifying women’s presence in free knowledge brought the community together around a sense of purpose.

Submitted articles covered a diverse range of subjects—from athletes, artists, and scholars to journalists, activists, and historical figures. All articles were reviewed to ensure they met the campaign’s quality criteria: sufficient length, clear writing, reliable sources, and relevance to women’s representation.

Recognition and Top Contributors

To acknowledge outstanding contributions and encourage participation, the campaign offered prizes to the top six contributors based on both the quantity and quality of their work. Articles were carefully reviewed to ensure they met all the criteria, including originality, relevance, sourcing, and language. The judging process was carried out by Persia and Darafsh, both long-time members of the Iranian Wikimedians User Group.

Although Persia created the highest number of articles—222 in total, with 189 meeting the quality threshold—they did not accept a prize due to their role as both an organizer and judge. This ensured fairness and transparency in the evaluation process.

The final top-ranked participants were:

User:Tisfoon – 178 articles, all eligible

User:Harold Krabs – 176 articles (175 eligible)

User:Delta-light – 167 articles (166 eligible)

User:Khoshnevisan – 140 articles, all eligible

User:Pereoptic – 104 articles, all eligible

User:Mahan – 76 articles, all eligible

Prizes were awarded as follows: €150 for first place, €100 for second, €75 for third, and €50 each for fourth to sixth place.

Although the contest was competitive, its spirit remained deeply collaborative. Participants regularly exchanged ideas, gave feedback, and supported each other through Telegram and other community channels. The prize structure added a layer of motivation, but the shared mission—strengthening the presence of women on Persian Wikipedia—is what ultimately brought people together.

Looking Ahead: Beyond the Contest

Each year, the Women in Red campaign on Persian Wikipedia has grown not just in numbers, but in purpose. The 2025 edition reaffirmed that when people are given the tools, support, and a clear goal, they will come together to write—not only articles, but history. This campaign helped surface stories that would otherwise remain buried. It also showed that Wikipedia can serve as more than a website—it can be a platform for solidarity, visibility, and social change. The high number of participants, the presence of new editors (many of them women), and the level of community engagement all pointed to the campaign’s deeper impact: building confidence, building community, and building equity.

Moving forward, we plan to continue this annual tradition and expand our efforts to include smaller local edit-a-thons, themed translation drives, and community workshops throughout the year. We hope to encourage more women to join and stay in the Wikimedia movement—not only during campaigns, but as lasting contributors to the free knowledge ecosystem.

After all, turning red links blue is not just about fixing pages—it’s about making sure women’s lives, voices, and legacies have a place in the record we all share. In this spirit, we continue to write—because as long as knowledge is power, “Woman, Life, Freedom” must echo in every language, every project, and every page.

The Mail

It all started on the 4th of August 2024 when I received a mail from African and Proud the sponsors of the Afroyanga edition and Bootcamp. Thrilled remains an understatement to express my very expression the day I got the news. I never imagined myself being picked for this great meeting. Scaling through the message, I was immediately overwhelmed with imaginations as I was already envisioning myself in Lagos State as I read through.

Arrival

Getting to Lagos on the 21st, which happened to be a smooth ride, was one day not to be easily forgotten as I was opportune to meet other campers and familiarize myself with them. The sponsors of the segment gave us the needed treat that befits a king on arrival and throughout our stay in Lagos.

Hands-on Session

We had training sessions by different Wikimedians who were also in attendance. Accurate took us on “Introduction to Wiki-Functions”, while Ogali Hilary and Achie Sylvester took us on a journey through Wikidata. Umasoye Ìgwè made us understand the importance of preserving local indigenous languages while leveraging on Wikimedia.

The event got me really busy as I had my hands on deck all through. I also had the opportunity to create items on Wikiquote under the tutelage of Taoheedah Abdulkareem.

Downtime/Free Day

After everything, we had fun at the poolside, which actually gave us the privilege of easing the mind with the mental exercise it has been subjected to since the time we came.

Departure

On the 26th of August, 2024, we departed Msquare Hotel Ikeja, Lagos, where we camped for a thrilling and impactful experience.

Appreciation / Acknowledgement

To date, I still give thanks to the Facilitators for what they did. This piece wouldn’t be complete if I fail to acknowledge the efforts of Kolawole, Muna, Richard Edozie, and Kayode, who made the event and our stay generally in Lagos worthwhile.

Memorable Activity

For me, the most important aspect of the Bootcamp was meeting other experienced editors who knew more than I did and guided me through this journey of editing and translating meaningful content in the Wiki Space. Truly speaking, Afroyanga was indeed, a leap forward in my Wiki Journey.

• Albania report: Enhancing the LGBTQ+ content in Albanian Wikipedia
• Belgium report: Belgium Public Domain Day and Dance Heritage
• Brazil report: Video resource on Wikimedia Brasil and Casa de Oswaldo Cruz Partnership Released
• Croatia report: SPRINGing back activities
• Czech Republic report: National Library of the CR events and important guests
• Europe report: DARIAH DHwiki WG coming activity
• India report: GLAM project starts with Nanda Talukdar Foundation at Jorhat, Assam
• Indonesia report: GLAM Wiki Month 2025 in Indonesia
• Italy report: From charts to concrete
• Kosovo report: Traditional Albanian Food Photography Competition 2025
• New Zealand report: Update from Auckland Museum; Let the Wikifying Commence; Listful Thinking
• Nigeria report: Architectural Folklore Campaign Series
• Poland report: What’s up in GLAM in Poland
• Serbia report: Celebrating Museums and strengthening #1Lib1Ref connections
• Spain report: Some news from Spain
• Switzerland report: International Museum Day 2025; CoCreation PTT-Archive; Scoring Girls
• UK report: The 18th language
• Ukraine report: Spring GLAM news from Ukraine – first major survey for GLAM institutions & yet another successful #1Lib1Ref
• USA report: May meetings
• Biodiversity Heritage Library report: BHL-Wiki Working Group May monthly highlights
• Memory of the World report: Preparing the data upload
• Calendar: June’s GLAM events

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Weekly highlight

• The Trust and Safety Product team is finalizing work needed to roll out temporary accounts on large Wikipedias later this month. The team has worked with stewards and other users with extended rights to predict and address many use cases that may arise on larger wikis, so that community members can continue to effectively moderate and patrol temporary accounts. This will be the second of three phases of deployment – the last one will take place in September at the earliest. For more information about the recent developments on the project, see this update. If you have any comments or questions, write on the talk page, and join a CEE Catch Up this Tuesday.

Updates for editors

• The watchlist expiry feature allows editors to watch pages for a limited period of time. After that period, the page is automatically removed from your watchlist. Starting this week, you can set a preference for the default period of time to watch pages. The preferences also allow you to set different default watch periods for editing existing pages, pages you create, and when using rollback. [1]

• The appearance of talk pages will change at almost all Wikipedias (some have already received this design change, a few will get these changes later). You can read details about the changes on Diff. It is possible to opt out of these changes in user preferences (“Show discussion activity”). [2][3]
• Users with specific extended rights (including administrators, bureaucrats, checkusers, oversighters, and stewards) can now have IP addresses of all temporary accounts revealed automatically during time-limited periods where they need to combat high-speed account-hopping vandalism. This feature was requested by stewards. [4]
• This week, the Moderator Tools and Machine Learning teams will continue the rollout of a new filter to Recent Changes, releasing it to several more Wikipedias. This filter utilizes the Revert Risk model, which was created by the Research team, to highlight edits that are likely to be reverted and help Recent Changes patrollers identify potentially problematic contributions. The feature will be rolled out to the following Wikipedias: Afrikaans Wikipedia, Belarusian Wikipedia, Bengali Wikipedia, Welsh Wikipedia, Hawaiian Wikipedia, Icelandic Wikipedia, Kazakh Wikipedia, Simple English Wikipedia, Turkish Wikipedia. The rollout will continue in the coming weeks to include the rest of the Wikipedias in this project. [5]
• View all 27 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Updates for technical contributors

• AbuseFilter editors active on Meta-Wiki and large Wikipedias are kindly asked to update AbuseFilter to make it compatible with temporary accounts. A link to the instructions and the private lists of filters needing verification are available on Phabricator.
• Lua modules now have access to the name of a page’s associated thumbnail image, and on some wikis to the WikiProject assessment information. This is possible using two new properties on mw.title objects, named pageImage and pageAssessments. [6][7]
• Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

Filter and explore your Wikibase data via our new MediaWiki extension!

We are proud to announce the immediate availability of a faceted search experience for Wikibase. The new Wikibase Faceted Search extension enhances the standard search page with filtering capabilities and user-friendly UIs.

Capabilities

Filter search results by Statement values via the facet UI or by Item type via the tabs.

You can build complex queries by selecting multiple values for the same property or different properties, including range queries, conjunctions (AND) and disjunctions (OR).

Combine full-text search with structured search on Statements. Such combined queries are not supported by WikibaseCirrusSearch or by Blazegraph/SPARQL. Combining structured and full-text search is ideal for wikis with "display pages" that provide a user-friendly view on Wikibase Items via rendered wikitext.

Customize your facet UI and configure Wikibase Faceted Search via the on-wiki configuration UI. No server access or PHP configuration needed.

The extension is mobile friendly.

Learn more via the Wikibase Faceted Search documentation.

Professional Wikibase Services

Get started quickly with Wikibase via Wikibase hosting or professional Wikibase services.

At Professional Wiki, we have unparalleled Wikibase expertise. Leverage our experts for anything from high-level strategic advice to secure configuration of Single Sign-On. Contact Wikibase experts.

On the eve of the next Wiki Education Speaker Series, we’re looking back at the powerful conversation between our most recent panelists, each bringing their professional and personal passions to improving a content area all too often neglected on Wikipedia and beyond.

Moderated by Wiki Education’s Senior Program Manager Helaine Blumenthal, the panel of scholars and advocates gathered virtually to shed light on the ongoing efforts to expand and enhance disability-related information on Wikipedia.

“We know that when you can better inform families and their loved ones that experience disability, it results in better healthcare,” said panelist Ryan Easterly, Executive Director of the WITH Foundation. “We’ve all been to a doctor’s office, not understood something they’ve said to us, and turned to Wikipedia. Our support of this work acknowledges that, and acknowledges what a powerful tool Wikipedia is when it comes to healthcare information.”

Thanks to a strategic partnership grant from the WITH Foundation, Wiki Education continues to build upon efforts to improve and expand Wikipedia’s coverage of healthcare for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This initiative includes a series of Wiki Scientists courses that teaches experts in intellectual and developmental disability (I/DD) healthcare, including adults with lived experience of I/DD, to contribute their expertise to Wikipedia. 

One such expert is Diana Boling, a registered nurse and professor at Xavier University College of Nursing, who shared her experience learning to edit Wikipedia as a Wiki Scientists course participant herself. 

“Much of my [Wikipedia] journey has been fueled by curiosity,” Boling explained. “Where can I show up better? How can I be a better nurse? How can I be a better neighbor or human?” 

Echoing Easterly’s reflection of Wikipedia’s real-world influence, Boling emphasized the critical connection between Wikipedia, scholarship, and lived experience.

“As many of us know as scholars, our textbooks don’t always capture information in the most accurate or useful ways,” said Boling. “Educators, particularly nurses and other healthcare providers, need to be educated about how we can leverage Wikipedia. And hopefully folks with lived experiences are contributing to it, which can then help healthcare providers reach their patients in meaningful ways rather than in stereotypical, less effective, or sometimes even alienating ways.”

As an early editor of Wikipedia, the first blind administrator on English Wikipedia, and now the technology program lead at the Braille Institute, panelist Skylar Covich has brought his own lived experience and expertise to the online encyclopedia for many years. His contributions include article creation and improvements for notable individuals within blind culture, organizations for the blind, and access technology for the blind.

Covich also encouraged individuals with lived experience to review the Wikipedia articles related to their own conditions and help fill the gaps.

“There are things that could be added about the experiences of what it’s like [to have these conditions] that are less in the medical field and more in the cultural field,” Covich noted. “The references are out there, it just takes effort.”

Panelist Terri Hlava’s students are more than familiar with the research efforts needed to contribute to Wikipedia – the Arizona State University professor has incorporated a Wikipedia assignment into her Policy Advocacy and Disability courses in the School of Social Transformation, as well as the course Justice and Disability: The Social Construction of Disability.

“[The assignment] has been just tremendous for team building, trust building, community building, and knowledge building throughout the process,” said Hlava. “We always have presentations at the end of class, and it’s really been lovely to see the students have so much confidence in what they’re saying and be so proud of what they’ve done.”

Hlava loves the moment where her students realize the scope and reach of their work on Wikipedia.

“We go online as a class, and they see how many zillions of times their articles have been looked at,” said Hlava. “And then without fail, their jaws dropped to the floor and they gasp in amazement. I love that for them.”

As the webinar reached its end, the panelists were asked to share what made them hopeful for the future of disability representation on Wikipedia. Easterly emphasized opportunities to engage new editors, Covich acknowledged the historic growth of Wikipedia’s coverage in this topic area, and Hlava and Boling shared that the panel discussion itself gave them hope.

“Opportunities like this to share, to educate, and to travel the landscape together more often and more deeply,” answered Hlava.  

Catch up on our Speaker Series on our YouTube channel and join us for our next webinar tomorrow, June 10!

Gaps & Growth: Enhancing Latino/x/é and Latin American content on Wikipedia

Tuesday, June 10, 2025
9:30am Pacific / 12:30pm Eastern
REGISTRATION

Live interpretation from English to Spanish will be available to attendees during this webinar.

Brechas y crecimiento: Mejorando el contenido latino/x/é y latinoamericano en Wikipedia

Martes, 10 de junio, 2025
9:30am Pacífico / 12:30pm Este
INSCRIPCIÓN

Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your course? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free resources, digital tools, and staff support that Wiki Education offers to postsecondary instructors in the United States and Canada. 

Visit learn.wikiedu.org to explore our editing courses for subject matter experts.

Communication when done right is powerful! Whether it’s pitching an idea to a group of investors, leading a movement, or advocating for a cause, how communicate is done can make all the difference

The Africa Wiki Women, recognising that communication has the power to drive change, inspire action, shape perceptions, and produce tangible results. centered the April Edition of the AWW Skill–Up Workshop on “The Art of Public Speaking.”

The session featured Winnie Kabintie as the guest trainer; a journalist and communication specialist with more than a decade of experience in the media industry. Community leaders from Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Madagascar, Gambia, and other parts of Africa convened for the workshop.

Through the interactive session, Winnie unpacked how public speaking can be a game changer for leadership, advocacy, and community development. Key insights also cut across techniques for projecting confidence, structuring content, and engaging diverse audiences. Emphasis was also placed on the element of consideration in communication and the importance of asking the 4 W’s and 1H questions in the process of communicating:

• Who do you want to communicate to?
• What exactly do you want them to know and do with that information?
• Why should it matter to them?
• Where is the best platform or context?
• How can you deliver it in terms of clarity, structure and relevance?

Participants gained fresh perspectives on how they can utilise public speaking to drive sustainable impact across societies. And also had a good opportunity to give a sneak peek into their first public speaking experience.

Become a part of the Africa Wiki Women Community today by registering as a member. To stay in the loop of the community’s activities, follow on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

I joined the ESEAP Strategy Summit 2025, held in Manila, Philippines from May 23 to 25, 2025. ESEAP is an affiliate organization of Wikimedia in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific region. I joined the ESEAP Conference 2024 held in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia last year, and interacted with many Wikimedians in the region. Unlike last year’s conference, which anyone could attend, this Strategic Summit is positioned as a strategic conference to discuss and shape the future of the Wikimedia movement in the region. I joined as a member of the Wikimedians of Japan User Group.

The three-day summit was attended by 87 Wikimedians from 21 countries, and 16 sessions were held to discuss issues in the ESEAP region from various angles. Regarding the governance of the ESEAP Hub, a detailed explanation was given of the newly proposed “Liaisons” representing specific communities, and many questions were asked. There were also reports on the actual collaboration and various activities in the region, and we were able to learn from each other about specific collaboration methods.

As for sessions from regions other than ESEAP, Barbara Klen, a staff member of the CEE (Central and Eastern Europe) Hub, gave an online talk on the history and overview of CEE. I was also able to talk with the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees Macej Nadikiewicz from Poland and Lorenzo Rosa from Italy. I also had a lively talk with Jorge Vargas, a staff member of the Foundation from Colombia in South America.

Among the participants were many people from ESEAP countries, including Malaysia, whom I had met last year, and I was able to renew friendships. It was also nice to meet participants from Myanmar for the first time. Several people called out to me, saying that they had seen the recent Let’s Connect Learning Clinic. A local Filipino young man said that he likes wearing Japanese kimonos and showed me his wearing photo. I found out that Johnny Alegre, who is about the same age as me, is a jazz guitarist, and when I told him about my musical experience, he gave me a CD of his own work. And Badette, who is also my roommate, is also about the same age, and when I gave her a postcard with a haiku by Masaoka Shiki on it, she sent me a haiku in English that she had written herself on SNS after returning home, which was a happy accident. It was an event where I enjoyed learning and meeting various people. I’m looking forward to the Conference 2026 in Taiwan.

At Fosdem 2025 I had the opportunity to arrange the Web Performance developer room together with Dave, Julien and Nazim from Mozilla.

FOSDEM is a completely free and open conference held annually in Brussels, Belgium, dedicated to promoting free and open-source software and knowledge sharing. One thing I particularly like about FOSDEM is that all speakers volunteer their time and expertise, making it truly community-driven. All sessions were recorded, so I'm excited to share the videos here for those who couldn't attend.

Our developer room was fully packed during several sessions, it was great to see that people still care about web performance.

Here are the talks from our Web Performance room this year:

• How browsers REALLY load Web pages - Robin Marx (video)
• Making Sense of the Long Animation Frames (LoAF) API - Andy Davies (video)
• Scheduling HTTP streams - Alexander Krizhanovsky (video)
• Chromium on Android: How we doubled Speedometer & developed the LoadLine benchmark - Eric Seckler, Gurj Bahia (video)
• Collaborate using the Firefox Profiler - Nazım Can Altınova (video)

Enjoy watching the talks!

29/05/2025-04/06/2025

Mapping

• historic=ceremonial_gate, a tag proposed to represent traditional symbolic gates in East Asian cultural regions (such as Chinese Paifang/Pailou, Japanese Torii, Korean Hongsalmun/Iljumun, and Vietnamese Tam Quan), is currently under discussion.

Mapping campaigns

• Mapillary and HERE announced CompleteTheMap Europe, a collaborative effort to enhance street-level imagery coverage across major European cities. Registration must be completed by Thursday 12 June.
• The OpenStreetMap Russia community has announced ► an upcoming online mapping initiative aimed at enhancing the digital map of the city of Morshansk. The mapathon has been running since Saturday 31 May and will run until Friday 13 June. Participants will use up-to-date resources including 2024 Yandex street-level panoramas and Esri satellite imagery to contribute detailed mapping data to one of the few remaining under-mapped cities in the country.

Community

• Jim Spath shared some progress on improving the display of EV charging stations in Android Auto OsmAnd.
• Kumakyoo advocated for mapping pavements as separate geometries, rather than using the sidewalk=* tag on roads, arguing that in certain cases, this tag alone makes it impossible to accurately determine the layout of pedestrian crossings from OSM data.
• Malle_Yeno blogged his thoughts on wheelchair accessibility mapping: do establishments need powered doors to be accessible? Do we evaluate accessibility at the POI feature level, or in context?
• Andy Townsend thought about using the diameter_crown tag to render trees according to their size.

OpenStreetMap Foundation

• The OpenStreetMap Operations Team has successfully mitigated a large-scale web scraping attack targeting the OpenStreetMap Wiki. The botnet, which operated through over 2 million unique IP addresses, and is still growing, was aggressively scraping content via proxies. In response, the team implemented a defensive measure by blocking more than 32,000 IPv4 /24 ranges. Members of the community have proposed deploying Anubis, a proof-of-work challenge system, to further protect the wiki from automated scraping. However, discussions are ongoing regarding potential licensing concerns associated with its implementation.

Events

• Katja Haferkorn announced ► the planned formation of the new Programme Committee for FOSSGIS 2026. Anyone interested in joining the Programme Committee is invited to send an email to FOSSGIS by Tuesday 15 July.
• FOSSGIS held ► its first Networking Meeting for Geoinformatics Professionals, FOSSGIS Conference Participants, Members, and Interested Members of the FOSSGIS Community on Wednesday 4 June. The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday 10 September, again at 6:00 PM (UTC+2).

Education

• Hermann106 shared ► several useful links for learning how to use JOSM.

Maps

• ^[1] Christoph Hormann developed some design concepts for more differentiated depiction of coastal infrastructure based on OpenStreetMap data.
• Tkhir noticed ► that some of Kyiv’s streets are named after fruits and vegetables. Andrii Holovin added emojis in a comment to provide context about the etymology of the names.
• Christoph Hormann has developed a map design capable of rendering aquaculture installations (landuse=aquaculture).

OSM in action

• Costa Line has developed ► an interactive OpenStreetMap-based web map that can be used to track the movements of all the ships in its fleet.
• The Department of Posts under India’s Ministry of Communications has launched the Digital Postal Index Number (DIGIPIN), a grid-based digital address system aimed at modernising postal services and improving address accuracy across the country. The official portal, Know Your DIGIPIN, utilises an OpenStreetMap base map to allow users to conveniently look up their DIGIPIN based on their geographic location.
• Student Justin Fung built an interactive map to help wildfire evacuees. Justin presented his map on CBC News.

Open Data

• In Ukraine, over 1.5 million addresses have already been verified ► in the Unified State Register of Addresses, as the second stage of the project gains speed. The register is being developed with government support and help from UK Dev, the Eurasia Foundation, and the East Europe Foundation. Verified address data will improve map accuracy, reduce errors, and support better public services.

Software

• Project OSRM is developing a new area routing feature that will enable the calculation of optimal routes across walkable open spaces.
• tvbrene has built ‘ExtendedClipboard’, a JOSM plugin that provides up to 10 independent clipboards for storing OSM objects for later selection.
• Tykayn has developed the Mon Commerce OpenStreetMap (My OpenStreetMap Business), a tool that invites POI owners in France, to maintain their OpenStreetMap data. It allows a place to be edited without requiring a personal account (the edits are proxied through the osm-commerce-fr OSM account).

Programming

• Archit Rathod blogged about his upcoming Google Summer of Code 2025 contribution, where he will build a system for incorporating real-time road closure data with OpenStreetMap.
• Ayush Dhar Dubey outlined his plan to modernise the 3D Model Repository as part of the Google Summer of Code 2025.
• Anders Borg has created a Python application that converts Overture map data (based on OSM and other open data) to a cohesive STL model, which can then be modified for 3D printing of a certain map area.
• Victor introduced OsmAnd’s new Highway Hierarchy Routing, a routing engine that segments maps into small clusters with defined border points, enabling pre-calculated shortcuts for faster routing within and between neighbouring clusters.

Releases

• Florian Bischof announced the release of Leaflet 2.0 Alpha. This version marks a major modernisation of the Leaflet codebase, including the removal of Internet Explorer support, legacy methods, and polyfills. It also adopts modern standards including Pointer Events and is now published as an ESM module.
• Organic Maps is ‘back on track’, as they say, after their recent management problems. The May version is now available. This update includes various improvements to the map, including the removal of the referral link to Kayak and minor fixes for Android. Users are also invited to take part in beta testing for the June version, which promises a range of new features.
• CoMaps, a fork of OrganicMaps (we reported earlier), has released a preview version. For now, it is distributed as a downloadable APK file, with plans to release it on F-Droid, Google Play, the App Store, and Accrescent.
• Alexis Lecanu released version 1.12.0 of Baba, a mobile app for contributing to the Panoramax project. This release includes several bug fixes and a newly added street view.
• Volker Krause shared a round-up of the developments over the past two months in KDE Itinerary. Key updates have included enhanced editing capabilities for train and bus trips, the introduction of a new departures view, integration with OpenRailwayMap, and the addition of several new features in the Transitous backend.

Other “geo” things

• Engaging Data has developed ‘Snake on a Globe’, a geography-based twist on the classic snake game. Players navigate the globe to reach apples placed in world cities, testing both strategy and geographic knowledge.

Upcoming Events

Country	Venue	Where	What	Online	When
	The Shoe Cafe	Perth	Social Mapping Sunday: Thornlie-Cockburn Link		2025-06-08
	Cafe Mellemrummet	København	OSMmapperCPH		2025-06-08
	Gol Market	New Delhi	17th OpenStreetMap Delhi Mapping Party		2025-06-08
	MozSpace Taipei	臺北市	OpenStreetMap x Wikidata Taipei #77		2025-06-09
	United Platforms	Budapest	2025 júniusi OSM találkozó Budapesten		2025-06-10
	Woodbine Food Hall	Salt Lake City	OSM Utah Monthly Map Night		2025-06-11
	Online	San Jose	South Bay Map Night	✓	2025-06-11
	Brasilia		Encontro Mensal dos Mapeadores Brasileiros do Openstreetmap		2025-06-11
	Voraussichtlich: “Variable”, Karolinenstraße 23	Hamburg	Hamburger Mappertreffen		2025-06-10
	De Klinker	Nijmegen	LUGN154: OSM lightning talk bij Linux Nijmegen		2025-06-10
	Parramatta – Level 6,150 George Street, Parramatta	Sydney	Social Mapping Event in Parramatta		2025-06-11
	Bitwäscherei Zürich	Zürich	176. OSM-Stammtisch Zürich		2025-06-11
	Schweizerisches Rotes Kreuz, Schindlergut, Zürich	Zürich	Missing Maps Zürich Mapathon		2025-06-11
	Online		Mappy Hour OSM España	✓	2025-06-12
	wechselnd, siehe Event Website	München	Münchner OSM-Treffen		2025-06-12
	Online		OpenStreetMap Midwest Meetup	✓	2025-06-13
	Das Labor, Alleestraße 50, Bochum	Bochum	Bochumer OSM-Treffen		2025-06-12
	Online	Stainach-Pürgg	17. Österreichischer OSM-Stammtisch (online)	✓	2025-06-12
	Université de Tours, Campus des 2 Lions-Portalis	Tours	State of the Map France 2025		2025-06-13 – 2025-06-15
			UN Mappers #ValidationFriday Mappy Hour		2025-06-13
			OSMF Engineering Working Group meeting		2025-06-13
	Savignyplatz, Else-Ury-Bogen 597, 10623 Berlin	Berlin	204. Berlin-Brandenburg OpenStreetMap Stammtisch		2025-06-13
	Le 97	Besançon	Apér’OSM Bourgogne-Franche-Comté		2025-06-14
	Kadamtala More (towards Beguntari)	Jalpaiguri	3rd OpenStreetMap West Bengal Mapping Party		2025-06-15
			Missing Maps London: (Online) Mid-Month Mapathon [eng]		2025-06-17
	Dotty’s	Bonn	188. OSM-Stammtisch Bonn		2025-06-17
	Online		Lüneburger Mappertreffen	✓	2025-06-17
			Missing Maps – DRK & MSF Online Mapathon		2025-06-18
	Boston, Massachusetts, US	Boston	State of the Map US		2025-06-19 – 2025-06-21
	France Service Pays des Ecrins		Atelier cartopartie – Pays des Ecrins		2025-06-19
	311 Verona, Verona	Verona	MERGE-it 2025		2025-06-20 – 2025-06-22
	freiLand – machBar (Haus 5)	Potsdam	Jugendhackt: OpenStreetMap – die Welt für alle auffindbar machen (12–18 Jahre)		2025-06-20
	Remiges Technologies, Ghansoli, Navi Mumbai	Navi Mumbai	OpenStreetMap workshop at FOSS Meetup Mumbai		2025-06-21
bi	Online	Rumonge	OSM Africa June 2025 Mapathon – Map Burundi	✓	2025-06-21
	Kanchenjunga Stadium	Siliguri	4th OpenStreetMap West Bengal Mapping Party		2025-06-22
	Chembur	Mumbai Suburban	3rd OpenStreetMap Mumbai Mapping Party		2025-06-22
	Kuriosum	Hannover	OSM-Stammtisch Hannover		2025-06-23

Note:
If you like to see your event here, please put it into the OSM calendar. Only data which is there, will appear in weeklyOSM.

This weeklyOSM was produced by MarcoR, MatthiasMatthias, Raquel Dezidério Souto, Strubbl, Andrew Davidson, barefootstache, derFred.
We welcome link suggestions for the next issue via this form and look forward to your contributions.

In April 2024, I took a two-month sabbatical from work. During this period, and in the year that followed, I dedicated significant effort to improving my skills. Having spent nearly 20 years in software engineering, I’ve witnessed substantial changes in the field. Opportunities to learn and practice new skills don’t always arise naturally at work. While I made a conscious effort to dedicate time each day to reading and learning, finding time for hands-on practice remained a challenge. I set specific goals: to deepen my understanding of system architecture and modern design approaches, explore high-performance programming, and integrate AI into my development process. Here’s an update on my progress.

I started using AI-assisted coding tools and have deeply integrated them into my daily workflow. Specifically, I began using GitHub Copilot with VS Code. Thanks to GitHub’s open-source support program, I received a free Copilot license. This single change has boosted my productivity at least twofold. For experienced software engineers, these tools are incredibly powerful because we already understand the underlying architecture and the trade-offs of different solutions.

I also began learning Go, a compiled, statically typed programming language. I took on some personal projects, rewriting them in Go. Subsequently, I built internal tools for work and practiced designing large-scale systems, such as a “Factoids” system. Along the way, I learned many new concepts and programming styles, and I’ve now reached a solid level of proficiency in Go.

After getting comfortable with Go, I moved on to learning Rust. Rust has a reputation for being difficult to learn, but my experience with Go was a significant help, as there are many overlapping concepts between the two languages. While Go aims for simplicity, Rust takes a different approach. It forces you to think carefully about your code, variables, scope, and how data is passed around. You spend more time at the compilation stage, but once your program compiles successfully, you can be confident it will run correctly without unexpected issues in testing or production. This has been a refreshing and enjoyable experience. After achieving good proficiency in Rust, I found little reason to continue using Go. Rust addresses many of Go’s perceived shortcomings and boasts a larger ecosystem of libraries.

Learning a high-performance programming language has had some interesting side benefits. It introduced me to many efficient algorithms and optimization techniques that I had previously overlooked when working with higher-level and scripting languages. I also learned about different compilation targets, including building web frontends using WebAssembly (Wasm). Another unexpected benefit was the people I encountered. The communities around high-performance programming languages often attract highly productive and intelligent software engineers, and I’ve had the chance to connect with many of them. Following their work and writings has been incredibly educational.

Being part of this community also sparked my interest in their coding workflows and tools, particularly mouse-free, terminal-based, and very fast coding environments. I had always avoided tools like Emacs and Vi (the predecessor to Vim/Neovim), but I decided to learn and master Neovim, a popular choice among many skilled programmers. It took a significant amount of time and effort, but I now use Neovim for all my coding. My current setup includes Kitty (a terminal emulator), Neovim, Fzf (a fuzzy finder), Ripgrep (a fast search tool), Lazygit (a Git client), Tmux (a terminal multiplexer), and other similar high-speed tools. Neovim also has excellent Copilot integration, but I’ve recently been using Aider, which integrates well with my other terminal-based tools for AI-assisted programming. Neovim taught me to approach code editing more semantically, rather than as plain text editing. Thanks to Tree-sitter and its text objects, editing operations become semantic manipulations of code structure, not just text.

I had been using KDE Plasma as my desktop environment for the past 15 years, with some time spent on GNOME as well. Recently, I decided to upgrade to a tiling window manager-based desktop. A few months ago, I moved to Hyprland. It has been refreshing to build a comfortable desktop environment tailored to my preferences. The collection of small yet powerful components that make up such an environment (e.g., window manager, Hyprpaper (for wallpaper), Waybar (for status bars), Swaync (for notifications), etc.) and their incredible customizability is quite an experience. It reminds me of the enthusiasm in the early days of the KDE and GNOME development communities. I feel reinvigorated to be part of a highly skilled community of young developers pushing the FOSS-based desktop experience forward.

And, here’s a glimpse of my “rice”:

This dedicated period of upskilling has been a profound reminder that in the dynamic world of software engineering, continuous learning is not just beneficial, but essential. The journey has been challenging yet immensely rewarding, and I’m excited to carry this momentum forward, tackling new problems with renewed vigor and an expanded toolkit.

What’s the connection between explosives, major depressive disorder, and chest pain? I wouldn’t have known until I reviewed some student work from last semester.

If you’ve taken an advanced cell biology class, you may have heard of cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cyclic AMP), a molecule that’s related to ATP (the “energy currency” that mitochondria turn sugars into) and adenine (one of the bases is DNA), but you probably haven’t heard of its less well-known cousin, cyclic guanosine monophosphate (just cyclic GMP among friends). 

Much like cyclic AMP, cyclic GMP is what’s called a “second messenger” in cells. First messengers include molecules that carry messages around the body, from the organ where they’re produced to the cells where they actually have an effect. These include things like hormones.

While these “first messenger” molecules can travel around the body, most can’t get into cells. (Cells protect themselves by being very picky about the kinds of molecules they allow in.) Instead of entering the cells, these molecules attach to specific receptors on the cell surface, triggering the release of the second message – for example, cyclic GMP. 

While some small molecules like nitric oxide are able to enter the cell, they still depend on second messengers like cyclic GMP to cause things to happen inside the cells. 

Once activated, second messengers can set various processes in motion. Cyclic GMP, for example, can switch protein kinases on. Protein kinases are proteins that cut specific bits off other enzymes, which can either make those enzymes active (think about it like pulling the pin on a fire extinguisher) or inactive (like cutting the cord off an electric appliance).

While cyclic GMP was discovered only two years after cyclic AMP, research into cyclic GMP was largely overshadowed by Earl Wilbur Sutherland’s work on cyclic AMP, which won him a Nobel Prize in 1971. It’s hard to compete with that kind of publicity, but cyclic GMP had its own moment in the sun when Robert Furchgott, Louis Ignarro, and Ferid Murad were awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine based on their work with cyclic GMP and nitric oxide (which helped explain how nitroglycerine work for heart disease).

Before a student in Dixon Woodbury’s Biophysics class started working on it last fall, Wikipedia’s cyclic guanosine monophosphate article wasn’t in bad shape.

The average reader might have found it challenging and a bit dense, but it seemed to include most of the important parts – sections about the molecule’s biosynthesis, its function, degradation, and its ability to activate protein kinase. It would take someone with some depth of knowledge to recognize some of the gaps in the article, and figure out how to fill them – and the Brigham Young University student was up to the challenge.

The student editor added a section about the discovery of cyclic GMP and the work that won Furchgott, Ignarro and Murad a Nobel Prize. They also added sections detailing cyclic GMP’s role in cardiovascular disease, major depressive disorder, and the way certain pathogens manipulate it to help them evade the immune system.

As they added information and improved the quality of Wikipedia’s cyclic GMP article, the student editor made this knowledge available to a much wider swath of the public (including me).

And that let me solve a mystery that has tugged at the back of my mind for decades – how does nitroglycerine, an explosive, help people with angina? I now know nitroglycerine releases nitric oxide, which triggers the release of cyclic GMP. And that sets in motion a series of steps that cause muscle cells to relax, which relieves their chest pain.

What mystery might your students help solve, just by editing Wikipedia?

Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your course? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free resources, digital tools, and staff support that Wiki Education offers to postsecondary instructors in the United States and Canada.

🕑 50 minutes

Edward Chernenko is a software developer, with extensive experience in MediaWiki development and consulting. He is also the administrator of Absurdopedia, a Russian-language humor wiki that is part of the loosely-affiliated Uncyclopedia family.

Links for some of the topics discussed:

• Абсурдопедия (Absurdopedia)
• Uncyclopedia
• Edward Chernenko user page on mediawiki.org
• Moderation MediaWiki extension
• AWS MediaWiki extension
• CreatePageUw MediaWiki extension

People should try to compare the quality of the kernel git logs with some other projects, and cry themselves to sleep.

– Linus Torvalds

I’ll never remember your project’s commit guidelines.

Every project insists on something different:

• Conventional commits
• Problem/Solution format
• Gitmoji
• The twisty maze of trailers in the Linux Kernel

But git commit templates help. Commit templates provide a scaffold for commit messages, offering documentation where you need it: inside the editor where you’re writing your commit message.

git config --global \
    commit.template '~/.config/git/message.txt'

[includeIf "gitdir:~/Projects/Wikimedia/**"]
    path = ~/.config/git/config.wikimedia

# 50ch. wide ----------------------------- SUBJECT
#                                                |
#     "If applied, this commit will..."          |
#                                                |
#     Change / Add / Fix                         |
#     Remove / Update / Document                 |
#                                                |
# ------- ↓ LEAVE BLANK LINE ↓ ---------- /SUBJECT

# 72ch. wide ------------------------------------------------------ BODY
#                                                                      |
#     - Why should this change be made?                                |
#       - What problem are you solving?                                |
#       - Why this solution?                                           |
#     - What's wrong with the current code?                            |
#     - Are there other ways to do it?                                 |
#     - How can the reviewer confirm it works?                         |
#                                                                      |

#     TRAILERS                                                         |
#     --------                                                         |
#     (optional) Uncomment as needed.                                  |
#     Leave a blank line before the trailers.                          |
#                                                                      |
# Bug: #xxxx
# Acked-by: Example User <[email protected]>
# Cc: Example User <[email protected]>
# Co-Authored-by: Example User <[email protected]>
# Requested-by: Example User <[email protected]>
# Reported-by: Example User <[email protected]>
# Reviewed-by: Example User <[email protected]>
# Suggested-by: Example User <[email protected]>
# Tested-by: Example User <[email protected]>
# Thanks: Example User <[email protected]>

$ TAB=%x09
$ BUG_TRAILER='%(trailers:key=Bug,valueonly=true,separator=%x2C )'
$ SHORT_HASH=%h
$ SUBJ=%s
$ FORMAT="${SHORT_HASH}${TAB}${BUG_TRAILER}${TAB}${SUBJ}"
$ git log --topo-order --no-merges \
      --format="$FORMAT"
d2b09deb12f     T359762 Rewrite Kurdish (ku) Latin to Arabic converter
28123a6a262     T332865 tests: Remove non-static fallback in HookRunnerTestBase
4e919a307a4     T328919 tests: Remove unused argument from data provider in PageUpdaterTest
bedd0f685f9             objectcache: Improve `RESTBagOStuff::handleError()`
2182a0c4490     T393219 tests: Remove two data provider in RestStructureTest

Jun 2, 12:17 UTC
Resolved - This incident has been resolved.

Jun 2, 11:32 UTC
Identified - We are working on a fix.

22/05/2025-28/05/2025

Mapping campaigns

• Séverin Ménard shared a new blog post ► about the ongoing building damage mapping in Mayotte, with statistics for each of the territory’s 17 communes, including hourly updated pie charts showing mapping progress and the damage classes. The preliminary results reveal the heterogeneity of the damage across the communes and show that the north-eastern coasts were not necessarily the areas most severely affected.
• The newly added Mastodon account ‘OpenStreetMap Wiki Proposals’ toots when proposals are open for voting, with its latest toot being: ‘A new OpenStreetMap Wiki proposal aims to improve power circuit routing by introducing standardised relations for circuits and line sections, enhancing electrical grid modelling’.

Community

• Peter has calculated the year when the sun first stopped setting on the British Empire, based on the boundaries in OpenHistoricalMap (we reported earlier).
• Peter Brodersen has developed a prototype route planner for Denmark that avoids roads named after men. It was made possible by using the OSRM routing engine and the Wikidata entries referenced by the name:etymology:wikidata OSM tag.
• After logo submissions and a community voting process, Unique Mappers Network has unveiled the official logo for State of the Map Nigeria 2025.
• Faced with the limited storage capacity of his older Garmin device, which can hold only one map at a time, Pascal Neis has developed custom minimalist Garmin maps based on OpenStreetMap data to ensure they remain small enough to fit.
• In a recent instalment of the Mapper Diaries vlog series, Gregory Marler talked about his participation in the second UK quarterly project of 2025, a healthcare-themed mapping campaign, by mapping neighbourhoods in Dundee City, Scotland.
• Christoph Hormann offered his views about the ways diverse cultures collaborate within OpenStreetMap, highlighting the challenges that arise from these cross-cultural interactions.
• KhubsuratInsaan’s diary entry reflected on mapping in India, highlighting the difficulty of identifying house numbers. The comments discuss whether street plans may be used for OpenStreetMap.

Local chapter news

• The OpenStreetMap US May 2025 newsletter has been published. The highlights are the improvements to the OSMCha, the support program for participation in the SotM US 2025 and the celebration of the OSM US’s 15th anniversary.
• Oliver Rudzick and Katja Haferkorn released ► a report on the 23rd FOSSGIS-OSM Community Meeting, held in May 2025.

Events

• OpenStreetMap contributors are organising a collaborative mapping workshop called Kartenwerkstatt Augustusburg, to improve regional map data and foster community engagement in Augustusburg, Germany.

OSM research

• HeiGIT reported that a new paper was published in African Transport Studies. This study investigated the impact of school sessions on traffic congestion in Nairobi using openrouteservice, an open-source routing engine that utilises OpenStreetMap data to model road networks. Results highlighted how children’s mobility needs are often overlooked in transport planning.

Maps

• The author of Maps Interlude presents various socio-economic factoids on maps, with their latest showing the origins of Havard’s international students during the previous Trump presidency in 2018.
• Christoph Hormann introduced another extension to his Musaicum satellite image mosaic coverage, which includes the European Arctic islands: Svalbard, Franz Josef Land, and Novaya Zemlya.

OSM in action

• The World Heritage Journeys Europe portal has adopted OpenStreetMap and Mapbox for their maps of world heritage catalogued by UNESCO and the European Union.
• Where Filmed’s ‘Filming Places Near You’ feature lets users discover nearby filming locations via an interactive web map powered by OpenStreetMap and Leaflet.

Open Data

• Ralph Straumann commented on grid’s interview with Jennings Anderson, a software engineer at Meta, noting that it’s overall an interesting – albeit clearly insider – perspective on the Overture Maps Foundation, OSM, and the evolution of geodata in general.

Software

• [1] Rphryin published his first JOSM map style: LastUpdated. It displays the last update time of each OSM way shown on the screen. This is useful for checking whether a particular mapping area has been updated recently.
• Andrii Holovin has developed osm-diff-state, a tool designed to find the state file corresponding to a specific diff in the OpenStreetMap minutely/hourly/daily replication feeds.
• The team behind Contour has launched a browser-based GIS platform that uses natural language commands to perform spatial analysis and mapping, aiming to simplify traditional GIS workflows and make spatial tools accessible without coding.
• András Zlinszky explained how to load Sentinel-2 true-colour satellite imagery into the Locus Map app using its Web Map Service feature.
• HeiGIT, in collaboration with the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy, have worked on the LaVerDi Project, which integrates freely available satellite data with crowdsourced OpenStreetMap data to support continuous, large-scale land cover monitoring and improve the detection of landscape changes in Germany.
• To celebrate its 15th anniversary, OsmAnd has published some of its growth statistics.
• GeoObserver introduced ► Radinfra.de, a new platform that visualises Germany’s cycling infrastructure using open data and user-friendly maps.

Programming

• Researchers at the University of Freiburg have developed Loom, a tool for efficient multi-modal route planning using OpenStreetMap data, enabling detailed and customisable transport network analysis.
• OMP explained how they built a custom OpenStreetMap-based map service using mbtileserver.

Releases

• Jake Low explained the latest upgrade to OSMCha, highlighting the performance improvements achieved by building augmented diffs instead of using Overpass queries.
• The Panoramax mobile app v1.7.1 has been released. The app is now available on F-Droid and is being prepared for iOS. Highlights of the new changes: app info is added to the EXIF data of uploaded pictures and there is a new settings page and splash screen.

Did you know that …

• … there’s an OpenStreetMap Bluesky feed? It allows you to see posts featuring the hashtags #osm and #openstreetmap.
• … you can open a random OpenStreetMap note from any country of your choice?
• … the OpenStreetMap API has a rate-limiting feature that prevents new users from committing large, potentially damaging changesets? After it was implemented in the backend, some user-facing apps, such as iD, had to make adjustments to support this change. As a result, users running older versions of the editor may find their large changesets disappearing into thin air without any clear explanation or error message.

OSM in the media

• Game developers have integrated OpenStreetMap data into simulation games like City Bus Manager and Global Farmer, enabling players to build and manage real-world-inspired transport and farming systems while encouraging contributions to improve map accuracy.
• Gregory Thomas, of the San Francisco Chronicle, reported that Megan Gardner has ridden every publicly accessible road in San Mateo County – a feat spanning 2,800 miles. To accomplish this feat, Gardner relied on Wandrer, a social mapping platform built on OpenStreetMap data. The app turns everyday walks, hikes, and bike rides into personal quests, awarding symbolic points and rewards to users who go the farthest. Participants can track their progress and compare standings on leaderboards showing who is covering the most ground and where.

Other “geo” things

• The mapShare creators have launched a platform that lets users share and discover custom Google Maps, helping travellers find curated local recommendations such as sightseeing spots and photo locations, with strong initial coverage in Japan.
• Rainer Follador has developed ‘delta-relief’, an project designed to enhance the visualisation of SwissTopo’s LiDAR data by highlighting subtle terrain variations for easier interpretation. It has been implemented as an interactive online map, with a portion of the data from eastern Switzerland now available to the public at lidar.cubetrek.com.

Upcoming Events

Country	Where	What	Online	When
	Chanakya Puri Tehsil	17th OSM Delhi Mapping Party (Online)		2025-06-01
	Heidelberg	Rhein-Neckar OpenstreetMap Treffen		2025-06-02
	Salzburg	OSM Treffen Salzburg		2025-06-03
		Missing Maps London: (Online) Mapathon [eng]		2025-06-03
	Stuttgart	Stuttgarter OpenStreetMap-Treffen		2025-06-04
		iD Community Chat		2025-06-04
		OSM Indoor Meetup		2025-06-04
	Brno	Kvartální OSM pivo		2025-06-04
	Säffle kommun	Svenskt återkommande communitymöte	✓	2025-06-04
	Augustusburg	Kartenwerkstatt Augustusburg		2025-06-07
	København	OSMmapperCPH		2025-06-08
	Chanakya Puri Tehsil	17th OSM Delhi Mapping Party		2025-06-08
	中正區	OpenStreetMap x Wikidata Taipei #77		2025-06-09
	Salt Lake City	OSM Utah Monthly Map Night		2025-06-11
	San Jose	South Bay Map Night	✓	2025-06-11
	Hamburg	Hamburger Mappertreffen		2025-06-10
	Sydney	Social Mapping Event in Parramatta		2025-06-11
	Stainach-Pürgg	17. Österreichischer OSM-Stammtisch (online)	✓	2025-06-12
	Bochum	Bochumer OSM-Treffen		2025-06-12
	München	Münchner OSM-Treffen		2025-06-12
	Tours	State of the Map France 2025		2025-06-13 – 2025-06-15
		UN Mappers #ValidationFriday Mappy Hour		2025-06-13
		OSMF Engineering Working Group meeting		2025-06-13
	Berlin	204. Berlin-Brandenburg OpenStreetMap Stammtisch		2025-06-13
	Besançon	Apér’OSM Bourgogne-Franche-Comté		2025-06-14

Note:
If you like to see your event here, please put it into the OSM calendar. Only data which is there, will appear in weeklyOSM.

This weeklyOSM was produced by Elizabete, MarcoR, PierZen, Raquel Dezidério Souto, Strubbl, TheSwavu, barefootstache, derFred, mcliquid.
We welcome link suggestions for the next issue via this form and look forward to your contributions.

As part of Wikimedia UK’s work in the area of information literacy, in late 2023 we partnered with the BBC and the Royal Society to plan, programme and host a two day invitation-only workshop with high level policy makers, broadcasters, academics, practitioners and other stakeholders working in the field of information literacy.

The topic was ‘Building resilience to future emergencies and disinformation through adult media literacy’, and the aim was to develop a set of recommendations for policy makers and organisations working in related fields. Wikimedia UK brought our extensive network within information literacy and worked closely with the Royal Society to shape the agenda, while also acting as hosts and facilitators for the event which our Chief Executive, Lucy Crompton-Reid, chaired alongside the BBC’s Ros Atkins.

We are delighted to share the summary note from the workshop here.

The post Wikimedia UK and the Royal Society host workshop on information literacy and future health emergencies appeared first on WMUK.

From AI leaders, engineers, inventors, environmentalists, and designers (just to name a few!), we’ve explored the stories behind the Wikipedia assignments that bring new biographies of historically excluded figures in STEM to Wikipedia.

And when it comes to improving representation on Wikipedia, there’s no doubt that adding new articles to the encyclopedia makes an impact. But not nearly as visible are the small edits made by student editors to underdeveloped biographies already found on the site – and even a short contribution can influence the accuracy and completeness of an article.

Just ask master’s student Gillian McGinnis, who completed a Wikipedia assignment as part of her Foundations of Information Science course at the University of Arizona this semester. As she first learned to edit Wikipedia, McGinnis made a small addition to the article for American atmospheric chemist Susan Solomon – small, but incredibly important, explained the information science major.

“Looking at Dr. Solomon’s list of awards in the Wikipedia article was impressive,” said McGinnis, who was already familiar with atmospheric chemistry data and research. “After doing some research, I was surprised that there was no mention in her article of her receiving the Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur – especially since this is an incredibly honorable award, and foreign recipients are not common.”

Improving Wikipedia’s coverage of women in STEM helps to showcase their contributions in the field over the centuries, particularly if they were initially overlooked or previously omitted from formal recognition in their subject, emphasized McGinnis. 

“Representation matters, and because Wikipedia is free and accessible to a wide audience, improving these articles [about women in STEM] may help to inspire and encourage other women and girls interested in STEM,” said McGinnis.

Like McGinnis, classmate Tushar Vimal kicked off his coursework on Wikipedia by making a small yet significant edit of his own. In appreciation for computer scientist Lixia Zhang’s contributions to internet architecture, Vimal chose to improve the article about Zhang, adding her election to the National Academy of Engineering.

“I don’t think only a specific group of people have advanced STEM,” explained Vimal, reflecting on the importance of small edits like his for historically excluded figures. “People from all kinds of backgrounds have made meaningful contributions. Whether their work solved big problems or smaller ones, they all played a role, and they deserve to have their work represented equally and neutrally on platforms like Wikipedia.” 

And McGinnis and Vimal weren’t the only students to improve representation and fill gaps in STEM biographies with small but impactful edits this term. 

From Victor Valley Community College and UCSB to Florida State University and Middle Georgia State University, postsecondary students from all corners of the country have been lending their new editing skills to improve articles of underrepresented figures in STEM.

This spring, student editors have made small but meaningful contributions to biography articles like chemical engineer Daniela Blanco, medical technologist Paulette Dillard, computer scientist Augusta H. Teller, and microbiologist Harold Amos, among many others – and often sparked new edits for the articles by other Wikipedians along the way. 

The student work outlined in this story is part of a larger Wiki Education initiative sponsored by the Broadcom Foundation, which supports the creation of new biographies of diverse people in STEM on Wikipedia.

Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your course? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free resources, digital tools, and staff support that Wiki Education offers to postsecondary instructors in the United States and Canada.

Democracy is one of the fundamental values of the EU and today, as never before, it needs to be preserved and nurtured. Wikimedia Europe welcomes the European Commission’s initiative to adopt a European Democracy Shield to uphold the Union’s founding values.

We are convinced that Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects have a great role to play in the everyday efforts to nurture European democracy and to make the digital information ecosystem more resilient. We explained how in our submission to the public consultation launched by the European Commission. 

Our submission

When drafting our submission to the public consultation, we focused our attention on four main aspects. First, we explained how the application of the “Wikipedia Test” can help to defend and promote the fundamental right to freedom of expression and information in the online sphere. Second, we clarified the importance of recognising and promoting the Wikimedia projects’ and volunteer communities’ efforts to strengthen digital and media literacy skills and safeguard the integrity of the online information ecosystem. Third, we explained why the public interest contributions of Wikimedia volunteer editors need protection from strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs). Fourth and lastly, we highlighted the importance of promoting human-centered artificial intelligence (AI), and making sure that the digital commons—including Wikipedia and other reliable sources of openly licensed journalism and research—used to train large language models (LLMs) are protected and that these sources receive proper attribution.

conclusion

The protection of European democracy goes hand in hand with an effective protection of free and open knowledge projects such as Wikipedia, which are governed by a community of volunteers who are exclusively driven by the goal of serving the public interest in Europe, and beyond.