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

Updates for editors

• Revise Tone helps newcomers identify passages in Wikipedia articles that may contain non-encyclopedic language and encourages them to consider revising the tone. The feature was A/B tested on the Arabic, English, French, and Portuguese Wikipedias, where newcomer task completion rates increased by 38.7% compared to the default Copyedit task, with no decrease in edit quality. The test ended on July 9, and the feature is now available for everyone on these wikis, configurable via Community Configuration. The plan is to release Revise Tone to more wikis.
• The community configuration that allows automatic removal of inactive mentors based on configurable criteria will be enabled on Thursday 16, on some wikis to keep mentor lists up to date. Mentors are experienced contributors who opt in to help new users on-wiki through the Growth Features. Administrators can now prepare the settings via Special:CommunityConfiguration/Mentorship; they will take effect starting Thursday.
•  View all 38 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, an issue where some users of the Wikipedia Android app were logged out immediately after signing in, preventing them from staying logged in and editing pages, has now been fixed. [1]

Updates for technical contributors

• Editing a page via user scripts or gadgets was causing watchlist labels that the user had assigned to that page to reset. This has now been fixed. [2]
• To work around a Safari bug (see phab:T425211), on Parsoid-enabled wikis, wikilink hrefs now use absolute urls instead of protocol-relative urls. REST API output remains unchanged and continue to use protocol-relative urls. Gadgets, user scripts, bots, and CSS might need to be adapted if they relied on the presence of protocol-relative urls in wikilink hrefs. [3]
•  Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

In depth

• The Wikimedia Foundation’s Experiment Platform Team has published a blog post reflecting on its first year of structured experimentation. It highlights successful experiments such as Paste Check, Reference Check, and Tone Check, which improved editing outcomes and have been rolled out to more users, as well as experiments that did not lead to product changes. Read more.

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

Everyone says “let’s make time to network.” Then nothing happens. People just sit with the three colleagues they already know.

That’s the problem we designed against for Day 2 of Wikimedia Europe’s General Assembly in Prague. Many of our network members already know each other, some of them for years. We wondered how to go from “good to see you” to actually solving something together.

Before we even got to Prague, we did our homework. We gathered what the wider Wikimedia movement already knows about running good events, so we, and anyone else organising one, don’t have to reinvent it every single time. That became our Events Playbook: one place to learn from, made especially for organisers who are not doing this as a full time job (which is, let’s be honest, most of us).

Day 1 covered the official business: reports, votes, strategy. Necessary, but that’s not where the magic happens. Day 2 was where we actually tested if good design changes what a room full of people do together. Here’s what we built, and what we would do again.

What we actually ran

• Participant-created agenda. No topics decided in advance. People pitched what they wanted to discuss, we clustered it live, and ran two parallel discussion slots. Nobody has to sit through a session they didn’t even ask for.
• Funding needs workshop. Every organisation named one concrete funding need, shaped it using a simple one-pager, and then found others who are chasing something similar. Less “here’s a grant deadline”, more “here’s who else needs what you need”.
• Collaborative development. Peer-to-peer support formats: pro-action café style rounds, where one person brings a real challenge and a small group coaches them through it. 

None of this is exotic on its own. What actually made it work was the design underneath, and that design borrows a lot from Bhav Patel‘s facilitation approach, the same one many of you will remember from the Movement Strategy track back in 2017-2019. If a room of 150+ Wikimedians can turn “what should our movement do by 2030” into something structured and productive, a General Assembly agenda is really a smaller problem to solve.

What we’d tell other organisers

• Structure is what creates connection, not luck. Informal networking mostly just reinforces the circles people already have. If you want new connections to happen, you have to design for them, not hope for them.
• Keep sessions under 90 minutes, and don’t stack them one after another. The break is often when half of the real collaboration is happening.
• Give people a reason to talk to someone new. “Find someone with a similar funding need” can work better than telling people to “Feel free to network during lunch”.
• Someone has to hold the room. Facilitation is key. Whether it’s a hired facilitator or a person from your own team who already did this before, structure without someone steering it falls apart quite fast.
• There can be too much of collaboration! We run a whole day of very interactive, collaborative activities and at some point this can be too much for some of us. Even if we love the format. So making the day shorter or including a less engaging session for mental recovery, would be our next step in improving the agenda.

Steal this

We didn’t invent any of this from the scratch, and neither should you. Why would you, when someone already did the learning for you? The Events Playbook has the fuller version: venue setup, facilitation choices, how to avoid the usual traps, all pulled from a decade of Wikimedia events so you don’t have to learn it the hard way, again.

56 participants from 26 member organisations came to Prague. Most of them didn’t need an icebreaker to introduce themselves to each other. What they did need, and what most events forget, was a reason to leave the room with something more than just a nice conversation.

Connect in real life

Experience some of the collaborative formats at our networking session on pre-conference day of Wikimania in Paris: Wiki Mixer is our event dedicated to connecting with others: meeting new people and getting to know each other through engaging conversations and fun activities.

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What is Wikimedia Europe? Think of Wikimedia Europe as the affiliates’ joint platform in Brussels: one channel for policy, advocacy and capacity building, instead of 30+ separate ones. Beyond Brussels, we also help affiliates across Europe connect with each other, learn from one another and collaborate on shared challenges.

On June 25, 2026, Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia held a Wikimedia Sharing Session at the Wikimedia Korea office in Seoul for members of the Malaysian community living in South Korea. Exchange activities between affiliates in Korea and Malaysia have entered a new phase since the first Korea-Malaysia Exchange Edit-a-thon was successfully held on October 11 of last year. As an observer, I’d like to share the behind-the-scenes story of this event from my perspective!

Reason they come to Korea

2025년 5월 인천공항에서 출국하는 베이비몬스터 모습, 티비텐 TV10 CC BY 3.0

The impetus for this event began when Farouk came to Korea to attend a world tour concert in Seoul by the K-pop girl group Babymonster. About a month ago, he mentioned that he would be visiting Korea for about a week to attend the concert and decided to use this opportunity to gather members of the Malaysian Korean community for a Wikimedia sharing session. He contacted our association to ask if we could assist with the event, and that’s how the event came to be organized.

Meeting With Malaysia embassy in Seoul

Prior to the event, a meeting was held between representatives from the Malaysian Embassy in South Korea and the Malaysian User Group, and I had the opportunity to observe this meeting.

Activists from the Malaysia User Group gave an introduction to the Wikimedia movement and highlighted the achievements of their initiatives including our collaborative efforts. I was particularly impressed by the Malaysian User Group’s explanation that, in addition to their Wikimedia activities in Malaysia, they have traveled extensively to various countries to collaborate with local Malaysian expatriate communities and diplomatic missions. Based on these examples of collaboration with WMY from other countries, we discussed how the Malaysian Embassy in Korea, the local community, and the Malaysian User Group could collaborate, It was a fruitful session where we exchanged positive ideas on how the Wikimedia Korea could support these efforts both to enhance Malaysia’s image in Korea and to support the Wikimedia activities of the Malaysian people in Korea.

Farouk brought the Malaysian tradition to present a commemorative plaque to mark a visit, so we presented this plaque and took a commemorative photo.

June 25, Day of event

The day of the event finally arrived. Eight people participated in the Wikimedia Seoul Exchange Session, held at the Wikimedia Korea Association’s Seoul office. The participants included Malaysians living in Seoul, as well as friends with a keen interest in Korea—such as Faruk—who had come to Seoul to attend a BABYMONSTER concert. Additionally, two participants from the Korean-language community, including myself, attended and engaged in conversation with the Malaysians.

Participants learned about various Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikidata, and Wikimedia Commons. Although it was a short event, participants had the opportunity to experience editing Wikimedia projects firsthand as contributors to free knowledge. They also shared their individual experiences on how the Wikimedia movement is being promoted to the public through workshops, booth promotions, partnerships, and communication with local communities. You can see the results here.

Starting from this event, Wikimedia Korea is committed to actively supporting not only the promotion of the Wikimedia movement in South Korea but also the activities of Wikimedians from around the world in South Korea, and we aim to create opportunities for them to interact with Korean Wikimedians. If you are planning to visit South Korea, please feel free to contact us at any time! We look forward to creating wonderful opportunities for Wikimedians to connect!

Authors: The authors listed in this post were the editors of the experiences shared from about 12 participants of the Sharing Journeys unconference session – Wikimedia Hackathon 2026

Facilitators: Silvia Gutiérrez (Wikimedia Foundation), Carla Toro (Wikimedia Chile), Giovanna Fontenelle (Wikimedia Foundation)

This guide is based on what women+ participants in Wikimedia technical spaces actually named as barriers and enablers – from lived experience, not assumptions.
We share it so future hackathon organizers, technical communities, and mentors can act on diversity with the clarity, learning from women+ in this space 😊

If you want to help us further, please consider answering this survey until July 20, that will help us prepare for future activities: Understanding technical contributions by women on Wikimedia.

1. Introduction

Technical spaces in Wikimedia remain unevenly accessible. In the 2025 Developer Survey, 74% of respondents identified as men, 7% as women, and another 7% as nonbinary, genderqueer, and/or transgender. The survey had 152 men, 15 nonbinary, genderqueer, and/or transgender individuals, and 14 women.

During the 2026 Wikimedia Hackathon in Milan, Carla, Giovanna, and Silvia thought it would be a great idea to map the sometimes-invisible barriers for women+ in more technical Wikimedia spaces. With this guide, we invite organizers, allies, and institutions to change what they build, how they communicate, and who they include to become more inclusive.

The recommendations below were developed through a live, facilitated process using an EasyRetro board during a 60‑minute unconference session at the Wikimedia Hackathon 2026: ‘Sharing Journeys: What Welcomes & What Blocks the Path of Women+ into Wikimedia Tech.’

During the session, participants answered three prompts:

• Their area of interest or passion (e.g., SRE, data tools, technopolitics, curiosity)
• One barrier they have faced
• One thing that lowered that barrier

Those items were merged with consent, voted on, and prioritized. This guide reflects what the room said mattered most. For each suggestion, we present the problem, some recommendations, and people who can act on the problem.

2. The three most significant barriers (voted + merged)

2.1 Never being allowed to be “average”

“We don’t expose the learning process – only final products. You’re accepted if you’re a genius, but the learning stage is not.”

Problem:
Women+ described a constant performance burden: not being able to appear uncertain, ask “basic” questions, or share work-in-progress without being judged more harshly than peers.

Recommendations:

• Intentionally showcase learning journeys in tech spaces (draft patches, rough scripts, “what I tried that failed”).
• Cultivate a learning environment in teams, meetings, and gatherings.
• In hackathon sessions:
  • Explicitly say: “You do not need to be an expert. Struggling is normal.”
  • Explore creating a mid-way session on things that you’re struggling with, rather than just presenting what you achieved
• Use pair programming or mob programming formats that normalize not knowing.

Who can help solve the problem:

• Hackathon session leads
• Wikimedia technical community moderators
• Training designers (Community Development team)
• Leads, managers, and other leadership in tech teams

2.2 The brutal environment of “demonstration”

“You are there to demonstrate, not to collaborate. The confrontation is brutal.”

Problem:
Technical spaces can feel adversarial and territorial. Participants describe a climate where you must constantly prove competence to belong in the space, where questions are interpreted as weakness, and where the tone is sharp rather than curious. Demonstration is the opposite of collaboration and the antithesis of Wikimedia projects and the open space.

Recommendations:

• Adopt a collaboration-first code of conduct for technical spaces, not just social spaces.
• Train tech leads on non-violent communication and feedback without shaming.
• Create more spaces in which it is welcomed to be a newcomer, learning skills and developing them together.
• Create more spaces where the shared understanding is that everyone, independently of level and years of experience, is still learning.

Who can help solve the problem:

• Tech leads and second timers
• Wikimedia Foundation Technical Engagement team
• Affiliate technical coordinators

2.3 Dismissing problems with “that’s super easy.”

Problem:
Well-meaning helpers often dismiss difficulties or deny the complexity of a problem when supporting women+. When someone says “oh that’s easy”, the subtext (whether intended or not) can feel like: you should not be struggling, this is supposed to be easy. This shuts down questions and reinforces the idea that only final products matter, not the messy, normal process of learning, and that the person asking is unfit or not enough to understand a “simple” task.

Recommendations:

• Replace “that’s easy” with something like: “oh, I’ve had that problem [or I’ve heard about this] and here’s where I/others usually get stuck”. Normalize publicly being in the learning stage.
• Understand that different people have different experiences and that something might be easy for you, but not be easy for others, and that doesn’t mean the task is easy or that the person who can do it without difficulties is above average.

Who can help solve the problem:

• Code reviewers and administrators
• Mentors or leads
• Technical forum responders (Stack Overflow-like spaces, Telegram/Signal groups)

3. The three most powerful enablers (voted + merged)

3.1 Women+ only spaces (with a feminist perspective)

“The male gaze has an unintended effect. Having a space dedicated to women+ is important.”

What works:
RLadies, an organization that promotes diversity in programming, has one goal: to disappear. They hope for a world in which women-only spaces are not necessary. However, while that moment doesn’t come, we’ve seen how feminist‑aligned tech spaces lower the activation energy for asking questions, sharing struggles, and celebrating small wins.

Recommendations:

• Fund and protect women+ only events, spaces, and projects.
• Plan and schedule women+ spaces during core hours or core programming. Provide a dedicated space for them.
• Make sure to have facilitators who identify as women.
• Ensure facilitators have feminist and intersectional awareness.

3.2 Evidence over impostor syndrome

“Evidence – seeing how I have developed tools, trainings, talks – helps me see I belong.”

What works:
Impostor syndrome is not solved by “you’re great”, but by visible proof of impact or by getting recognized. When women+ see their own contributions listed, merged, or cited, the barrier lowers and they feel more confident. Representation in the Wikimedia movement is even more important, as an open-access/source space, where references and credit matter a lot.

Recommendations:

• In hackathon demos, explicitly name who contributed what (not just the final tool).
• Explore creating personal contribution dashboards for technical contributors.
  • Some inspiration could come from Growth’s Impact Module
• Encourage mentors to say: “Look at what you have already done!” not “you can do it!”.

3.3 Multiple, low‑threshold entry points + shared language

“Creating different entry points. Creating a common language – minimal levels of understanding.”

What works:
Outreachy, RLadies, Wikimedia community, and “step in anyway with less than half the experience” all share one pattern: you do not need to already belong in order to begin.

Recommendations:

• Publish glossaries for every technical space (e.g., “What is a Gerrit? What is a backport?”)
• Offer non‑code entry points (documentation, testing, design, mentoring)
• Explicitly invite people before they have a full experience.
• Avoid acronyms or abbreviations and add links to resources, to allow navigation and learning more.

Who can help solve the problem:

• Hackathon organizing teams
• Documentation supporters
• Wikimedia technical onboarding groups
• Affiliates running local tech events

4. A reusable process for other communities

You do not need to guess what barriers your community faces. This session used:

1. Story of Self Circles (name, passion, one barrier, one enabler – timed, safe)
2. A live retroboard (EasyRetro) with projected notes
3. Voting (hand‑raise or digital) on most resonant items
4. Merging with the consent of the original sharers
5. Prioritization into a public guide

This process takes ≤60 minutes and works for 10–40 people.

5. Call to action

Do not wait for women+ to become “ready” for tech spaces. Lower the barriers you control:

• Stop saying “it’s easy”
• Protect learning stages
• Fund women+ only spaces
• Show evidence, not just encouragement
• Publish glossaries and multiple entry points
• Mention and reference your women+ colleagues

Wikimedia Hackathon 2027: We aim to return and report what changed.

Appendix: Full merged + voted list (from EasyRetro)

Top barriers (voted)

1. Impostor syndrome (4 votes)
2. “It’s super easy” – prevents follow‑up questions (3 votes + comment)
3. Not being allowed to be “average” / learning stage invisible (1 vote)
4. Brutal “demonstration” environment (1 vote)
5. Stereotypes / not being able to be your authentic self
6. Lack of energy to engage

Top enablers (voted)

1. Women+ only spaces like RLadies and/or women‑led groups
2. Evidence of one’s own work
3. Community willing to help (Wikimedia, Open Source)
4. Outreachy / similar internships
5. Step in anyways (< half experience + curiosity)
6. Multiple entry points + common language

Let’s build technical spaces where women+ do not have to be exceptional to belong!

When we noticed a significant lack of photos documenting the historic buildings of Klang on Wikipedia, we knew it was time to organize a photowalk. Taking advantage of the Awal Muharram holiday to ensure maximum community turnout, we hosted WikiSua @ Klang.

To make the event even more special, we co-hosted this photowalk with the Persatuan Reka Ulang Sejarah (Historical Reenactment Society), bringing together a fantastic group of people passionate about preserving local heritage and history.

Stepping Back in Time at Cathay Hailam Kopitiam

Our meeting point was the classic Cathay Hailam Kopitiam. Starting the day here was deeply fitting for our historical mission; this kopitiam opened around the beginning of World War II, thriving historically due to its close proximity to Port Klang. Grabbing a good cup of coffee here wasn’t just breakfast; it was an immersion into the exact kind of local heritage we were aiming to document. After getting energized and briefing the team, we set out on foot.

The Mission and Historic Landmarks

The primary goal of the walk was simple: identify old, historical buildings around Klang and photograph them to upload to Wikimedia Commons. Klang is rich with heritage architecture, and we wanted to make sure those structures were digitally preserved and visually accessible on Wikipedia.

One of the major highlights of our route was SK Klang. As the very first registered school in Malaysia, capturing its architecture was a priority. Documenting structures with this level of national significance is exactly why community photowalks are so important for Wikimedia projects.

The Monsoon Challenge

However, nature had its own plans. It rained for the entire day, turning our sunny photowalk into a rather wet adventure. Navigating the streets while trying to keep our cameras and phones dry certainly hindered our walking pace and limited the number of photos we could comfortably take.

Looking Forward

Despite the downpour, the spirit of the volunteers from both the Wikimedia community and Persatuan Reka Ulang Sejarah remained high. We managed to capture what we could, but the rain definitely left us wanting more.

This wet weather experience has only fueled our motivation to return. We are already looking forward to organizing another WikiSua in the future; hopefully on a day with much clearer skies; so we can fully capture the historic beauty of Klang without the need for umbrellas!

Africa Wiki Challenge (AWC) is an initiative launched in 2021 by Open Foundation West Africa to strengthen the representation of Africa across Wikimedia projects. For its 2026 edition, themed “Water for Life – Water as a Source of Life in Africa,” the campaign invited contributors to create, improve, and enrich content on water resources, sanitation infrastructure, water governance, and local solutions addressing challenges related to this essential resource.

This year, the Ghanaian Pidgin Wikimedians Community had the opportunity to take part in the Africa Wiki Challenge 2026 campaign. This initiative aimed to develop content related to rivers and water resources in the Ghanaian Pidgin language on Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikidata, while also training new contributors capable of continuing this documentation effort beyond the competition.

As part of Africa Wiki Challenge 2026, the community partnered with Wikimedia Ghana User Group, through their Shared Community Resources Program, supported us with free venue and food (breakfast and lunch), also created and shared flyers on their social media platforms for the campaign. We raised awareness among students and youth in Accra about how they can contribute to Wikimedia projects especially on the Ghanaian Pidgin Wikipedia. This collaboration led to 2 training workshops involving youths, students and first time contributors. In total, 38 participants registered and took part in the campaign.

During the training, participants were introduced to the principles of free knowledge and learned how to contribute to Ghanaian Pidgin Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikidata. They were trained to translate and improve articles, upload freely licensed media, and enrich structured data on Wikidata. Most participants were new contributors and showed strong interest in continuing their contributions after this initial experience.

One of the approaches used in this edition was the provision of lists of articles to be translated, helping new contributors choose articles they would like to translate. Special attention was given to rivers and watercourses in African countries, in order to improve coverage of this natural heritage on the Ghanaian Pidgin Wikipedia. This effort aligns with the African Union’s Agenda 2063 vision and the continent’s development priorities, which emphasize sustainable management of natural resources and improved access to water across African communities.

The local campaign ran from 28 May to 30 June 2026. In total, 38 participants registered and took part in the campaign. Experienced contributors, including some volunteer members, Yaw tuba mobilized to help newbies during the training sessions and Amuzujoe helped with photography and the uploading of images of the sessions to Wikimedia Commons. This collaboration between experienced contributors and new volunteers produced encouraging results, with participants creating 442 new articles, improved 744 existing articles, made a total of 6,000 edits, uploaded 239 media files to Wikimedia Commons, and generated over 10,000 article views during the campaign. These achievements demonstrate both the productivity of the participants and the campaign’s contribution to improving water-related knowledge about Africa across Wikimedia projects.

The most active contributors were recognized after the campaign in recognition of the quality and quantity of their contributions throughout the Africa Wiki Challenge 2026 in the Ghanaian Pidgin Wikimedians Community. The first place was awarded to Achiri Bitamsimli, followed by Ibnali1 in second place and Emmanuel Anin in third place. The female top contributor went to  Tenaciuos Ntaawa, the overall newbie contributor went to Ebenezer Sasu and Ibnali1 had the highest media upload on Wikicommons This recognition aimed to highlight their commitment to improving and creating content related to water resources across Wikimedia projects, as well as their consistent engagement despite the challenges encountered. The awards also encouraged other participants to continue contributing and to further engage in free knowledge initiatives.

We are proud to have contributed to Africa’s “Water for Life” initiative on the Ghanaian Pidgin language through Africa Wiki Challenge 2026, adding our part to documenting water-related knowledge on Wikimedia projects. However, due to limited time and the harsh weather conditions, we were not able to fully explore the richness of the topic, particularly the abundance of water sources in Ghana and visual documentation that could further enrich the content. We therefore intend to continue working on this subject beyond the campaign.

We are grateful to Open Foundation West Africa for the opportunity to participate in the Africa Wiki Challenge 2026 and Wikimedia Ghana User Group for their support and all participants who contributed to this meaningful initiative to document and share knowledge about Africa’s water resources on the Ghanaian Pidgin Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.

02/07/2026-08/07/2026

Mapping campaigns

• The UseOSM community has announced Map<>kathon 2026, an online data sprint that shifts the focus from creating OpenStreetMap data to demonstrating its use in real-world applications.

Community

• [1] Jonas has written a guide to help newcomers get started with indoor mapping in OpenStreetMap.
• Arjunaraoc presented a report on the contributions made by new OSM editors in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh during the first quarter of 2026.
• Candid Dauth has developed a set of overlay tiles highlighting toll roads, roads where cycling is prohibited, and roads with cobblestone surfaces. The overlays are hosted on tiles.facilmap.org and are also available as map styles in FacilMap.
• Frédéric Rodrigo posted an entry, on their OSM User Diary, about major changes introduced by version 0.5 of Clearance, a free software tool for controlling the quality of OpenStreetMap replication diffs (we reported earlier). It tracks thematic and territorial edits to OSM and keeps replication extracts (extracts, diffs, and a local Overpass API) up to date. The source code is available on GitHub.
• M Fuhrmann reported that the OpenStreetMap community in the German city of Fulda, in cooperation with Magrathea Laboratories e.V. – Chaos Computer Club Fulda, has launched a Panoramax instance.
• Rodolphe Bussers, a Belgian hiker, has published mongr20.com, a bilingual (French/English) website for those planning to walk the GR20 (Corsica) trail, built entirely on OSM: the route is compiled from OSM data (182.4 km), freely downloadable as ODbL GPX tracks of all 16 official stages, an interactive stage planner, and derived analyses (per-stage effort scores in both walking directions).
• Stéphane Branquart reported ► that Teritorio recently conducted an OpenStreetMap training session for the Limouxin Tourist Office team, helping them improve local geospatial information for both residents and visitors.

OpenStreetMap Foundation

• The Proceedings of OSM Science 2025 is now available on Zenodo.org. The volume was organised by Marco Minghini and others.

Education

• Anne-Karoline Distel shared a video on mapping wheelchair accessibility in OpenStreetMap, based on a presentation delivered at the Irish Wheelchair Association in Kilkenny (Ireland).

OSM research

• DoudouOSM highlighted that pavements, ramps, kerb ramps, stairs, pedestrian crossings, and streets are the key elements of accessibility mapping in OpenStreetMap, while properties such as length, slope, width, and surface play a crucial role in determining wheelchair mobility in urban environments.

Humanitarian OSM

• Akash Wadhwani has created an interactive visual essay exploring OpenStreetMap editing activity following the February 2023 Türkiye–Syria earthquake.

Maps

• The National Center for Monitoring and Alerts for Natural Disasters of Brazil has launched ► an interactive web map for tracking the severity of drought in Brazilian municipalities, which uses OpenStreetMap as a base layer.
• Open Water Software LLC has developed Seascape, a web-based global seafloor bathymetry dataset delivered as map tiles. Built from a mosaic of global and regional sources, it provides raster digital elevation model tiles for depth shading and hill shading, along with vector contour tiles.
• Andrea Grandi developed Book Corners, a map designed to help users discover and share nearby free little libraries. The application retrieves location data via the Overpass API, which is then processed through its data pipeline.
• Tykayn shared a map of France displaying OpenStreetMap speed limit (maxspeed) data, created using maxspeed-map, while encouraging users to contribute to Panoramax, noting that submitted photos help categorise speed limits on road segments.
• Stevefaeembra shared a map of lighthouses across Europe, created using OpenStreetMap data.
• ‘Third Places’ is a web map of New York City’s community gatherings, based on OpenStreetMap, from which were extracted all place nodes in NYC matching the ‘third place’ categories such as coffee shops, bars, libraries, parks, community centres, places of worship, bookshops, laundrettes, and dozens of other types. The term ‘third place’ was coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg in 1989 to describe the informal gathering spaces that anchor community life, distinct from home (the first place) and work (the second place).

OSM in action

• Julian Lindner, a student of urban planning, has launched Plantaube. This online tool enables urban planners and architects to create attractive city and site plans using OSM data. The tool is fully customisable and can be used free of charge in a web browser.
• Max Kreisler developed Rauchfrei Berlin, a community-driven map of smoke-free bars and venues across Berlin. The listings are crowd-sourced, allowing users to contribute by suggesting venues that are missing from the map.
• Tempo na Rota provides weather conditions and forecasts along travel routes across Brazil, using OpenStreetMap data as its basemap.

Open Data

• Panoramax showcased several region-specific instances that are currently accessible online.
• In a blog post, Stadia Maps explained that proprietary map services use outdated data collected during embargo periods, which leads to persistent errors. Instead, the company relies on open and proprietary data streams, ‘Fix-it’ links for reporting errors embedded directly within the API, and updates at least once a month. In addition, Stadia Maps is collaborating on an open-source set of address templates to reflect country-specific address conventions.

Software

• Christian Quest reported that the Panoramax instance operated by @ignfrance@social.numerique.gouv.fr will be migrated during the Bastille Day long weekend (around the 14 July public holiday in France). During the migration, the service will be temporarily switched to read-only mode. Users will be unable to upload new photos for a few hours, although all existing photos will remain accessible for viewing throughout the maintenance period.
• fghj753 developed a working prototype that allows users to select a packaging container’s colour, instead of manually listing 15 to 30 recycling:* tags, with the editor automatically applying the appropriate tags.
• Stadia Maps explained that Google deprecated the ‘Heatmap Layer’ in its Maps JavaScript API in May 2025 and removed it entirely one year later, leaving google.maps.visualization.HeatmapLayer users without a migration path. The company described how a former Google Maps customer switched to MapLibre GL JS with Stadia Maps tiles, gaining a native, zoom-responsive heatmap layer not tied to any single vendor. Stadia Maps argued the episode shows the risk of building on closed platforms, where features can disappear without warning.
• Frank März has developed Hydrant Hunter v1.5.3, a web-based tool that allows users to photograph fire hydrants and upload the images, along with their geographic coordinates.
• Ian Dees has made a web-based tool that generates before-and-after images of areas in OpenStreetMap, allowing users to visualise mapping progress over time.
• Project OSRM announced that OSRM now offers official Python bindings, allowing users to access routing, table, match, trip, and nearest functionalities directly from Python.
• Andy Townsend tooted that switch2osm.org has been updated to cover tile servers using both ‘flex’ as well as the older ‘pgsql’ outputs.
• mschwehl has developed TourGaze, a local-first ride viewer that enables users to import, browse, tag, replay, compare, and analyse recorded tours data. The application converts FIT, GPX, TCX, and KMZ files into a searchable, taggable ride library, featuring cinematic map replays, advanced ride analytics, and a ghost-chase comparison mode.
• vgeorge has built ‘OSM for Cities’? This is a platform that makes OpenStreetMap-based city data more accessible by distributing open datasets for urban areas worldwide. Users can search for any city and explore data within its administrative boundaries without requiring technical expertise or data preparation. The platform supports a range of ready-made map templates, including bus stops, schools, and trees, allowing users to visualise selected datasets with a single search.

Programming

• Paco Albacete Chicano shared a progress update on his Google Summer of Code project, which focuses on prototyping a medial axis implementation for area routing in Valhalla. The medial axis, also known as a topological skeleton, is a geometric representation used to compute efficient navigation paths through open spaces.
• Nicolas Lambert has developed Geoviz, a JavaScript library for designing thematic maps.

Releases

• Organic Maps has released its June 2026 update, which added navigation for all types of public transport, alternative routes, and the ability to specify a custom map background (for example, satellite or terrain)
• Pablo Brasero recapped the recent changes made to the OpenStreetMap website, including a switch of the Shortbread slippy map style from Versatiles Colorful to SVWD03 (we reported earlier) and an update of iD to version 2.41. The recap also covered performance work, such as re-enabling JavaScript minimisation and reducing the amount of script sent to visitors, and an upcoming feature that lets moderators define time-limited zones blocking anonymous notes.

Other “geo” things

• Staatsanzeiger reported ► that the government of Baden-Württemberg, one of Germany’s 16 federal states, has announced measures to strengthen its defence capabilities and resilience. Interior Minister Manuel Hagel said the initiatives include protecting sensitive locations in online mapping services. His ministry will instruct all state departments to ensure that sensitive information is obscured or pixelated on map platforms.
• 1Spatial has integrated ► Panoramax images directly into their Système d’Information Routier (router information system).
• QGIS has announced the beginning of a new development phase leading to the next long-term release of QGIS (4.2.4), which builds on the foundation of the Major Version 4.0 update that transitioned the core of QGIS onto the modern Qt6 framework. This release bundles loads of performance optimisations and newly introduced features, including multiple enhancements to 3D capabilities and processing tools. The 4.2.4 release is scheduled for the end of October.

Upcoming Events

Country	Where	Venue	What	When
			MapCup Asia Pacific 2026	2026-07-01 – 2026-07-31
	Trento	Università di Trento – Facoltà di Sociologia	FOSS4G IT & OSMit 2026	2026-07-09 – 2026-07-11
	Ernakulam		Workshop @ MEC Kochi	2026-07-09
	Berlin	KGA Johannisberg, Parzelle III/23b	217. OSM-Stammtisch Berlin-Brandenburg	2026-07-09
	Zürich	Bitwäscherei Zürich	189. OSM-Stammtisch Zürich	2026-07-09
	Berlin	HTW Berlin	Indoor OSM Workshop 2026	2026-07-11 – 2026-07-12
	नई दिल्ली	Jitsi Meet (online)	OSM India – Monthly Online Mapathon	2026-07-11
	Ernakulam	TinkerSpace, Hidayath Nagar, Kalamassery	OpenStreetMap Kochi	2026-07-12
	Abidjan	cURAT	MAPATHON TIEBISSOU	2026-07-12 – 2026-07-24
			OSM Chennai Mapping Party – Tambaram Market	2026-07-12
	Delhi	Chaayos, Paschim Vihar West, Delhi	OSM Delhi Mapping Party No.30 (West Zone)	2026-07-12
			Macro-Mapatón Regional	2026-07-13
	Berlin	CADUS Crisis Response Makerspace	Mapathon x CADUS	2026-07-13
	臺北市	MozSpace Taipei	OpenStreetMap x Wikidata Taipei #90	2026-07-13
	Hamburg	Voraussichtlich: “Variable”, Karolinenstraße 23	Hamburger Mappertreffen	2026-07-14
	München	Echardinger Einkehr	Münchner OSM-Treffen	2026-07-14
		temporärhaus	OSM-Stammtisch Ulm/Neu-Ulm	2026-07-14
	Tours	Étape 84	Tours : Rencontre locale	2026-07-15
			Online Mapathon von ÄRZTE OHNE GRENZEN	2026-07-15
			Missing Maps London Mid-Month (Without Training) Advanced Mappers (Online) [eng]	2026-07-21
	Bonn	Dotty’s	202. OSM-Stammtisch Bonn	2026-07-21
	Derby	The Brunswick, Railway Terrace, Derby	East Midlands pub meet-up	2026-07-21
	Chemnitz	Kaffeesatz, Chemnitz	OSM-Stammtisch Chemnitz	2026-07-21
	City of Edinburgh	Guildford Arms, Edinburgh	Edinburgh Meetup	2026-07-21
		Online	Lüneburger Mappertreffen (online)	2026-07-21

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 MatthiasMatthias, Raquel Dezidério Souto, SeverinGeo, Strubbl, Andrew Davidson, TrickyFoxy, barefootstache, derFred.
We welcome link suggestions for the next issue via this form and look forward to your contributions.

The Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia partnered with Kuantan’s District Education Office and Forest Office to host a biodiversity photowalk at Taman Eko-Rimba Bukit Pelindung on June 21, 2026, as part of the Wiki Loves Earth Malaysia 2026 campaign. The event took place from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM at Bilik Seminar IM8, Kuantan, Pahang, and Taman Eko-Rimba Bukit Pelindung. The program was officially officiated by Mr. Norkasmadi, the Deputy Director of the Student Development Sector at the Kuantan District Education Office (PPD Kuantan).

In this event, 31 participants, including local secondary school students and teachers, were involved in documenting native flora and fauna in Bukit Pelindung to enrich its content in Wikimedia Commons. The secondary schools involved in the photowalk were SMK Tengku Afzan, SMK Seri Panching, SMK Beserah, and Sekolah Berasrama Penuh Integrasi (SBPI) Kuantan. Additionally, five Wikimedians served as facilitators for the Wikimedia Commons training: Wafiq Aqil, Asmah Federico, Jurina Jonimin, Bluster Jainon, and Farish Hamka. The group was also accompanied by five representatives from the Kuantan Forest Office, led by Mr. Fazmil, who guided the participants and ensured their safety throughout the photowalk in the forest.

By partnering directly with Kuantan’s District Education Office and Forest Office, we managed to bridge the gap between institutional authority and grassroots youth enthusiasm. By uploading their unique captures directly to Wikimedia Commons under open licenses, these students are actively closing the digital visibility gap for Malaysia’s unique nature ecosystems. This hands-on experience not only taught the participants about biodiversity but also introduced them to the core values of open knowledge and digital literacy. 

According to Puan Laili, a participating teacher from SMK Tengku Afzan, her feedback suggests that this activity is beneficial in filling up students’ free time by doing something that will improve students’ knowledge about Malaysian biodiversity while contributing meaningful images to society. 

Moreover, the participating teachers provided logistical feedback for future planning, noting that an earlier official notice would help them better prepare both mentally and physically for the demands of a photowalk. While the event was highly engaging, teachers highlighted that it requires a certain physical capacity. They also suggested scheduling future events on a Saturday rather than a Sunday to better accommodate the participants’ personal weekend rest.

The students also shared encouraging feedback, stating that the event was both engaging and educational. Several participants expressed a strong interest in expanding the program beyond a single day, with multiple students suggesting that future iterations be structured as multi-day, camp-style events. 

In total, the program concluded with 238 new images uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by the participants, all within a two-hour time frame following their initial Commons training session. This metric represents a significant increase in contributions compared to the data from the first photowalk organized at Hutan Lipur Chemerong.

Seeing the success of this event, the Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia will take this participant and logistical feedback into consideration to improve planning for future educational and environmental outreach programs.

For the second year running, the Wikimedia Foundation ran the grant-making process for Wiki Loves Africa (WLA) through the New Grants Pathway — a decentralised, community-led funding model built with the Wikimedia Foundation that allows those doing the work to make funding decisions. This year’s contest theme, Rites and Rituals, asked contributors across the continent to document the ceremonies, initiation rites, harvest festivals, and traditional practices that define community life in their Africa. The grants existed to make this documentation possible, covering training, photo walks, upload sessions, and the outreach needed to do it all respectfully.

With the 2026 cycle’s review, disbursement, and early implementation completed, we wanted to share what the numbers tell us, what grantees and reviewers told us, and what we’re planning to change for next time.

The Pathway, in Numbers

Final upload and contributor counts will be confirmed once the campaign closes, but the grant-making numbers above are settled.

How Applications Were Reviewed

Thirty-three applications came in from organisers in 14 countries, with Nigeria alone accounting for 20 of them — a reflection of how active Nigerian Wikimedia communities have become, but also a true test of the pathway’s capacity to handle volume without losing rigour.

A panel of 13 experienced Wikimedians, spanning nine African countries plus France, reviewed every application against six criteria: 

• clarity and impact, 
• organiser capacity, 
• community engagement, 
• learning and evaluation, 
• budget realism; 
• and fit with the Rites and Rituals theme. 

Reviewers worked across English and French, with Francophone and Anglophone applications routed to dedicated reviewers to avoid language becoming a barrier to fair assessment.

Each application landed in one of four outcomes: 

• full approval, 
• partial funding, 
• “see comments” (where applicants could respond to specific concerns); 
• or decline. 

Of the 33, 3 were approved in full, 11 received partial funding, and 19 were declined — most commonly for unclear budgets, incomplete team information, duplication with other applications from the same area, or eligibility issues such as a team member being blocked on a Wikimedia project.

Who Got Funded, and Why It Worked

The strongest applications shared the following traits: experienced teams with verifiable Wikimedia contribution histories, budgets sized to what the activities actually needed, and a clear sense of place. Wikimedia Togo’s project — the only one funded at the full requested amount — paired two photo walks with professional photography training and use of the ISA tool to strengthen metadata, run by a team with a track record of delivering.

Collaboration also stood out as a quality signal. A multi-community Nigerian project bringing together the Igbo Wikimedians Commons Hub, Wiki for Senior Citizens Network Nigeria, and the Tyap Wikimedians User Group was commended as one of the strongest Nigerian submissions, precisely because it pooled experience across groups rather than competing for the same funding pool. The Fulfulde Wikimedians in Yobe State made a similar case for lean, realistic budgeting — their full request of $1,626 was approved without reduction because the plan to document 300–400 culturally relevant images was matched by a budget that made sense for the context.

What Grantees Told Us

Post-disbursement surveys with funded grantees gave us a window into the lived experience of the pathway. Funds arrived on time in every case reviewed, typically within one to three days of the expected date. Average self-reported confidence in project success sat at 9.2 out of 10 — strong, even where budgets had been trimmed.

That said, budget reductions had real consequences. Grantees running multi-region projects — in Zimbabwe, Senegal, and a multi-university initiative in Nigeria — told us the cuts forced them to narrow scope, whether that meant fewer regions, fewer universities, or shorter travel radii. Several also flagged practical risks for the activities ahead: connectivity for upload sessions in rural and northern Nigerian communities, and safety considerations for photo walks in the Niger Delta, where one grantee planned to use a police escort.

What Reviewers Told Us

Seven of the thirteen reviewers completed our post-review survey, and their feedback was candid. Every respondent rated WLA’s communication and the clarity of guidelines as good or very good, and all said they’d review again. But they were equally clear about what strained the process: a noticeable share of applications leaned heavily on AI-generated text with little human customisation behind it, producing vague activities and generic metrics that were easy to spot and hard to fund. Reviewers also flagged incomplete team details — missing Wikimedia usernames made it impossible to verify an applicant’s contribution history — and budgets that over-invested in administrative costs at the expense of the documentation work itself.

Their recommendations were practical: a proper reviewer orientation at the start of each cycle, earlier notice of review assignments, and a cap of one active application per community to cut down on duplication — particularly relevant given that the 20 Nigerian applications required a dedicated sub-committee just to adjudicate overlapping proposals.

Where the Model Held, and Where It Strained

The pathway’s core premise — that funding decisions belong close to the communities doing the work — held up well. The clearest successes came from teams with prior Wikimedia experience and genuine local knowledge of the cultural sites and consent processes the theme required. Light-touch, proportionate reporting allowed grantees to focus on delivery rather than paperwork.

Where it strained was at volume and at the edges of eligibility. Twenty applications from one country, some duplicating each other, asked more of the review process than it was built for in a compressed end-of-year timeline. And there’s no current way to check, before an application is even submitted, whether a listed team member is blocked or banned on a Wikimedia project or ineligible from getting a rapid grant from Wikimedia Foundation — several otherwise viable Nigerian proposals were declined for exactly this reason, late in the process.

Suggestions for Change

• An automated eligibility pre-check against platform blocks and bans, run at the point of application intake.
• Calls for proposals issued at least eight weeks ahead of review, with a live reviewer orientation session in addition to recorded materials.
• Sample budgets and annotated model applications, so first-time applicants can see what a well-scoped budget looks like before they write their own.
• A tiered grant structure under consideration — a smaller entry tier for first-time organisers alongside the standard tier for established communities.

Why This Matters Beyond WLA

Wiki Loves Africa’s New Grants Pathway is a small-scale test of a bigger idea: that subsidiarity — pushing funding decisions down to the people closest to the work — produces better cultural documentation than centralised grant-making could on its own. Two cycles in, the evidence supports that. The model is scalable to more countries and more themes, but only if reviewer capacity and intake systems grow alongside it. That’s the work ahead.

We’re grateful to the 13 reviewers who gave their time, the grantees who trusted the process and shared their honest feedback, and the Wikimedia Foundation’s Sub-Saharan Africa team for partnering with us on this model. If you organise in your community and are curious about applying in a future cycle, reach out — we’d love to hear from you.

Learn more

• Wiki Loves Africa 2026 — Participating Communities on Meta-wiki
• Wiki Loves Africa upload statistics on Toolforge

• From the team: Tools, tech, and Wikimania
• Argentina report: New digitization partner
• Bangladesh report: International Museum Day Edit-a-thon and Workshop held in Dinajpur, Bangladesh
• Belgium report: Postal Mission on Wikimedia
• Brazil report: Empowering Institutions through Wikisource Education and GLAM Capacity Building
• Czech Republic report: Bridging the gap between labs and Wikipedia: continuing cooperation with FZU
• Egypt report: From Museum Celebrations to Archival Documentation
• Finland report: Northern Wikimedist meetup in Oulu
• France report: #1lib1ref Recap and International Archives Week
• Italy report: Heritage and Community Action
• Mexico report: Open GLAM in Puebla
• Netherlands report: Interview with Olaf Janssen, Wikimedia coordinator of the KB, National library of the Netherlands
• New Zealand report: BAU at Auckland Museum, Otago Uni Library Life and the NZBSI WiR is complete
• North Macedonia report: Collaboration with the Botanical garden at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics in Skopje
• Poland report: Poland Report: New Partnerships, Conferences, and Wikimedians in Residence
• Serbia report: Opening the Doors of Serbian Heritage: Wikimedia Serbia’s Recent GLAM and Wikidata Successes
• Spain report: GLAM Labs Futures 2026
• Sweden report: Finnish-Swedish cooperation
• Switzerland report: Exhibition, International Archives Week Panel
• UK report: Ninth Good Article from Khalili partnership
• USA report: Philadelphia WikiSalon
• Biodiversity Heritage Library report: Updates on work by BHLWiki Working Group members
• AvoinGLAM report: Is the sauna still hot?
• Memory of the World report: New articles
• Calendar: July’s GLAM events