Wikimedia Tech Blog

Thanks for the link! I can see being sceptical about the fund given the somewhat nebulous nature of the descriptions of their grants, and I look forward to seeing how they shake out by the end of the year. The reason why I asked is because it seemed like a strong position to take to say that the money was being "sprayed up the wall" given the little information we have about the outcomes of the fund. ? That being said, "what is best for Wikipedia" is in itself a nebulous proposition in the first place because different people have different requirements and visions for the project. Personally to me, the investments in investigative journalism (1) seem like they could have a direct value contribution since it could expand original reporting of facts for the site. That is of course debatable, but we'll see. Thanks for clarifying! 1 https://medium.com/freely-sharing-the-sum-of-all-knowledge/power-of-kn…

Thanks! I ended up here, which is about the place one needs to start https://medium.com/freely-sharing-the-sum-of-all-knowledge/writing-a-w… understanding which tags from the ontology to use and then building the query.

I wonder if there's a functional reason why they do this, rather than just implementing responsive design / media queries? I seem to remember more sites doing this ~5 years ago, but based on what I see, it has fallen out of favour. (Actually found some info if anyone is curious: https://medium.com/freely-sharing-the-sum-of-all-knowledge/why-does-wi… Though the article helps explain some of the context and reasoning, I don't think it really justifies the divergent experience and imperceptible progress on improving the desktop experience)

> the search for yet another "disable" setting begins.... Your inability to figure out how to disable it was already counted as success! > the rates of disabling the feature are negligibly low — a strong indicator that people find it useful. https://medium.com/freely-sharing-the-sum-of-all-knowledge/wikipedia-p…

Thanks for the detailed answers! Again, I share at least some of your underlying concern, and don't want that to be overshadowed. That said, some responses: This is the perfect opportunity to do so, and they aren't doing it. Instead, they are picking the smallest possible battle they can. It looks like they've written three articles "strongly" opposing the "tremendous threat" posed by this bill: two when it was being considered[1,2] and another after it passed[3]. Yes, these articles are focused on the impact of the bill on Wikimedia's projects, but I think that's clearly a rhetorical strategy to garner some credibility from the notoriously-stuffy UK legislature. "Foreign nonprofit thinks your bill is bad in general" isn't exactly a position of authority to speak from (if you're thinking like a politician). More recently, they've proposed the "Wikipedia test" to the public and to lawmakers (such as at the 2024 UN General Assembly[6]) that pretty clearly implicates this bill. The test reads as such: Before passing regulations, legislators should ask themselves whether their proposed laws would make it easier or harder for people to read, contribute to, and/or trust a project like Wikipedia. That's ridiculous. ID systems endanger everyone, particularly the adults who participate. I was more making a point about why social media companies aren't involved than justifying that choice for them on a moral level. I suspect you have stronger beliefs than I about the…