Prolific Wikipedia editors are threatening to go on strike
theverge.com
theverge.com
Main discussion about Community Tech team on the Village Pump (discussion board): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#W...
* Response from the WMF (21 May): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#R...
* Note from the Wikimedia Foundation on unionization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#N...
* Response from the WMF (22 May): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#R...
* WWU statement (May 23): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#W...
* Response from WMF 24 May: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#R...
The 24 May statement includes "I know many of you asked why we cannot just guarantee people new roles...we have 4 countries represented, with a wide variance in required actions. I want to note one specific requirement that came from these laws: we could not pre-select certain staff for new roles, as that would appear to be circumventing legally required processes in some countries."
Discussion about proposed direction for Community Wishlist: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Community_Wishlist#Prop...
So, how can they strike when they're all volunteering? What exactly is their Trump-card secret strategy against full replacement? The article didn't even bother addressing the fundamental problem here.
They are the value. Good luck finding volunteers to replace them.
If wikipedia is shutting off avenues for community input, maybe that is running it's course as well.
Its been nice internet, I loved you, and I will never forgive google for what they put into motion.
ditto for the Indian / Nigerian / S African folks they outsource to -- they're gettin paid, ain't no volunteers
Edit: They literally have this, the color is even blue. I was truly guessing, but it is a thing:
"There are no small contributions: every edit counts, every donation counts. Thank you."
https://www.wikipedia.org/#:~:text=We%20ask%20you%2C%20since...
Wikipedia depends on people doing repetitive and semi-thankless work, such as vandalism patrolling. If no one patrols edits, then the entire wiki devolves into vandalism, edit battles and slop.
The foundation's 2026-2027 draft annual plan explains a bit of their current strategy for recruiting more editors, including by deepening engagement among readers in meaningful ways: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_...
volunteering to edit / update / battle / ameliorate wiki pages requires far more time and friction and often drama
Volunteering for what exactly? And if what they all are volunteering for went away one day, what exactly would happen to Wikipedia? Is it possible what they are doing, actually has a large impact for Wikipedia?
Striking is less about "us employees are angry" and more about "us who are actually doing things, aren't reaping the same amount of rewards", where "doing things" can be anything from being a salaried employee to a volunteer firemen, they can still strike because of unfairness.
I fail to see the difficulty? Editors striking would mean them not doing the volunteer work they normally do.
How much vandalism do you reckon will go undetected if they do go on strike? How much more time will it take to get articles updated to reflect current affairs?
A couple highlights:
"5 oversighters [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Oversight] ... who collectively performed 587 of the 1,463 (~40%) suppression actions in April 2026"
"5 checkusers [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CheckUser] ... who collectively performed 876 of the 5,419 (~19%) checkuser actions in April 2026"
That seems to be how non-profits evolve these days, fund raisers and management get most of the $ raised. So it looks like the WF is going in that direction to me.
I wish the editors good luck.
a) The team affected by the layoff was responsible for implementing ideas from the community, and this historically has not had much traction. This decision sends a signal that WMF does not care about community input.
b) Most of the people laid off were prominent in a union, and the community thinks this is unfair retaliation that a mission focused non profit shouldn’t stoop to.
We should do a hard fork of Wikipedia and call it Openpedia or Openwiki probably.
There's Internet In a Box and various other offline self hosted interfaces.
But of course there's a big difference between a mirror of the content and the whole community which updates and creates the content.
That said, I am one of the people who downloaded a copy of Wikipedia. It wasn't with the intent of working it. Rather, it was to wait out any political strife (since that is bound to happen with such a large and diverse audience).