Eu has for internal use decided to stop using Google as search tool and
instead use Qwant. I have now done the same, as I do not want to use
tools from the big techs. We could promote harder our general mission to
use free software, or att lest phase out software from companies like
Google (I still though use adobe for PDF)
Anders
Den 2026-06-05 kl. 09:24, skrev Yaroslav Blanter via Wikimedia-l:
I started about a week ago a discussion on the English Wikipedia how
can we respond to the imminent changes in the Google search which will
give more emphasis to the AI output and less to the list of links.
Unfortunately, it did not generate a lot of ideas (though I obviously
should have expected this). I do not expect this thread to generate
much, but may be some people would start thinking about it.
I think it is pretty easy to predict that when this has been
implemented (they say this Summer) humans (almost) will stop clicking
on Wikipedia links because they will get all the information from AI
in prose. We will stop getting human visitors. We need to respond to this.
One thing is that we can still read print material or paywall material
whereas AI can not. It is quickly becoming a niche activity but it
still exists. But more importantly, we need to think what else we are
doing better than AI (well, sure, AI learns on what we produce, but we
currently can not capitalize on this, we are not running the Google
search). If we can not we stop existing much sooner than it looks now.
Best
Yaroslav
On Fri, Jun 5, 2026 at 9:08 AM Christophe Henner via Wikimedia-l
<[email protected]> wrote:
Hi this is my irregular email to try to get more widespread
reactions and engagement and discussion from volunteers to board
of trustees.
On global mobile traffic, after a -6.83% between May 2025 and May
2024, we're shattering records with a nice -18.27% between 2026
and 2025.
Oh yes, data may be dirty. So let's say it's even half of that
it's still a -10%.
"Christophe why are you not using Desktop data": historically
desktop data has proven quite unreliable for many reasons (and
this week the chinese wikipedia desktop outburst is surprising and
makes desktop data hard to read (on top of other outbursts).
So when we start playing with the -10% to 20% year over year,
shall we start mobilizing? Or we just all grab mojitos and virgin
mojitos and look at the collapse?
Oh hey if it wasn't clear before, the one body that can muster
ressources to mobilize our movement is the board of trustees.
Every day we are not mobilizing is your decision.
Every day you are not engaging publicly in those decision is your
decision.
Every day... I could make a long list you get the idea.
Right now the legacy you're building is a -20% trend leading to
collapse legacy.
I know this is hard to read, I know this may trigger a defensive
reaction. But time for tiptoeing around topics and problems is
long gone. We need swift and radical and unifying actions. If we
are to go through this situation we need collective action not
inaction.
-18.27% YoY on mobile :
https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-projects/reading/total-page-views/normal|bar|2021-11-07~2026-06-05|(access)~mobile-app*mobile-web+agent~user|monthly
<https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-projects/reading/total-page-views/normal%7Cbar%7C2021-11-07~2026-06-05%7C(access)~mobile-app*mobile-web+agent~user%7Cmonthly>
--
Christophe
On Tue, 5 May 2026 at 10:26, Tomasz Ganicz via Wikimedia-l
<[email protected]> wrote:
This is what almost all universities around the world are
doing but in professional way.The issue is that regular
teaching needs regular time commitment of qualified teachers
which is hard to organize on voluntary model. Also in order to
maintain minimal quality of teaching you need a system of
checking teachers qualifications and skills.
Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/
pon., 4 maj 2026, 15:22 użytkownik Felipe Schenone via
Wikimedia-l <[email protected]> napisał:
Hi! As we know, Wikimedia's mission isn't to build an
encyclopedia (that's Wikipedia's mission) but rather "a
world in which every single human being can freely share
in the sum of all knowledge". Perhaps the new landscape
will slowly strip Wikipedia of its leading role in the
Wikimedia movement, and perhaps (hopefully) some other
project will take over. I agree with Chris in that our
core strength is our community, and I also agree with
James in that writing tertiary sources is becoming
outdated. How can we keep striving for our vision, while
making the most of our strength (the community) but
through a project that doesn't involve writing tertiary
sources?
Here's an idea: Wikiversity could become so much more than
what it currently is. It could become a real "online
university", multilingual and global, where real-time
courses with real humans are taught (as well as the
asynchronous courses that already exist today). And not
just courses, but eventually entire university programs
that award real degrees. I'm sure our community is filled
with excellent teachers, academics and experts that could
lead such courses in many languages, as well as many
others that could support them in other ways (answering
questions, preparing reading material, exercises, exams,
etc). We'd need to develop and integrate some software
like Zoom or Meet, and much more, of course, but that's
beyond the point, as we could start with existing software
now, and develop better tools as we go along. Humans
teaching humans, would be a good summary of the idea.
I could digress for a while, but I might be delusional, so
I'll stop here. However, if anyone supports or would like
to talk, I'd be happy to continue on-wiki
(User:Sophivorus). Cheers!
On Mon, May 4, 2026 at 7:47 AM AcDc CluvR via Wikimedia-l
<[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Christophe. Tnx for writing this! I used to be
member of the board, chapter, moderator, arbitration
committee ... User Dolledre on some wiki's, mostly
nl.wiki. In my opinion crawling 'our' data should not
be so darn easy for AI models. Willing to block them
by hand if they keep hallucinating on 'our' data.
Interrogating like 4 of them daily, mainly on how they
work. Do know how to lead them towards total
confusion. Even if Wikipedia could develop the best AI
code in the world, we would still be sharing it. It's
the paradox to sweat out till humanity is either
hallucinating as a whole either returning till mental
sanity. Kind regards. D. PS: Want a free image of a
fox eating a banana in my kitchen? ;-)
Op za 10 jan 2026 om 00:41 schreef Christophe Henner
<[email protected]>:
Hey everyone,
I struggled with the object, the most honest one
would be "Last exit before irrelevance" but that
would be a bit violent.
So, Wikipedia turns 25 next week. I've been here
for over twenty of those years, including stints
chairing Wikimedia France and the Foundation
Board. And honestly? I'm worried. Scared to be
honnest.
Over the last years, I've been regularly crunching
data and sharing on different channels my worries.
But in the last few weeks I decided to make
a much more structured "essay" of my findings
Since 2016, the internet nearly doubled in size.
Our page views? Down. New editor sign-ups? Down 36%.
The people keeping this thing running are working
harder than ever, but there are fewer of them
every year.
I wrote it all up: the numbers, what I think went
wrong, what I think we need to do about it. Fair
warning: it's long, it's opinionated, and some of
it will probably make you mad.
*Here it is:
*https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Schiste/what-now
I'm not trying to be doom and gloom for the sake
of it. I genuinely believe we have maybe two years
to make some hard calls about AI, about money,
about who we're actually serving. After that, the
window closes and we become irrelevant.
Could be wrong. Hope I am. But I'd rather we have
this argument now than wish we had later. Well I'd
rather we had this argument two or four years ago,
but now we will make do.
Read it, tell me where I'm off base. Let's argue
and debate. That's what talk pages are for, right?
PS: Foundation board mailing list is bcc'ed,
change cannot happen without their commitment. And
fast.
--
Christophe
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