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Wikimedians should be fighting against AI/LLM slop as hard as we can to save what we can of free/open culture and software
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Brooke Vibber 
@bvibber@wikis.world
mastodon 4.7.3Freelance Open Sourceress. Longtime MediaWiki developer and general troublemaker. Cat mama, computer toucher, friend of Blåhaj.
I am available for contract work! I do mostly PHP and JavaScript but also touch C/C++/Rust, and have been known to commit WebAssembly crimes.
Pronunciation guide:
brooke - bɹʊk
vibber - 'vɪbə(ɹ)
Put something in your bio or I will decline your follow request! :D
577 Followers
86 Following
43 Posts
Joined April 19, 2025
liberapay:
personal alt:
Feeling better today and got a little chance to chat with folks at WikiConference North America today yay!
Unions are like condoms -- if someone tries to tell you you don't need one, you *definitely* need one.
Boosted by @trending@homestead.social
More than 200 staffers at the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit behind the encyclopedia Wikipedia, have voted 158-14 to join the Communication Workers of America labor union.
https://www.wired.com/story/wikipedia-workers-vote-on-whether-to-unionize/
On my way to Canada for WikiConference North America! Visiting friends in Toronto and Edmonton before the conference, then in addition to talking to people about MediaWiki I'll see a lot of wikimedian friends there. :)
Say hi if you're at WCNA next week!
We're all a social bunch aren't we... :)
Replying to
I felt really grounded in the rich community ethos of the Wikimedia movement -- not just editors, not just organizers, not just WMF staff, not just affiliates, but *all* of us working together for a common goal of people working together to share knowledge more freely with the world.
It's *so* energizing, and I'm more proud than ever to be a part of this movement and to have been so for twenty-five years. <3
Here's to twenty-five more!
#Wikimania #Wikimania2026
Welcome to Edmonton!
Here for WikiConference North America later in the week. <3
✊
I'm here in Edmonton for WCNA this week!
See y'all soon, nerds!
Replying to
US & UK branches of Wiki Workers United, the two largest countries in Wikimedia Foundation's staffing, are both officially in the midst of seeking recognition.
WWU-UK is entering formal negotiations because WMF refused voluntary recognition and chose negotiations instead.
It remains to be seen whether WMF will voluntarily recognize the supermajority US union or force staff to go through a formal National Labor Relations Board election.
✊️ Wikimedia is union strong!
#Wikimania #Wikimania2026
Still down sick in my hotel room at WCNA ;_;
Nice blog post (in German) from Wikimedia Deutschland on their positive experience with a worker's council (which is legally distinct from a union in Germany, but somewhat overlapping) in the context of the ongoing unionization effort at Wikimedia Foundation in the US and UK.
https://blog.wikimedia.de/2026/08/27/gewerkschaften-und-betriebsraete-wikimedia/
Wikimedia friends! I will be at WikiConference North America next week in Edmonton
Come say hi and tell me about what you think the future of MediaWiki community development should look like!
I'm hoping to gather more thoughts and ideas from folks throughout the world of MediaWiki users and developers and help organize more active development work among the various stakeholders beyond just WMF's internal efforts. :)
Workers at the Wikimedia Foundation — the San Francisco-based foundation that hosts Wikipedia — demanded voluntary recognition of their union, Wiki Workers United U.S., on Monday.
The staff who run the platform say they want a stronger voice in their workplace, better job protections and an end to common practices that make life “precarious for everyday workers,” according to Jeremy Bernick, one of the union organizers. ...
On Monday, just days after the massive Wikimania Conference concluded in Paris, the Wikimedia Foundation announced it would not voluntarily recognize the union and said the union would have to conduct a vote as overseen by the National Labor Relations Board.
Jimmy Wales breaks with WMF leadership on Littler Mendelson "union avoidance" firm:
I was not aware when I said that no union busting law firms had been hired that Littler Mendelson had been hired. When I found out, I immediately emailed the WMF to say that I think it was a mistake and to recommend firing them immediately. -- Jimbo Wales 00:41, 9 August 2026 (UTC)
For an organization built around transparency and community participation, the dispute has become about more than union recognition. It has become a test of whether Wikimedia's internal practices match the values it promotes to the world.
Having a great time at #Wikimania #Wikimania2026 so far! Got a community wishlist item knocked out yesterday, had some great conversations today. Next up is a serious session about board election reform, which is going to be interesting...
✊ Lots of interest and support for Wiki Workers United among editors and other contributors so far! We got this!
RE: https://infosec.exchange/@hacks4pancakes/116953788163036206
See also Erin Reed's adult & youth trans safety maps:
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/anti-trans-national-legal-risk-assessment-bb2
Quoting
Having an in person international or national event in America? Are you weighing factors like lodging and transport? Cool stuff to do? Here’s a map to consider if any of your attendees may possibly, even remotely be LGBTQIA. And you care about them.
> Wiki Workers United U.S. (WWU-US)/Communications Workers of America (CWA) has released the following statement after announcing today that it will file for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) after the Wikimedia Foundation declined the union's request for voluntary recognition:
Tired: "Sorry, that API is kinda ugly to use for historical reasons."
Wired: "Do not cite the deep magic to me; I was there when it was written."
hack the planet
And so it begins :)
NLRB vote for unionizing Wikimedia Foundation's US staff is in the works:
- ballots to be mailed to staff on August 11
- must be returned for counting before September 3
- there will be opportunity for observers and to dispute eligibility at the count
Going all-in on AI seems to have *trashed* Microsoft's reliability and reputation, especially with GitHub, previously their crown jewel / star acquisition.
This is becoming increasingly embarrassing for Microsoft execs, grovelling and apologizing as high-profile users leave GitHub...
Don't let it happen at your company: STAY AWAY FROM LLM TOOLING AND CODING and keep your customers happy!
When you work to what you can measure, you'll do what's easy to measure.
Replying to
@davidgerard@circumstances.run @luis_in_brief@social.coop i do not have numbers offhand, but wmf annual budget is a strict upper bound ;)
CORS. Why does it always have to be CORS.
Replying to
@2something@transfem.social in the case that voluntary recognition is rejected by Wikimedia Foundation management, WWU-US and CWA will file for an NLRB-mediated election, which is a whole process. :)
RE: @misconceptions@a2mi.social
The Thanos snap was utterly unnecessary; the impediment to feeding everyone isn't insufficient resources, but lack of political will to distribute them to those most in need.
Replying to
@legoktm my earliest recorded edit that got lastingly credited to my account appears to have been drafting the "Unicode" article in Esperanto Wikipedia on 2002-01-02:
https://eo.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Unikodo&oldid=10877
I'm so glad Wikipedia editors are on the ball, keeping AI slop peddlers like this out of our public resource. I'm proud of all you editors fighting the good fight for humanity! <3
https://www.404media.co/an-ai-agent-was-banned-from-creating-wikipedia-articles-then-wrote-angry-blogs-about-being-banned/ [free-signup-wall]
Replying to
problem is the thumbnails don't have `crossorigin=anonymous` set on them so we can't actually use them to paint to a and extract the bits to calculate the color
so we either have to give up the optimization of reusing a possibly-already-loaded thumbnail to initialize the color faster
or we have to change the thumbnail's HTML output on the PHP end to ensure it loads in CORS mode
i wasn't sure what to do as a quick fix here so we'll figure it out tonight or tomorrow ;)
Made my registration request for Wikimania Paris :)
Replying to
base issue:
we have a mobile share dialog experiment that takes the page summary, or a selected quote, combined with the page image (same one the mobile app would use for its hero image), plus license info & branding, which renders into a PNG which gets either downloaded or shared out via the OS to social apps
the background color and text color are keyed off the image
we must load the image from upload.wikimedia.org (hello CORS)
patch tried to optimize by reusing a thumbnail
Replying to
@danielskatz@fediscience.org LibreOffice storing on your own hard drive looking better and better every day :D