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2026:Team challenges/Details of the challenges

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Fix the sources #source

Automatically detect outdated, retracted or broken sources in articles, and facilitate their updating or archiving.

Wikipedia and Wikidata rely on millions of external sources with unpredictable lifespans: government pages moved, scientific articles retracted, links broken due to lack of maintenance. This challenge aims to build tools capable of continuously monitoring the health of cited references by cross-referencing publication identifiers (DOI, ISBN) with retraction databases, detecting 404 links, disinformation platforms, and so on, and automatically suggesting archives (Wayback Machine, etc.) as substitutes. The goal is to make visible a structural problem that is often invisible to the reader.

Examples of projects

  • Automatic Archiving of Cited Web Pages in Web Archive
  • Alert readers when referenced articles have been retracted (filter through DOI)
  • Automatically search for broken web links and their corresponding new web links
  • Statement and reference traceability
  • Updated references syntax to improve quality management and sources

Welcoming newcomers #newcomers

Reinventing how we onboard newcomers through chatbots, guided micro-editions, and gamification lower the barrier to entry on wikis.

Contributing to Wikimedia projects remains intimidating for most people: wiki syntax, neutrality guidelines, edit wars… This challenge calls for designing onboarding pathways suited to different types of beginners. This could take the form of a FAQ database, a micro-editing interface, recognition badges, or game mechanics that transform reading into active participation. The goal is to expand the pool of contributors, particularly among audiences that are currently underrepresented.

Examples of projects

  • FAQ / chatbot for newcomers
  • Micro-editing for beginners: “Is the information in this sentence in the source?”
  • Gamification to turn readers into contributors
  • Volunteer knowledge badges
  • Impact Dashboard: Create an Impact Dashboard with a social score

Update the obsolete #obsolete

Identify and flag outdated articles, obsolete illustrations and screenshots, and outdated graphics to: encourage the community to update them.

An article may be factually accurate at the time of writing but become misleading over time: a statistic from 2012, an organizational chart of a restructured institution, or a political map from before an election or conflict. This challenge aims to make this obsolescence visible—through color-coding based on the age of edits, automatic detection of outdated software screenshots, or charts with data that hasn’t been updated. It also involves providing pathways for contribution, so that readers who notice a problem can easily take action.

Examples of projects

  • Develop a color-coding system to indicate how long it has been since the article was last updated
  • Identify outdated articles: flag those that haven’t been updated in a long time
  • Identify outdated screenshots
  • Identify outdated data in charts
  • Encourage the improvement of “outdated” content

Boost multimedia experience #multimedia

Enhancing the audiovisual experience on wikis: playlists on Commons, a modernised video player, annotation of audio segments, and games focused on accents and pronunciations.

Wikimedia Commons hosts thousands of audio and video files that are largely under-utilized by current interfaces. This challenge explores how to revitalize these media: creating thematic playlists on Commons, enabling the annotation of audio segments with free-form text or Wikidata, modernizing the video player integrated into Wikipedia pages, or even inventing entertaining experiences around pronunciations collected via LinguaLibre. A creative and technical area at the crossroads of sound, games, and free knowledge.

Examples of projects

  • Develop a playlist feature for Commons for videos and audio files
  • Audio improvements: tag sections of audio with free-form text or Wikidata
  • Design the user experience for videos and audio files on Wikipedia pages
  • A game about accents, similar to Geoguessr but for pronunciations
  • Enable video and audio playback in the Commons app

Deciphering biases #biases

Developing tools to detect gender, geographic, and cultural biases in Wikimedia content to: encourage the community to correct them.

Biases in Wikimedia projects have begun being documented but remain difficult to quantify and address. This challenge aims to build tools for measuring and visualising imbalances – such as the proportion of biographical articles about women, disparities in coverage across regions of the world, and underrepresented rural heritage that lacks articles. It also involves detecting more subtle biases within the articles themselves, such as the proportion of “private life” sections based on the subject’s gender. These tools should enable the community to prioritise its editorial efforts with full awareness of the issues.

Examples of projects

  • Tool for measuring biases (gender bias, geographic bias, etc.)
  • Tool for detecting biases in articles (e.g., proportion of “personal life” sections)
  • Promote tools to better identify and address knowledge gaps
  • Cat-a-lot × structured data: manage structured data and create Wikidata items
  • What about other projects? Commons, Wiktionary, Wikisource, Commons…

Gamify knowledge #gamify

Create serious games and playful experiences using Wikimedia data to: learn, contribute, and explore in new ways.

Wikimedia projects offer extraordinary raw material for game design: geography quizzes, quizzes on the pronunciation of words or place names, Wikidata data validation challenges, word games based on Wiktionary, visual puzzles using images from Commons… This challenge invites participants to create prototypes of playful experiences that serve as both learning tools and indirect contribution tools. The goal is twofold: to attract new audiences to Wikimedia projects and to highlight content that is often overlooked.

Examples of projects

  • Create serious games based on words, images, and sounds
  • A game about accents / Geoguessr for pronunciations
  • Games that use Wikidata, Commons, Wiktionary, Wikisource, etc.
  • Gamification / new visualizations of Wikimedia data
  • Using LinguaLibre data for language learning
  • Geoguessr for photos on Commons

Stream data with Wikidata #wikidata

Take advantage of Wikidata content to: generate lists, tables or up-to-date visualisations, semi-automatically, for other projects in the Wikimedia galaxy or further.

Wikidata is a structured knowledge database, maintained by the community. It has a large potential for re-use, which hasn’t been yet completely unleashed. This challenge aims at fixing that: by improving Listeria (a bot for dynamic tables), documenting the most useful and reusable SPARQL queries, making it easier to create bridges between Wikidata and Commons through Categories and dynamic lists… or maybe provide the power of Wikidata to external sites such as OpenStreetMap or library authorities?

Examples of projects

  • Continue development of the Listeria bot that creates dynamic tables using Wikidata
  • Autogenerated documentation of popular SPARQL Queries
  • Petscan-like Wikidata list
  • Automatically add Commons category links to article
  • Wikidata-based TV/radio channel lists
  • Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia

The editor of the future #editor

Improving the editing experience: search & replace in the source editor, a standardized citation toolbar, a better visual table editor, and text alignment in VisualEditor to modernise and streamline contributions.

Wikipedia’s editing interface has become a source of many frustrations that have built up over the years. This initiative addresses the most concrete and frequently mentioned irritants by contributors: the lack of search/replace in the source editor, the still very limited visual editing of tables, the absence of citation toolbars on some wikis, and the lack of a “go to edit” button after clicking "Show changes ." These improvements have a direct impact on the quality and fluidity of daily contributions.

Examples of projects

  • Find & replace in the 2010 source editor
  • Better visual table editing
  • Text alignment in tables for VisualEditor
  • Edit mode: add "Go to editing area" at top of page after clicking "Show changes"
  • A way to filter edits by Citation bot, InternetArchiveBot and OAbot from diffs

Explore knowledge #explore

Design and experiment new ways of sharing knowledge, in interactive and visual ways… for the modern web!

Most of the Wikipedia interface remains untouched since the 2000s. Meanwhile, the experience of web browsing vastly changed towards interactivity, new formats and ways to scroll. This challenge wants you to prototype new formulas to interact with Wikimedia contents: without changing its inner workings, but by exploring alternatives. How can you facilitate the link between articles on neighbouring topics using knowledge graphs, or suggest meaningful Commons media, or enrich the graphs and maps often displayed?

Examples of projects

  • Article visualisations: scrollytelling, more modern presentations than monobook
  • Add map and timeline support to Extension:Chart for more interactive data visualisations
  • Suggest—then—add videos and other media sets in Wikidata items to their Wikipedia articles
  • Strengthen the links between articles: create a graph by portal/topic/category
  • Test new formats for sharing knowledge, adapted to the web in 2026

Connect multilingual knowledge #multilingual

Facilitating translation, the reuse of content across Wikimedia projects, and collaboration with other Open Source projects so: knowledge can flow freely in all languages.

Free Knowledge should not stop at linguistic borders. Yet, translation tools between wikis remain rudimentary, and cooperation with other Open Source projects (OpenStreetMap, Open Food Facts, LinguaLibre, …) faces interoperability issues. This challenge aims to simplify these exchanges: improving translation tools, facilitating the import and export of data between projects, supporting wikis in underrepresented languages, and using pronunciation recordings for language-learning applications.

Examples of projects

  • Better translation tools
  • Mobile app for Wiktionary
  • Cooperation/interoperability with other open source projects
  • Using LinguaLibre word data for language learning
  • Improving interoperability and format management (especially on Commons)
  • Mobile apps for projects other than Wikipedia
  • Lingua libre mobile app

Information integrity

Building an Environmental and Climate Information Integrity Dashboard on Wikipedia Pages.

Your team’s mission is to design and prototype an open-source tool—the Environmental and Climate Information Integrity Dashboard. Building from the Wikipedia Sensitivity Meter and existing Barometers, an interface that will, among others, track and analyze metadata and editing patterns on environmental and climate-related pages to identify which articles and topics are particularly vulnerable in terms of information integrity regarding climate and environment.

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