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Discovery feed in Wikipedia app similar to social media apps (incl article segments, vids, …)

This is a wish in the Community Wishlist that some people here may be interested in.
It's not social media but the envisioned feature could have some similarities to it, especially if videos relating to Wikipedia (not about random articles but eg short summaries of Wikimania talks) are included and if it's designed so that one can similarly recreationally browse it during commute etc.
Xikipedia and the Recommended Reading List feature of the Wikipedia app are relevant recent developments.

Discovery feed in Wikipedia app similar to social media apps (incl article segments, vids, …) (Community Wishlist/W506) (voting open).
Prototyperspective (talk) 12:34, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

AI image use and licencing

Someone posted today on the Wikipedia Reddit about an official WMF social media post which included a fake public domain licence. The way we licence content is a key part of how Wikipedia functions, and various projects take very great care to ensure they are handled correctly, both as a matter of legality and a matter of courtesy to content contributors (those in the movement and those that create freely licenced content elsewhere). The reddit post plausibly suggests the fake licence is the result of AI image use, rather than being deliberate. Working on this assumption, this is another indication that the practical risks of AI image generation. (This is putting aside any philosophical questions on the matter.) I'm not sure how and why it is entering the workflow for social media posts, especially in this case where its use brought no positive benefit to the post. It would perhaps be best to remove it from the workflow to avoid this sort of error. CMD (talk) 15:37, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Chipmunkdavis, thanks for reaching out. An upscaler was used to boost the resolution of the image so it would fit an ideal social media size. That's why the bottom right corner of the image looks weird. This wasn't done intentionally as it isn't a tool we normally use. The wrong license information was a mistake – the following image in the carousel was indeed in the public domain, and we ended up using the same information for both. We understand the importance of licensing and recognize what it represents so we decided to delete the post. Please note we're updating our quality control process to avoid mishaps like this in the future. Thank you! LPasqual (WMF) (talk) 14:32, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

I don't really understand how someone can use a new tool unintentionally, but I'm glad it was noticed by the team. CMD (talk) 03:14, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

Facebook Algorithm vs. Identity/Mission

Large pages, in the millions come with their own challenges.

With 5.4M followers and a strategy refresh underway, I wanted to raise two related questions that I think are directly connected.

A) Wikipedia faces a tension most organizations don't: the content formats and emotional triggers that Facebook's algorithm rewards are fundamentally at odds with encyclopedic neutrality. How does the strategy address meaningful engagement without compromising editorial identity?

B) The answer may depend on why people actually follow Wikipedia on Facebook in the first place — mission affinity, content curiosity, habit? A survey or surveys to your @followers could be a fun and powerful strategic input, on FB in particular. Has that research been done, or is it part of the refresh conversation?

Drew-Kelly (talk) 11:49, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Drew-Kelly. Thanks for your questions.

Our social media strategy aims to reach and engage new and existing audiences, in addition to building community and driving shares. We're talking to Gen Z and young audiences in their preferred platforms, which means we have the task of adapting the content available on Wikipedia to different formats. Every asset we post follows Wikipedia's core values; we wouldn't publish anything that puts this mission at jeopardy.

We haven't explored specific Facebook researches as you suggested, mainly because other social channels have been prioritized. For now, we're mostly focused on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, since multiple studios show these are our target audiences preferred platforms. That said, we're open to evaluating social media channels that align with the audiences we want to reach and will continue to assess opportunities in other platforms as our strategy evolves.

Thank you! LPasqual (WMF) (talk) 14:51, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks - that is genuinely interesting. It makes perfect sense to me. Drew-Kelly (talk) 18:37, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

Suggestion

I think there could be more explainer vids/shorts on how Wikipedia works, particularly targeting misconceptions about Wikipedia.

I think a lot of the vids/shorts you currently produce tend to be focused on interesting Wikipedia articles or the readership experience. I've seen a few explainers on how to start editing, but imo there's more that can be done to explain how Wikipedia works to people who may not even have any interest in becoming editors.

E.g. a really wide and important misunderstanding is whether Wikipedia has "mods"; many incorrectly assume Wikipedia admins are basically like Reddit mods: all-powerful and with strong control over Wikipedia's content. At least for the English Wikipedia, that's not true. Vids could be made to address this misconception. Would need multiple vids on this topic, spread out over time; it's so widespread and information will take a while to disseminate.

Other topics like these can also be discussed:

• Explaining how article deletions/deletion nominations work (also really misunderstood, to serious PR detriment; many outraged people in social media threads thinking we nominated controversial current event articles for deletion when it was just a rando and resulted in a speedy keep)
• Introducing the various parts of Wikipedia, like talk pages, the Teahouse, etc
• Introducing various interesting tools Wikipedians use, like anti-vandal stuff, Twinkle, and AutoWikiBrowser.

While some of these things are tricky to explain, imo it's doable. I really like these kinds of vids/shorts that are engaging and narrative, while still technical. Grapesurgeon (talk) 14:20, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

@Grapesurgeon: FYI, the WMF Communication team created a series of short videos called A Wiki Minute, which covers several questions about how Wikipedia works. Thanks. SCP-2000 13:44, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

Yea I saw those! I like em, think also my feedback above will help. Grapesurgeon (talk) 16:35, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Grapesurgeon. Thank you for reaching out! We’re always looking for new ways to help people better understand the ins and outs of Wikimedia projects, so we appreciate the creative suggestion.

Our social media goals include reaching and engaging new and existing audiences; building community; and driving shares. Because of that, the content we publish needs to be broad enough for anyone to understand. This doesn't mean we don't post "behind the scenes" content – ​​recently, we published videos about the commons, reverting vandalism, and writing from a neutral point of view. We even posted a series of 8 videos where a person edits Wikipedia for the first time while inviting readers to take their first steps into becoming an editor.

We will continue producing content about how Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects work, about the movement, and about our community. We are taking our audience on a learning journey, and it's a long road full of opportunities!

I'd like to take this opportunity to highlight the Wiki Minutes videos mentioned by @SCP-2000. They explain a variety of topics related to the Wiki universe, such as: “How does Wikipedia work?”, “How is misinformation addressed on Wikipedia?”, “If volunteers edit Wikipedia, how can you trust it?”. These one-minute videos have been shown to improve people’s understanding of Wikipedia and affinity to the projects (read more about these results on Diff). We share these in our own social media channels, and they’re also available on Commons for the community to use in support of their own communications. Thank you! LPasqual (WMF) (talk) 14:55, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

Hello, imo even if you guys won't make in depth videos, the things about misconceptions I mentioned above are possible to explain without going very in depth. They're also critical issues that regularly damage Wikipedia's reputation.

Again, the misconceptions about Wikipedia "mods" and how deletion nominations work. These are widespread and really burn us. I've seen a few Wikipedians try to put out those kinds of fires on X/Reddit to no avail. We could benefit from your guys' help instead of trying to fend on our own. Grapesurgeon (talk) 15:02, 18 June 2026 (UTC)