Research Report Nº 14

August 10, 2026

The fourteenth in a series of biannual reports from the Wikimedia Foundation Research team.

Foreword

Hi! Welcome to our bi-annual Research Report. Between January and June 2026, our team continued supporting the Wikimedia Foundation in advancing the annual plan of the organization and strengthening the Wikimedia research communities. This report includes the highlights of what we achieved as a team as well as high level information about the many initiatives we contributed to or led.

Fueling volunteer growth and focusing on contributor motivations remained a high priority for our team. We set the goal of providing research-informed product recommendations to teams that focus on the contributors’ experience on Wikipedia. Through projects such as longitudinal interviews with newcomers and large-scale surveys we developed a better understanding of the challenges facing new editors on Wikipedia and discovered factors that may significantly impact their long-term retention. We arrived at 9 key findings from this research and provided some recommendations to the product and feature teams at the Foundation rooted in the findings.

At the same time, we continued our investment in search and discovery. Our initial prototype, literature review, and user research findings helped confirm the viability of a hybrid semantic-lexical search modality for discovering content on Wikipedia and move from idea exploration to a production experiment on a small number of pilot wikis. Our subsequent sets of recommendations based on offline evaluation and qualitative research informed the scoping of major themes, including the upgrade of the underlying retrieval model and the need for a query routing logic, for the next phase of product development, now in progress.

And we continued investing in strengthening the Wikimedia research communities through multiple initiatives including but not limited to Wiki Workshop 2026, Wikimedia Research Fund, and the relaunching of the Wikimedia Research Fellows Program.

With this report, we close our contributions to FY25-26 annual plan. Thanks to those of you who supported this work in a variety of ways during the past six months. I look forward to connecting with you in December with a new report on our work to advance the FY27 annual plan in support of the Wikimedia Movement.

– Leila Zia, Director and Head of Research at the Wikimedia Foundation

Projects

The large majority of the work of our team is done in the open and reported here. We also provide consultation to other teams at the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) or external researchers and not all of that work has public outputs. We strive to share what we can and will include these additional projects as they become publicly available in future Research Reports.

  • Address Knowledge Gaps

    We develop models and insights using scientific methods to identify, measure, and bridge Wikimedia’s knowledge gaps.

    Community Insights Survey 2026

    We fielded the global survey of Wikimedia contributors across 29 languages and have begun data processing. (Learn more)

    Machine-generated short descriptions

    We published a synopsis of a 2023 pilot of an edit recommender system for short descriptions on the Android app. (Learn more)

    Impact of translation on readership

    We studied the impact of translated content on Wikipedia and showed that it leads to an increase in readership. (Task)

    Understanding newcomers

    We conducted observational and longitudinal interviews with newcomers on English Wikipedia to holistically understand their experience as a new editor and salient challenges. (Task)

    Exiting the mobile editor

    We helped to develop a survey on English Wikipedia of why readers and newcomers sometimes tap the edit button on mobile and then leave before publishing an edit. (Task)

    Comparative reader surveys

    We surveyed English and Spanish speakers, both on-wiki and off-wiki, to understand the prevalence of reading use-cases and Wikipedia’s role in the information ecosystem. (Learn more)

    Wikipedia attribution call-to-action survey

    We evaluated messages that would appear alongside reused Wikipedia content on external platforms, to understand which versions were best understood and perceived. (Learn more)

    Recognition and Goal-Setting for Editors

    We learned how junior and experienced editors feel about recognition, goal-setting and collaboration to inform opportunities in this space. (Learn more)

    Reader Growth: needs survey + concept testing

    We conducted a two-phase study to prioritize reader needs and gain feedback on the most promising concepts. (Learn more)

    Search evaluation dataset

    We continued research on search and quantitatively evaluated different approaches to search on Wikipedia using a benchmark dataset that we developed. (Learn more)

    Semantic search prototype

    We assessed how understandable and useful the previously built Semantic Search prototype is to Wikipedia readers, and identified aspects needing further improvements. (Learn more)

    Reader Survey 2025

    We reported the survey results from 12,993 readers across 11 Wikipedia languages. (Learn more)

    Newcomers survey

    We concluded the analyses of the Newcomers survey. (Learn more)

    AI for mentorship

    We paused work on this front due to competing priorities. (Learn more)

  • Improve Knowledge Integrity

    We develop models and insights using scientific methods to support the technology and policy needs of the Wikimedia projects in the areas of misinformation, disinformation, and content integrity.

    Source verification prototype

    We evaluated several language models on the task of verifying claims on English Wikipedia against their provided citations. (Task)

    Reference need

    Our paper titled Multilingual Reference Need Assessment System for Wikipedia was accepted to the Industry track of WWW '26. (Paper)

    Post-Temporary Accounts English Wikipedia patroller survey

    We surveyed over 700 editors to understand their views on temporary accounts and vandalism on English Wikipedia. (Learn more)

    Patrolling metrics analysis

    We conducted a first-ever analysis of case metrics on two key anti-vandalism reporting venues on English Wikipedia: Sockpuppet Investigations and Administrator Intervention against Vandalism. (Task)

    Recsys for Patrollers

    We evaluated a recommendation model that provides personalized recommendations to patrollers for reviewing high risk edits. (Task)

    Template suggestions

    We extracted a multilingual dataset of the addition/removal of over 500 different maintenance templates on 10 Wikipedia language editions. (Learn more)

    Admin trends and potential causes

    Our paper titled Fueling Volunteer Growth: the Case of Wikipedia Administrators was accepted to CHI '26. (Paper)

  • Building the Foundations

    Some of our work is in support of multiple initiatives or can inform multiple lines of future research, technology developments, and change of governance on the ground. We call this foundational work.

    Trending indicators

    We built prototypes to explore and evaluate different approaches to defining "trending" for articles. (Task)

    Traffic pattern similarity

    We developed signal processing pipelines to help engineers to more quickly identify suspicious traffic to Wikimedia sites. (Task)

    DataFest Germany

    Over 80 bachelor’s and master’s students across Germany explored questions around editor behavior through a dataset we provided of types of edits made to popular Wikipedia articles in ten languages. (Notebook, Data, Learn more)

    Explore Concept/Usability Testing

    We assessed a new “Explore” concept with casual readers, to understand sentiment, usability, and which interaction pattern was preferred. (Learn more)

    Developer Satisfaction Survey

    We published the results from 207 Wikimedia developers who completed the recent Developer Satisfaction Survey. (Learn more)

  • Strengthening the research communities

    Wikimedia projects are created and maintained by a vast network of individual contributors and organizations. We focus part of our efforts on strengthening part of this network: the Wikimedia research community.

    Presentations, Panels, and Keynotes

    We engaged with the research and scientific communities, and supported the Wikimedia communities in advancing their work informed by research findings.

    In February, we presented the result of our research on Wikipedia administrator trends and barriers as part of Let’s Connect, a Wikimedia peer learning program, and under the theme of Strengthening Local-Language Admin Communities. (Video)

    In February, we presented at Princeton University’s Keller Center on automation in Wikipedia’s governance workflows.

    In April, we attended ACM CHI 2026 and presented the research Fueling Volunteer Growth: the Case of Wikipedia Administrators. (Paper)

    In June, we presented at Complexity72h, a workshop for young researchers in complex systems, about research science for free knowledge.

    Office Hour Series

    We held over 25 one-on-one office hours to support researchers by answering questions about proposed or ongoing projects, guiding dataset access and analysis, sharing insights on Wikimedia Research team initiatives, exploring potential collaborations, and more. (Learn more)

    Research Showcases

    We started the calendar year with a special edition Research Showcase celebrating Wikipedia’s 25th Birthday and 25 years of research contributing to the Wikimedia projects. We also hosted a Research Showcase on AI and Communities. We paused monthly Research Showcases until August. (Learn more)

    Wiki Workshop

    We organized the 13th edition of Wiki Workshop virtually and across two days in March 2026. In this year’s workshop, we featured 40 accepted extended abstracts and we engaged as a community in the scientific discourse around the Wikimedia projects. Big thanks to all authors and participants of the event, to Ugne Daniele Reikalaite for bringing the joy of her music to Wiki Workshop for another year, to long time Wikimedian, Poco_a_poco, for holding an Ask Me Anything session, and to all the organizers and volunteers who made this event possible. (Learn more)

    Research Fund

    We launched the fifth annual Wikimedia Research Fund cycle and invited established researchers to propose research projects or community building events. We approved 6 proposals for funding. (Learn more)

    Mentorship through Outreachy

    We worked with Mercy Oyelakin, an intern through the Outreachy program. She built a tool for helping editors navigate article worklists to find ones they can edit. (Learn more)

    Fellows Program

    We relaunched the Wikimedia Research Fellows program, a year-long affiliation for post-PhD, early career researchers who are ready to make Wikimedia projects a sustained focus of their scholarship. (Learn more)

The people on the Research team

Departing members

  1. Eli Asikin-Garmager
    Eli Asikin-Garmager Principal UX Researcher
  2. Caroline Myrick
    Caroline Myrick Senior Research Analyst

In May 2026, Eli Asikin-Garmager, Principal UX Researcher, left the Wikimedia Foundation. Eli joined the Foundation in 2019 and the Research team in 2023. Most recently, he led and supported many projects including Article Guidance, a whitepaper offering recommendations to researchers for how to navigate their commitment to transparency and the privacy of Wikipedia editors, and research on understanding administrator trends and the potential drivers of administrator decline in large Wikipedias. We thank Eli for 7 years of contributions to the Wikimedia projects and wish him the best with what is next.

In January 2026, Caroline Myrick, Senior Research Analyst, moved to a neighboring team: Movement Insights. Caroline joined Research in 2023 and worked on a breadth of projects including the Wikimedia Foundation’s Developer Satisfaction Survey and a large-scale mixed method research on administrator trends on Wikipedia. We wish Caroline all the best in her new team at WMF.

New members

  1. Galen Weld
    Galen Weld Research Scientist

In May 2026, Galen Weld joined us as a Research Scientist. Galen’s background is in computational social science and human computer interaction with a focus on mixed methods studies of community governance. He recently completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Washington in Seattle, where his dissertation research focused on governance practices on Reddit. Galen also spent 18 months working at Reddit as a Computational Social Science Fellow, developing methods to understand community members’ values for their communities and to produce actionable metrics for community moderators. Galen is our first research scientist who will primarily focus on the questions of the governance of the projects. He is currently working on a project to develop a meta-method for analyzing NPOV on Wikipedia.

Collaborations

The Research team's work has been made possible through the contributions of our past and present formal collaborators. During the last six months, we did not establish new formal collaborations. However, we have an update about our fellow, Bob West.

  1. Bob West
    Bob West Research Fellow, Associate Professor, EPFL

In November 2025, Bob West, Associate Professor at EPFL, concluded his Research Fellowship at the Wikimedia Foundation. Bob joined us as a Research Fellow in 2015. In the decade that followed he, and later on his then newly built Data Science & AI Lab (dlab) members, became the force for many important research initiatives and projects of our team. From proposing that we create a space to bring together researchers studying all aspects of the Wikimedia projects (now Wiki Workshop) to proposing a model to improve Wikipedia’s hyperlink structure (paper), defining a lower bound for the economic value of Wikipedia (paper), building an article section recommendation model (paper), quantifying engagements with Wikipedia citations (paper), and many more, Bob’s research expertise and his drive to align his interests and his students’ interests with the Wikimedia projects needs helped improve our understanding and offerings on the projects. Thank you, Bob, for a decade of contributions and we look forward to continuing working with you in other capacities.

To inquire about becoming a formal collaborator, please tell us more about yourself and your interests. To apply for a Research Fellow position, please submit your application.

Events

  1. Office Hours

    Throughout the month (virtual)
    You can book a 1:1 consultation session with a member of the Research team to seek advice on your data or research related questions. All are welcome! Book a session

  2. Research Track at Wikimania

    July 23-25, 2026 (Paris, France + virtual)
    Join us in the Research track at Wikimania 2026 to celebrate 25 years of Wikimedia and research. See the schedule (set Track filter to Research)

  3. 2026 Wiki AI pre-conference

    July 21, 2026 (Paris, France)
    Join the Wikimedia community on a day of focused learning and conversations related to AI and the Wikimedia projects. Learn more

For other Wikimedia community organized events, check the events calendar.

Donors

Funds for the Research team are provided by donors who give to the Wikimedia Foundation, and by a grant from the Sloan Foundation. Thank you!

Keep in touch with us

The Wikimedia Foundation's Research team is part of a global network of researchers who advance our understanding of the Wikimedia projects. We invite everyone who wants to stay in touch with this network to join the public wiki-research-l mailing list.

In addition, our team offers one-on-one conversation times. You are welcome to schedule one of our upcoming public Office Hours.

We look forward to connecting with you.

Previous Report

Research Report Nº 13