Wikifunctions:Status updates/2026-03-19

Wikifunctions Status updates

Abstract Wikipedia is now in Beta

This week, we launched a preliminary Beta version of Abstract Wikipedia for the Wikimedia communities to test out for building up language-independent Wikipedia articles.

In this form, Abstract Wikipedia allows communities to build collaborative, language-independent articles in their native language, which others can then access in their own languages. This transformation is done by using functions from Wikifunctions and based on structured content from Wikidata. We are very excited to share this with the communities, and looking forward to seeing how they can leverage this initiative to build a knowledge base independent of language, making it easier for Wikipedia editors to share, add, translate, and improve knowledge across languages on the online encyclopedia.

Regarding the articles of Abstract Wikipedia, we will pursue a hands-off approach. With Wikifunctions, we decided that the development team would be freer when contributing to the site early on. Since then, we have been gradually reducing our involvement. For Abstract Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation staff will refrain from creating or maintaining articles, as the articles created in Abstract Wikipedia will eventually be integrated into the Wikipedias. This does not mean that you are all by yourself: we are happy to help, answer questions, and even fulfill specific technical requests from volunteers that affect the content if necessary. But as with Wikipedia, we will not determine the content that will be on Abstract Wikipedia. What will you write about? What will you write in these articles? That's entirely up to the community. That is particularly true for policy pages and shared community spaces.

As the saying goes, there's only one chance for a first impression. We are very intentionally keeping a low profile with regards to getting the news out about Abstract Wikipedia. Abstract Wikipedia is not a secret, but as this is an early beta, we are conscious that the project is not yet quite ready for a wider audience: e.g., the function coverage still has gaps, and the user experience needs improvement. We expect that this will change during the course of the year.

We have not yet built the integration of Abstract Wikipedia articles in the language Wikipedias or other projects. That is the main planned feature that is still missing. This will be a major focus for the development team in the next few months. You are able to write, preview, and maintain articles in Abstract Wikipedia itself, but it is not yet possible to show these articles on the language Wikipedias. We discussed the integration with Wikipedias in this newsletter recently.

Your feedback will help us to shape the future of the site. So please — don't be shy! We will be improving the capabilities and usability of the site considerably in the future. You might encounter bugs, usability issues, time-outs, or other problems in the current version. Please let us know if that happens! We have intentionally re-used as much of the tools from Wikifunctions as possible, but you may think we need a different approach. We want to hear about that too!

It might happen that we will even need to start all over with Abstract Wikipedia. Abstract Wikipedia in Beta is a very early first version. It could happen that we have to switch it off temporarily at any time, or it might even happen that we will have to delete everything and restart the project. This is an option that we also reserved when we launched Wikidata and Wikifunctions. Both these times it proved to not be necessary to exercise that option, and we hope the same here.

Having said all that, we are excited to welcome you on Abstract Wikipedia. Which will be the first 100 articles? In which languages can those be read from the start? In which languages will contributions happen? Where do Wikidata's lexemes support this work best? How far can we push the idea of Abstract Wikipedia with the capabilities we have now? What needs to change, to be improved? These are some of the questions for which we want to find your answers in the coming weeks.

We will be monitoring all of this progress closely and your feedback on the project as we continue to develop Abstract Wikipedia until we can eventually share it with the world.

Recent Changes in the software

In addition to launching the initial beta version of Abstract Wikipedia, we made a few UX improvements this week. For consistency with other parts of the Wikimedia design system, the banner alert shown when connecting a test case has been updated from a “message” to a “toast” (T377560). Also, code blocks in both read and edit modes now support dark mode (T419652).

Volunteer’s Corner upcoming on 13 April 2026

The next Volunteers’ Corner will be on Monday, 13 April 2026 at 17:30 UTC. We plan to have the following agenda: there will be time to ask questions and discuss all matters arising. We will celebrate the launch of Abstract Wikipedia Beta. If we have time, we will either write a function together or work on an Abstract Wikipedia article together (volunteer-led). Everyone is welcome to join us on Google Meet.

Fresh Functions weekly: 21 new Functions

This week we had 21 new functions. Here is an incomplete list of functions with implementations and passing tests to get a taste of what functions have been created. Thanks everybody for contributing!

A complete list of all functions sorted by when they were created is available.