As Wikipedia turns 25, @404mediaco talked to the Wikimedia Foundation's Chief Product and Technology Officer Selena Deckelmann. Listen to Emanuel Maiberg's conversation with her here.
#Wikipedia #Wikimedia #Technology #Tech #ArtificialIntelligence #AI
I think theyre trying to say that theyre going to be scraped either way so they might as well make money from it, I told them in the response that they need to stop being passive and fight it
CPOD from 2023/10/14
Shila village on the right bank of the Tsarap River, Zanskar, Ladakh, India. Surrounded by groves of birch in autumn colouration. Elev. 3,590 m (11,780 ft). ...
Artist: This Photo was taken by Timothy A. Gonsalves. Feel free to use my photos, but please mention me as the author. I would much appreciate if you send me an email tagooty@yahoo.com or write on m ...License: CC BY-SA 4.0; Credit Own work
See explanation at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil
Created a CLI application that fetches an image and its associated metadata (like author and license) from Wikimedia Commons. It is programmed in TypeScript using Bun.
You can check it out here: https://github.com/tderflinger/wmc-downloader
Feedback welcome!
CPOD from 2026/01/20
Giacomo Raibolini painted this image of Saint Sebastian in the likeness of his father, Francesco Francia. Today is Saint Sebastian's feast day in the Catholic Church and Oriental Orthodox Church.
Artist: Giacomo Raibolini; License: Public domain; Credit https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/san-sebastian-giacomo-francia/OQF9SiMd2NPSxA
See explanation at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Giacomo_Francia,_San_Sebastian,_Google_Arts_and_Culture.jpg
CPOD from 2022/11/18
House of Blackheads and St. Peter's Church Tower, Riga, Latvia. Proclamation of the Republic of Latvia is celebrated on this day.
Artist: Diliff; License: CC BY-SA 3.0; Credit Own work
See explanation at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:House_of_Blackheads_and_St._Peter%27s_Church_Tower,_Riga,_Latvia_-_Diliff.jpg
Image du 20 janvier :
Giacomo Raibolini painted this image of Saint Sebastian in the likeness of his father, Francesco Francia. Today is Saint Sebastian's feast day in the Catholic Church and Oriental Orthodox Church.
License : Public domain
Artiste : Giacomo Raibolini
Crédits : https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/san-sebastian-giacomo-francia/OQF9SiMd2NPSxA
Giacomo Raibolini painted this image of Saint Sebastian in the likeness of his father, Francesco Francia. Today is Saint Sebastian's feast day in the Catholic Church and Oriental Orthodox Church.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Giacomo_Francia,_San_Sebastian,_Google_Arts_and_Culture.jpg
#wikimedia #photo #daily #photography #fotografia #photographie #foto
CPOD from 2020/06/05
Globeflower (Trollius europaeus) with Brachycera
Artist: Uoaei1; License: CC BY-SA 4.0; Credit Own work
See explanation at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trollius_europaeus_Spechtensee_02.JPG
CPOD from 2021/08/18
Waltensburg/Vuorz. Switzerland. ruins of a castle Munt Sorn Gieri. (Burg Jörgenberg).
Artist: Agnes Monkelbaan; License: CC BY-SA 4.0; Credit Own work
See explanation at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ru%C3%AFne_Casti_Munt_Sogn_Gieri_Waltensburg_(actm)_17.jpg
My response:
"
Yes I would still like to cancel my donation
Taking their money is still creating a perverse incentive you should be *fighting* this privatisation and destruction of knowledge not enabling and endorsing it
"
Just got a response from Wikimedia
"
Kristie Robinson, Jan 19, 2026, 8:40 AM UTC:
Hi,
Thank you for your email and for sharing your concerns.
Wikipedia is one of the largest open bodies of information on the internet, with versions in over 300 languages. Dozens of generative artificial intelligence models, from ChatGPT to Google’s Gemini, use Wikipedia content to serve up results, and -as noted in our 2025 global trends report- technology companies are increasingly scraping our human-made content and distributing it through new search experiences (both AI and traditional search) on their platforms.
Recognizing this, the Wikimedia Foundation established the enterprise API service to focus on high-volume commercial reusers of our content, allowing for these organizations to invest in our infrastructure, instead of having our donors subsidize their business model. The recent media coverage has been the result of the announcement of some of these new partnerships.
To ensure our continued independence from big tech, and because we strongly believe in a democratic model of funding, our work is largely supported by readers and users around the world. Revenue generated from partnerships currently represents just 4% of our annual fund, and will never exceed 30% of our overall budget. This makes support from donors like you essential to sustaining our mission.
As technology companies race to scrape websites for human-created and verified information, we are observing scraping not only of Wikipedia content, but also of key systems in our developer infrastructure, such as our code review platform and our bug tracker. All of that consumes bandwidth and resources that we need to support the Wikimedia projects, contributors, and readers.
Our content is -and always will be- free for humans to reuse, as part of our vision to enable everybody to share knowledge, including through third-party platforms. However, this was never intended to extend to corporations who are making large profits from the work of our volunteering community. The aim of these partnerships is to ensure big tech pays for the costs that it creates on our infrastructure, which was a key part of our annual plan this current fiscal year.
I hope that assuages some of your concerns.
If you would still like us to cancel your recurring donation, please let me know and I will be happy to do that for you.
Thank you again for reaching out to share your views. We hope you continue to stay involved in these conversations around Wikipedia.
"
CPOD from 2019/02/12
BMW Mini at sunrise on a country lane in the hamlet Börnste, Kirchspiel, Dülmen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Artist: Dietmar Rabich; License: CC BY-SA 4.0; Credit Own work
See explanation at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:D%C3%BClmen,_Kirchspiel,_BMW_Mini_--_2016_--_5129-35.jpg
CPOD from 2026/01/19
Grain field in the Dernekamp hamlet, Kirchspiel, Dülmen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Artist: Dietmar Rabich; License: CC BY-SA 4.0; Credit Own work
See explanation at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:D%C3%BClmen,_Kirchspiel,_Dernekamp,_Getreidefeld_--_2024_--_0003.jpg
CPOD from 2020/07/25
Książ is the largest castle in the Silesia region, located in northern Wałbrzych in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Poland.
Artist: Jar.ciurus; License: CC BY-SA 3.0 pl; Credit Own work
See explanation at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ksiaz_-_zamek_01.jpg
Image du 19 janvier :
Grain field in the Dernekamp hamlet, Kirchspiel, Dülmen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
License : CC BY-SA 4.0
Artiste : Dietmar Rabich
Crédits : Own work
Grain field in the Dernekamp hamlet, Kirchspiel, Dülmen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
#wikimedia #photo #daily #photography #fotografia #photographie #foto
CPOD from 2019/09/12
Panoramic view of the interior of the Pula Arena, an amphitheatre located in Pula, Croatia. This Roman edifice was constructed between 27 BC and 68 AD and is among the largest surviving Roman arenas in the world. At the same time, is the best preserved ancient monument in Croatia and the only remaining amphitheater having all four side towers wi ...
Artist: Diego Delso; License: CC BY-SA 4.0; Credit Own work
See explanation at https://commons.wikimedia.org/
CPOD from 2019/02/26
Central building of the Moscow Botanical Garden of Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Russia.
Artist: AlixSaz; License: CC BY-SA 4.0; Credit Own work
See explanation at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Botanical_Garden,_Moscow.jpg
CPOD from 2024/05/05
Easter breakfast (3 May 2021, Serbian cuisine); Easter eggs, Pepper salade with garlic, Rye bread (whole rye grains), Cinnamon cakes, main dish: eggs, cheese, ham, Horseradish, Scallions.
Artist: Petar Milošević; License: CC BY-SA 4.0; Credit Own work
See explanation at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Easter_breakfast_in_Serbia_(close-up).jpg
