Episode 208: BTB Digest 33

🕑 27 minutes Clips from five recent episodes! Liam Wyatt considers LLMs as a vessel for Wikipedia content; Steve Shattuck weighs Cargo against Semantic MediaWiki; Paul Vodrazka lays out how he became an AI coder; Noam Cohen defends Wikipedia from charges of bias; Wandji Collins recounts becoming a MediaWiki volunteer; and more!

🕑 1 hour 35 minutes Ad Strack van Schijndel is the founder and CEO of Juggel, a Dutch company whose product, also named Juggel, is an AI-centered MediaWiki distribution. Before founding Juggel, he was the founder and CEO of the MediaWiki-based consulting company Wikibase Solutions. Links for some of the topics discussed: Juggel Wikibase Solutions Juggel AI "MediaWiki for lazy people" - talk by Ad at MUDCon spring 2026 NeoWiki MediaWiki extension

🕑 1 hour 3 minutes Sandra Fauconnier is an art historian by training who works on digital projects in the cultural sector. She has worked at different times for Wikimedia Nederland, the Wikimedia Foundation, and Wikimedia Sverige. Links for some of the topics discussed: Sandra Fauconnier user page on Meta-Wiki Sandra Fauconnier user page on Wikidata Sandra Fauconnier user page on MediaWiki Commons Structured Data on Commons Modeling works on Commons without a Wikidata item Sandra reading from the "Paul Otlet" article for WikiReadings

🕑 52 minutes Wandji Collins is a software engineer and engineering manager at Tech Chantier, as well as a volunteer MediaWiki developer. Links for some of the topics discussed: Tech Chantier Between the Brackets Episode 36: Derick Alangi Wiki Mentor Africa Lexicographical data on Wikidata Page Forms MediaWiki extension

🕑 1 hour 15 minutes Noam Cohen is a journalist and writer who has written extensively about Wikipedia since 2007 for publications including The New York Times and Wired. He is the author of the 2017 book The Know-It-Alls: The Rise of Silicon Valley as a Political Powerhouse and Social Wrecking Ball, which was just released in paperback form with a new introduction by the author. You can also see this interview in video form, on YouTube. Links for some of the topics discussed: The Know-It-Alls website Noam Cohen's Wikipedia user page "Wikipedia:Noam Cohen" page (includes links to Noam's articles about Wikipedia)

🕑 1 hour 11 minutes Paul Vodrazka is a shift leader in the CNC (computer numerical control) department at the Winnipeg-based company Custom Castings. He manages the internal wikis for Custom Castings, and is also the author of the MediaWiki extension Layers. Links for some of the topics discussed: Custom Castings "Computer numerical control" Wikipedia article Layers MediaWiki extension Layers code on GitHub "Claude (language model)" Wikipedia article "Lindy effect" Wikipedia article

🕑 23 minutes It's another BTB Digest! Hear clips from five recent episodes. Cormac Parle notes the challenges in structured data in Wikimedia Commons, Vera de Kok reminisces about her early years as a Wikimedia photographer; Stephen Harrison cautions against dismissing AI encyclopedias; Brian Wolff summarizes the philosophy of JavaScript gadgets, Shlomit Lir points out the tension between equity and neutrality, and more!

🕑 58 minutes Steve Shattuck is a retired research assistant who created and runs the wiki AntWiki. Links for some of the topics discussed: AntWiki Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) AntWeb "Bamboo Specialist" category on AntWiki Australian Ants: Their Biology and Identification (1999 book by Steve Shattuck)

🕑 1 hour 14 minutes It's the (belated) 25th anniversary of the founding of Wikipedia - and the 200th episode! For this special episode, we have the return of Liam Wyatt (username Wittylama), a longtime Wikipedia volunteer and commentator, the first-ever Wikipedian-in-residence, and now a Senior Technical Partnerships Manager at the Wikimedia Foundation, to talk about Wikipedia's past, present and future. Links for some of the topics discussed: Wikipedia Weekly podcast archive at Internet Archive Wikipedia 25 virtual birthday party (video) "Wikimedia Enterprise Financial Report: Fiscal Year 2024 – 2025" (November 2025 Diff blog post) "Announcing New Wikimedia Enterprise Partners for Wikipedia's 25th Birthday" (January 2026 blog post) "Nominating Wikipedia for UNESCO Memory of the World: The never before told story" (November 2025 GLAM-Wiki talk by Liam) "Dealing with AI web crawlers at the WMF" (May 2025 presentation by Giuseppe Lavagetto) "Wikipedia at 25: A Wake-Up Call" (January 2026 essay by Christophe Henner)

🕑 1 hour 11 minutes Shlomit Lir is a writer, editor, and researcher at the University of Haifa, specializing in the politics of knowledge. Since 2024, she has been a public critic of Wikipedia, especially relating to its coverage of Israel. Links for some of the topics discussed: "The Bias Against Israel on Wikipedia" (2024 report for the World Jewish Congress) 2025 X post by Shlomit about then-candidate for the WMF Board of Trustees Ravan al-Taie "Smear Campaign Against Ravan, Wikimedia Foundation BoT Candidate" (response post by several Wikimedians) Larry Sanger's "Nine Theses on Wikipedia" "How Wikipedia's Pro-Hamas Editors Hijacked the Israel-Palestine Narrative" (2024 Pirate Wires article by Ashley Rindsberg) "Manipulated History" (2025 document for the World Jewish Congress)