Episode 159: BTB Digest 25

🕑 58 minutes It's the holiday special! Special guests, a musical performance (all from the MediaWiki world), and a tale of a life-changing encounter.

🕑 1 hour 37 minutes Stephen Harrison is a tech lawyer and journalist who has been writing about Wikipedia since 2018, including for Slate and The New York Times. He joins us to talk about all the Wikimedia-related events of the crazy month of October 2025, including the release of Jimmy Wales' book, Larry Sanger's "nine theses", some near-violence in New York City, and the launch of the site Grokipedia. Links for some of the topics discussed: Nine Theses on Wikipedia by Larry Sanger "October Surprise: The 2025 Wikimedia Elections Fall into a Transparency Trap" (The Wikipedian blog post) WikiConference North America "Why Editing Wikipedia Is Becoming More Dangerous" (Slate article by Stephen Harrison, October 2025) Grokipedia Yaron's LinkedIn post about Grokipedia The Seven Rules of Trust by Jimmy Wales "Wikipedia co-founder slams 'Gaza genocide' page over 'egregious' anti-Israel claims" (New York Post article, November 2025) Jimmy Wales interview on Jung & Naiv podcast, November 2025

🕑 28 minutes Clips from five recent episodes! Dan Andreescu considers a new "Datawiki" project, Wojciech Pędzich makes use of the Wikipedia sound logo, Thomas Chin retells a piece of Wikimedia development lore, SJ Klein contemplates the use of "Abstractese", Matt Latourelle explains Ballotpedia's neutrality, and more!

🕑 1 hour 57 minutes Vera de Kok is a freelance photographer, developer and wiki consultant who was named Media Contributor of the Year at the 2025 Wikimania conference for her contributions to both Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata. Links for some of the topics discussed: "I'm Wikipedia's "Media Contributor of the Year"!" (September 2025 blog post by Vera) View of Delft (Vermeer painting) Orator Matcher tool New Q5 tool VisualFileChange Wikimedia Commons gadget identifierInput.js Wikidata gadget WikiPortraits Youp van 't Hek Wikipedia article Prem Radhakishun Wikipedia article "Autistic editors" essay on Wikipedia Greater Netherlands Student Association Wikipedia article "Wikipedia is Autistic" episode of Autistic Culture podcast "The Impact of the Wikipedia Editing Course for Autistic People" (December 2024 Diff blog post) "Playing for the 'German Team' – A Neurodiverse Wikimedian's Journey to Nairobi, or Brigadoon" (September 2025 Diff blog post) Birch Bay, WA Polar Bear Plunge Wikipedia voice intro project Mark Cousins Wikipedia article Mikko Hyppönen Wikipedia article Doktershuis (Landsmeer) Wikipedia article (won Vera 4th place in a Dutch Wikipedia writing contest) Behringer U-phoria UM2 (microphone USB interface) Photo taken during temporary blackout at Wikimania 2025 Photo taken during 2025 Wikimedia Hackathon Feline asthma Wikipedia article "Wie komt er alle jaren" on Wikimedia Commons

🕑 1 hour 17 minutes Cormac Parle is a principal software engineer in the Product & Tech team at the Wikimedia Foundation. Links for some of the topics discussed: Wikimedia Foundation Community Tech team Wikimedia Foundation Structured Content team Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons Stoat playlist "Why you should give up on your dreams" (2021 talk by Cormac)

🕑 52 minutes Matt Latourelle is director of technology operations for the wiki-based website Ballotpedia. Links for some of the topics discussed: Ballotpedia "Ballotpedia and MediaWiki" (talk by Matt Latourelle and Joseph Sanchez, MediaWiki Users and Developers Workshop Spring 2025) "How we categorize bias" (Ballotpedia essay) YouTube Ballotpedia channel

🕑 1 hour 25 minutes Samuel J. "SJ" Klein is an affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. He co-founded the Knowledge Futures project, served as director of content for One Laptop Per Child, and was on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees from 2009 to 2015. Links for some of the topics discussed: Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society Wikimania 2006 The Underlay Public AI Network Captured Podcast

🕑 1 hour 34 minutes Thomas Chin is a software engineer in the Data Platform Engineering team at the Wikimedia Foundation. Links for some of the topics discussed: Tea Time with Thomas & Ty podcast Wikimedia Foundation Data Engineering Team Thomas Chin user page on mediawiki.org Dependency injection in MediaWiki code (provided by the MediaWikiServices class) "embarassment" (2009 blog post by Domas Mituzas about Michael Jackson-related Wikipedia crash) "After using ChatGPT, man swaps his salt for sodium bromide—and suffers psychosis" (August 2025 article) "Sealed, sold, delivered: How blind boxes like Labubu became a viral obsession" (June 2025 article) Jesse's Teahouse > Pu'er Tea Oranges

🕑 28 minutes A new BTB Digest! Cindy Cicalese is surprised about the popularity of her PluggableAuth extension, Luca Mauri extols the benefits of Federation, Edward Chernenko laments the difficulties in running a humor wiki, Marijn van Wezel discusses GDPR compliance, Markus Glaser offers a solution for collaborative editing in MediaWiki, and more!

🕑 56 minutes Wojciech Pędzich (roughly pronounced "VOY-chek PEND-zhik") is a longtime Wikimedia volunteer, having served as an administrator on the Polish Wikipedia, a Wikimedia Steward, a member of the Wikimedia Affiliations Committee, a board member of Wikimedia Polska, an organizer of the Wikimedia Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) meeting, and an organizer of Wikimania, among other things. He is currently one of six candidates for the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. Links for some of the topics discussed: 2025 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election Candidates Wojciech Pędzich candidate statement Playboy Carti English Wikipedia article Wikimedia Sound Logo announcement, July 2023 Project Rewrite, launched March 2021 Guinness World Record for longest Wikipedia editathon (100 hours, September 26–30, 2023, Warsaw) (Photograph by Robert Drózd, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.)