Episode 180: Denny Vrandečić

🕑 55 minutes Marijn van Wezel is a part-time developer at the MediaWiki consulting company Wikibase Solutions. He is also working on a master's degree in computer science at Radboud University Nijmegen. Links for some of the topics discussed: Marijn's user page on mediawiki.org Wikibase Solutions WSSlots MediaWiki extension CookieConsent MediaWiki extension CookieWarning MediaWiki extension WikiGuard MediaWiki extension ArrayFunctions MediaWiki extension "Making your wiki Parsoid-compatible with ArrayFunctions" (talk by Marijn van Wezel and Jimmy van Delft at MediaWiki Users and Developers Workshop Spring 2025) WSSpaces MediaWiki extension MWUnit MediaWiki extension

🕑 50 minutes Edward Chernenko is a software developer, with extensive experience in MediaWiki development and consulting. He is also the administrator of Absurdopedia, a Russian-language humor wiki that is part of the loosely-affiliated Uncyclopedia family. Links for some of the topics discussed: Абсурдопедия (Absurdopedia) Uncyclopedia Edward Chernenko user page on mediawiki.org Moderation MediaWiki extension AWS MediaWiki extension CreatePageUw MediaWiki extension

🕑 31 minutes (Star-studded) highlights from five recent episodes! Trevor Parscal says the Wikimedia Foundation has become political, Selena Deckelmann sheds light on her management approach, Jonathan Lee complains about Fandom's tactics, Denny Vrandečić disputes the idea that Abstract Wikipedia could replace regular Wikipedia, Ward Cunningham recounts coming up with the name "wiki", and more!

🕑 1 hour 21 minutes Luca Mauri is an IT manager who in his free time runs the Italian-language Star Trek wiki WikiTrek - which in turn gets much of its data from another wiki, DataTrek, which runs on MediaWiki in conjunction with Wikibase. Links for some of the topics discussed: Luca Mauri homepage WikiTrek DataTrek "Star Trek" article on English Wikipedia PageToGitHub MediaWiki extension RecentActivity MediaWiki extension Wiki2Ban MediaWiki extension

🕑 1 hour 21 minutes Cindy Cicalese is a principal engineer for the Developer Experience Group at the Wikimedia Foundation - but not for long, because she is leaving soon to go work at the startup Selfii, as their MediaWiki architect. Although not before serving as the general chair for the upcoming MediaWiki Users and Developers Workshop (May 14-16 in Sandusky, Ohio, USA!). Links for some of the topics discussed: MediaWiki Users and Developers Workshop Spring 2025 Selfii PluggableAuth MediaWiki extension

🕑 2 hours 6 minutes Denny Vrandečić is the Head of Special Projects at the Wikimedia Foundation, as well as a visiting professor at King's College London. He is the is main creator of the Wikimedia sites Wikidata and Wikifunctions and co-creator of the MediaWiki extension Semantic MediaWiki; he also leads the project to create the so-called "Abstract Wikipedia". This is his second time on the podcast. Links for some of the topics discussed: SPINACH ("SPARQL-based Information NAvigation for CHallenging real-world questions on Wikidata") Wikidata Walkabout Wikifunctions "Sketching a path to Abstract Wikipedia", Wikifunctions update, December 2024 Abstract Wikipedia/Google.org Fellows evaluation, December 2022 Abstract Wikipedia/Google.org Fellows evaluation - Answer, December 2022 Abstract Wikipedia Wikipedia article "Large Language Models, Knowledge Graphs and Search Engines: A Crossroads for Answering Users' Questions" (2025 paper by Aidan Hogan, Xin Luna Dong, Denny Vrandečić and Gerhard Weikum) RSS Wikipedia article (stands for RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) Interestingly, after we finished recording this episode, Denny showed me, on a screenshare, some of the current capabilities of LLMs; we asked it different questions, and one of the LLMs (I think from the "Llama" family) stated that the name of this podcast was "My Favorite Dystopia". I have no idea where that came from, but it's an eerily apt description of this particular episode, with its discussion of a possible (though maybe unlikely) replacement of Wikipedia with a massive set of function calls. Somehow the AI knew.

🕑 1 hour 25 minutes Ward Cunningham is the inventor of wikis (although he prefers to use the mass noun "wiki"), which started with his website WikiWikiWeb in 1995; by an incredible coincidence, this episode is being released on the exact 30th anniversary of the launch of WikiWikiWeb. Ward is also a computer science pioneer, and was heavily involved in the development of design patterns and agile programming. Since 2011, he has headed the development of the software Federated Wiki, originally known as Smallest Federated Wiki. Links for some of the topics discussed: Ward Cunningham Wikipedia article c2.com - Cunningham & Cunningham Inc. website Portland Pattern Repository "Using Pattern Languages for Object-Oriented Programs" (1987 technical report by Kent Beck and Ward Cunningham) WikiWikiWeb "Are Design Patterns Missing Language Features" wiki page "Singletons Are Evil" wiki page Federated Wiki Federated Wiki Wikipedia article

🕑 1 hour 39 minutes Jonathan Lee is the director of the MediaWiki-based wiki hosting company Weird Gloop. Links for some of the topics discussed: Weird Gloop "Why we're helping more wikis move away from Fandom" (October 2024 blog post) The RuneScape wiki OSRS ("Old School RuneScape") Wiki Fandom RuneScape Grand Market tutorial video from 2017 "How to Make an Old Fashioned" (Mahalo.com instructional video from 2010)

🕑 37 minutes It's a BTB Digest episode! Bertrand Gorge lists his favorite extensions, Stephen Harrison contrasts himself with the characters in his novel, Richard Knipel justifies the Wikimedia Movement Charter, Tom Arrow (and others) consider the current state of Wikibase, Brian Wolff defends his old boss at the WMF, and more!

🕑 1 hour 11 minutes Selena Deckelmann has been the Chief Product and Technology Officer of the Wikimedia Foundation since 2022. Before that, she worked for around 10 years at the Mozilla Foundation, eventually reaching the position of Senior Vice President, Firefox. Links for some of the topics discussed: Mozilla Foundation Wikipedia article Media knowledge beyond Wikipedia: Response from the Selena Deckelmann, CPTO at the Wikimedia Foundation (Wikimedia Commons talk page discussion) "Wikipedia’s value in the age of generative AI" (July 2023 blog post by Selena) Abstract Wikipedia project page on Meta-Wiki