Episode 212: Matthew Shell

🕑 25 minutes Highlights from five recent episodes! Sandra Fauconnier notes the irony of centralization in the Semantic Web, Ad Strack van Schijndel discusses the workings of Juggel, Daniel Dobriy extols wikis for AI, Cory Massaro praises the translation abilities of Abstract Wikipedia, Shani Evenstein Sigalov discusses the role of nonprofits in AI, and more!

🕑 1 hour 32 minutes Waldir Pimenta returns to talk about the recent Wikimania, the hackathon-to-development pipeline, unionization and other topics. Links for some of the topics discussed: Wikimania 2026 team challenges Map the Gap (Wikimania hackathon team project) Wikinewsie WISE (semantic image search for Commons) Wiki Fringe at Wikimania 2026 Requests for comment: The future of Abstract Wikipedia Useful functions for article composition at Abstract Wikipedia Wiki Workers United "Wikipedia:WMF Community Tech team has been disbanded, engineers laid off" Outline of episode: 0:00:00 - Intro 0:01:20 - Cape Verde at the world cup 0:10:30 - Recap of recent activity 0:15:00 - Wikimania impressions 0:25:00 - Wikinewsie 0:27:30 - Wikimania Hackathon project: Portrait categorizer 0:28:45 - Team Challenges: Map the Gap 0:40:10 - Experimentation and innovation in the Wikimedia movement 0:48:35 - Lack of UX and design prioritization in Wikimedia projects 0:52:20 - Wikimedia Hackathon 2026 / WISE 0:54:30 - Mechanisms to encourage and facilitate collaboration and consolidation in tool development 0:57:30 - Abstract Wikipedia and Wikifunctions 1:08:30 - Wiki Workers United 1:29:30 - A future Wikimedia Hackathon in Portugal?

🕑 1 hour 1 minute Matthew Shell is an IT project manager who is the creator of the MediaWiki-based wiki farm GoalStriving. GoalStriving is intended for personal, private wikis; it is ad-free and pledges to never sell or share any user information. Links for some of the topics discussed: GoalStriving List of personal wiki software on Wikipedia Page Exchange MediaWiki extension You can also see a video of this interview on YouTube.

🕑 1 hour 34 minutes Dr. Shani Evenstein Sigalov is an educator, researcher, and long-standing Open Knowledge advocate, working at the intersection of education, technology, innovation and openness. She is the founder of the AI Bridges project at the Digital Humanities Research Hub at the University of London. She is also a former member and vice chair of the Board of Trustees at the Wikimedia Foundation. Links for some of the topics discussed: Digital Humanities Research Hub AI-BRIDGES "World model (artificial intelligence)" Wikipedia article

🕑 1 hour 31 minutes Cory Massaro is a staff software engineer on the Abstract Wikipedia team at the Wikimedia Foundation. Links for some of the topics discussed: Cory Massaro website Abstract Wikipedia Wikifunctions WikiLambda MediaWiki extension "Wikilambda the Ultimate" (2026 paper by Michael Falk) We Can Be Luddites (Cory Massaro Substack account) "The Great Conversation: Complicated Translations of The Odyssey" (Benjamin LaBadie, February 2024)

🕑 1 hour 28 minutes Daniel Dobriy is the founder and managing director of the company Dobriy AI. He is also a researcher at WU Vienna University and Austria's Bilateral AI Cluster of Excellence. Links for some of the topics discussed: Dobriy AI Daniel Dobriy homepage Agentic Data Catalogue Web of Data Catalogue Search of Engine for the Web of Data WikiApiary ECHOLOT NeoWiki MediaWiki extension GraphHub

🕑 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