Herschal Jackson (WMZA)

Affiliations Committee News (October-December 2024)

AffCom at its Strategic Retreat in Frankfurt

You can find this newsletter translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to other languages.

Quarterly newsletter sharing news and events about the work of Wikimedia's Affiliations Committee.

Affiliates Strategy Update: Notes from the 2024 AffCom strategic retreat

Affiliate Recognition and Derecognition: User group application pause lifted

Affiliate Activities and Compliance Report: Activities reports around the world

AffCom Conflict Intervention: Updates on conflict intervention cases

AffCom Movement Contribution: AffCom engagement at WikiIndaba

AffCom Administration: Mari Avetisyan appointed new AffCom secretary

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:04, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

User:Andre Kritzinger is deceased

Hi, Please refrain from sending mail to User talk:Andre Kritzinger, he is deceased. Aliwal2012 (talk) 12:21, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for notifying me user:Aliwal2012 Herschal Jackson (WMZA) (talk) 10:46, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Johannesburg Bantu Football Association moved to draftspace

Thanks for your contributions to Johannesburg Bantu Football Association. Unfortunately, I do not think it is ready for publishing at this time because it needs more sources to establish notability. I have converted your article to a draft which you can improve, undisturbed for a while.

Please see more information at Help:Unreviewed new page. When the article is ready for publication, please click on the "Submit for review" button at the top of the page OR move the page back. Taabii (talk) 09:50, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks @Taabii , i will add a bit more and then submit for review. Would you be able to point me in the direction of criteria/requirements for a article being identified as a quality article? 2C0F:F4C0:1201:42D8:EDC4:E105:52E8:40E2 (talk) 14:00, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

It needs more citations to establish Notability. Taabii (talk) 17:42, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Growth Newsletter #33

A quarterly update from the Growth team on our work to improve the new editor experience.

Constructive Activation Experiments

This year, the Growth team is exploring ways to help more new account holders start editing—and do so constructively, meaning their edits are not reverted. Our latest experiments include:

• Gradual rollout of "Add a Link" at English Wikipedia – We are gradually introducing the "Add a Link" structured task to newcomers at English Wikipedia (T386029). This serves as a natural A/B test to measure its impact on activation, retention, and revert rates (T382603). Previous experiments on pilot wikis showed that "Add a Link" increases newcomer participation, particularly by helping them make constructive (non-reverted) edits.
• Testing in-article suggestions for first-time editors – Many new account holders want to contribute but don’t know where to start. To help, we’re piloting a feature that surfaces structured task suggestions directly in an article’s read view for brand-new editors (T385343). These suggestions will appear for logged-in users with no edits, providing a clear, simple way to begin contributing that is surfaced while they read.

Community Updates

Newcomers often struggle to find their place in Wikipedia’s collaborative environment. While experienced editors easily discover events like edit-a-thons and writing campaigns, newcomers often miss out.

• To bridge this gap, we launched the Community Updates module for the Newcomer Homepage. This module is disabled by default, allowing Community Admins to decide how (or if) to use it.
• If your community hosts events, consider setting up a Community Update to engage and welcome newcomers! Learn more on Diff. To configure, visit Special:CommunityConfiguration.

Community Configuration

Community Configuration is now available across all wikis, including non-Wikipedia projects (T383910). Community Configuration allows admins to customize various features like Growth features and Automoderator for their communities, and more recently the Babel extension now allows admins to modify configuration:

• Babel customization – Admins can now configure Babel settings (T374348), including category naming, automatic category creation, and more. See an example on Wikimedia Commons.
• Upcoming configurable features – Projects exploring community configuration options include: Incident Reporting System (T374113) and Cite backlinks (T378807).

Mentorship

Mentors play a key role in guiding new editors. If you’re interested in mentoring, or turning mentorship on at your wiki, check out the Mentorship FAQ

• Starting February 17, 100% of new accounts at English Wikipedia will be assigned a mentor (T384505).
• At Spanish Wikipedia, on 50% of newcomers get a mentor. Experienced contributors are encouraged to join mentorship so that Spanish Wikipedia can provide a mentor to all new users.

Looking Ahead

In the coming months, we will continue balancing maintenance work—such as deprecating EditGrowth Config (T367574) and migrating Statslib (T359352) — with user-facing improvements that support new editors and foster the next generation of contributors.

Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:59, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Sandton Public Library moved to draftspace

Thanks for your contributions to Sandton Public Library. Unfortunately, I do not think it is ready for publishing at this time because it needs more sources to establish notability. I have converted your article to a draft which you can improve, undisturbed for a while.

Please see more information at Help:Unreviewed new page. When the article is ready for publication, please click on the "Submit your draft for review!" button at the top of the page OR move the page back. Hey man im josh (talk) 12:48, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback. I was compiling additional references and uploading photos to Commons for linking.

I will complete and add in draft and then publish.

I appreciate the guidance.

Herschal Jackson (WMZA) (talk) 13:20, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Affiliations Committee News (January-March 2025)

Wikimedia Brasil, the latest chapter to be recognized by AffCom

You can find this newsletter translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to other languages.

Quarterly newsletter sharing news and events about the work of Wikimedia's Affiliations Committee.

Affiliate Recognition and Derecognition: Recognition of Wikimedia Brasil and four user groups

Affiliate Activities and Compliance Report: Activities reports around the world

AffCom Conflict Intervention: Updates on conflict intervention cases

AffCom Movement Contribution: AffCom engagement at Wikimedia+Libraries and Wikisource conferences

AffCom Administration: Welcoming new AffCom voting and advisory members

Upcoming AffCom Events: AffCom at ESEAP Strategy Summit

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:30, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

Linbro Park moved to draftspace

Thanks for your contributions to Linbro Park. Unfortunately, I do not think it is ready for publishing at this time because it needs more sources to establish notability. I have converted your article to a draft which you can improve, undisturbed for a while.

Please see more information at Help:Unreviewed new page. When the article is ready for publication, please click on the "Submit the draft for review!" button at the top of the page OR move the page back. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:05, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

Growth News #34

A quarterly update from the Growth team on our work to improve the new editor experience.

Mentoring new editors

In February, Mentorship was successfully rolled out to 100% of newcomers on English Wikipedia. Following this milestone, we collaborated with Spanish Wikipedia to expand Mentorship coverage to 70% of new accounts, with plans to reach 85% soon unless concerns are raised by mentors. (T394867)

“Add a Link” Task – Iteration and Experimentation

Our efforts to improve and scale the “Add a Link” structured task continued across multiple fronts:

• Community Feedback & Model Improvements: We’ve responded to community concerns with targeted changes:
  • Restricting access to newer accounts (T393688)
  • Some links types were removed to align with recommendations written in the English Wikipedia Manual of Style (T390683)
  • Allowing communities to limit “Add a Link” to newcomers (T393771)
  • The model used to suggest the links was improved to ease its training (T388258)
• English Wikipedia rollout and A/B test: We increased the rollout to 20% of newcomers, with analysis underway. Preliminary data suggests this feature makes new account holders more likely to complete an unreverted edit. (T386029, T382603)
• Surfacing Structured Tasks: An experiment where we show “add a link” suggestions to newly registered users while they are reading an article is running on pilot wikis (French, Persian, Indonesian, Portuguese, Egyptian Arabic). Initial results are under analysis. (T386029)

Newcomer Engagement Features

• “Get Started” notification: Engineering is in progress for a new notification (Echo/email) to encourage editing among newcomers with zero edits. Early research shows this type of nudge is effective. (T392256)
• Confirmation email: We are exploring ways to simplify and improve the initial account confirmation email newly registered users receive. (T215665)

Community Configuration Enhancements

Communities can now manage which namespaces are eligible for Event Registration via Community Configuration. (T385341)

Annual Planning

The Wikimedia Foundation’s 2025–2026 Annual Plan is taking shape. The Growth and Editing teams will focus on the Contributor Experiences (WE1) objective, with a focus on increasing constructive edits by editors with fewer than 100 cumulative contributions.

Get Involved

We value your insights and ideas! If you would like to participate in a discussion, share feedback, or pilot new features, please reach out on the relevant Phabricator tasks or at our talk page, in any language.

Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:51, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Concern regarding Draft:Johannesburg Bantu Football Association

Hello, Herschal Jackson (WMZA). This is a bot-delivered message letting you know that Draft:Johannesburg Bantu Football Association, a page you created, has not been edited in at least five months. Drafts that have not been edited for six months may be deleted, so if you wish to retain the page, please edit it again or request that it be moved to your userspace.

If the page has already been deleted, you can request it be undeleted so you can continue working on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. FireflyBot (talk) 10:06, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

Affiliations Committee News (April-June 2025)

AffCom session at the ESEAP Strategy Summit 2025 in Manila, the Philippines

You can find this newsletter translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to other languages.

Quarterly newsletter sharing news and events about the work of Wikimedia's Affiliations Committee.

Affiliate Recognition and Derecognition: Recognition of Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand and Assamese Wikimedia Community User Group

Affiliate Activities and Compliance Report: Activities reports around the world

AffCom Conflict Intervention: Updates on conflict intervention cases

AffCom Movement Contribution: AffCom engagement at the ESEAP Strategy Summit

AffCom Administration: Results of the AffCom officers election

Upcoming AffCom Events: Meet AffCom at Wikimania

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:25, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:Johannesburg Bantu Football Association

Hello, Herschal Jackson (WMZA). This message concerns the Articles for Creation submission or draft page you started, "Johannesburg Bantu Football Association".

Drafts that go unedited for six months are eligible for deletion, in accordance with our draftspace policy, and this one has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply , and remove the {{db-afc}}, {{db-draft}}, or {{db-g13}} code.

If your submission has already been deleted by the time you read this, you can request its undeletion. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the draft so you can continue to work on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia! DreamRimmer bot II (talk) 10:24, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Concern regarding Draft:Sandton Public Library

Hello, Herschal Jackson (WMZA). This is a bot-delivered message letting you know that Draft:Sandton Public Library, a page you created, has not been edited in at least five months. Drafts that have not been edited for six months may be deleted, so if you wish to retain the page, please edit it again or request that it be moved to your userspace.

If the page has already been deleted, you can request it be undeleted so you can continue working on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. FireflyBot (talk) 21:14, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:Sandton Public Library

Hello, Herschal Jackson (WMZA). This message concerns the Articles for Creation submission or draft page you started, "Sandton Public Library".

Drafts that go unedited for six months are eligible for deletion, in accordance with our draftspace policy, and this one has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply , and remove the {{db-afc}}, {{db-draft}}, or {{db-g13}} code.

If your submission has already been deleted by the time you read this, you can request its undeletion. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the draft so you can continue to work on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia! DreamRimmer bot II (talk) 16:26, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Concern regarding Draft:Linbro Park

Hello, Herschal Jackson (WMZA). This is a bot-delivered message letting you know that Draft:Linbro Park, a page you created, has not been edited in at least five months. Drafts that have not been edited for six months may be deleted, so if you wish to retain the page, please edit it again or request that it be moved to your userspace.

If the page has already been deleted, you can request it be undeleted so you can continue working on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. FireflyBot (talk) 07:10, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

Growth News #35

A quarterly update from the Growth team on our work to improve the new editor experience.

New releases

English Wikipedia gets "Add a Link" Structured Task

We released the "Add a Link" Structured Task to 100% of accounts at English Wikipedia on Tuesday, September 2nd (before then it was available to 20% of accounts).

Growth features for Wikidata

After examining if the Growth features and Mentorship could be adapted to Wikidata, we activated the Growth features on Beta Wikidata to allow for testing and discussion (T400937). Although some features, like Suggested Edits, are Wikipedia-specific, the Growth team designed most features to be more wiki-agnostic.

Work in progress

Revise Tone Structured Task

The Growth team is making progress on the technical architecture, onboarding design, and early user testing. We are targeting an A/B test before the end of this year, with constructive edits by newcomers as the primary success metric.

Add a link to more wikis

The machine learning team has been working on a new model that can suggest links to more languages, including Urdu, Chinese, and Japanese Wikipedias. We are starting to release the “Add a Link” feature to Wikipedias that weren’t supported by the previous model.

Add a link, which can be configured by the community locally, increases the chance that a new contributor will make their first edit and then continue to participate in Wikipedia.

Research

The Growth team is involved in several research initiatives to help guide our future work:

Progression System – We have published initial findings from interviews with 10 English and French Wikipedia newcomers. The research examined motivations, challenges, and feedback on a prototype system intended to help editors build confidence, develop skills, and contribute more constructively over time.

Mobile Web Editing Research – This project combines quantitative and qualitative data, community feedback, and user journey analysis to identify possible ways to enhance the mobile editing experience.

Newcomers Survey – This project surveys successful newcomers on English Wikipedia to understand their early editing experiences, tool use, and community interactions.

Community events

The Growth team participated in several community events to listen, share, and collaborate on improving newcomer experiences across Wikimedia projects.

Wikimania - Organizers as key partners to support newcomers' growth in our movement

This session invited organizers to share how they introduce newcomers to Growth features and the challenges they encounter. The discussion focused on common newcomer questions and opportunities to strengthen collaboration in supporting new editors.

Wikimania - Lightning Talk: Structured Tasks

This talk demonstrated how Structured Tasks help newcomers take their first successful steps on Wikipedia. It shared impact data, community configurations, and a demo of “Add a Link,” illustrating how these tasks make editing more accessible and sustainable, particularly for mobile contributors.

Wikimania - Building a Sustainable Future for Wikimedia Contributors

With active editor numbers declining, the Contributors Strategy aims to create a clearer, more engaging path for participation. This session, led by the WMF Contributors group with involvement from the Editing, Growth, Moderator Tools, and Connection (formerly Campaigns) teams, highlighted efforts to streamline contributor experiences, offer structured and mobile-friendly workflows, and foster meaningful engagement. Participants learned about ongoing initiatives and shared feedback to help shape a more inclusive and sustainable future for Wikimedia contributors.

CEE Meeting - Retaining beginners and improving content moderation: an inclusive and sustainable future for Wikipedia contributors

Many communities face a decline in volunteer engagement. Newcomers often leave soon after joining, while experienced editors struggle to manage increasingly complex workflows and overwhelming backlogs. We presented the Contributors Strategy and the different features and workflows that can help communities to address these challenges. We listened to the specific needs of the CEE communities to help guide the Contributors teams' work.

Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

10:23, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:Linbro Park

Hello, Herschal Jackson (WMZA). This message concerns the Articles for Creation submission or draft page you started, "Linbro Park".

Drafts that go unedited for six months are eligible for deletion, in accordance with our draftspace policy, and this one has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply , and remove the {{db-afc}}, {{db-draft}}, or {{db-g13}} code.

If your submission has already been deleted by the time you read this, you can request its undeletion. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the draft so you can continue to work on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia! DreamRimmer bot II (talk) 16:24, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Concern regarding Draft:SA Numbers

Hello, Herschal Jackson (WMZA). This is a bot-delivered message letting you know that Draft:SA Numbers, a page you created, has not been edited in at least five months. Drafts that have not been edited for six months may be deleted, so if you wish to retain the page, please edit it again or request that it be moved to your userspace.

If the page has already been deleted, you can request it be undeleted so you can continue working on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. FireflyBot (talk) 11:07, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

Affiliations Committee News (July-December 2025)

AffCom at Wikimania 2025 in Nairobi, Kenya

Affiliate Recognition and Derecognition: Recognition of Wikimedia Georgia: recognized & announced September 2025

Recognition Status Report: Updates of affiliate applications

AffCom Conflict Intervention: Updates on conflict intervention cases

AffCom Movement Contribution: AffCom at WikiConference North America

AffCom Administration: AffCom and EDs Discuss Affiliate Ecosystem

AffCom Events: AffCom at Wikimania

Affiliations Committee News (July-December 2025)

This newsletter is best translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to other languages.

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:11, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:SA Numbers

Hello, Herschal Jackson (WMZA). This message concerns the Articles for Creation submission or draft page you started, "SA Numbers".

Drafts that go unedited for six months are eligible for deletion, in accordance with our draftspace policy, and this one has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply , and remove the {{db-afc}}, {{db-draft}}, or {{db-g13}} code.

If your submission has already been deleted by the time you read this, you can request its undeletion. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the draft so you can continue to work on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia! DreamRimmer bot II (talk) 10:24, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

Affiliations Committee News (January-March 2026)

You can find this newsletter translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to other languages.

Quarterly newsletter sharing news and events about the work of Wikimedia's Affiliations Committee.

AffCom and GRDC members at APP meeting, Lisbon, Portugal

Affiliate Recognition and Derecognition: This past quarter, AffCom recognized no new Affiliates due to the pause in recognizing new affiliates.

AffCom Conflict Intervention: AffCom is currently addressing eight ongoing affiliate conflict cases received in previous quarters.

Affiliate Recognition Pause Extension: The Wikimedia Foundation, together with the AffCom, has extended the pause on new affiliate recognition until September 1, 2026.

New Affiliate Model Development Efforts: The Affiliations Committee held collaborative meetings with the Global Resource Distribution Committee (GRDC) to explore the development of a new affiliations model.

Towards a Healthy Ecosystem of Wikimedia Organizations: Two major pilot initiatives were launched to address long-standing questions about the roles of movement organizations and the future of resource allocation.

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:50, 03 May 2026 (UTC)