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Wikidata Platform Newsletter - June 2026

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This is the 7th issue of our monthly newsletter! The next issue will be published in July 2026.

  • QLever as the New Backend System for WDQS: After reviewing feedback from the community on our architectural proposals shared last month (see Backend Replacement and WDQS Architecture Re-Design), we have decided to migrate to QLever as the new backend for the Wikidata Query Service. This decision has been aligned upon across partners in WMF, WMDE, and the QLever team. We are very excited about the improvements to performance and sustainability that this choice unlocks for WDQS users. We will continue to share details on the user-facing impacts of this decision, in future newsletters and on our migration project page, as the work progresses.
We encourage all members of the community to continue helping us identify higher-risk areas by reporting use cases on our high-impact use cases and tools page. This page is not intended to catalogue all WDQS usage, but to highlight complex or critical cases that may require additional attention.
  • Migration Timeline: Following the decision to use QLever, we would like to share some key milestones for our migration. More details will be shared as we approach full implementation. Please note that all dates are targets and may change in the event of unforeseen challenges. Refer to the migration project page for up to date information.
    1. Exploration: (COMPLETED) From September through March, the team conducted traffic and benchmarking analyses to understand the needs of WDQS users and alternatives to our current system. This culminated in our final recommendations for a new backend and platform architecture, which have been reviewed and aligned upon across stakeholders.
    2. Installation: (IN-PROGRESS) In April, the team began building. The development of new QLever endpoints (ie. WDQS v2) is underway, as is the refactoring of our platform architecture. This includes work on indexing, update pipelines, and rewriting observed production traffic into the SPARQL 1.1 standard. We are on track to complete our build of the new endpoints by July 1st and transition into initial implementation. The query service will continue to be available in its current state through implementation phases.
    3. Initial Implementation: (NOT STARTED) WDQS v2, a new endpoint built on QLever, will be first available to a small number of pilot users. The team will work closely with this group to learn where improvements are needed and how we can best support users in independently migrating their use cases. A self-service hub will be published by October 1st. This will include learnings from our pilot group, guidance on how all users of WDQS can migrate their work flows, and documentation on best practices for adapting all Blazegraph dependencies to our new system or alternative endpoints where needed.
    4. Full Implementation: (NOT STARTED) The new endpoints will be scaled to meet the needs of the broader community and will be generally accessible to all. The original Blazegraph endpoints will still be available, but may experience service degradation beginning in February, 2027 as we reallocate resources to the new infrastructure and begin slowly winding down the legacy service. We aim to have all WDQS traffic migrated by June 30, 2027, at which time the Blazegraph endpoint will be decommissioned.
  • Query Categorization and Testing: We have begun evaluating WDQS queries to identify Blazegraph-specific features and functionality. All bespoke query aspects need to be rewritten into the SPARQL 1.1 standard in order to work with the new QLever backend. We have documented our process for this work in two Wikitech publications on SPARQL Query Characterization and Test Architecture for QLever. These documents provide more detail on methodology and testing used to validate the correctness and performance across the new and old backends. They are intended as supporting technical references for contributors interested in the migration validation and benchmarking approach.
  • 2026-05-08 incident report: On May 7, 2026, aggressive web scrapers began overwhelming the Wikidata Query Service (WDQS), triggering a multi-day service degradation that impacted both availability and lag SLOs. The excessive load caused Blazegraph to timeout for over half of users at peak, while also throttling the streaming updater, which blocked index updates and cascaded into edit throttling on wikidata.org itself. Initial mitigation on May 7-8 included depooling the eqiad datacenter WDQS deployment and applying rate limits based on sampled request data, but the outage persisted through the weekend. Full resolution came on Monday, May 11, when deeper analysis of WDQS logs revealed a scraper that had evaded sampled webrequest data used for initial rate limiting. Once a targeted rate limiting rule was applied to the scraper's signatures, timeout rates returned to normal. See the full incident report
  • Blazegraph Migration Office Hour (June session): Our next Blazegraph Migration Office Hour will take place on Tuesday, 9 June 2026 (Tomorrow) at . This session is focused on supporting the migration away from Blazegraph as the backend of WDQS. Whether you have questions, need clarification, or want to discuss how your use case may be affected. You can register for the session via the event page.
In preparation, we encourage you to add questions, feedback, or migration-related support needs to this etherpad. This helps us shape the agenda and focus on the most relevant topics during the session.

Udehb-WMF (talk) 11:10, 8 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

Wikidata weekly summary #735

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Tech News: 2026-24

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MediaWiki message delivery 21:28, 8 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin 2026 Issue 10

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MediaWiki message delivery 22:31, 9 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia Newsletter #252 is out: Improved loading and display of Test results

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There is a new update for Abstract Wikipedia and Wikifunctions. Please, come and read it!

In this issue, we present you an improvement in loading and display of Test results, we talk about our next events, and we take a look at the latest software developments.

Want to catch up with the previous updates? Check our archive!

Also, we remind you that Denny will lead a discussion on the new NLG types in the next Natural Language Generation Special Interest Group meeting, that will be held on June 16, at 16:00 UTC (link to the meeting).

Enjoy the reading! -- User:Sannita (WMF) (talk) 15:29, 12 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

This Month in GLAM: May 2026

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Headlines
Read this edition in full Single-page

To assist with preparing the newsletter, please visit the newsroom. Past editions may be viewed here.

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While the Daylit Gallery thumbnail didn't ultimately make the top slot, the article itself (which still contains loads of your great photos) did land on DYK today! Cheers, Cl3phact0 (talk) 17:57, 14 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Cl3phact0: Congrats on the DYK, and nice work with the article! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 17:58, 14 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Thanks! I suppose that under the circumstances, as much as I like the other shot (yours), El Sol Rojo is pretty good company (and pretty stiff competitionif you're going to get gazumped, getting gazumped by Alexander Calder makes it something of a story within a story). -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 18:10, 14 June 2026 (UTC)Reply