🕑 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 wit...
Jul 01, 2025•55 min•Season 1Ep. 185
🕑 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...
Jun 03, 2025•50 min•Season 1Ep. 184
🕑 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!
May 22, 2025•31 min•Ep. 183
🕑 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...
May 06, 2025•1 hr 15 min•Season 1Ep. 182
🕑 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...
Apr 25, 2025•1 hr 20 min
🕑 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 CHal...
Apr 08, 2025•2 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 180
🕑 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 kn...
Mar 25, 2025•1 hr 26 min•Season 1Ep. 179
🕑 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)...
Mar 11, 2025•1 hr 39 min•Season 1Ep. 178
🕑 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!
Feb 25, 2025•37 min•Season 1Ep. 177
🕑 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...
Feb 11, 2025•1 hr 11 min•Season 1Ep. 176
🕑 1 hour 27 minutes Former Wikimedia Foundation developer Trevor Parscal returns to the podcast to talk about the happy (to many) news that Ross Ulbricht, who was serving a double life sentence for having created and run the "dark web" website Silk Road, was just released from prison. We also talk about the state of U.S. politics in general, and what it means for the tech world - and for Wikipedia. Links for some of the topics discussed: Ross Ulbricht Wikipedia article " More Speech and Fewer M...
Jan 28, 2025•1 hr 27 min•Season 1Ep. 175
🕑 1 hour 15 minutes Brian Wolff returns for a third episode! The security expert and longtime MediaWiki developer talks about his latest development projects, and Wikimedia goings-on, past and present. Links for some of the topics discussed: "New Calculator template brings interactivity at last" ( Wikipedia Signpost article by Brian Wolff, January 2025) Calculator template on English-language Wikipedia BMI calculator on "Body mass index" article "John Travoltage" online electricity simulator "N...
Jan 15, 2025•1 hr 15 min•Season 1Ep. 174
🕑 1 hour 42 minutes Adam Shorland, Tom Arrow and Ollie Hyde (pictured, left to right) show up together for the final episode of 2024! Adam (username Addshore) returns for his second appearance; he has since left Wikimedia Deutschland and now works at Lightbug. Tom and Ollie remain at Wikimedia Deutschland, both working on Wikibase development, with a focus on Wikibase Cloud and the Wikibase API, respectively. Links for some of the topics discussed: Wikimedia Deutschland Lightbug "Alcohol prefer...
Dec 31, 2024•1 hr 42 min•Season 1Ep. 173
🕑 1 hour 19 minutes Richard Knipel (username Pharos) returns, for a special holiday-esque episode! He talks about recent developments with Wikispore, the Wikimedia Movement Charter, and Wikimedia New York City; and then we listen to some freely-licensed music from Wikimedia Commons. Links for some of the topics discussed: Wikimedia Movement Charter Wikispore "Grant project for Wikinews" proposal "World AIDS Day 2024 is marked around the world" (Wikinews article mostly written by Richard) "Wikic...
Dec 17, 2024•1 hr 18 min•Season 1Ep. 172
🕑 26 minutes It's another BTB Digest, with clips from five recent episodes! Brent Laabs recounts the abortive renaming of Miraheze, Alex Stinson considers the uniqueness of different language Wikipedias, Paul Cereghino notes the challenges of finding wiki editors in the government, Valerio Bozzolan argues for putting conference videos on PeerTube, Asaf Bartov warns about "weaponized AI" on Wikipedia, and more.
Dec 03, 2024•26 min•Season 1Ep. 171
🕑 1 hour Stephen Harrison is a tech lawyer and journalist who has been writing about Wikipedia since 2018, including dozens of articles for the online magazine Slate as part of his Source Notes column. He is the author of the 2024 novel The Editors , which is about a group of editors of the fictional user-editable online encyclopedia "Infopendium" who are drawn together by dramatic events. Links for some of the topics discussed: Stephen Harrison website Source Notes blog/newsletter Stephen Harr...
Nov 19, 2024•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 170
🕑 1 hour 9 minutes Bertrand Gorge is the co-founder of Triple Performance, a (currently) French-language-only wiki that holds resources for farmers. He also co-runs the company Neayi, which manages Triple Performance. Links for some of the topics discussed: Triple Performance Neayi "Rotations en grandes cultures" (Triple Performance article about crop rotation) Neayi GitHub account Triple Performance Google Spreadsheets add-on Triple Performance Docker image...
Nov 05, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Season 1Ep. 169
🕑 1 hour 10 minutes Asaf Bartov is the lead program officer for the Emerging Wikimedia Communities project of the Community Development Team at the Wikimedia Foundation. He also runs Project Ben-Yehuda, which has been putting Hebrew-language texts online since 1999, and the Nemala project, which publishes Hebrew translations of Ukrainian-language works. Links for some of the topics discussed: "Wikimania 2019 - Asaf Bartov" (episode of the podcast Scuola di Pensiero ) Project Ben-Yehuda Nemala i...
Oct 22, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Season 1Ep. 168
🕑 1 hour 42 minutes Valerio Bozzolan is a software developer and Linux administrator, as well as the president of the Italian Linux Society, the founder and head of Wikimedians for Software Freedom, a member of the volunteer technical commission of Wikimedia Italy, and an open source consultant for Wikimedia Switzerland. Links for some of the topics discussed: Istituto tecnico industriale statale Amedeo Avogadro (Italian Wikipedia article) Chiedi il rimborso del sistemo (in)operativo! ("Ask for...
Oct 08, 2024•1 hr 41 min•Season 1Ep. 167
🕑 1 hour 7 minutes Paul Cereghino is a restoration ecologist for the U.S. federal government, where he also supports the development and adminstration of the Salish Sea Restoration wiki. Links for some of the topics discussed: Salish Sea Restoration wiki Salish Sea Wikipedia article " Do you love seafood? Here's how to eat it responsibly " (NPR article, September 2024) " I Want To Eat Fish Responsibly. But The Seafood Guides Are So Confusing! " (NPR article, March 2017) List of all restoration ...
Sep 24, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 166
🕑 23 minutes It's another BTB Digest, with highlights from five recent episodes. Jeffrey Wang discusses competing for European users, Taavi Väänänen describes the RealMe extension, Megan Cutrofello defends video game wikis with "spoilers", Moritz Schubotz analyzes MediaWiki as a math publishing tool, Viktor Schelling reminisces on the early days of a consulting company, and more!
Sep 10, 2024•23 min•Season 1Ep. 165
🕑 2 hours Alex Stinson is Lead Program Strategist for the Campaigns Team at the Wikimedia Foundation. Links for some of the topics discussed: Wikimedia Foundation Campaigns Team WikiProjects Campaign PetScan List-Building Tool Research on Language-Agnostic Topic Classification Esperanza (2005-2006 project on Wikipedia) CampaignEvents MediaWiki extension Programs & Events Dashboard description Programs & Events Dashboard...
Aug 27, 2024•2 hr•Season 1Ep. 164
🕑 1 hour 35 minutes Brent Laabs (user name Labster) is chair of the board and acting president of the WikiTide Foundation, the nonprofit foundation that runs the wiki farm Miraheze. Links for some of the topics discussed: Miraheze WikiTide Foundation Between the Brackets Episode 31: John Lewis All The Tropes wiki Miraheze-WikiTide merger FAQ Requests for Comment/Reorganization of Miraheze (December 2023) Requests for Comment/Miraheze's name and branding (April 2024) WikiForge DynamicPageList3 M...
Aug 14, 2024•1 hr 35 min•Season 1Ep. 163
🕑 1 hour 3 minutes Viktor Schelling is the Senior Principal MediaWiki Developer at Pegasystems. Links for some of the topics discussed: Pegasystems Wikipedia article Wikibase Solutions FlexForm MediaWiki extension Open CSP...
May 07, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 162
🕑 1 hour 28 minutes Dr. Moritz Schubotz (developer username Physikerwelt) is head of research at the mathematics department at FIZ Karlsruhe – Leibniz Institute for Information Infrastructure. He is the author or co-author of the MediaWiki extensions Math and MathSearch, and the Mathoid application, among others. Links for some of the topics discussed: Dr. Moritz Schubotz CV and publications Math MediaWiki extension MathSearch MediaWiki extension MathML Wikipedia article MathJax Wikipedia artic...
Apr 25, 2024•1 hr 28 min•Season 1Ep. 161
🕑 1 hour 43 minutes Megan Cutrofello, better known as River, returns to the podcast. She is a freelance wiki developer who has worked with Gamepedia, Fandom and wiki.gg, among others. Links for some of the topics discussed: wiki.gg "What's going on with gaming communities moving from Fandom to Wiki.gg?" (2023 Reddit thread) River Writes blog The Sea of Thieves Wiki DRUID (Data Representation Ultra Infobox Design) infoboxes...
Apr 09, 2024•1 hr 43 min•Season 1Ep. 160
🕑 21 minutes It's a BTB Digest episode! Hear clips from five recent episodes. Steve Schneider describes his remarkably AI-centered approach to teaching, Birgit Müller boasts about her team's success in improving code review, Srishti Sethi considers the usefulness of developer outreach programs, Alan Ang lists the steps in getting a knowledge base onto Wikidata, Guillaume Coulombe compares MediaWiki expertise to martial arts, and more!
Mar 26, 2024•21 min•Season 1Ep. 159
🕑 38 minutes Taavi Väänänen is a site reliability engineer in the Wikimedia Cloud Services team at the Wikimedia Foundation. In 2022, when he was still just a volunteer contributor, he was named Tech Contributor of the Year by Jimmy Wales. Links for some of the topics discussed: Taavi Väänänen homepage Wikimedia Toolforge CentralAuth MediaWiki extension RealMe MediaWiki extension "Fediverse" Wikipedia article...
Mar 12, 2024•38 min•Season 1Ep. 158
🕑 1 hour 28 minutes Jeffrey Wang returns to the podcast to talk about his new-ish job at Microsoft, his much older job as head of MyWikis, the upcoming MediaWiki conference, AI, and various other things. Some of the topics discussed: MediaWiki Users and Developers Conference 2024 MyWikis MyWikis Europe "Why People Don't Like Fandom Wikis" (2022 blog post) "Microsoft Azure is a ~$56 billion business" (Runtime article) "MediaWiki @ Microsoft" (talk by Jeffrey at EMWCon Spring 2023) Canasta GitHub...
Feb 27, 2024•1 hr 28 min•Season 1Ep. 157
🕑 1 hour 9 minutes Guillaume Coulombe is the head of Procédurable, a process consulting company with a focus on open source software and open data, and an even more specific focus on MediaWiki. Links for some of the topics discussed: Procédurable Arbre-Évolution Coop "Understanding wiki collaboration in Quebec healthcare organizations" (2012 paper by Régis Barondeau) Wiki maraîcher "Autoconstruction" (DIY) portal Fab Labs Québec Le violon de Jos Collection of songs...
Feb 13, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 156
