“You’ll miss more sessions than you’ll attend”, people warned me. With a packed schedule like the one of Wikimania 2026 there was no way I could attend them all. Luckily, plenty of sessions were being recorded. So after I caught up on some sleep (that’s a thing you surely miss during Wikimania) I watched a session I really wanted to attend but couldn’t: “Social integration of the new generations: How do we turn casual editors into community leaders?” And there was a lot I recognized. The question raised was: when are you part of this community? What makes you want to participate beyond editing. My Wiki*-journey started just like that of countless other people: from the comfort of my home.
The first thing I did was add a new topic, and within a few months I attended a local get-together. There I started answering questions from other participants, or becoming a ‘Wiki coach’ as they call it in the Netherlands, fairly quickly. But did I feel part of the community? No, certainly not. I just took a deep dive and tried to keep afloat. There was no initial orientation; there was no one telling me, ‘You are a wiki-coach now’ I just volunteered, showed up, while asking myself who the fuck I thought I was to do so.
I love the culture of just being bold, no permission asked; trying and failing and trying and succeeding. No one telling me what I can or can’t do. Because that tends not to go well with me anyway. So I took the freedom. And every so often, I took it scared; feeling like I was imposing myself. That feeling stayed with me for a long time.
I think that freedom is always the best choice. I also can imagine people needing more guidelines, onboarding if you will, not only as a volunteer, but also as a community member.
It’s safe to say that I got a lot out of this online session. The same applies to the sessions I attended in person in Paris. The bulk of those focused on ‘community’, and the first one I attended was “Navigating Challenging Spaces On-Wiki – developing a toolkit to support editors.” Divided into groups, we exchanged ideas and best practices on how to support editors. What does the wiki* world need to become a safe place, where people can grow and become the best versions of themselves?
Because of my focus on community health, I really wanted to attend “Life as a Wikimedian in a more complex world”, but I went to the wrong room. There was someone there also waiting for this session so it took us far too long to notice something amiss. When we found the right room (next door) we were too late to be let in. We both ended up going to “Community Governance The Good, the Bad, and the Way Forward.” And that still fitted my theme of community perfectly. Talking to people who want to keep the online community safe and the challenges they face made me even more aware of what is required to create a safe space for everyone to do this voluntary job.
It was during an exercise in the session “Let’s get tangible: Promoting knowledge equity and allyship in communities”, that I learned that almost every editor faces all kinds of hurdles to edit. The exercise was quite simple: you blindly pick a piece of paper and on it, you’ll find the profile of an editor. How does this person edit? What will they encounter online? How can they handle online feedback? There is a vast difference between a 70-year-old retired man and a 16-year-old schoolgirl, even just in experiencing the online Wikipedia atmosphere. In terms of both the social and editing aspects of Wikipedia, there was only one kind of editor who truly had no trouble editing it. And it should come as no surprise that the majority of editors fall into this category, based on self-reported surveys.
Putting myself in the shoes of a user whose circumstances are very different from my own was a very useful exercise in understanding what editing Wikipedia might feel like for them. And it gave me somewhat of an insight on the steps needed to ensure that this user feels safe and confident. To enable them to participate in a way that brings out their best attributes while also making them feel part of the community.
This tied in nicely with what I learned from the panel “Digital Hygiene in Wikimedia Spaces: Legal, Social, and Community Strategies for Sustainable Participation”. My key takeaway from this panel was that building a healthy and safe community is a shared goal. By learning from one another, combining our efforts, and remembering to take care of ourselves, we can make meaningful progress toward it. And that is, above all, the message I’ve taken away from Wikimania 2026 when it comes to the health of the community within the Wikimedia landscape. Everyone runs into the same issues; every group of volunteers tries out different approaches. There’s plenty to build on and take forward, and there’s still a great deal to be done.
Wikimania really brought home to me just how strongly the community supports one another. And how many people are committed to this community’s health. It’s a resilient community, and I’m confident that if we also collaborate on this topic, we can make and maintain a healthy community for volunteers, both on- and offline.