Software

Foundation sparks revolt after disbanding team responsible for many community-requested fixes and moderation tools

The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) has sparked a revolt among Wikipedia editors after disbanding the engineering team responsible for many community-requested fixes and moderation tools.

The Register was tipped off this week to growing unrest inside the Wikipedia editing community following the WMF's decision to disband its Community Tech team, the group responsible for triaging and developing editor-requested bug fixes, moderation tools, and workflow improvements through the long-running Community Wishlist process.

Wikimedia's internal forums have turned into a running argument over how editors should respond. Some are calling for editing strikes, while others want volunteers to stop handling vandalism cleanup for a period of time. There have also been discussions about replacing fundraising banners with messages criticizing the layoffs.

The foundation confirmed to The Register that the restructuring affected six staff roles connected to the Community Wishlist program, including engineers and a manager. 

It said the decision came after months of internal reviews that started last year. According to the foundation, leadership concluded that relying on a single dedicated team to process editor requests was no longer working well.

"We learned from these assessments that it is rarely possible to fulfill community wishes through a single team due to the vast breadth of the software we support and the number of channels through which we receive wishes," a spokesperson for the foundation said.

Under the new structure, responsibility for Community Wishlist requests will be spread across the wider Product and Technology department rather than handled by a dedicated team.

The foundation said affected employees remain employed for now while being considered for other internal roles. Staff who are not placed elsewhere inside the organization will leave next month with severance packages.

That explanation has gone down badly with parts of the editor community, where some contributors accuse Wikimedia leadership of becoming increasingly disconnected from the unpaid volunteers who maintain Wikipedia itself. Several editors have also questioned why an organization reporting nearly $300 million in assets in its latest annual report is restructuring an engineering team dedicated specifically to editor support.

The situation has become even messier because several affected employees were reportedly involved in early unionization efforts linked to a newly created labor group called Wiki Workers United. One of the laid-off engineers created the union page on Wikimedia Meta earlier this month, fueling accusations from some editors that the restructuring amounted to union busting.

The foundation denied that outright, telling The Register: "The decision to disband the Community Tech team is not in any way connected to discussions about unionizing, nor have we terminated any staff for their participation in those discussions."

The WMF also stressed that no formal request for union recognition has been submitted and said it would respect the legal process if staff eventually vote to unionize.

Meanwhile, editors continue to discuss protest options that could create highly visible problems for the world's largest online encyclopedia. Since much of Wikipedia's moderation infrastructure is maintained by volunteers rather than foundation employees, even a temporary pullback in anti-vandalism work could turn parts of the site into an open sewer of spam, hoaxes, and defacement. ®