WikiConference North America: Community, Collaboration, and the Future of Open Knowledge
When you think of WikiConference North America, an annual gathering of Wikipedia editors, developers, and open knowledge advocates across the U.S. and Canada. Also known as Wikimania North America, it's not just a conference—it’s where the people who keep Wikipedia running come together to solve real problems, share tools, and push for change. This isn’t a corporate event with slick slides and paid speakers. It’s a grassroots meetup where someone who fixes vandalism at 2 a.m. in Toronto sits next to a developer building new tools in Austin, and they end up designing a feature that helps thousands of editors.
The Wikimedia movement, the global network of volunteers, chapters, and organizations supporting free knowledge depends on events like this to stay connected. Without WikiConference North America, many editors would never meet face-to-face, and local projects—like African language Wikipedias or Wikimedia grants for underrepresented communities—would lose critical momentum. The conference is where volunteer editing, the unpaid, community-driven work that powers Wikipedia gets recognized, refined, and scaled. You’ll hear stories from people who used a grant to train rural librarians in Bolivia to edit Wikipedia, or how a group in Montreal built a tool to fight harassment against women editors. These aren’t abstract ideas—they’re live projects with real impact.
What makes WikiConference North America different from other tech events? It’s not about growth at all costs. It’s about sustainability. You’ll find sessions on how to keep editors from burning out, how to handle off-wiki harassment, and how to make Wikipedia’s policies clearer for newcomers. The open knowledge, the principle that information should be free, editable, and accessible to everyone movement here isn’t theoretical—it’s tested in real time. When someone asks, "Can AI replace Wikipedia editors?" the answer isn’t a buzzword. It’s a panel of volunteers who rebuilt a whole section of the pandemic page during lockdowns, using nothing but talk pages and shared source lists.
Underneath all the talks and workshops is one simple truth: Wikipedia doesn’t run on algorithms. It runs on people. And WikiConference North America is where those people find each other, learn from each other, and decide where to go next. Whether you’re a new editor wondering if your edits matter, or a veteran who’s been fighting copyright takedowns for a decade, this is where you’ll find others who get it.
Below, you’ll find a collection of articles that dig into the same issues discussed at the conference—how communities build knowledge, how funding shapes content, how editors stay safe, and why transparency still beats speed. These aren’t just posts. They’re the behind-the-scenes stories that make WikiConference North America more than just an event. They’re the reason it keeps happening year after year.
WikiConference North America 2025 Recap and Key Takeaways
WikiConference North America 2025 brought together volunteers from across the U.S. and Canada to strengthen Wikipedia's future. Key takeaways include rising participation among women over 45, new AI tools for fact-checking, and efforts to make editing more accessible in rural and Indigenous communities.
