Wikimedia Meta-Wiki

(As of: 2023-06-11)

Wikimedia Meta-Wiki, also known as Meta-Wiki, and internally within the  (WMF) as merely Meta – this '' wiki is used by the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) to act as a central primary coordination wiki for all of their 'projects' and activities; which include running Wikipedia and various sister projects, and also originally included developing their own wiki engine software, known as .

This meta  also used to include a lot of  about the MediaWiki wiki engine; including user manuals, installation manuals, and development information. However, this has now all been moved to the MediaWiki.org wiki (a more logical place for it). Inevitably, the discussion pages related to those manuals start to act as a kind of support forum, but there are for seeking user / admin / development support.

Purposes
The main purposes of Wikimedia Meta-Wiki are to help facilitate:
 * 1) Discussion and formulation of  (WMF) projects, in particular  discussion relevant to across projects, such as  licensing. The central venue for discussion is the Wikimedia Forum.  Some high-level discussions, held mainly in 2009, were split to Wikimedia Strategic Planning (also known as Strategy Wiki – itself now ).
 * Interlingual (cross-wiki) and international coordination concerning the WMF projects and the Wikimedia movement in general; including discussion in languages other than English. This includes requests (for pan-Wikimedia or other wikis), <translation ></translation>s and news, and the description, <documentation ></documentation>, and discussion of real-life activities and facts related to the Wikimedia Foundation and affiliates.  This includes reports, <events ></events>, outreach, and.
 * 1) <Writing ></Writing> and dissemination of personal <essay ></essay>s about WMF projects. Because these are usually not delivered from a neutral point of view (NPOV), they are often summarized on neutral issues pages from multiple .  There is a degree of freedom in determining what is related to Wikimedia projects, which makes Meta-Wiki also a 'meatball wiki' of sorts; discussing such matters as wiki culture and patterns.  This role includes more formal <research ></research> and related discussion.

The third purpose,, has not actually resulted in a large number of essays; only something in the low triple digits. Likewise, there are not many pages. Meta is specifically excluded from the list of projects that have to adhere to a neutral point of view.undefined Although theoretically,undefined Meta-Wiki is a place for <debate ></debate> and <advocacy ></advocacy> concerning controversial policies and practices, behaving in too opinionated of a manner concerning contentious issues has resulted in blocks and bans.

<Elections ></Elections> of Wikimedia Foundation board members,undefined stewards,undefined global sysops,undefined etc., occur at Meta-Wiki; and sometimes, users of all projects are invited to comment on proposed global policies at Meta-Wiki. Sometimes, users make complaints about what is going on at other projects, if it appears that the sysops of those projects have run amok, and that from stewards may be necessary. This is usually only allowed when the projects are relatively small, and it is clear that the sysops are going against the will of the community; otherwise, the argument will be raised the Meta-Wiki is not an appeals court.undefined The Requests for Comment (RFC) page is a venue for these types of complaints, as well as debate on a wide variety of other matters, such as policy; proposals for what to do with wikis that are in incubation, or that are proposed to be brought under the Wikimedia Foundation umbrella; and requests for global bans.undefined

Meta-Wiki is also the location of the global spam blacklist,undefined and the interwiki map.undefined A recent addition to make its home at Meta-Wiki is the Wikimedia LGBT+, which is a Wikimedia user group and proposed thematic organization, first announced at Wikimania in 2012.undefined

Culture
A lot of high-level Wikimedia Foundation staff members, stewards, global sysops, etc., frequent Meta-Wiki. Many of them use it as their 'home base' wiki, and often ask that any users on other WMF projects contact them on Meta-Wiki. As a result of these users being so readily accessible on-wiki, and rubbing shoulders now and then with other Meta-Wiki users in the course of carrying out their duties, participating in the global wiki-governance aspects of Meta-Wiki, and responding to communications; other Meta-Wiki users tend to become at least superficially acquainted with them within the wikisphere. Accordingly, disputes that occur on Meta-Wiki often quickly get escalated to the highest levels of WMF, with complaints being posted on those users' talk pages, which would not be the case on other wikis. Thus, it is fairly common to see, for example, attempts to drag high ranking Wikimedia legal counsel into conflicts that would, on another wiki, be settled at a much lower level.

It is fairly easy to get blocked or banned from Meta-Wiki; often with little explanation, or with a vague and / or misleading explanation. Usually, the blocks for common vandalism are for lengthier periods than would be the case on English Wikipedia. Although there is no Arbitration Committee (ArbComm); the goings-on at Meta are not completely transparent, because there is a great deal of revision deletion that occurs there.

As is the case on MediaWiki.org, Meta-Wiki sysops typically have free rein to do what they wish, as the community does not exercise much oversight over them. The difference is that there is more likelihood of disputes, because of the controversial subject matter (policies, etc.,) that are discussed at Meta-Wiki, so users are more likely to get blocked. The equivalent of an administrators' noticeboard incidents page is '' (RFH). As is the case on English Wikipedia, repeated bickering tends to result in warnings and / or eventual blocks for the participants.

Essentially, the procedure on Meta-Wiki, as on many other wikis, is that if a sysop warns a user that a behaviour he is engaging in must stop, then he can either (1) stop, (2) communicate with other sysops through non-public channels (e.g. e-mail, IRC) and try to get those sysops to warn the other sysop to back off, or (3) take the matter to a public forum for community input. However, the third option is very risky, because it can be viewed as disruptive and disrespectful, and result in blocks or bans. If the sysop blocks the user for such 'disruption', and no other sysop is willing to reverse the block, then the block stands, unless someone else who is not yet blocked takes the matter to a public forum such as RFH and gets the community to reverse the decision.

Dissident views on some topics are considered so disruptive that, even though they are on-topic for Meta-Wiki given its stated mission, they cannot be expressed. The rationale behind disallowing the wisdom of suppressing these views from being openly debated or even challenged: is that this too would be contentious. Therefore, the meta-discussion, and meta-meta-discussions, and so on, are suppressed as well. There is no equivalent to the or  that would allow the community to vote on a matter without discussion.

There are not many rules governing conduct, so it is left up to sysops to make their own judgments of what is appropriate or inappropriate. Specifically, there are only seven applicable to Meta-Wiki in particular. Meta-Wiki has an 'anti '' policy', that prohibits speedy closure of discussions at this project, but in practice, sysops can and do close discussions summarily, and implement what they think is best sometimes.

The users of Meta-Wiki tend to be more <multilingual ></multilingual> than those of other projects, and much of the editing that goes on consists of <translation ></translation>s of pages.