XSF Communications Team - 2026-06-03

Hey all! A small update on the Wikipedia front: I've updated the Dutch XMPP page and added Dutch lemmas for Openfire and Conversations. Small wins!

The English XSF page is moving more slowly. The COI disclosure process, while well-intentioned, has basically stalled things. I'm going to give it a few more days, then just make the edits directly and keep a close eye on neutrality.

Wikipedia really is one of the first places people land when they're exploring a technology. Our pages not being up to date is a real gap. If anyone feels like picking up a page (any language, any XMPP-related article) now's a great time. Even small edits help.

> The English XSF page is moving more slowly. The COI disclosure process, while well-intentioned, has basically stalled things. I'm going to give it a few more days, then just make the edits directly and keep a close eye on neutrality. Can you elaborate what to take note of here? ↺

emus, what do you mean exactly?

So, how does one need to act along COI disclosure process?

That appears to be a bit different depending on what language Wikipedia you use, but generically, it is frowned upon if you apply changes to lemmas that you have a conflict of interest with (for example, a lemma about yourself, your company, your product, etc). Wikipedia has experienced that such edits are rarely truly neutral (and often very 'marketing-y'). What the English Wikipedia says should be the process is: 1. Create your suggested changes on the 'talk' page 2. Let another person process those changes and add them to the lemma. I've started doing this. After many months, and almost no reponse besides: "this is a good start", nothing changes. The group of people that actively searches for and processes these COI edit suggestions seems to be small (waiting lists are weeks/months long).

There actually is a _lot_ more to it, and Wikipedia has various, long pages of text around this. Search for COI on wikipedia, and you'll find plenty of instructions.

But, my practial experience is that, if you very explicitly disclose that you have a conflict of interest, and that you're doing your best to create neutral improvements, and you're open to feedback (and actually _do_ all that), changes might simply be accepted. Even if not all of them are, having _some_ changes is probably better than having _no_ changes.

I very much think that Wikipedia is suffering from "perfect being the enemy of good" here. Although I will readily admit that they undoubtly have seen a lot of non-neutral changes, which also must be a plague.

I see. Thanks for the insights!

I suggest to start with small steps. Every bit helps (and is likely an improvement until the end of time!)

And anyone can do it.

> I suggest to start with small steps. Every bit helps (and is likely an improvement until the end of time!) Yes, but updates are pretty needed. ↺