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This is an archived version of this page, as edited by Таёжный лес (talk | contribs) at 18:55, 4 April 2026 (→Votes). It may differ significantly from the current version.


This page serves as a central discussion hub for different Wikinews language communities regarding the possible migration of Wikinews projects to alternative hosting environments, such as community self-hosting or third-party wiki farms like Miraheze.

A current proposal is joint stewardship and hosting by Wikimedia New York City and Miraheze. This would include new approaches such as Wikinews Pulse and new concepts suggested on some of the active Wikinews languages.

The purpose of this page is to
  • Consolidate currently scattered discussions across various Wikinews projects
  • Provide a space for continued discussion after Wikinews sites become read-only (expected from May 4)
  • Explore whether migration is feasible and desired by the communities
  • Facilitate structured discussion on potential migration plans, including: Technical considerations, Licensing and content reuse, Clarification regarding the use of the Wikinews trademark from the Wikimedia Foundation

(This page is intended to remain neutral and community-driven only, and does not advocate for any specific outcome.)

German Wikinews

This section is for discussing whether and how the German Wikinews (de.wikinews.org) project may consider migration, including potential destinations, approaches, and timelines. Participants are invited to share their views on whether they support migration, their preferred hosting options (e.g., self-hosted, Miraheze, or other platforms), as well as any concerns, requirements, or suggestions for a potential transition. Please sign your comments and keep discussions constructive and focused.

Discussions

@Aholtman, Ankermast, Conny, Itu, and Matthiasb: ^^ --~2026-20532-83 (talk) 06:54, 3 April 2026 (UTC)reply


Add free would be a good point for me. Who is interested in hosting on a private server as an archive or could Wikimedia do a read only version? Conny (talk) 16:17, 3 April 2026 (UTC)reply

Read-only version of the Wikinews would be kept in any case. Well very well (talk) 21:28, 3 April 2026 (UTC)reply

Votes

English Wikinews

This section is for discussing whether and how the English Wikinews (en.wikinews.org) project may consider migration, including potential destinations, approaches, and timelines.

A related discussion page already exists on English Wikinews at n:Wikinews:Migration, where multiple viewpoints, including support and concerns regarding migration, have been raised. A brief summary of those discussions may be added here to support continuity.

Participants are invited to share their views on: Whether they support migration, Preferred hosting options (e.g., self-hosted, Miraheze, or other platforms), Concerns, requirements, or suggestions for a potential transition.

Please sign your comments and keep discussions constructive and focused.

Discussions

  • Why are you voting here? Obviously the people interested in carrying on somewhere else will do so, and those who aren't won't. Voting about it is kind of pointless. Anyone who opposes simply won't participate. Bawolff (talk) 05:07, 3 April 2026 (UTC)reply
    Votes are meant to show whether there is interest and how many users are willing to contribute to the new host. At the very least, they can give an idea of whether migration is needed at all. But, your point is valid that users who oppose it may simply choose not to participate. My objective in structuring this page was to create a centralized place for discussion, with or without voting. -- Asked42 (talk · contribs) 18:22, 3 April 2026 (UTC)reply
  • Before voting, I would need more clarity from Wikimedia NY on what is meant by "stewarding," including whether this involves defined goals, a revised mission, and/or specific forms of support in reforming our processes and workflow.
    The SPTF report did not identify server infrastructure capacity as the primary reason for closure. Its summary of analysis listed in the following order:
  • Limited use to people
  • Usage is limited to a few countries
  • News coverage is not well-rounded
  • Low engagement
  • Community health: Low activity, lacking critical mass
  • Low synergy with other Wikimedia projects
Given that, it is not clear how a migration alone would address these concerns. How would this proposal meaningfully respond to the issues identified above? How do we avoid closure by Wikimedia NY in the future for similar reasons?
Who can we talk to at Wikimedia NY to understand their proposal? Michael.C.Wright (talk) 05:55, 4 April 2026 (UTC)reply
Pinging, @Pharos: -- Asked42 (talk · contribs) 07:41, 4 April 2026 (UTC)reply

Votes

  • Support Support: I support the migration of English Wikinews and have no objection to either self-hosting or moving to Miraheze. However, I believe that the costs and resources required for self-hosting may not be sustainable in the long term. In that regard, Miraheze appears to be a more practical option, if migration is pursued at all. That said, I recognize that migration alone may not resolve the core issues faced by Wikinews, and there is a possibility that some challenges could persist or even worsen. -- -- Asked42 (talk · contribs) 14:43, 31 March 2026 (UTC)reply
  • Support Support To quote Wallace Breen: the alternative, if you can call it that, is total extinction. If this community wants to survive it has literally no other option since Wikimedia has officially begun shutting down Wikinews. Mind you, the content is in no immediate danger, but the userbase and all associated activity will cease to exist without migration. --Dronebogus (talk) 18:34, 2 April 2026 (UTC)reply
  • Support Support Nothing else to say, If Wikimedia needs to drop unnecessary licensing compatibility concerns, let it go. --~2026-20743-13 (talk) 05:11, 4 April 2026 (UTC)reply

Spanish Wikinews

This section is for discussing whether and how the Spanish Wikinews (es.wikinews.org) project may consider migration, including potential destinations, approaches, and timelines. Participants are invited to share their views on whether they support migration, their preferred hosting options (e.g., self-hosted, Miraheze, or other platforms), as well as any concerns, requirements, or suggestions for a potential transition. Please sign your comments and keep discussions constructive and focused.

Discussions

@AlvaroMolina, Ezarate, Green Mostaza, ProtoplasmaKid, Shooke, Superzerocool, and XalD: ^^ --~2026-20532-83 (talk) 06:56, 3 April 2026 (UTC)reply

Votes

French Wikinews

This section is for discussing whether and how the French Wikinews (fr.wikinews.org) project may consider migration, including potential destinations, approaches, and timelines. Participants are invited to share their views on whether they support migration, their preferred hosting options (e.g., self-hosted, Miraheze, or other platforms), as well as any concerns, requirements, or suggestions for a potential transition. Please sign your comments and keep discussions constructive and focused.

Discussions

@Athozus, Grondin, Rome2, SleaY, and Zetud: ^^ --~2026-20532-83 (talk) 06:57, 3 April 2026 (UTC)reply

Votes

Italian Wikinews

This section is for discussing whether and how the Italian Wikinews (it.wikinews.org) project may consider migration, including potential destinations, approaches, and timelines. Participants are invited to share their views on whether they support migration, their preferred hosting options (e.g., self-hosted, Miraheze, or other platforms), as well as any concerns, requirements, or suggestions for a potential transition. Please sign your comments and keep discussions constructive and focused.

Discussions

@Ferdi2005, Gce, and Mannivu: ^^ --~2026-20532-83 (talk) 06:58, 3 April 2026 (UTC)reply

Votes

Japanese Wikinews

This section is for discussing whether and how the Japanese Wikinews (ja.wikinews.org) project may consider migration, including potential destinations, approaches, and timelines. Participants are invited to share their views on whether they support migration, their preferred hosting options (e.g., self-hosted, Miraheze, or other platforms), as well as any concerns, requirements, or suggestions for a potential transition. Please sign your comments and keep discussions constructive and focused. Takuan Yuzuki（TALK・History） 10:25, 1 April 2026 (UTC)reply

Discussions

Votes

条件付賛成 I'm weak support wikinews transfer for Miraheze. Miraheze is use wiki system of wikimedia too. The reason is that news that can be freely edited is preserved. However, I am concerned about whether Japanese-speaking users will be willing to edit both the Japanese Wikinews and Wikicollection.-- Takuan Yuzuki（TALK・History） 10:55, 1 April 2026 (UTC)reply

私は、ウィキニュースをMirahezeに移行することにやや賛成です。Mirahezeもウィキメディアのウィキシステムを採用しています。その理由は、自由に編集できるニュース記事が維持されるからです。しかし、日本語圏のユーザーが、日本語版ウィキニュースとウィキコレクションの両方を編集してくれるかどうかが懸念されます。 Takuan Yuzuki（TALK・History） 11:03, 1 April 2026 (UTC)reply

Polish Wikinews

This section is for discussing whether and how the Polish Wikinews (pl.wikinews.org) project may consider migration, including potential destinations, approaches, and timelines. Participants are invited to share their views on whether they support migration, their preferred hosting options (e.g., self-hosted, Miraheze, or other platforms), as well as any concerns, requirements, or suggestions for a potential transition. Please sign your comments and keep discussions constructive and focused.

Discussions

@Kajtus von Rzywiec, Marek Mazurkiewicz, Openbk, Pastooshek, and Ynnarski: ^^ --~2026-20532-83 (talk) 06:58, 3 April 2026 (UTC)reply

Raczej nie mamy mocy żeby tworzyć własy projekt. Rozważam dołączenie do globalnego projektu jeśli on się uda ale na razie czuję duże zniechęcenie po tej paskudnej decyzji fundacji. Marek Mazurkiewicz (talk) 10:53, 4 April 2026 (UTC)reply

Votes

Portuguese Wikinews

This section is for discussing whether and how the Portuguese Wikinews (pt.wikinews.org) project may consider migration, including potential destinations, approaches, and timelines. Participants are invited to share their views on whether they support migration, their preferred hosting options (e.g., self-hosted, Miraheze, or other platforms), as well as any concerns, requirements, or suggestions for a potential transition. Please sign your comments and keep discussions constructive and focused.

Discussions

@CommonsDelinker, DARIO SEVERI, Edu!, and Eta Carinae: ^^ --~2026-20532-83 (talk) 07:00, 3 April 2026 (UTC)reply

You have pinged a bot. Well very well (talk) 07:53, 3 April 2026 (UTC)reply

Votes

Russian Wikinews

This section is for discussing whether and how the Russian Wikinews (ru.wikinews.org) project may consider migration, including potential destinations, approaches, and timelines. Participants are invited to share their views on whether they support migration, their preferred hosting options (e.g., self-hosted, Miraheze, or other platforms), as well as any concerns, requirements, or suggestions for a potential transition. Please sign your comments and keep discussions constructive and focused.

Discussions

The elephant in the room is whether the bot-imported articles should be brought over or not. I'm talking about fruits of the infamous bot activity on ruwikinews that took down all wikis back in 2021.
Since those articles were imported, ruwikinews is mostly an aggregator/mirror for external news sources. Most of those sources are still up. A potential re-hosting of Wikinews as-is would be a mirror of a mirror.
Currently, the number of remaining articles stands at 1,465,869 (in two categories: one, two). It can be easily seen that these constitute 98% of all ruwikinews articles and what's more, 83% of the total article count in all languages.
Please note that I'm talking about articles, not pages. When considering pages in all namespaces (~7M in total as of now; used to be ~15M), one needs to remember that every article has a corresponding comment page. Also, the same bot was used to create millions of auxiliary pages and categories. An enormous slew of those pages (~7M) was deleted last autumn. A few weeks ago another batch of ~3M category deletions was started. It is hoped that this will be completed by May 4.
The whole migration, if it happens, would be radically changed depending on this decision. AtUkr (talk) 22:25, 31 March 2026 (UTC)reply
I suggest not importing them. It would be better to move them to Russian Wikisource or leave them in the read-only wiki. Well very well (talk) 15:08, 2 April 2026 (UTC)reply
Unless there is significant desire from the Russian Wikinews community that these articles be kept for some reason, I agree that there doesn’t seem to be a reason to import them to a new hosting arrangement, and removing them likely would remove a good deal of pressure on the migration process and long term hosting. PixDeVl (talk) 16:44, 2 April 2026 (UTC)reply
Let me remind about the reason for these mirrored articles. The idea was, if Wikinews arranges a free license for all news articles over the internet, and if Wikinews acquires all these articles, then Wikinews will be the most valuable and the most useful source of news in the whole world. Then Wikinews will overpower Reuters, and Associated Press, and even TASS. In other words, the idea was to create a Wikinews site for all the news articles (like Commons stays for images), and to gain everything into one Wikinews site. One site to bring them all, one site to find them, one site to gain them all and with free license bind them. -- PereslavlFoto (talk) 19:10, 2 April 2026 (UTC)reply
Thank you kindly for the context! If this was the reason and ruwikinews did succeed in that, there may be a valid argument to retain the pages, but I think that would have to be something the community would need to show an overall, continuing desire for. If the community consents to move to Miraheze with WMNYC, I think Miraheze’s Technology Team might need to verify that the import would technically doable in full, but that’s a question for a later stage of this process. PixDeVl (talk) 19:24, 2 April 2026 (UTC)reply
I'm afraid you're being misinformed. The man behind the mass imports, User:Krassotkin, said this in August 2020, just after he finished the first batch of imports:

All in all, the conclusion is surprising. We still have very little news, and what there is is heavily skewed, failing to cover several very important topics. For example, there is nothing on sport; science, entertainment, society news and so on are also completely absent. Yet all of this interests readers—perhaps even more so than what is currently available. Incidentally, Interfax publishes around 300 news pieces a day, and TASS around 700 — meaning we are still far from covering the day’s news. Therefore, the question remains of finding outlets that will switch to free licences so that we can synchronise with them. It would be beneficial for them too, as they pass everything on to aggregators anyway, and all high-quality content is rewritten instantly—without links—but with Wikinews and regular uploads, the benefits for them will increase over time.
— User:Krassotkin, 3 August 2020

And a little later:

I also see a few issues with systematically attracting new sites. [I. e. attracting into free licensing.] The main one is that we need to be of value to these sites, and the only way we can do that is by driving readers, customers and advertisers to them in numbers commensurable with their overall traffic. Take Yandex.News, for example. It brings in the bulk of traffic for media outlets, which is why they readily provide their content to it. But even if we aren’t the main source, just a notable one, they’ll start working with us. Otherwise, it’s not profitable for them, and we can only persuade them on the basis of charity and support. And such collaboration yields little return. This is one of the reasons why I started importing their archives: with ten thousand pages, there is a greater likelihood that someone will click through to them than with a hundred. After that, I plan to focus on areas that generate non-news traffic, so as to redirect it to the news articles. On the category pages, for example. We have a perfectly decent film module. We could create categories for all of them using Wikidata; this would generate some traffic, which would ultimately flow to the news articles (including the free ones), and we become useful to them.
— User:Krassotkin, 31 August 2020

And when questioned about the quality of imported content, he had this to say:

They’re already ruining the Russian Wikipedia with all this rhetorics on «quality» and «disgrace»; let’s not repeat those mistakes. What’s bringing the news project into disrepute is the lack of news, the fake stories, and the bias in the reporting. Everything else is fine.
— User:Krassotkin, 30 August 2020

So there you go. The mastermind of the whole thing cared little about quality (which he disregarded) or traffic (which he directed towards other media). The only metric he valued was quantity.
This, he achieved in a peculiar manner. He's been gone for years and only now we got to cleaning up after him: hundreds of pages of sponsored content, tens of thousands of ad inserts, millions of empty categories serving no purpose other than 'generating traffic' for other news sites. One wonders if that's a legacy worth preserving. AtUkr (talk) 20:35, 2 April 2026 (UTC)reply
By the way, in this whole plan — quantity was meant a base for traffic, and traffic was meant a base for quality. To overpower TASS, we need to have about 1000 news articles a day. -- PereslavlFoto (talk) 21:31, 2 April 2026 (UTC)reply
ruwikinews did succeed in that
It did not.
These articles can indeed matter as an "archive" of news under a free license, very true — but then they should better go to Wikisource. Wikinews is about Wikipedians writing news articles/interviews/commentaries together, not for storing archive news from other websites. There already is a wiki project for storing older books, articles, and other written pieces of media without copyright. Well very well (talk) 21:10, 2 April 2026 (UTC)reply
OToneH, I support your idea about Wikisource. OT other hand, Russian Wikisource is strictly based on the fiction texts printed on paper. Neither news archives, neither newspapers, nor research articles, nor even popular science books and journals are available in there. The idea you underline (and I support) is not the mainstream idea for Russian Wikisource now. -- PereslavlFoto (talk) 21:28, 2 April 2026 (UTC)reply
PereslavlFoto, в Русской Викитеке можно размещать и газеты и журналы и исследовательские статьи и научную литературу при условии, что они общественном достоянии или под свободной лицензией. Что касается новостей, то будут приняты только те, что публиковались в печати. См. ru:s:Справка:Что содержит Викитека --Butko (talk) 08:20, 3 April 2026 (UTC)reply
There is no such desire from community, at least definitely not from me. BilboBeggins (talk) 16:04, 3 April 2026 (UTC)reply
Not a Russian speaker, but нет to transferring any bot imports to a new domain. Per WVW, these belong on Wikisource as free third-party text content. Wikinews is supposed to be about original content, ideally original reporting. Dronebogus (talk) 14:44, 3 April 2026 (UTC)reply
As stated by Butko above, Wikisource accepts physical publications only, which users then make transcriptions of. If a news piece never appeared in print, it's not eligible for Wikisource. AtUkr (talk) 16:45, 3 April 2026 (UTC)reply
@ssr, Dimetr, A.Morgunovskaya, Butko, Oleg Yunakov, mitte27, Фред-Продавец звёзд, DonSimon, Lesless, VladimirPF, Artem Korzhimanov, Gryllida, Voltmetro, Byzantine, Vulpo, Iniquity, Iluvatar, Carn, Rampion, Muthota, Андрей Романенко, Taratarussia, Nicoljaus, Schekinov Alexey Victorovich, Niklitov, Erokhin, KabanDanish, Ivtorov, AlinaPolites, Dmitry Rozhkov: a notification for you of the discussion here. Well very well (talk) 07:56, 3 April 2026 (UTC)reply
Очень не люблю, когда мне пингуют из Викиновостей и по поводу Викиновостей. Это одно из моих больших разочарований, я потратил на этот проект время сопостовимое с созданием тысяч статей в Википедии и время это потрачено, как оказалось, впустую. Красоткин, при всех его заслугах, стремился сделать скорее самостоятельный от Википедии проект, я же видел ВН как раздел Википедии, который мог бы освещать события, кои не проходили по значимости в Википедии (скажем уничтожение ОрКешником отдельного жилого дома и гибель одного-двух мирных украинских граждан). Затем Красоткина по довольно мутному предлогу глобально забанили. Знамя лидера подхватил человек с откровенно сортирным хамским лексиконом... После вылитых на меня пары ушатов помоев, я заходил в Викиновости если только случайно. И я приму любое решение сообщества. Это уже не мой проект. Только прошу: не пингуйте мне больше, пожалуйста. Schekinov Alexey Victorovich (talk) 14:24, 3 April 2026 (UTC)reply

Votes

Support Support Sure they should be migrated. @mitte27 has recently done a titanic job in cleaning them up and keeping in that way. Well very well (talk) 21:01, 31 March 2026 (UTC)reply
Support Support. ruWN have a living community, with new articles being written all the time, and it would be great if it continued to exist. Таёжный лес (talk) 06:18, 1 April 2026 (UTC)reply
I also support moving of imported news, especially when thousands of them were already categorized, illustrated and updated with links. Таёжный лес (talk) 18:55, 4 April 2026 (UTC)reply
Support Support Sure they should be migrated. --Vyacheslav84 (talk) 06:52, 2 April 2026 (UTC)reply
Support Support Apparently, it needs to be transferred to Miraheze, and here will remain read only. Demetrius Talpa (talk) 09:48, 2 April 2026 (UTC)reply
Викиновости и Викитека - это разные проекты с разными правилами, которые решают разные задачи. Как минимум понадобится изменение правил, так как в текушей редакции ru:s:Справка:Что содержит Викитека запрещено размещать произведения, не публиковавшиеся в печати. Если мигрировать, то лучше выбрать вики-проект с правилами, схожими с Викиновостями, или создать новый на альтернативной площадке --Butko (talk) 08:34, 3 April 2026 (UTC)reply
Вычеркиваю реплику. Неправильно понял разбивку по секциям. За что голосуем-то в секции "Votes"? --Butko (talk) 08:38, 3 April 2026 (UTC)reply
За переезд Викиновостей на другой хостинг. Или против. Кому как нравится. AtUkr (talk) 16:46, 3 April 2026 (UTC)reply
А куда мигрировать-то? Товарищ Аарон (обс. вклад) 13:19, 3 April 2026 (UTC)reply
Support Support for original content only. I do care about news created by Wikimedians, me included. All the rest is not worth caring. Andrei Romanenko (talk) 21:08, 3 April 2026 (UTC)reply

Serbian Wikinews

This section is for discussing whether and how the Serbian Wikinews (sr.wikinews.org) project may consider migration, including potential destinations, approaches, and timelines. Participants are invited to share their views on whether they support migration, their preferred hosting options (e.g., self-hosted, Miraheze, or other platforms), as well as any concerns, requirements, or suggestions for a potential transition. Please sign your comments and keep discussions constructive and focused.

Discussions

@Djordjes, Laslovarga, MikyM, Milicevic01, Жељко Тодоровић, and نوفاك اتشمان: ^^ --~2026-20532-83 (talk) 07:01, 3 April 2026 (UTC)reply

Votes

Chinese Wikinews

This section is for discussing whether and how the Chinese Wikinews (zh.wikinews.org) project may consider migration, including potential destinations, approaches, and timelines. Participants are invited to share their views on whether they support migration, their preferred hosting options (e.g., self-hosted, Miraheze, or other platforms), as well as any concerns, requirements, or suggestions for a potential transition. Please sign your comments and keep discussions constructive and focused.

本章节用于讨论是否及如何考虑将中文维基新闻（zh.wikinews.org）项目迁移，包括潜在的迁移目标、方法和时间线。我们邀请参与者分享有关其对是否支持迁移、其推荐的存储选项（例如自建网站、Miraheze或其他平台）的看法，以及任何针对潜在迁移的关心、条件或建议。请在您的评论后面签名，并保持讨论具建设性和针对性。

本章節用於討論是否及如何考慮將中文維基新聞（zh.wikinews.org）項目遷移，包括潛在的遷移目標、方法和時間線。我們邀請參與者分享有關其對是否支持遷移、其推薦的存儲選項（例如自建網站、Miraheze或其他平台）的看法，以及任何針對潛在遷移的關心、條件或建議。請在您的評論後面簽名，並保持討論具建設性和針對性。

Discussions

Votes

Current Updates

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