Meet the Wikimedians of the Year 2026! – Diff

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This year we celebrate 25 years of Wikipedia. It is not only a celebration of knowledge, but of the humans, who made it possible. Passionate fact collectors, conscientious citation checkers, enthusiastic organizers, patient patrollers, engaged article writers – it takes all of them, and more, to make the wonder happen.

So this year, once again, we celebrate the people behind the projects. The beloved Wikimedian of The Year awards shine the light on exceptional individuals, and through them, on the whole Wikimedia community. Presented by the Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales, the awards honor Wikimedians in the Laureate category for longtime editors and pillars of our movement, the newly created Community Connector category for those who link people, roles, and corners of the wikiverse, and the central Wikimedian of the Year category, alongside the Honorary Mentions.

As we celebrate those individuals, we salute everyone around the world, who day after day comes to our projects to add a citation, share a fact, fix a typo, create an article, revert vandalism, build a script, or organize a campaign. This wonder is yours.

Without further ado, we present the 2026 Wikimedian of the Year winners:

The Wikimedian of the Year: Jules*

This year, as Wikimania comes to Paris, we celebrate one of the trusted editors who keep French Wikipedia reliable. Jules* is the 2026 Wikimedian of the Year, a longtime editor entrusted by his peers to keep the encyclopedia reliable, and someone who has made a lasting mark on its integrity.

He began his Wikipedia journey in 2010 with editing articles about his hometown and a beloved TV series. Those first, “clumsy” edits, as he called them, received a warm welcome from other editors, so he decided to stay. Now, he has almost 400,000 edits to date.

Almost exactly a year to the day after he started editing, the community entrusted him with additional rights—the extra tools that let experienced editors help maintain Wikipedia’s quality and security. Jules* became deeply involved in project maintenance because he cares a lot about Wikipedia’s dedication to reliable, neutral and verifiable knowledge. Much of his time goes to reverting vandalisms, improving new contributions, helping newcomers, fighting undisclosed paid editing, and responding to community requests for help.

As an author, Jules* focuses on the topic of climate change. He approaches each article in true Wikimedian fashion—gathering good quality sources and verifying facts. A single article can take him several months to write. He is especially proud of his articles about the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report or the Charney Report.

What gives him joy, he says, is "being part of something bigger than me, or than us, in fact trying to give access to knowledge to everyone, which is somehow a tool for human peace and welfare."

But life is not all Wikipedia. Jules also loves hiking, and is interested in trains—he even used to drive one!

Congratulations, Jules and thank you for all that you are doing!

Wikimedia Laureate: Dreamyshade

Wikipedia turns 25 this year, and so we knew we had to celebrate someone who has been here almost from the very beginning. Dreamyshade started editing the same year Wikipedia itself came to life, in 2001, and she has been a dedicated editor ever since.

At first, Wikipedia was a fun and productive way to procrastinate doing homework. Then it became an important part of Dreamyshade’s life. Today she has more than 13,500 edits on English Wikipedia alone, and has mentored many new Wikimedians at events in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work is all about quality: she likes to take an article in poor shape, fix it, and move on to the next. She cares especially about verifiability and has a talent for catching fake citations: references to sites that present themselves as reliable but aren’t.

Like many Wikipedians, her story began with a realization that something was missing, and that she might be able to fix it. A young and aspiring harpist, she went looking for an article about the harp, and when she couldn’t find one, she wrote it herself. Her other early articles included a browser game and entries on boy bands. That other editors took her work seriously, rather than dismissing it due to her age, was really meaningful for her.

Despite editing almost every single month for the last 25 years, she is still not done: “I really feel like my best work is ahead of me”, she says.

For Dreamyshade, Wikipedia is a great source of joy and meaning. “With every contribution, I help prove the value of this deeply human, collaborative, altruistic, global, nonprofit project. I help other curious people learn things! I get to be part of something that is flexible, meaningful, fascinating, and challenging”, she says.

Her advice is very simple: contribute long-term, try different ways of contributing, and if needed—take breaks and come back. She also...