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  "textContent": "Six Serbian Wikipedia editors banned following controversy about political bias: Plus, new bans for AI-generated content in place, a new drop in active admins, pranks on pranks, May admin election, and other news from the Wikimedia world.\n\n← Back to Contents\n\nView Latest Issue\n\n21 April 2026\n\n\n\n\n\nFile:Wikimedia Serbia 2008-12-20 4.jpg\n\nDjordje Stakić\n\nCC 3.0 BY-SA\n\n50\n\n400\n\nNews and notes\n\n## Six Serbian Wikipedia editors banned following controversy about political bias\n\nContribute —\n\nShare this\n\n  * PDF\ndownload\n  * E-mail\n  * Mastodon\n  * LinkedIn\n  * Facebook\n  * X (Twitter)\n  * Bluesky\n  * Reddit\n\n\n\nBy Bluerasberry, Bri and Oltrepier\n\nSerbian Wikipedians celebrate the 20th birthday of their local version of the encyclopedia in Belgrade, February 2023\n\n###  Six Serbian Wikipedia editors are globally banned from Wikimedia projects following controversy over reported political bias\n\nSerbian Wikipedia uses Cyrillic alphabet and is mutually understandable with Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia and Croatian Wikipedia\n\nOn March 30, 2026, the Wikimedia Foundation decided to \napply a global ban to a group of users who were administrators and highly active editors on the Serbian Wikipedia, with some of those being active in other Wikimedia projects, as well. Serbian magazine _Vreme_ reported the news, and reached out for further comments to fellow sr.wiki admin and Wikimedia Serbia board member Filip Maljković – known as dungodung on-wiki.\n\nAt least six users received a global ban, including:\n\n  * Sadko (an admin and bureaucrat on sr.wiki, who had already been \npermanently blocked from the Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia and temporarily restrained from editing articles related to Eastern Europe on the English Wikipedia)\n  * CarRadovan (admin and bureaucrat on sr.wiki)\n  * MareBG (admin on sr.wiki)\n  * Боки\n  * Ruach Chayim\n  * НиколаБ\n\n\n\nCroatian Wikipedia uses Gaj's Latin alphabet\n\nAn anonymous tipster who is an experienced editor of Serbian Wikipedia told _The Signpost_ that the six banned users are not apparently connected to one another, and they did not appear to act as a coordinated political group. While external media mostly interpreted the action as a Wikimedia Foundation ban on an ultra-nationalist cohort, at a first glance this group contains a mix of supporters of the Serbian government, and opponents of it, and even people who had a fairly apolitical editorial history. _The Signpost_ has no editorial capacity to interview, explore, read on-wiki discussions, or further investigate. However, there are a few public reactions available on the Serbian Wikipedia:\n\n  * Global Ban admin Sr.wiki; Serbian Wikipedia Administrator Noticeboard, 30 March 2026\n  * Banned user's user\nrights; Meta-Wiki Wikimedia Foundation Desk, April 2026\n  * Initial draft for an Open Letter to the Wikimedia Foundation (English) (Serbian); Serbian Wikipedia, proposed on 1 April 2026 and still under discussion\n\n\n\nThe Wikimedia Foundation Trust and Safety\nteam published the 2021 Croatian Wikipedia disinformation assessment by an anonymous external expert\n\nAs per the WMF Global Ban Policy, global bans from the WMF \"are considered a last resort and are generally implemented upon receipt of complaint, investigation, extensive review and explicit approval by several Foundation staff members\", in order to protect the community and in response to serious violations of their Terms of Use; however, the banning process itself does not automatically indicate any kind of guilt or wrongdoing. Moreover, in contrast with other user-generated content platforms and social media, user account contributions on Wikimedia projects remain fully accessible for examination.\n\nAs usual for WMF bans, there is no public case evaluation nor explanation, and Maljković told _Vreme_ that neither he, nor Wikimedia Serbia, have any information about how the bans took place. However, it is likely that this decision has been influenced by ongoing controversy about coordinated efforts to promote right-wing bias, nationalist views and historical revisionism on the Serbian Wikipedia. The 2013\nMeta-Wiki request for comment on Croatian Wikipedia raised concerns about far-right propaganda on the Croatian Wikipedia, similarly leading to a number of global bans and even an\nindependent report by the WMF itself.\n\nThat is the news; now, let's provide some more context on how local projects in this area of the Balkans work. Serbo-Croatian is its own main language; both Serbs and Croats understand it, but Serbs mainly speak Serbian (written in Serbian Cyrillic alphabet), whereas Croats generally speak Croatian (written in Gaj's Latin alphabet). Wikimedia projects have four different local versions – Serbian Wikipedia, Croatian Wikipedia, Bosnian Wikipedia, and Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia – which are 90% mutually understandable among the roughly 20 million speakers of these languages. Due to reasons such as the off-wiki social tension that is still stemming from the Yugoslav Wars, users of those communities have often found it challenging to uphold the civility and editorial standards that some other Wikimedia communities have achieved.\n\nUnrelated to this story, here is Tara National Park in Serbia. This photo is from the Wiki Loves\nEarth campaign.\n\n_The Signpost_ has covered parts of this story from an English Wikipedia community perspective over the years:\n\n  * \"Fascists running the Croatian Wikipedia?\" by Andreas Kolbe and Go Phightins!, 2013\n  * \"The Curious Case of Croatian Wikipedia\" by GregorB, 2019\n  * \"Croatian Wikipedia: capture and release\" by Smallbones, 2021\n  * \"Croatian takeover was enabled by 'lack of bureaucratic openness and rules constraining admins'\" by Bri and Tilman Bayer, 2024\n\n\n\nThe aforementioned 2021 report for the Wikimedia Foundation acknowledged that the Serbian Wikipedia, which currently hosts over 713,000 articles and has just 11 active admins, was also susceptible to nationalist bias and historical revisionism. The authors of the academic paper noted by _The Signpost_ in 2024 asserted that a \"cabal [of nationalist editors] seized complete control of the governance of the [Croatian] encyclopedia\" through administrative actions such as bans and blocks and \"operated a network of fake accounts\", i.e. sockpuppets, to retain control.\n\nSome recent news sources have tried to interpret the Wikipedia happenings. A 2024 inquiry published by _Vreme_ questioned the adherence of sr.wiki to neutrality policies, while highlighting several examples of articles that were seemingly influenced by nationalist rhetoric and revisionism, particularly in relation to the Yugoslav Wars and the war crimes committed during them. Another investigation published in 2025 by Belgrade-based magazine _Radar_ also raised concerns about political bias within editorial practices, noting how pages involving the ongoing anti-corruption protests in the country reportedly included language and framing aligned with pro-government narratives.\n\nAn anonymous user contacted by _Vreme_ stated that the global bans are \"a huge success for freedom of knowledge and opinion\" and that the Serbian Wikipedia was used as a tool to \"spread radicalism\", while also acknowledging that \"a lot of work is still needed to repair the damage\". Thanks to all the local Wikimedia community members and native speakers who contributed tips, context, and explanations to _The Signpost_. As is often the case with this newspaper, contributors asked to remain anonymous citing their safety. Anyone who knows more and who wants to speak about this matter is invited to make an article submission for future publication. – BR, O, B\n\n###  Wikipedia introduces a wide ban on AI-generated article content, with two significant exceptions\n\nFollowing months of lengthy discussions within the community, on March 20 Wikipedia officially updated their policy on writing articles with large language models, effectively banning the use of LLMs to write or expand articles, bar a few exceptions. The news was first reported by _404 Media_ (free subscription required, followed by _The Guardian_ (at this link), CNET (here) and _PC Magazine_ (here), among others.\n\nFollowing the update, the policy now states as follows:\n\n> Text generated by large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, DeepSeek, or Grammarly often violates several of Wikipedia's core content policies. For this reason, **the use of LLMs to generate or rewrite article content is prohibited** , save for these two exceptions:\n>\n>   1. Editors are permitted to use LLMs to suggest basic copyedits to their own writing, and to incorporate some of them after human review, provided the LLM does not introduce content of its own. Caution is required, because LLMs can go beyond what is asked of them and can change the meaning of the text such that it is not supported by the sources cited.\n>   2. Editors are permitted to use LLMs to translate articles from another language's Wikipedia into the English Wikipedia, but must follow the guidance laid out at Wikipedia:LLM-assisted translation.\n>\n\n\nThe encyclopedia and its editors have had quite a rocky relationship with AI for a while now: back in June 2025, the Web Team decided to suspend a proposed trial that would have introduced AI-generated summaries on the top of Wikipedia articles, following widespread backlash from the community. Then, in October of the same year, an official WMF report highlighted a worrying decline in traffic on Wikipedia pages due to \"the impact of generative AI and social media\".\n\nAs per the final RfC on the matter, discussions have been in place since December 2025 RfC about replacing WP:NEWLLM with a new policy that would focus on limiting large-scale, disruptive use of LLMs to generate new content, in order to allow volunteers to save time from further clean-up activities and prevent new users from adding hallucinated sources or other policy-violating content, while also protecting users from unfair accuses. The RfC, first opened by user Chaotic Enby to bring forward  a proposal made by fellow user Kowal2701, received SNOW-like consensus towards approval of the amendments, which have now been fully applied to the policy. – O, B\n\n###  Active administrator count hits a new low\n\nIn prior _Signpost_ coverage, we discussed the declining number of active administrators:\n\n\n\n  * 2019-07-31 (first time under 500 active administrators)\n  * 2019-12-27 first time under 500 for a month\n  * 2023-01-01 first time under 500 for a year\n  * 2023-10-23 first time under 450\n  * 2023-12-04 more records in the 440s\n  * 2024-03-29 another new record: 441\n  * 2024-07-04 more records in the 430s\n  * 2024-07-22 another new record: 430\n  * 2024-09-04 another new record: 427\n  * 2024-09-26 another new record: 419\n  * 2024-10-19 another new record: 418\n\n\n\nFor a time, it looked like the number was stabilizing, perhaps due to the influx of administrators via the administrator elections process around the time of the last _Signpost_ report. However, the number has been declining with this month seeing a drastic drop. Several active administrators low records were set, now down to 411 \nreported by the tally bot as of writing deadline. – B\n\n### Brief notes\n\n_CIA World Factbook_ : no more in print, no more CD editions, no more on the World Wide Web\n\n  * **Blink twice** : The Associated Press's \"eulogy for the CIA Factbook\" has something to say about a resource that has been used in many Wikipedia articles and will only be available electronically through the Internet Archive or other similar archival sites – courtesy of Simon Willison's tricks – going forward (libraries may have the printed edition that was issued until 2017). The CIA itself published a brief going-away statement.\n  * **Prank Galore on April Fools' Day** : In honor of Wikipedia's 25th birthday, users have outdone themselves while creating pranks for the latest April Fools' Day, including a VPP to redo en.wiki as Esperanto and an RfA to give a second mop to an already established administrator. If you do not believe it, you can have a look at the full list on this page. Enjoy!\n\n\n\nJoin the The Core Contest!\n\n  * **Wiki for International Students** : Wiki for International Students is a special meet-up in English for international students and expats based in Milan, Italy, which will be held at Spazio Macchi, near the Milano Centrale station, on April 18, 2026. The event is free, but reservations will be required to join in: more information is available on the Meta\npage for the event.\n  * **Milestones** : The following Wikimedia projects have reached milestones through the first months of 2026:\n    * 1,000 articles: Jju Wikipedia, Nawat/Pipil Wikipedia, Igala Wikipedia, Tsonga Wikipedia, Cheyenne Wikipedia, Karai-karai Wikipedia\n    * 2,000 articles: Mon Wikipedia\n    * 5,000 articles: Lingala Wikipedia\n    * 20,000 articles: Sindhi Wikipedia\n    * 50,000 articles: Volapük Wikipedia\n  * **Articles for Improvement** : This week's Article for Improvement is Rainmaking (starting from 13 April), followed by Minibus (from 20 April onwards). Please be bold in helping improve this article!\n  * **Headed to the core** : The Core Contest (April 15 through May 31) is a short, intensive competition where participants focus on improving Wikipedia's most important articles, particularly those in the worst state of disrepair. Most of the articles targeted for improvement are vital articles.\n  * **Administrator elections in May** : The May 2026 Administrator elections are scheduled to run from April 29 to May 19. Call for candidates will happen between April 29 to May 5, followed by a discussion phase and ending with a voting phase between May 13 and 19. Interested editors are welcome to apply to be an adminstrator!\n\n\n\n← Previous \"News and notes\"\n\nIn this issue\n\n21 April 2026 (all comments)\n\n\n  * News and notes\n  * In the media\n  * Gallery\n  * Traffic report\n  * Comix\n\n\n\n\n+ Add a comment\n\n## Discuss this story\n\nTo follow comments, \nadd the page to your watchlist. If your comment has not appeared here, you can try \npurging the\ncache.\n\nNo comments yet. Yours could be the first!\n\n\n+ Add a comment\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nGet the latest headlines on your user page – just add {{Signpost-subscription}}.\n\nHome\n\nAbout\n\nArchives\n\nNewsroom\n\nSubscribe\n\n\nSuggestions",
  "title": "Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2026-04-21/News and notes"
}