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    "Web accessibility",
    "Wikimedia Hackathon 2026",
    "WCAG 2.2",
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    "Wikimedia Enterprise",
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    "cross-lingual analysis of image accessibility across 108 Wikipedia\nlanguage editions finding that, on average, only around 10% of\nimages had alt-text",
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  "textContent": "Italian wikimedians discussing web accessibility at the Wikimedia Hackathon 2026\n\n\nWeb accessibility is not merely a technical feature. It is a prerequisite for truly free knowledge. During the recent **\nWikimedia Hackathon 2026** , held in Milan, we came together as a dedicated group hailing from Italy to confront a quiet yet persistent issue: the barriers that prevent visually-impaired individuals from fully engaging with Wikipedia and its sister projects.\n\nThus, **Valcio** , **Daimona Eaytoy** , and **Piergiovanna Grossi (WMIT)** led the unconference session **“Wikipedia for Everyone: Closing the Accessibility Gap”** , which served as both a wake-up call and a collaborative workshop. By examining how community-made templates and interface elements often fail our users, we aimed to transition from identifying problems to building sustainable solutions.\n\nThis is a short recap for those who missed it.\n\n## The Reality of the Digital Barrier\n\nHome page for MediaWiki Accessibility Checker\n\nThe session opened with a candid look at the current state of our interfaces. While MediaWiki provides a robust foundation, years of community-driven customisation have inadvertently introduced many accessibility violations. Key issues discussed included:\n\n  * **Missing Alt-Text:** Images essential for understanding content often lack descriptions or alternative text which is readable by screen readers, assistive technologies that read out graphic content to visually impaired users.\n  * **The “HTML Wall”:** Many tables and templates lack proper semantic markup, forcing text-to-speech tools to read out raw code rather than structured information.\n  * **Contrast and Colour:** Numerous gadgets and banners still fall short of the WCAG 2.2 AA (a web-accessibility standard) minimum contrast ratios, rendering them invisible to users with colour blindness or low vision.\n\n\n\n## Measuring Missing Alt-Text\n\nThe unconference session also sparked a small follow-up experiment. **CristianCantoro** set out to measure how widespread the issue of missing alt-text is on Italian Wikipedia and Lombard Wikipedia, combining the Wikipedia HTML\ndumps provided by Wikimedia Enterprise with the XML\ndumps published by the Wikimedia Foundation. The initial results confirm the scale of the challenge: **more than 90% of images** used in Italian and Lombard Wikipedia articles **lack alternative text**.\n\nThis is not an isolated finding. In 2023, a team of researchers from Stanford University and Google Research presented a \ncross-lingual analysis of image accessibility across 108 Wikipedia\nlanguage editions finding that, on average, only around 10% of\nimages had alt-text. This research was presented at the 2023 edition of the Wiki\nWorkshop.\n\nThese numbers are a reminder that missing alt-text is still an open and large-scale challenge across languages. If we want Wikipedia to be truly open to everyone, we need better tools, workflows, and community practices to help editors add alt-text and meaningful descriptions to images.\n\n## From Discussion to Action: The MediaWiki Accessibility Checker\n\nLogo for MediaWiki Accessibility Checker\n\nTo move from awareness to action, one of the session participants — **Super nabla** from the Indic MediaWiki Developers User Group — built a concrete solution during the hackathon itself. The tool, available on Toolforge, assists editors and developers in meeting accessibility standards: the **\nMediaWiki Accessibility Checker**. Try it out: https://accessibility-checker.toolforge.org/\n\nBuilt on the industry-standard axe-core engine and Playwright, the tool is specifically adapted for the MediaWiki ecosystem. It allows editors and developers to (i) perform deep audits (queryable both from the frontend interface as well as from a dedicated RESTful API) based on WCAG 2.2 AA (and other standards) on any wiki URL, including project pages; (ii) generate professional reports in multiple formats, including PDF and Wikitext for easy sharing on-wiki; (iii) utilise a modern interface designed with the Wikimedia Codex design system, ensuring a seamless experience for contributors.\n\nThis tool represents a small yet important step forward in democratising accessibility auditing, allowing gadget authors — even those without formal expertise — to identify and rectify errors before they impact our readers.\n\n## A Legacy of “Wikiricci” and Community Care\n\nDaimona Eaytoy with the WikiRiccio\n\nThe roots of this technical collaboration extend back to 2018 at \nitWikiCon in Como (Italy), where the “Officina” (the Italian Wikipedia’s technical project) was honoured for its quiet, essential labour, carried out by the _smanettoni_ (hackers) — the tinkerers and wizards who operate behind the scenes to ensure the platform’s gears continue to turn. This community recognition is personified by the _Wikiriccio_ (wiki hedgehog), a physical trophy whose travel history has become something of a legendary saga within the Italian community. Traditionally held in rotation, after years of near-misses, it finally found its way to Daimona Eaytoy during this hackathon, reminding us that accessibility work is also about human connections and shared care.\n\nFor us, this light-hearted tradition and award serve as a reminder: behind every accessibility tool or interface fix is a human connection, a shared community-based vision and history, and a commitment to “making the shop run” for the benefit of all users.\n\n## Next Steps and Community Involvement\n\nThe hackathon session was only the beginning. The outcomes of our session are being synthesised into a \nformal proposal in the Italian Wikipedia and a Phabricator task to help standardise CSS custom properties and automated linting workflows.\n\nYet, technology alone cannot solve a cultural challenge. We invite all UI/UX designers, developers, and experienced wiki-editors to join the effort. Whether you are improving the alt text on a high-traffic policy page or helping modernise an old template, your contribution ensures that Wikipedia remains truly accessible, enabling everyone to share in the sum of all knowledge.\n\nA special thanks to the hackathon organisers and all the participants who shared their lived experiences; your insights are what drive these technical improvements forward.",
  "title": "Wikis for Everyone: Bridging the Accessibility Gap at the 2026\nHackathon"
}