An article in The Independent, a British newspaper, sports the headline "Trump shares fake Wikipedia page calling himself 'Acting President' of Venezuela" (archive). To explain: President Donald Trump, who is, at least, by all accounts President of the United States, posted on his Truth Social media account that he is Acting President of Venezuela. This false announcement is apparently a snub to Delcy Rodriguez, the real fake Acting President of Venezuela.

Rodriguez was the Vice-President of Venezuela under Nicolas Maduro who was removed from office by U.S. troops in a January 3 strike against against Venezuela. Rodriguez was then sworn in as Acting President.

TIME, USA Today, Euronews, the Times of India, Latin Times, China's Global Times and scores of other news outlets covered the story. Almost all noted the similarity of the post to something they've seen on Wikipedia, often calling it "a page". Some viewed the post as "sardonic" or "satire". Some just seemed awe-struck and let their jaws hang.

This is not the first time Trump has caused a brouhaha by posting on Truth Social. In April during the official mourning period for Pope Francis, Trump reposted a picture of himself in papal vestments. In October he posted an AI video of Trump himself dressed as a king, flying a jet fighter and dropping fecal matter on US protestors. – S

Katherine Maher, former CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation and current CEO of NPR, hasn't "brought a tote bag to a knife fight" according to The New York Times. Indeed, the Times calls her "aggressive, refusing to compromise with Congress" while handling multiple crises. She can be "unyielding".

Soon after her 2024 appointment, the right-wing press had called for her ouster after publicizing some of her old tweets. Maher responded that they were her personal tweets from long before she joined NPR and told the Times that "I really don’t like bullies". See prior Signpost coverage

Being CEO of NPR is a difficult job: she is the seventh CEO in the last fifteen years. Furthermore, the last year has been exceptionally difficult with $500 million in funding cut by the federal government, and congressional hearings titled "Anti-American Airwaves: Accountability for the Heads of NPR and PBS." Under Maher NPR even sued the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

She will soon be taking maternity leave. Congratulations, Katherine and keep up the good work. – S

D.F. Lovett on his substack Edit History says he has been contacted by Ovsk Mendov who was "officially banned by the WMF". Mendov tells Lovett that he "recently leaked a massive quantity of sensitive information from WMF wikis and [is] about to release it." If true, this could be a really juicy story, but more likely will lead to him releasing hundreds of pages of the most boring stuff you've ever read. Messages from ticked-off blocked sockpuppets are like that. This story does have a couple of interesting sections however: The unlinked letter from the Foundation's Trust and Safety team blocking Mendov does look authentic and could only have been released, according to WMF rules, by the blocked editor. The other interesting section discusses two websites, Wikipediocracy and "Wikipedia Sucks", which are critical of Wikipedia. Lovett suggests that Wikipediocracy has become too tame and has too many members from Arbcom editing the site to really stay a Wikipedia criticism site. But (again according to him), Wikipedia Sucks has kept the faith and is still dishing out the real stuff, not that I recommend it. – S

Eesti Rahvusringhääling (ERR), Estonia's government supported public broadcasting organization, states that "Estonian volunteers [are] struggling to protect [English] Wikipedia from Russian propaganda". It's a bit more complicated than that, but ERR's source, the newspaper Digigeenius (in Estonian and partially paywalled) wrote three articles on the topic over eight days in some detail.

At first glance, the Estonian position looks weak: The Estonian editors on English Wikipedia have been trying to maintain an earlier status quo that listed the birthplace of Estonians born from 1940-1991 as simply Estonia, but other, presumably Russian, editors were changing this to Estonian SSR, USSR. From 1940-1941 and 1944-1991 births in the area of Estonia were recorded by the government of the Estonian SSR. From 1942-1944 the area was controlled by the Nazi German army. The 1940 Soviet takeover followed quickly after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact when the Soviets and Nazis secretly divided eastern Europe into Soviet and German spheres of influence. Estonia's argument is that the occupation and annexation of Estonia was illegal and it was never agreed to by the Estonians.

ERR quotes Ronald Liive from Digigeenius who calls the birthplace campaign "mass manipulation on an industrial scale." (Summaries of ERR text added by The Signpost in parentheses)

"A single user has systematically altered nearly 600 profiles of prominent Estonians. From EU High Representative Kaja Kallas and WRC champion Ott Tänak to supermodel Carmen Kass."

"Their birthplaces were forcibly changed to 'Estonian SSR, Soviet Union.' This is not a technical correction; it is a deliberate attempt to erase the legal continuity of the Republic of Estonia. In one instance, this user spent 21 hours and 40 minutes straight redacting Estonian history."

(When Estonian volunteers tried to change the articles, they were banned for "pushing a nationalistic narrative.")

"Meanwhile, articles like Kaja Kallas's have been locked in their distorted pro-Kremlin state, preventing further factual corrections."

(Liive noted similar issues with the Estonian War of Independence, which he said is being "redefined.")

"In several key articles 'defensive campaign' has been replaced with offensive campaign. Estonia's birth is being framed as 'separatism from Russia,' aligning perfectly with modern imperialist rhetoric.

Although Wikipedia favors simple facts over ideological interpretations, considering this, the case for the Estonians now looks much stronger. Several RfCs at the Manual of style on how to record the birthplaces were closed as "no consensus" but several admins interpret that as meaning Estonia SSR should be used. The obvious compromise of listing the birthplaces as "Estonia under Russian occupation" was suggested but ignored by both sides.

One additional oddity: How does one person edit for over 20 hours straight? User:Glebushko0703, who signs his posts on en.Wiki with Gigman, added many Estonian SSR edits and did indeed put in several 20+ hour days making manual edits, on several topics (not all on Estonian biographies) and also just copying and pasting Estonian SSR, USSR into biographies. He is also an editor of the Russian Wikipedia, with 210 edits, where he edits about the days of the calendar year and sites around Moscow. On his en.Wiki user page he accuses Robert Treufeldt, a board member of the Estonian Wikimedia Chapter, of insulting him on Estonian national television. – S

"Provisional Bondi Truths: Containment, Power, and the Struggle to Name Palestine on Wikipedia", published at countercurrents.org, looks at a number of issues that came up at the English Wikipedia in 2025. Among several intriguing insights about Wikipedia are these:

"[L]ong-standing governance logic on Wikipedia [is] most visible in Israel/Palestine coverage, where politically charged topics are managed through timing, attribution, and deferral — determining not only what may be stated, but when claims become speakable and whose framing is allowed to appear as neutral knowledge.

and

Official statements are elevated to anchor the framing; structural or contextual analysis is pushed downward; contested interpretations are withheld pending "further verification." The lead language contracts to what carries the least procedural risk, even when that narrowing strips the event of the structural context that gives it meaning.

– B

• Wikipedia's upcoming 25th birthday is the subject of a 33 minute podcast from ABC (Australia). It is a friendly, relaxed review of Wikipedia's 25 years of progress with Taha Yasseri, a sociologist and professor of technology from Trinity College Dublin. Yasseri also says he was an early Wikipedian (at about 8 minutes 25 seconds).
• Jimbo's book tour seems to be wrapping up. WOSU-FM, the NPR station at The Ohio State University has an 16 minute interview with Jimbo about his book and, of course, Wikipedia.
• Three Wikipedia experts: Stephen Harrison (author), Amy Bruckman (Georgia Tech), and Annie Rauwerda (Depths of Wikipedia) discuss Wikipedia on Connecticut Public Radio Colin McEnroe Show podcast [1]
• 15 dead on Chanukah: The Jewish News Syndicate says that Wikipedia editors should call the Bondi Beach massacre "terrorism". While the body of the text now uses the words "terror" and "terrorism" almost exclusively, after four RfC's the article is still named 2025 Bondi Beach shooting.
• Dr. Doom demands deletion of damaging deets: Peter Schiff "accused Wikipedia and its editors of refusing to correct what he described as false and damaging claims on his biography page", according to crypto blog ccn.com and Yahoo Finance's partner content version.
• "Nasty freelance editors" "deleted my wiki" bemoans Marc Coppola on WSRW (AM). Coppola is known for being part of the Coppola family and becoming a fairly well known radio DJ in parts of America.
• Echoes of ANI lawsuit?: "Wikipedia Changes Entries On Indian News Channels After Report Points To Bias" (ABP News). The report suggests that editors' sensitivity to neutrality in descriptions of Indian media is due to the ANI case against Wikimedia Foundation that was the subject of a ruling by the country's Supreme Court (see prior Signpost coverage).