Between the Brackets: a MediaWiki Podcast

A podcast about the people and ideas behind the MediaWiki software. Interviews with developers and users of MediaWiki, both for Wikimedia sites (Wikipedia, Wikidata, etc.) and the many uses of MediaWiki in companies, organizations, governments and personal uses. Credits: audio production done via the Audacity software; theme music performed by Victor Noriega.

Episode 162: Viktor Schelling 05/07/2024

Episode 162: Viktor Schelling 🕑 1 hour 3 minutes Viktor Schelling is the Senior Principal MediaWiki Developer at Pegasystems. Links for some of the topics discussed: Wikipedia article MediaWiki extension /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/31175482

Episode 161: Moritz Schubotz 04/25/2024

Episode 161: Moritz Schubotz 🕑 1 hour 28 minutes Dr. Moritz Schubotz (developer username Physikerwelt) is head of research at the mathematics department at FIZ Karlsruhe – Leibniz Institute for Information Infrastructure. He is the author or co-author of the MediaWiki extensions Math and MathSearch, and the Mathoid application, among others. Links for some of the topics discussed: MediaWiki extension MediaWiki extension Wikipedia article Wikipedia article (Wikibase instance) /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/30983668

Episode 160: Megan Cutrofello 04/09/2024

Episode 160: Megan Cutrofello 🕑 1 hour 43 minutes Megan Cutrofello, better known as River, returns to the podcast. She is a freelance wiki developer who has worked with Gamepedia, Fandom and wiki.gg, among others. Links for some of the topics discussed: (2023 Reddit thread) blog /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/30753283

Episode 159: BTB Digest 25 03/26/2024

Episode 159: BTB Digest 25 🕑 21 minutes It's a BTB Digest episode! Hear clips from five recent episodes. Steve Schneider describes his remarkably AI-centered approach to teaching, Birgit Müller boasts about her team's success in improving code review, Srishti Sethi considers the usefulness of developer outreach programs, Alan Ang lists the steps in getting a knowledge base onto Wikidata, Guillaume Coulombe compares MediaWiki expertise to martial arts, and more! /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/30548783

Episode 158: Taavi Väänänen 03/12/2024

Episode 158: Taavi Väänänen 🕑 38 minutes Taavi Väänänen is a site reliability engineer in the Wikimedia Cloud Services team at the Wikimedia Foundation. In 2022, when he was still just a volunteer contributor, he was named Tech Contributor of the Year by Jimmy Wales. Links for some of the topics discussed: Wikipedia article /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/30340403

Episode 157: Jeffrey Wang 02/27/2024

Episode 157: Jeffrey Wang 🕑 1 hour 28 minutes Jeffrey Wang returns to the podcast to talk about his new-ish job at Microsoft, his much older job as head of MyWikis, the upcoming MediaWiki conference, AI, and various other things. Some of the topics discussed: (2022 blog post) (Runtime article) (talk by Jeffrey at EMWCon Spring 2023) /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/30135938

Episode 156: Guillaume Coulombe 02/13/2024

Episode 156: Guillaume Coulombe 🕑 1 hour 9 minutes Guillaume Coulombe is the head of Procédurable, a process consulting company with a focus on open source software and open data, and an even more specific focus on MediaWiki. Links for some of the topics discussed: (2012 paper by Régis Barondeau) /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/29936788

Episode 155: Alan Ang and Kris Litson 01/30/2024

Episode 155: Alan Ang and Kris Litson 🕑 1 hour 13 minutes Alan Ang and Kris Litson (pictured, left to right) are both employees at Wikimedia Deutschland, the German Wikimedia chapter: Alan is a partner manager for Wikidata, while Kris is head of software communications. The two are both involved in evangelism for both Wikidata and its backend software, Wikibase. Links for some of the topics discussed: on Wikipedia (includes contact email address) /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/29717708

Episode 154: Srishti Sethi 01/16/2024

Episode 154: Srishti Sethi 🕑 52 minutes Srishti Sethi (also known as SrishAkaTux) is a developer advocate in the Language Team at the Wikimedia Foundation. Prior to the mass reorganization at the Wikimedia Foundation in summer 2023, she was part of the Technical Engagement team. Links for some of the topics discussed: (December 2023 blog post) (June 2023 blog post) /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/29511118

Episode 153: BTB Digest 24 01/02/2024

Episode 153: BTB Digest 24 🕑 23 minutes It's another BTB Digest! Highlights from five recent episodes. Bryan Hilderbrand considers the future of scientific publishing, Jan Ainali thinks about solutions for Wikidata's messiness, Tricia Burmeister recounts the challenges of changing a wiki's front page, Ilias Sarantopoulos praises the new Lift Wing software, Alissa Stern explains how her wiki became a communications hub for the people of Bali, and more! /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/29309233

Episode 152: Year in review with William Beutler 12/19/2023

Episode 152: Year in review with William Beutler 🕑 1 hour 8 minutes It's not quite a holiday episode, but it is an end-of-year wrapup, featuring William Beutler, strategic marketing consultant and author of the blog , which went on hiatus in 2020 and is now thankfully back. William shares some of the stories that he's working on for his "Top 10 Wikipedia Stories of 2023" feature (his first year-in-review in three years!), and we reminisce on the past year, in both the Wikimedia universe and the tech world in general. /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/29148898

Episode 151: Birgit Müller 12/06/2023

Episode 151: Birgit Müller 🕑 55 minutes Birgit Müller is the Director of Product for MediaWiki and Developer Experiences at the Wikimedia Foundation. Before that, she was Director of Technical Engagement. From 2014 to 2019, she worked at Wikimedia Deutschland. Links for some of the topics discussed: on mediawiki.org - includes statistics about review time improvements /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/28961918

Episode 150: Steve Schneider 11/21/2023

Episode 150: Steve Schneider 🕑 1 hour 52 minutes Steve Schneider is a professor of information design at the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute (SUNY Poly). He currently teaches a class, Digital Media and Information in Society, whose coursework is managed via Wikiversity and Wiki Edu, and also involves the use of ChatGPT by both teacher and students. Links for some of the topics discussed: (WikiConference North America 2023 talk) course on Wikiversity on Wikiversity Wikipedia article Wikipedia article (has included a "possibly generated by LLM" warning since July 2023) /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/28741143

Episode 149: Alissa Stern 11/08/2023

Episode 149: Alissa Stern 🕑 1 hour 5 minutes Alissa Stern founded the organization BASAbali (later renamed BASAibu) in 2011, and the BASAbali Wiki in 2014. The BASAbali Wiki was originally intended to serve only as a dictionary for the Balinese language, but it has since grown to become a general communication hub for the Balinese community. Links for some of the topics discussed: (February 2023 blog post, Bali Discovery) /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/28550498

Episode 148: Ilias Sarantopoulos 10/24/2023

Episode 148: Ilias Sarantopoulos 🕑 1 hour 4 minutes Ilias Sarantopoulos is a Senior Machine Learning Operations Engineer at the Wikimedia Foundation. He has been at the WMF since 2022. Links for some of the topics discussed: (The New York Times Magazine article, July 2023) /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/28410251

Episode 147: Tricia Burmeister 09/26/2023

Episode 147: Tricia Burmeister 🕑 1 hour 23 minutes Tricia Burmeister is a senior technical writer at the Wikimedia Foundation, and part of the (relatively new) WMF Technical Documentation Team. Links for some of the topics discussed: /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/28149656

Episode 146: BTB Digest 23 09/13/2023

Episode 146: BTB Digest 23 🕑 21 minutes Clips from five recent episodes! Danielle Batson thinks about the future of genealogy, Ike Hecht considers the effect of AI on software, Tom Harriman describes the contents of Nuclepedia, Rita Ho praises the Content Translation tool, Allan Lim talks about becoming an amateur archaelogist, and more! /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/28022853

Episode 145: Jan Ainali 08/29/2023

Episode 145: Jan Ainali 🕑 60 minutes Jan Ainali is a codebase steward for the Foundation for Public Code. On the side, he's an all-around Wikimedia editor, enthusiast and evangelist, with a special focus on Wikidata. He co-founded the Wikimedia Sverige chapter, co-created the Wikidata-based online resource Govdirectory, and co-hosts the (mostly Swedish-language) podcast WikipediaPodden, and that's not even everything! Links for some of the topics discussed: Wikipedia article (with Tim Berners-Lee quote) Foundation for Public Code's /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/27881382

Episode 144: Bryan Hilderbrand 08/15/2023

Episode 144: Bryan Hilderbrand 🕑 1 hour 16 minutes Bryan Hilderbrand, MediaWiki consultant of TeGnosis and WikiWorks fame, is back on the podcast to talk about weighty matters like the future of science, the nature of truth, and whether periods need one or two spaces after them. Links for some of the topics discussed: (WikiConference North America 2022 talk) (2021 San Francisco Chronicle article) Wikipedia article Wikipedia article (Wikimania 2023 talk) /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/27762852

Episode 143: Allan Lim 08/01/2023

Episode 143: Allan Lim 🕑 1 hour 14 minutes Allan Lim is the founder of the wiki Beyond Angkor, which maps the locations of temples and other sites from the Khmer Empire, in modern-day Cambodia and surrounding countries. Links for some of the topics discussed: Wikipedia article Wikipedia article (June 2023 article in The Phnom Penh Post) /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/27626676

Episode 142: Rita Ho 07/18/2023

Episode 142: Rita Ho 🕑 1 hour 12 minutes Rita Ho is the senior groups design manager at the Wikimedia Foundation. She was formerly a member of the Growth Team, and is still actively involved in growth-related projects. Links for some of the topics discussed: (slideshow) feature (May 2023; includes analysis of Suggested edits) tool project MediaWiki extension project /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/27500376

Episode 141: Tom Harriman 07/04/2023

Episode 141: Tom Harriman 🕑 1 hour 17 minutes Tom Harriman is a senior learning project manager at the technical training center of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). He runs the NRC's wiki, Nuclepedia. Links for some of the topics discussed: Wikipedia article "" (EMWCon Spring 2020 talk, YouTube) Wikipedia article /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/27367254

Episode 140: BTB Digest 22 06/21/2023

Episode 140: BTB Digest 22 🕑23 minutes It's a BTB Digest episode! Anton Krom thinks back to abandoning SharePoint in favor of MediaWiki, Bryan Hilderbrand finds a role for wikis in a world of AI, Ed Sanders reminisces on the early days of VisualEditor, Sanjay Thiyagarajan explains going without sleep at hackathons, and Sam Wilson describes the Phonos extension. /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/27219168

Episode 139: Ike Hecht 06/06/2023

Episode 139: Ike Hecht 🕑 1 hour 15 minutes Ike Hecht, founder of the consulting company WikiTeq, is back to talk about weighty matters like AI, religion, and the singularity. Plus some pre-singularity thoughts on project management software and marketing. Links for some of the topics discussed: Wikipedia article "" (2012 Business Insider article) Wikipedia article Wikipedia article Wikipedia article /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/27062418

Episode 138: Danielle Batson 05/23/2023

Episode 138: Danielle Batson 🕑 58 minutes Danielle Batson is the wiki community manager for the non-profit organization FamilySearch, which is run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Links for some of the topics discussed: Wikipedia article Wikipedia article MediaWiki extension MediaWiki extension /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/26928066

Episode 137: Sam Wilson 04/25/2023

Episode 137: Sam Wilson 🕑 1 hour 18 minutes Sam Wilson is a senior software engineer in the Community Tech team at the Wikimedia Foundation. This is his second time on Between the Brackets. Links for some of the topics discussed: MediaWiki extension feature extension on mediawiki.org "" - EMWCon 2023 talk by Jeffrey Wang /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/26648913

Episode 136: Sanjay Thiyagarajan 04/11/2023

Episode 136: Sanjay Thiyagarajan 🕑 1 hour 2 minutes Sanjay Thiyagarajan (username: Techwizzie) is a full-stack developer at JP Morgan Chase who has also done a significant amount of MediaWiki extension development as an intern and consultant at WikiWorks, my MediaWiki consulting company. Links for some of the topics discussed: MediaWiki extension extension extension extension /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/26509896

Episode 135: Ed Sanders 03/28/2023

Episode 135: Ed Sanders 🕑 1 hour 23 minutes Ed Sanders is a Principal Software Engineer, as well as the tech lead, in the Editing Team at the Wikimedia Foundation. He has been involved with developing the VisualEditor extension since 2013. He has also helped with developing other applications, like the DiscussionTools extension. Links for some of the topics discussed: project JavaScript tool JavaScript tool /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/26366928

Episode 134: BTB Digest 21 03/14/2023

Episode 134: BTB Digest 21 🕑 22 minutes Have you missed any recent episodes? Well, here are some clips for you. Hear Eric Gardner defending Vue.js, Nathan Brewer praising computer scientists of the past, Simon Stier considering the complexities of nested data structures, Ariel Gutman advocating for one language for WikiFunctions, Waldir Pimenta recounting his adventures in translation, and more! /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/26229552

Episode 133: Bryan Hilderbrand 02/28/2023

Episode 133: Bryan Hilderbrand 🕑 1 hour 42 minutes WikiWorks/TeGnosis consultant Bryan Hilderbrand returns to the podcast, to talk about the upcoming Enterprise MediaWiki Conference (April 19-21 in Austin, Texas), and various other topics. Links for some of the topics discussed: Wikipedia article Wikipedia article , 2017 book by Garry Kasparov (2004 video) Wikipedia article project page (2014 blog post) (PDF file) /episode/index/show/betweenthebrackets/id/26081829

Between the Brackets: a MediaWiki Podcast

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