V1 Beta. This is a first release for early review by internal and external audiences.

Wikimedia Attribution Framework

Social media ​

Wikimedia content is often shared on social media platforms, usually in the form of images, link previews, and Wikipedia article snippets. The fast and remix-heavy nature of social sharing often leads to attribution loss: sources might be omitted, and media circulated without credit. The casual nature of social sharing interactions poses a challenge to ensuring trust in the accuracy or origin of the information being consumed. Attribution is essential in this context because it enables easier verifiability of information in such environments..

Our recommendation is for social platforms to enable sharing with embedded information so that knowledge derived from Wikimedia projects can be traced back to its origin and remain recognizable when redistributed. Social ecosystems take a broad variety of shapes (from communication platforms to short-form video), and content may be distributed in a multiplicity of mediums. Nevertheless, there are some transversal platform behaviors that offer great opportunities to incorporate attribution within the social sharing user flow:

  1. Link preview generation, which translates URLs into quick overviews of resources.
  2. Media upload interfaces, which enable the direct capture or the upload of saved resources
  3. Resharing systems, which allow users to repost original content

As core principles applicable to all behaviors and formats, we recommend that attribution be as automatically embedded as possible in those touchpoints to limit user responsibility, that essential metadata remain visible and accessible in constraint environments, and that signals persist through sharing.

Ally

04/24/2026, 20:40

Heading to Iceland tomorrow. Hoping to get lucky and catch the Aurora.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora
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Wikipedia
Aurora
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123 references

98 contributors

An aurora is a natural light display in Earth’s upper atmosphere caused by charged particles from the Sun colliding with atoms in the atmosphere. These collisions excite oxygen and nitrogen, which then emit light of different colors such as green, red, and purple.

Aurora borealis over Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska

United States Air Force

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Attribution level: Ideal

Essential attribution ​

Social media platforms should help retrieve and facilitate the inclusion of essential attribution information in posts that incorporate Wikimedia content. In compliance with the Creative Commons licenses governing our projects, we recommend that platforms guarantee that proper credit and direct access back to sources can easily be provided by users. Identifying titles, licenses, and authorship is also strongly advised. Moreover, platforms should encourage users to state whether they applied modifications to the materials being shared according to licensing.

This essential level of attribution safeguards the visibility of the community-driven projects that power the information shared in social contexts. Essential signals also provide users with clear paths to verify information, explore further, and potentially also engage with the ecosystem where the knowledge originated.

Social media signal example

  1. Source • 2. Credit • 3. Link • 4. Title • 5. License • 6. Brand mark · 7. Modification disclaimer

Note: You may adjust the appearance of the signals to follow your design guidelines and visual style in order to ensure consistency in your context.

1. Source ​

Required

Social feeds should always identify the Wikimedia project from which the information originates. Use text or, exceptionally, the project’s brand mark (see 6) if space is limited or to reduce cognitive load. See full signal spec →

Data sources:

High visibility on wiki: This signal is immediately visible at the source.

2. Credit ​

Required based on license

Shared media files (e.g., from Wikimedia Commons) should state authorship or provide direct access to information about the individual creator of the media. See full signal spec →

Data sources:

Mixed visibility on wiki: The visibility of this information varies per project. For example, it's immediately visible in Wikimedia Commons' file pages but requires reviewing articles' history on Wikipedia.

Required

It’s essential to provide direct access to the specific Wikimedia project page where the content being shared originated. This enables continued exploration and the verification of information. See full signal spec →

Data sources:

High visibility on wiki: This information is immediately visible at the source.

4. Title ​

Required Exceptions may apply

The name of pages or media files shared should always remain accessible. This is key for social media users to identify relevant resources. Given that media files’ titles can be unwieldy and might not contribute a lot of meaning, we recommend omitting this information when attributing images. This suggestion applies only as long as access to the original file is provided in context. See full signal spec →

Data sources:

High visibility on wiki: This information is immediately visible at the source.

5. License ​

Required based on license

Displaying the license that governs the content (and linking to more information about it) is especially required when usage restrictions apply. This information should at least remain accessible when limited space and cognitive overload risks influence its presentation in a secondary interface. See full signal spec →

Data sources:

High visibility on wiki: This information is immediately visible at the source.

6. Brand mark ​

Required if the source isn't stated

Use brand marks to visually identify the source of the information being shared. They might replace the source text when space is limited. See full signal spec →

Data sources:

Visual brand marks:

Audio brand marks:

High visibility on wiki: This information is immediately visible at the source.

7. Modification disclaimer ​

Required based on license

Social media platforms should inform and support users to provide clear modification indicators when content has either been adapted by AI models (e.g., through summarization or machine translation); or by users using built-in tools to, for example, crop, clip, translate, or remix in any way. See full signal spec →

Trust and relevance signals ​

Recommended

Social media platforms can incorporate trust and relevance signals in link and content embeds to help users assess the reliability of the information being shared. Signals such as reference counts, editor activity, or readership data make visible the human-driven processes that govern Wikimedia projects. Making these processes transparent helps users identify sources they can trust. However, it’s important that trust signals are used selectively and appropriately in feed-based environments to avoid cognitive overload.

Reference count ​

Use this Wikipedia-specific credibility signal to expose the number of sources informing an article’s content. See full signal spec →

Data sources:

Medium visibility on wiki: This information is verifiable when articles contain numbered reference lists.

Contributor count ​

This trust signal indicates the number of volunteers that have contributed to creating or maintaining the information available in the original Wikimedia project page being shared. See full signal spec →

Data sources:

Medium visibility on wiki: This information is visible but requires accessing a data dashboard from articles' Revision history.

Page views ​

This signal expresses the total number of views that a specific Wikimedia page has received in a predefined period of time, which indicates popularity and relevance. See full signal spec →

Data sources:

Medium visibility on wiki: This information is visible but requires accessing a data dashboard from articles' Revision history.

This signal flags Wikipedia articles that are experiencing an unusual volume of recent activity, such as sharp increases in reads and/or edits that often correlate with unfolding events. See full signal spec →

Data sources:

No visibility on wiki: This information is currently not available on Wikimedia pages.

Last update ​

This signal can be used to indicate the most recent update made to a Wikimedia page, often hinting at the up-to-dateness of information. See full signal spec →

Data sources:

Medium visibility on wiki: This information is available in pages' history (requires navigation).

Ecosystem growth signals ​

Recommended

Beyond credit, transparency, and content reliability, attribution can also play an essential role in sustaining the future of Wikimedia ecosystems. By accompanying shared content with meaningful participation call-to-actions (CTAs) and providing contribution pathways for social media audiences, reusers can help complete the free knowledge loop.

Participation CTA ​

Use participation CTAs to provide context-appropriate prompts to invite social media communities to contribute to Wikimedia’s free knowledge ecosystem. See full signal spec →

Data sources:

Created by Wikimedia Foundation's staff and contributors

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Last updated: July 13, 2026