Wikimedia Apps/Team/iOS/Personalized Wikipedia Year in Review/How your data is used

The Year in Review is an experimental feature that leverages locally stored data and publicly accessible data to show you insights on your relationship with Wikipedia over the year. This feature adheres to the Wikimedia Foundation Privacy Policy, and was designed with your privacy in mind.

The data referenced in Year in Review currently covers the time period of January 1, 2024 - December 31, 2024.

Personalized Insights

Year in Review shows insights that are personalized to your device, or your Wikipedia account if you are logged-in.

Total number of articles read this year

This is the total number of unique articles you have read within the Wikipedia App this year, on this device. It will include all of the articles that are currently represented on your "History" tab within the app. This means that your total number of articles read will not include any articles you've read on different devices, or outside of the app.

How does it work? The Year in Review feature counts up the articles that are currently stored on your device's reading history and shares a total. Your reading history is never shared or stored on servers as part of the calculation.

Day of the week when you read the most

This is the day of the week on which you read the most unique articles during 2024. For example, if I read the Wikipedia app every Friday while riding the bus, my insight will show “Friday”. This insight will not include reading you’ve done on different devices, or outside of the app.

How does it work? Year in Review references articles that are currently stored on your device's “History” tab. Each article has a timestamp for when you last read it. Year in Review checks to see which day of the week is most frequently represented in your reading history. Your reading history is never shared or stored on servers as part of the calculation.

Total articles saved this year

This is the total number of articles you currently have saved to reading lists within the app on your device during 2024 across all languages.

Total edits this year

This is the total number of edits you have made on the language Wikipedia that you have set as your primary language within the app. This insight only shows if you are logged-in to the App. Edits include only those made in the article namespace across devices and platforms. Reverted edits have not been removed from the edit count. Edits from sister projects are not included.

How does it work? The edits associated with a particular username are publicly accessible through Contributions. If you are logged-in, the App will ask the user contributions API for edits in 2024 associated with your username, and total them. Due to the limitations of this data source, if you have made over 500 edits this year, you will see 500+ edits instead of a specific total.

Views on edits recently

This is the total number of views that articles you've edited have received in the past 2 months. We calculate this using you user name, and the Growth Tools Special Impact Module . It includes articles that you've edited in your last 1000 edits. The pageviews are from the previous 60 days before you access Year in Review.

Contribution status

If you have recently made a donation on the App, the Wikipedia Year in Review feature may show a "Thank you for your contribution" message. We can only recognize recent in-app contributions, so the feature will not be aware of recent donations made outside of the App, or before October 2024.

How does it work? When you make a donation using the App, standard information is recorded by Wikimedia Fundraising so that your donation can be processed, according to the Donor Privacy Policy. The App also stores limited information locally on your device to remember that you made a donation. No personal details or payment information is stored locally on device. Year in Review recognizes that you have recently donated, and can show you a Thank You message. Your status as a donor is not associated with your Wikipedia username on the App at any time.

Collective Insights

Year in Review shows insights about the wider world of Wikipedia and the free knowledge movement, including how many times app users as a whole have viewed articles, or how many edits have been made by iOS app users. These insights cover the time period of January 1, 2024 - November 1, 2024.

Readers with English Wikipedia as a primary language will see information from the Wikipedia Year in Review website, and blog about the top read articles on English Wikipedia. You can learn more about that data.

Frequently asked questions

How can I remove personalized insights from Year in Review?

• If you would like to hide the Year in Review and clear all reports associated with it, navigate to Profile > Settings > Year in Review, and turn off Year in Review. You may still turn it back on, and your insights will be recalculated. If you would like to clear the data that the insights are based on, complete the instructions below first before turning off Year in Review.

• 
  Open the‘Year in Review’ item within Settings.
• 
  Turn off the toggle to disable the feature and clear reports.

• Clear reading insights about total articles read, and day of the week: At any time, you may clear your reading history using the "Clear" option in the "History" tab.
• Clear saved reading list insights: Open Settings > Article storage and syncing, and “Erase saved articles”. This will remove saved articles from your device, and from all devices if you have syncing turned on.
• Clear editing insights: Editing insights cannot be permanently cleared, as they are sourced from publicly and permanently accessible data. If you log out, your total edits will no longer be visible on your device within Year in Review.
• Clear donation insights: At any time, you may clear your device's local donation history using the "Clear donation history" option in Settings. This setting only appears if you have local donation history stored. Please note that this only clears the device's local donation history for donations made using the Wikipedia App. Information about past donations is still retained by Wikimedia Fundraising according to the Foundation Donor Privacy Policy.

Where is my data stored and how often is it cleared?

• Data about your reading history is only stored locally on your device. Each time you visit an article using the app, that article is added into your “History” tab within the app. It does not expire. If you would like to clear your locally stored reading history, select “Clear” within the “History” tab.
• Data about your username’s contribution history is not stored locally on your device, but is recorded publicly and permanently when you contribute to a Wikimedia site. Learn more in the Wikimedia Foundation Privacy Policy.

Is any of my data shared with third parties?

• Your reading history data is not shared with anyone except you. We are committed to never selling your information or sharing it with third parties for marketing purposes, in accordance with the Wikimedia Foundation Privacy Policy.
• Your editing data is calculated using publicly accessible data. Any content you add or any change that you make to a Wikimedia Site is publicly and permanently available. No third party has access to the insights presented for your account, in connection with information about your device.

What happens if I switch devices?

• Your reading and donation history is specific to the device that you use to access the Wikipedia App. Reading history cannot yet be synced across devices. If you switch devices during the year, your Year in Review will only be based on the most recent device’s history.
• Your editing history is not dependent on the device, but rather on your username. If you are logged-in, you can always view your editing insights.