The board

Charters ending, reviews, legal deadlines and funding calls, soonest first. Each is a moment when taking part can change an outcome.

1. 1 Nov 2026
   New Wikidata query endpoints open service

   The QLever-based endpoints open to the community; the old Blazegraph endpoints may degrade from February 2027.[src]

   Can ordinary developers use it? · Querying a web, not a database

2. 3 Nov 2026
   NLnet funding deadline funding

   Next deadline for grant proposals to NLnet's open funds for open internet software.[src]

   Central against decentralized · Who pays for public data infrastructure?

3. 2 Dec 2026
   AI Act marking deadline for existing systems law

   Generative AI systems already on the EU market before August 2026 must mark their output as AI-generated by this date.[src]

   Who vouches for it?

4. 24 Dec 2026
   EU digital identity wallets due law

   Each EU member state must make at least one certified European Digital Identity Wallet available.[src1][src2]

   Who issues your name online? · Who vouches for it?

5. 31 Dec 2026
   Data Shapes Working Group charter ends charter

   The W3C group writing SHACL 1.2 is chartered until the end of 2026; W3C members decide on an extension or a new charter.[src]

   Unknown or false?

6. 8 Jan 2027
   Linked Web Storage charter ends charter

   The W3C group standardizing Solid's storage protocol is chartered until this date.[src]

   Central against decentralized · Who controls data about me?

7. 31 Jan 2027
   DID Working Group charter ends charter

   The W3C group behind DID 1.1 and DID Resolution is chartered until this date.[src]

   Names that outlive their hosts · Who issues your name online?

8. Feb 2027
   Old Wikidata query endpoints may degrade service

   From February 2027 the Blazegraph endpoints stay up but may degrade; users need to move to the new endpoints.[src]

   Who pays for public data infrastructure?

9. 30 Apr 2027
   RDF & SPARQL Working Group charter ends charter

   The W3C group finishing RDF 1.2 is chartered until this date.[src]

   Graphs, tables and property graphs · Statements about statements

10. Dec 2027
    GS1 Sunrise 2027 standard

    Industry goal for retail point-of-sale systems to read 2D barcodes, such as those carrying GS1 Digital Link, by the end of 2027; voluntary, not law.[src1][src2]

    Who runs the registry?

11. Jan 2028
    Social Web Working Group charter ends charter

    The group maintaining ActivityPub is chartered until January 2028.[src]

    Central against decentralized

12. 31 Jan 2028
    JSON-LD Working Group charter ends charter

    The W3C group maintaining JSON-LD and drafting CBOR-LD is chartered until this date.[src]

    Rigour against developer taste

13. 31 Mar 2028
    Verifiable Credentials Working Group charter ends charter

    The W3C group maintaining Verifiable Credentials is chartered until this date.[src]

    Who vouches for it?

14. May 2029
    Next Digital Markets Act review review

    The Act requires a review every three years after May 2026; the first declined to cover social networks, and consumer groups say the door remains open.[src]

    Central against decentralized

Every question the threads leave open, those with the fewest answers on the table first. A question nobody has answered yet is an opening.

No answer proposed yet 1

• Will tools and publishers adopt RDF 1.2's triple terms?

  Graphs, tables and property graphs

One answer on the table 24

• How should an agent acting for someone decide which tools and data to trust?

  Agents acting for us · 1 answer

• Will annotations be shared across tools, as the 2017 standard intended?

  Can readers write back? · 1 answer

• Can a language model forget what it was trained on?

  Can the Web forget? · 1 answer

• When, if ever, will libraries stop cataloguing in MARC?

  From catalogue card to web data · 1 answer

• Will language models make SPARQL and RDF invisible to developers?

  Can ordinary developers use it? · 1 answer

• Can systems built on learned models keep any of the guarantees that sound reasoning gives?

  Expressiveness against tractability · 1 answer

• How far can tractable profiles stretch as ontologies grow to hundreds of thousands of classes?

  Expressiveness against tractability · 1 answer

• How should a client find out what a URI is meant to name?

  Page or thing? · 1 answer

• Should registry codes be web addresses?

  Who runs the registry? · 1 answer

• How can a link say that two things are the same for some purposes but not for others?

  Same thing, many names · 1 answer

• How do you find the wrong identity links in data you do not control?

  Same thing, many names · 1 answer

• How should DIDs be resolved, so that different systems agree on what a DID points to?

  Names that outlive their hosts · 1 answer

• How good can automatic alignment between ontologies get?

  One vocabulary or many · 1 answer

• Can a link keep pointing at what was cited after the target changes?

  One-way or two-way links · 1 answer

• How should shapes validate statements about statements in RDF 1.2?

  Unknown or false? · 1 answer

• Will ShEx and SHACL stay two languages for the same job?

  Unknown or false? · 1 answer

• Which queries over the open Web of data can be answered completely, and at what cost?

  Querying a web, not a database · 1 answer

• Can public query services stay available as datasets grow into tens of billions of statements?

  Querying a web, not a database · 1 answer

• How will signatures on RDF data be checked in everyday use?

  Statements about statements · 1 answer

• Should open registries such as Wikidata rely on names that a company can change or revoke?

  Who issues your name online? · 1 answer

• Who pays to keep a free public query service running as the data behind it keeps growing?

  Who pays for public data infrastructure? · 1 answer

• How much of a company's knowledge base survives when the company withdraws?

  Who pays for public data infrastructure? · 1 answer

• Can a vocabulary steered by a few large consumers stay responsive to everyone who publishes with it?

  Who sets the standard? · 1 answer

• Can software reason with who said what, as the road map hoped, rather than only checking signatures?

  Who vouches for it? · 1 answer

Several answers on the table 31

• Should agents rely on shared vocabularies and published data, or on each service's own tools and APIs?

  Agents acting for us · 2 answers

• Should the owner of a page be able to refuse annotations on it?

  Can readers write back? · 2 answers

• Can a copy that has spread across servers, archives and peer-to-peer networks be made to forget?

  Can the Web forget? · 2 answers

• Where does a person's right to be forgotten end and the public record begin?

  Can the Web forget? · 2 answers

• Can people move their identity and data to another provider without losing their social graph?

  Central against decentralized · 2 answers

• Who moderates a network that has no centre?

  Central against decentralized · 2 answers

• Should developers have to see RDF at all?

  Can ordinary developers use it? · 2 answers

• Can a volunteer-built database pay its way without enclosing its data?

  Who owns what the crowd built? · 2 answers

• Can RDF data and property-graph data be mapped to each other without losing meaning?

  Graphs, tables and property graphs · 2 answers

• Should a server be allowed to answer 200 for a URI that names a thing, so publishers can skip the redirect?

  Page or thing? · 2 answers

• Should a place, product or company have an identifier that no one owns?

  Who runs the registry? · 2 answers

• Who keeps a redirect service running when the institution that started it loses interest?

  Names that outlive their hosts · 2 answers

• How should publishers choose among hundreds of overlapping vocabularies?

  One vocabulary or many · 2 answers

• How can a site show who links to it without being flooded with spam?

  One-way or two-way links · 2 answers

• Can a vocabulary that grows from use stay consistent enough for machines to rely on?

  Ontology against folksonomy · 2 answers

• Will machine-readable privacy statements be adopted this time?

  Who controls data about me? · 2 answers

• Will people hold their own data, or keep granting access to platforms?

  Who controls data about me? · 2 answers

• Which of reification, named graphs and triple terms will publishers actually use for provenance?

  Statements about statements · 2 answers

• Can knowledge graphs built by language models be trusted without people checking them?

  Hand-built meaning or learned meaning · 2 answers

• Is hand-written knowledge still worth its cost when statistical methods keep improving?

  Hand-built meaning or learned meaning · 2 answers

• Can Linked Data keep its rigour when most developers never see the RDF underneath?

  Rigour against developer taste · 2 answers

• Should open data waive all rights or require that derived data stay open?

  On what terms may anyone reuse it? · 2 answers

• Who funds the upkeep of open data infrastructure, rather than its launch?

  Who pays for public data infrastructure? · 2 answers

• When do community groups, consortium working groups or industry coalitions produce standards that last?

  Who sets the standard? · 2 answers

• Whose keys and labels should a reader trust in the first place?

  Who vouches for it? · 2 answers

• Will publishers keep adding markup when the reward shrinks?

  Why would anyone add structure? · 2 answers

• Who gains from structured data published on the open Web: publishers, the public, or the few companies that collect it?

  Why would anyone add structure? · 2 answers

• Can a decentralized network give everyone a view of the whole of it without someone paying for costly central indexes?

  Central against decentralized · 3 answers

• Who should benefit when AI systems are trained on what volunteers built?

  Who owns what the crowd built? · 3 answers

• Can a licence or policy say anything enforceable about use for AI training?

  On what terms may anyone reuse it? · 3 answers

• Can people keep one name across platforms without any platform owning it?

  Who issues your name online? · 3 answers

The most recent events across all threads, newest first.

1. 17 Oct 2026

   The Wikidata Query Service is migrating to QLever, with pilot endpoints in testing.[src]

   Querying a web, not a database

2. 17 Oct 2026

   The Wikidata Query Service is migrating from the unmaintained Blazegraph to the QLever engine.[src]

   Who pays for public data infrastructure?

3. 5 Oct 2026

   Retailers in the US are piloting point-of-sale scanning of 2D barcodes that carry GS1 identifiers, ahead of the Sunrise 2027 goal.[src]

   Who runs the registry?

4. 16 Sep 2026

   Schema.org 30.1 adds vocabulary for EU Digital Product Passports and retail product data.[src]

   Why would anyone add structure?

5. 7 Sep 2026

   The ODRL Community Group settles a draft charter for a W3C 'Digital Policy Working Group' to take ODRL to version 3.[src]

   On what terms may anyone reuse it?

6. 17 Aug 2026

   Google's Agent2Agent protocol, for agents talking to one another, moves into the same foundation, which has grown to more than 250 members.[src]

   Agents acting for us

7. 6 Aug 2026

   DID Resolution reaches Candidate Recommendation, defining how a DID is turned into its DID document.[src]

   Names that outlive their hosts

8. 2 Aug 2026

   The EU AI Act's transparency duties apply: AI-generated content must be marked in a machine-readable way.[src]

   Who vouches for it?

9. Aug 2026

   The IETF's AI Preferences working group revises its vocabulary for stating how content may be used by AI, on track for a proposed standard.[src]

   On what terms may anyone reuse it?

10. 18 Jun 2026

    EU member states' compromise text drops the browser-signal article from the Digital Omnibus.[src]

    Who controls data about me?

11. 12 Jun 2026

    NLnet pauses new NGI Zero calls while it moves to a new Open Internet Stack programme.[src]

    Central against decentralized

12. 12 Jun 2026

    NLnet pauses new NGI Zero calls while EU open-internet funding moves to a new Open Internet Stack programme.[src]

    Who pays for public data infrastructure?

13. Jun 2026

    Bluesky's mobile app has 10.4 million monthly active users, down 27% on a year earlier, against about 46 million registered accounts.[src]

    Central against decentralized

14. 28 Apr 2026

    The European Commission's first review of the Digital Markets Act declines to extend its interoperability duty from messaging to social networks.[src]

    Central against decentralized

15. 28 Apr 2026

    The JSON-LD Working Group publishes a first draft of CBOR-LD, a compact binary form of JSON-LD.[src]

    Rigour against developer taste

The groups, projects and funds the threads point to, by kind; open a kind to see them. Each link was checked on the date shown.

Groups and working groups 25

• BIBFRAME at the Library of Congress

  The model, vocabulary, MARC conversion tools and primer; the Library of Congress publishes updates here.

  From catalogue card to web data · checked 21 Oct 2026

• Graph Data Council

  Non-profit, formerly the Linked Data Benchmark Council, that defines standard graph database benchmarks and holds Technical User Community meetings.

  Graphs, tables and property graphs · checked 21 Oct 2026

• IETF Authenticated Transfer (ATP) Working Group

  Standardizes AT Protocol's repository and sync protocol under neutral governance. Discussion happens on the [email protected] list.

  Central against decentralized · checked 21 Oct 2026

• IIIF Community

  Libraries, museums and archives that share images and annotations on them using IIIF and Web Annotation.

  Can readers write back? · checked 23 Oct 2026

• IndieWeb community

  People who run their own sites and use Webmention for replies, likes and reposts between them. Open chat, a wiki and regular meetups.

  One-way or two-way links · checked 21 Oct 2026

• microformats.org community

  Develops microformats on an open wiki and in IRC chat.

  Rigour against developer taste · checked 21 Oct 2026

• OBO Foundry

  Biomedical ontology developers who share principles for interoperable ontologies; new ontologies and changes are proposed on GitHub.

  One vocabulary or many · checked 21 Oct 2026

• Volunteer for the OTW

  The fan-run non-profit behind Archive of Our Own recruits volunteers for its committees and projects.

  Who owns what the crowd built? · checked 22 Oct 2026

• W3C AI Agent Protocol Community Group

  Develops open protocols for AI agents to discover, identify and work with each other, including Web-native metadata for agent capabilities. Holds regular online meetings.

  Agents acting for us · checked 21 Oct 2026

• W3C Community Groups

  Anyone can propose or join a W3C Community Group without W3C membership; JSON-LD started this way.

  Who sets the standard? · checked 21 Oct 2026

• W3C Data Privacy Vocabularies and Controls Community Group

  Maintains the Data Privacy Vocabulary and its extensions for laws such as the GDPR and the AI Act.

  Can the Web forget? · Who controls data about me? · checked 23 Oct 2026

• W3C Data Shapes Working Group

  Updates SHACL for RDF 1.2 and extends where shapes can be used. Chartered until December 2026.

  Unknown or false? · checked 21 Oct 2026

• W3C Decentralized Identifier Working Group

  Standardizes DIDs and how they are resolved. Chartered until January 2027.

  Names that outlive their hosts · Who issues your name online? · checked 23 Oct 2026

• W3C Entity Reconciliation Community Group

  Develops the Reconciliation Service API, used by OpenRefine and others to match names in a dataset to another source's identifiers. Version 1.0 is in draft.

  Same thing, many names · checked 21 Oct 2026

• W3C JSON-LD Working Group

  Maintains the JSON-LD 1.1 Recommendations and related notes. Chartered until January 2028.

  Rigour against developer taste · checked 21 Oct 2026

• W3C Linked Web Storage Working Group

  Standardizes the storage protocol behind Solid, so that storage, login, access control and applications can come from different providers.

  Central against decentralized · checked 21 Oct 2026

• W3C ODRL Community Group

  Maintains ODRL 2.2 and its profiles; the July 2026 workshop it prepared recommended a new W3C Working Group for ODRL 3.0.

  On what terms may anyone reuse it? · checked 23 Oct 2026

• W3C RDF & SPARQL Working Group

  Updates and maintains the RDF and SPARQL Recommendations, including RDF 1.2 and its triple terms. Chartered until April 2027.

  Graphs, tables and property graphs · Statements about statements · checked 21 Oct 2026

• W3C Social Web Working Group

  Maintains Webmention along with ActivityPub and related specifications. Chartered until January 2028.

  Central against decentralized · One-way or two-way links · checked 21 Oct 2026

• W3C Verifiable Credentials Working Group

  Maintains the Verifiable Credentials Data Model and related notes. Chartered until March 2028.

  Who vouches for it? · checked 21 Oct 2026

• WHATWG

  Develops the HTML standard, including microdata, in public on GitHub; anyone can take part.

  Who sets the standard? · checked 21 Oct 2026

• Wikidata property proposals for identifiers

  Where Wikidata's community proposes and discusses properties that link items to external registries' identifiers.

  Who runs the registry? · checked 23 Oct 2026

• Wikidata WikiProject Movies

  Volunteers who model films and their properties in Wikidata.

  Who owns what the crowd built? · checked 22 Oct 2026

• WikiProject Authority control

  Wikidata editors working to increase the number and quality of external identifiers that connect Wikidata items to other databases.

  Same thing, many names · checked 21 Oct 2026

• WikiProject Schemas

  Writes ShEx schemas (EntitySchemas) that describe what Wikidata items of a given kind should look like, so they can be checked.

  Unknown or false? · checked 21 Oct 2026

Code 11

• C2PA open-source SDK

  Rust SDK implementing the core C2PA specification for reading and writing Content Credentials.

  Who vouches for it? · checked 21 Oct 2026

• Comunica

  Open-source framework for querying knowledge graphs from JavaScript, with packages for link-traversal querying and Triple Pattern Fragments.

  Querying a web, not a database · checked 21 Oct 2026

• EasierRDF

  Issues listing what makes RDF hard for average developers, collected after David Booth's 2018 proposal.

  Can ordinary developers use it? · checked 23 Oct 2026

• GraphRAG

  Open-source implementation of graph-based retrieval-augmented generation, in which a language model builds the knowledge graph it then retrieves from.

  Hand-built meaning or learned meaning · checked 21 Oct 2026

• Hypothesis

  Open-source annotation tool and service for annotating any web page, publicly or in groups.

  Can readers write back? · checked 23 Oct 2026

• Model Context Protocol specification

  The MCP specification and documentation are developed in the open on GitHub, with a contributing guide.

  Agents acting for us · checked 21 Oct 2026

• Open Definition

  The Open Knowledge Foundation's definition of open, maintained in the open on GitHub.

  On what terms may anyone reuse it? · checked 21 Oct 2026

• Open Location Code

  The open specification and reference implementations of plus codes.

  Who runs the registry? · checked 23 Oct 2026

• Protégé

  Open-source ontology editor with built-in OWL reasoners, developed openly on GitHub.

  Expressiveness against tractability · checked 21 Oct 2026

• Schema.org Community Group

  Propose the types and properties publishers need, in public on GitHub.

  Ontology against folksonomy · Who sets the standard? · Why would anyone add structure? · checked 21 Oct 2026

• w3id.org permanent identifiers

  Claim a permanent path for a vocabulary or dataset by adding a redirect rule in a pull request.

  Page or thing? · Names that outlive their hosts · checked 21 Oct 2026

Data to edit 5

• Edit MusicBrainz

  Anyone with an account can add and correct artists, releases and recordings; edits are voted on by other editors.

  Who owns what the crowd built? · checked 22 Oct 2026

• GLEIF API

  Open access to the global LEI records: who is who and who owns whom.

  Who runs the registry? · checked 23 Oct 2026

• Linked Open Vocabularies (LOV)

  Catalogue of 920 reusable vocabularies; publishers can search it and suggest vocabularies to add.

  One vocabulary or many · checked 21 Oct 2026

• Nanopublication network

  A decentralized network of servers where anyone can publish and query nanopublications; the tools are developed openly on GitHub.

  Statements about statements · checked 21 Oct 2026

• Web Data Commons

  Free extractions of microdata, JSON-LD, RDFa and microformats from the Common Crawl, for studying who publishes what.

  Why would anyone add structure? · checked 21 Oct 2026

Forums and lists 10

• CC signals

  Creative Commons' consultation on signals for AI reuse; people can sign up to follow and join the conversation.

  On what terms may anyone reuse it? · checked 21 Oct 2026

• IndieWeb

  Community of people who publish on their own domains; its wiki and chat explain how to own your identity and link your profiles.

  Who issues your name online? · checked 23 Oct 2026

• LD4 Community

  Community for Linked Data in libraries, archives and museums. Its free online conference ran on 28–30 September 2026.

  From catalogue card to web data · checked 21 Oct 2026

• PID Forum

  Discussion forum for persistent identifiers in research: DOIs, ARKs, ORCID and national PID roadmaps.

  Names that outlive their hosts · checked 21 Oct 2026

• [email protected] mailing list

  The Linked Open Data list, where the 2012 change proposals were debated and publishing practice is still discussed.

  Page or thing? · checked 21 Oct 2026

• [email protected] mailing list

  The W3C's general Semantic Web list, where questions about URIs, identity and Linked Data publishing are discussed.

  Page or thing? · checked 21 Oct 2026

• Solid community

  The Solid project's site, with its specification, apps and community forum.

  Who controls data about me? · checked 23 Oct 2026

• Wikidata property proposals

  Where new Wikidata properties are proposed and discussed by the community before they are created.

  Ontology against folksonomy · checked 21 Oct 2026

• Wikidata Query Service backend update

  Hub for moving the query service from Blazegraph to QLever: early access to the new endpoints, office hours, use-case collection and a Phabricator board.

  Querying a web, not a database · Who pays for public data infrastructure? · checked 21 Oct 2026

• Wikidata: Request a Query

  Where people ask Wikidata's SPARQL experts to write queries for them, and where helping is the quickest way to learn.

  Can ordinary developers use it? · checked 23 Oct 2026

Conferences 3

• Conference on Neurosymbolic Learning and Reasoning (NeSy)

  Annual meeting on combining neural learning with symbolic knowledge and reasoning; the 20th ran in Lisbon in September 2026.

  Hand-built meaning or learned meaning · checked 21 Oct 2026

• International Workshop on Description Logics

  Annual workshop of the description logic community; the 39th ran in Lisbon in July 2026 alongside KR 2026. Calls for papers go out on the DL mailing list.

  Expressiveness against tractability · checked 21 Oct 2026

• Ontology Alignment Evaluation Initiative (OAEI)

  Annual evaluation campaign for ontology matching systems, reported at the Ontology Matching workshop held with ISWC.

  One vocabulary or many · checked 21 Oct 2026

Funding 2

• NLnet Foundation

  Dutch foundation that grants money to open internet technology. Its open funds take proposals at regular deadlines; the next is 3 November 2026.

  Who pays for public data infrastructure? · checked 21 Oct 2026

• Sovereign Tech Fund

  German public fund for open digital base technologies, including maintenance work. Projects apply through its portal; costs must exceed €50,000.

  Who pays for public data infrastructure? · checked 21 Oct 2026