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Why are we launching a new platform?
For over a decade, thousands of people have used wikirate.org to upload, browse, and download data on companies’ policies and impacts. The platform now holds over 9 million data points. We are proud of what we achieved, but such growth has brought new challenges.
People who come to Wikirate looking for data told us that finding what they need among millions of data points has become harder. For us, that’s a major challenge, because we see Wikirate as a place where people working on corporate accountability can discover and reuse existing data and research. We have seen what happens when data is openly accessible in a structured format: it gets found, reused, and built on, and scarce resources are no longer spent repeating existing research. But that can only happen if users don’t get lost on the platform minutes after arriving.
Organisations contributing data told us something too. They want their data to reach further and be used more. Understandably, they also want to know how much it is used and how. We want our contributors to get as much value from Wikirate as possible, so we are developing new features that give partner organisations more visibility.
Addressing these needs also means solving a difficult technical challenge. The current Wikirate platform is built on Decko, an open-source framework that played an important role in Wikirate’s development over the years. Its flexible architecture gave us the tools to experiment and grow the platform into the tool it is today. As the platform grew, however, we reached the limits of the existing architecture, and it has become impossible to maintain fast search, browsing, and data access at this scale. With Wikirate 2.0, we are moving away from Decko to a more modern technical stack designed to perform better at scale and to support the improvements our users and contributors have asked for.
What’s happening and when?
The rollout happens in three stages:
- 1 October 2026 – the current platform switches to read-only mode, meaning that you will not be able to add data to the platform. You will still be able to browse and export data.
- 1 November 2026 – Wikirate 2.0 launches at wikirate.org as the old platform remains available under legacy.wikirate.org.
- By the end of 2026 – the legacy platform is retired.
What will happen with the data on the platform?
All existing data will be transferred to the new platform under the same open data licences.
What will happen to my account?
Accounts from the current platform will not be migrated to Wikirate 2.0 because the new platform uses a separate authentication and account system. You’ll need to create a new account to use Wikirate 2.0.
Signing in will actually be simpler: the new platform uses secure magic-link authentication, so you will be able to sign in without creating or remembering a password.
Your legacy platform account will remain separate and accessible during the transition period. Once the legacy platform is retired, that account will no longer be available.
What if I want to input data to the platform between 1 October and 1 November?
If you wish to add data to the platform, for example by using the research feature, please contact us at info@wikirate.org. We can enable you to continue using the feature and ensure the new data gets imported to the new platform. If you don’t inform us, the data won’t be automatically transferred and therefore will be lost.
How can I be prepared if I am using Wikirate’s API?
The new Wikirate REST API is planned to become available in October. Documentation will be published alongside it.
The existing wikirate-decko API will remain available through the legacy platform after 1 November, giving API users time to review the new API, adapt their integrations, and migrate gradually rather than all at once. We will also contact known API users directly with more detailed migration guidance and timelines.
What’s launching on 1 November?
In November, you will discover the new version of wikirate.org. The new platform will feature:
- A data exploration tool for exploring, finding, and downloading data more easily, available in an initial form at launch. We’re continuing to develop this through November, incorporating feedback from partners, with a fuller version following later in the month.
- Company profiles that enable you to see a company’s performance across multiple benchmarks at a glance.
- A new definition of datasets: each dataset will bring together a fixed set of metrics, companies and years. This will make our datasets more carefully curated. The organisation that curates each dataset will also be featured more prominently.
- A clearer way to access and understand benchmarks. Company performance, from laggards to leaders, is visible at a glance when looking at company profiles and on benchmark pages.
- Support for all Creative Commons licences at datapoint level, so you keep full control over how your data is shared. Licences are now applied at the individual datapoint level, enabling greater flexibility and supporting future changes to licensing schemes.
- Clearer attribution and visibility for the organisations behind each dataset, so your work is easier to find and credit.
- A more reliable, better-performing platform overall, built to grow with the community using it.
Which features are temporarily disappearing?
As we develop the new platform, some features will be temporarily unavailable. Those include:
- Research tool, the feature that enables users to create projects and collect data directly on Wikirate. We will be working on a new version in 2027 to continue to support civil society’s research efforts. In the meantime, if you want to use this feature, you can reach out to us to discuss the interim process.
- Benchmark and methodology breakdowns. Wikirate currently allows users to explore how benchmark scores and ratings are calculated, including the underlying themes, indicators, and researched data points that contribute to the final score. This detailed breakdown will not be available at launch, but we plan to support it again as the new platform develops.
Help us grow the digital commons!
We want to reach as many of the organisations and individuals who could benefit from the new platform as possible. To do that, we rely on our existing users and partners to spread the word. Sharing our posts on social media with your network makes a real difference!
We also want to bring more data onto the platform, especially work from newer and smaller organisations that might otherwise go unnoticed. If you know of organisations that could benefit from having their data on Wikirate, or if you hold data yourself, we’d love to hear from you. You can contact us at info@wikirate.org.