ESEAP Conference 2022 Report from imacat

I (imacat) am a participant of ESEAP Conference 2022 from the Wikimedia Taiwan chapter. I'm currently one of the three executive directors of the board of Wikimedia Taiwan chapter. I started to edit Wikipedia since 2006. I have been a member of the LGBTQ+ community. I helped started Wikiwomen Taiwan in 2015, and joined our local board of directors in 2017.

As a board member of our local chapter, my concerns are focused on the ESEAP administrative issues, as well as our local chapter issues. Also, as we have two local indigenous representatives to ESEAP 2022, and as I'm a member of the Wikiwomen and LGBTQ+ community, diversity is another major concern of mine.

I attended WikiWomenCamp 2017 and Wikimedia Conference 2018. But since then, I had been away from the global Wikimedia community for years (although I joined our local board of directors in 2017). I felt disconnected from the global Wikimedia movement. So my third major concern, and maybe the most important for myself, is to reconnect to the Wikimedia movement and Movement Strategy, filling my gap between 2018 and 2022.

The first one I spent a long time talking with is Vivien Chang, in the first day (16 November) of the Worlds of Wikimedia Conference before ESEAP 2022. It was my first met with Vivien in person. It started as a friendly hello, and quickly turned into a deep and meaningful talk that I wasn't expected.

Things learned at the conference

During my talk with Vivien, I realized my feeling about "disconnection with the Wikimedia movement" is not my own issue. It's actually shared among the global Wikimedia community.

Since WikiWomenCamp 2017 and Wikimedia Conference 2018, I tried to stay connected with the people I met in the conference. I joined several Telegram groups, and the diversity strategy group. But it was more and more difficult for me: The midnight online meetings that were hard to follow. The thousands of words of reports to read that generated week by week, that quickly turned into millions. It became impossible for a volunteer like me with a full daytime job.

Translating these millions words of reports from English might help, but it is still not possible for volunteers with full daytime job to follow so many reports even in Chinese. It's also not possible and not practical to translate all of these reports.

As a result, our local community relied on a few volunteers without full daytime jobs, for example, students, to stay connected with the global Wikimedia community, and they quickly get exhausted and left the community.

We need a new solution, and now I know that the Foundation is also aware of this. The ESEAP Hub is one of the attempts to address this issue. Vivien's position is also an attempt. Our local chapter now hires an agent for the international affairs. These may not be our final solutions, but we are working together towards them.

The joint effort to built a Wikimedia community that is more connected than before - that is the most important thing I learned from ESEAP 2022.

The next important thing I learned is the diversity of the ESEAP - East, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Region. I met so many people with different languages in Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, Korean, Singapore, Hong Kong... and of course, Australia and New Zealand, and learned the beauty of diversity especially in Southeast Asia. I did not see them in Wikimedia Conference 2018 in Berlin. ESEAP focuses on a smaller region than the whole earth, and the visibility of minor communities increases.

Things the participant contributed or participated in or since the conference

As ESEAP 2022 was the end of the year, I was also suffer from the tight timeline of my company to close the cases before the end of the year. I had to help my company while attending the conference at the same time. But I still attended to the programs to my best.

In the ESEAP hub session, I joined the discussion to form the East-Asia group.

In the diversity session, it happens I was also in a discussion in the Wikimedia LGBTQ+ Chinese channel about transgenders. I shared what happened in the discussion. I also shared how I am supported in the Wikimedia community as an LGBTQ+ member. It's not LGBTQ+ we support ourselves. It's that everyone supports LGBTQ+. That's how we create a supportive and friendly community.

Plans after the conference (from what was learned or contributed in the conference)

I would like to stay connected to ESEAP and the people I met here as possible. I would also like to help our local community to connect to the ESEAP.

Comments/ suggestions about the conference

You are doing a great job! Thank you.