ESEA Hub/Seasonal Newsletter/June 2016

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Vol. IV/ June 2016

HELLO!

On this edition: Wikimedia Conference 2016 in Berlin, community revival of Sundanese Wikipedia in Indonesia, CC-licensed photos of Taiwanese Congress, We started off the year 2016 by celebrating the 15th birthday of Wikipedia, digitizing old Javanese manuscripts, reporting on the results of the Wikipedia Asian Month edit-a-thon, building on-wiki art database, and first Wikipedia training at Mahidol University Thailand.

Contributors: Asaf Bartov; Ting Chen (AffCom); Addis Wang (WUG-CN); Shouichi Chou, Aaron Huang, Reke Wang and Shang Kuan Liang-chih (WMTW); Venus Lui (WMHK); Rachmat Wahidi (WMID); Athikhun Suwannakhan (Wikimedians in Thailand) | Editor: Isabella Apriyana (WMID)

中文用户: 在Meta设置语言偏好后可使用繁简转换系统阅读本段中文。

For Chinese speakers: You can switch between the simplified and traditional Chinese versions of this article by changing your settings on Meta.

WIKIMEDIA CONFERENCE 2016

On April 22-24, Wikimedia Conference 2016 was held in Verlaag Der Taagespiegel, Berlin, Germany. The annual meeting of Wikimedia affiliates from around the world this year focuses on impact and how the movement move forward on its mission to free the knowledge. Sessions cover important issues such as retaining volunteers, engaging communities, reimagining how the organization works, and communicating what we are doing in the movement with wider audience such as general public.

ESEA affiliates also had a meet up to discuss things such as 2016's Wikipedia Asian Month, regional meet-ups, the sustainability of this newsletter, and exploring possibilities of joint-collaborations.

Interview: What does AffCom do and how ESEA is related with it

Ting Chen is a Wikipedian from Harbin, China. He has been active in the global Wikimedia movement for quite a few years. In offline life, he works for IBM, and in online life he devotes his time to contributing to Chinese Wikipedia. He was a board member and chair of the Wikimedia Foundation, and now is a member of the Foundation's Affiliations Committee. This time, ESEA newsletter invites him for an online interview. Here is his point of view about what he learned, and how he is looking for more diverse human knowledge in the future.

Q: Who are you? Could you give us a brief introduction about who you are, such as your offline life?
A: Ha ha, surely I have an ideal ego in my mind. However, I would let others judge whether I have achieved the ideal self.
Q: What is Affiliate Committee (AffCom for short) ? Why do we need this committee and how does the AffCom function?
A: The previous entity of AffCom is "Chapters Committee". The Wikimedia Foundation Board decided to expand the definition of affiliates in March 2013. Thus it renamed as the Affiliate Committee. The main mission of AffCom is to approve and update the status of Wikimedia affiliated organizations including User Groups, Chapters, and Thematic Organizations, under the assistance by WMF staff. Apart from that, the AffCom also provides suggestion to the Wikimedia Foundation and its board on policy related to the affiliates and consultation for the affiliates.
Q: How and why did you decide to join AffCom a year ago? Was it just a coincidence, or was it a long-standing plan?
A: I am always caring about the internationalization and localization of Wikimedia movement. I've given the Movement Roles Program much attention since I served on the board of Wikimedia Foundation. Today's AffCom is the outcome of this program. Therefore, I still care about this topic, which is the main reason I joined AffCom.
Q: In the past year, what is one of the most memorable experiences of serving as a AffCom member?
A: The work in AffCom is quite ordinary and often less visible; many things are happening silently.
Q: What is your greatest achievement in the past year of your time in AffCom?
A: We have approved dozens of user groups in the last year. This implies that more and more entities start to accept this way of organizing.
Q: What is your biggest regret in the past year of your time in AffCom?
A: I feel that the committee should have more impact throughout the movement. However, the committee members are volunteers so we have limited capacity. That is my biggest regret.
Q: Some people in the community said many times that it's important to have "a voice from Asia" in the collaboration of global Wikimedia movement; do you think it is important? Why? Can you give us some examples?
A: In the past decade, among the affiliates which have organizational momentum, better organized chapters are those in Europe and North / South America. Chapters in Asia mostly do not receive emphasis. The only exception is the Indonesian chapter. I personally don't consider this as a special or bad sense. The community members who join organizations vary in each region or country, so the development, capacity, and effective approach varies for each chapter. I think it is not necessarily important to have a loud voice; the most important thing is to understand what is possible in terms of capacity, and what is most beneficial for the community / programs of one's own. For example, Wikimedia Taiwan set up regular Wikimedian meet-ups. It suits its current capacity and also helps the community a lot. That is an effective event.
To consider the longer term development, everyone (the global community) is thinking about how to organize events in the future. For instance, Wikimania will be paused in 2018 for reflecting on how to organize in the future. I think regional collaborations have huge potential because of this. Also, I think about the organizational and resources side: many communities, including chapters in Asia, need more support. The way that the Wikimedia Foundation supports the local communities has changed several times. The current way of support is rather passive. The communities themselves need to develop some mechanism and prepare first. I hope, by the way, that AffCom can have bigger impact to help the communities grow.
Honestly, whether others focus on you or not depends on power. If you are active and energetic, doing a good job, others will focus on you. If you are not, even though you may shout very noisily, others will see through you soon.
Q: In your observation, comparing to affiliates in other regions, do Asian affiliates have any distinctive challenges or opportunities?
A: Asia - or Southeast Asia to be more precise - has its own culture and history. Many countries and regions have changed hugely in the last 20 years: politically, they gained democracy; economically, they are not only the beneficiaries but also the victims of globalization; culturally, they are much affected and influenced by western culture. Wikipedia and Wikimedia Affiliates are a part of the above-mentioned phenomena. Just like the other changes in social structures, we can find that many structures are not stable yet, and the turnover of community members is very high. Comparing to the communities of Europe and America, the communities in Southeast Asia are apparently much younger on average. Achievements the middle class and professionals fight for are the ones that can promote their social status. Working and living in these societies comes with strong pressure - to make a living is all that matters. In particular, this is a challenge for our communities.
There is unique culture and history in Southeast Asia, much of which has not been documented and described on Wikipedia. There are some countries in East Asia and South Asia where the trends are very conservative and close-minded regarding ideas of freedom and sharing of knowledge, and people there do not trust the national media as a truthful reference source; many countries and societies of Southeast Asia are still changing; many laws are not complete; the legislation institutions need to listen to what communities are saying; the society needs someone to provide new ideas. Above all, it gives us a chance to develop events that no other chapters in Europe and America have.
Q: Beside being an AffCom member, you were also a board member of the Wikimedia Foundation; what are the differences between the two positions? What are the similarities?
A: Both positions are volunteering work. They both contain certain responsibility, and they both have huge impact on community development. These are the similarities of the two.
The main mission for the board is to formulate the strategy of the WMF and to supervise it and ensure it stays on track. AffCom's mission is to assist the growth of local affiliates.
Q: What things or projects do you think affiliates in East and Southeast Asia (or in a broader scope, the entire Asia region) can do together in the future to achieve our common goal of the sum of all knowledge for every human being?
A: I haven't lived in the area for a long time. I trust more on your thoughts and knowledge for this part. Hopefully, we may have more and more of your ideas become reality.

陈霆（User:Wing）来自中国大陆的哈尔滨，是一位长期参与维基媒体运动的活跃志工。现实生活中在IBM服务的他，长期协助维护中文维基百科，而现在因为工作和生活地点的搬迁，同时也参与了德语维基社群。陈霆曾经在维基媒体基金会任职董事，现在也是维基媒体运动中地方自治体委员会的志愿成员。这次东亚与东南亚季刊邀请了他来参与这场线上访谈，以下是他对于如何让人类的整体知识，能拥有更多元、光彩的未来的看法。

问：请简短自我介绍一下自己，比如您的现实生活中是怎么样的人。
答：哈哈，当然我内心里有一个理想的自我，但是，我是不是真的达到这个理想，还是让别人来说吧。
问：什么是地方自治体委员会？我们为什么需要这样的委员会，而这个委员会的运作方式又是怎样的呢？
答：地方自治体委员会的前身是分会委员会（Chapters Committee），2012年3月董事会决定扩大地方自治体定义后，分会委员会更改为自治体委员会。自治体委员会的主要任务是在基金会职员的协助下批准和更新地方自治体，其中包括用户群（User Groups），分会（Chapters）和专题组织（Thematic Organizations）。除此之外委员会还向基金会以及董事会提供涉及地方自治体的政策建议和向地方自治体提供咨询。
问：一年前是什么原因让你决定要加入地方自治体委员会的，这是一个临时起意的巧合，或者你很久以前就已经想要加入这个委员会？
答：维基媒体运动的国际化和地方化一直是一件我很关心的事情。在董事会上我就对运动角色项目（Movement Roles Program）非常关注，今天的地方自治体就是那个项目的结果。因此离开董事会后我依然对这个题目很关心，这是我加入地方自治体委员会的主要原因。
问：在过去的一年于自治体委员会服务期间，最让你难忘的一件事情是什么？
答：自治体委员会的工作很平凡，往往也不很明显，许多事情是在不声不响中进行的。
问：你觉得在过去的一年中，你在自治体委员会里做了哪些事情，让你有很大的成就感？
答：我们在过去一年里批准了几十个用户组，说明越来越多的群体开始接受这个组织方式。
问：你觉得在过去的一年中，你在自治体委员会中最大的遗憾是什么？
答：我觉得委员会应该可以在整个运动里起更多的作用。但是委员会的成员完全是由志愿者组成的，因此我们的精力有限，这是我最大的遗憾。
问：在参与维基媒体运动的亚洲社群中，有听到一种声音是全球维基媒体运动中应该要有“亚洲的发声“，你觉得这件事情重要吗？为什么？你可否给我们一些例子呢？
答：在过去的十年里就有组织的分会而言组织比较成功的有欧洲和两美的分会。亚洲的分会都比较低调。可能唯一的例外是印尼的分会。我个人认为这不一定是一种特殊，或者不良。各个地区、国家、参加组织的社群成员都不一样，因此各个分会的发展，能力和有效运作的方法都不一样。我想高调不高调不一定重要，重要的是看自己的能力和做什么对自己的社群、项目最有利。比如台湾的分会组织大家定期集会是一个适合其目前的能力和对社群很有帮助的活动，就是一个很有效的活动。
从中期考虑，大家（全球社群）目前都在考虑未来的一些活动怎样组织，比如维基大会，后年决定休会一年，反省未来怎样组织，我想在这方面地方性的合作有很大的潜力。我也想在组织和资源方面许多社群（包括亚洲的分会）也需要更多的基金会支持和帮助。在过去基金会对地方社群的支持多次改变，目前的支持比较被动，首先需要社群自己已经开发许多设计和准备。我希望在未来地方自治体委员会能够在这个方面起更大的作用，帮助社群发展。
其实有没有声音最重要的还是看有没有实力，有实力，干出好的事来，自然就有自己的声音，没有实力实际上还是在吓嚷嚷，别人很快就会看出来。
问：就你的观察，跟其它地区的分会相较之下，亚洲的分会面临了哪些只有这个地区才有的挑战或机会？
答：亚洲，更加精确地说东南亚，有它自己的文化和历史，许多国家和地区在过去20年里发生了巨大的变化：政治上民主化，经济上既是全球化的收益者也是其受害者，文化上受到很多西方文化的冲击和影响。维基百科和维基媒体分会是其中的一部分。和社会结构的其它变化一样我们看到许多结构都还很不稳定，社群的流动率很高。和欧美的社群相比我们也看到东南亚的社群明显年轻得多。在社会上中产和知识阶层的主要奋斗目标还是保证自己的阶层地位，工作和社会上都有很强的压力，挣钱养生是最重要的。这一切尤其对于社群组织来说是挑战。
东南亚独特的文化和历史，其中许多还没有记录、描写，更没有在维基百科上立文；东亚和南亚依然有一些国家在知识自由和分享上非常保守和封闭，但是人们对国家媒体的不信任和对真实背景的期望；东南亚许多国家和社会还在变化，许多法律还没有完善，立法机构需要听取社群的意见来完善法律和制度，社会需要有人来提供新的思想，这些都为东南亚地区的分会提供了许多可以发展活动的机会，是比如欧美分会没有的机会。
问：除了地方自治体委员会的职位以外，你也曾经是维基媒体基金会的理事之一，这两个职务有哪些差别，又有哪些相似之处呢？
答：两个职务都是志愿者职务，拥有一定的责任，对社群的发展都有很大的影响。这是两者的相似处。
理事会的主要任务是制定基金会的战略方向，监督基金会保持在这个方向上发展。委员会的任务是协助地方自治体的成长。
问：你觉得在东亚与东南亚的地区（或者更广泛而言，整个亚洲范围之内），大家未来可以怎么合作，以达成让世界上每个人都能够拥有的健全完整开放知识这样的共同目标？
答：我在当地已经很久没有居住了，我信任你们对此的想法和知识多。希望能够看到更多大家的主意成为现实。

WIKIMEDIA INDONESIA

Pada bulan September 2014, komunitas Wikipedia bahasa Sunda mengadakan sebuah lomba menyunting yang dinamai dengan Wiki Sabanda. ["Wiki Sabanda" merupakan kependekan dari frasa "Wikipedia Raksa Basa Sunda", yang bermakna memelihara bahasa Sunda. Memelihara bahasa Sunda yang dilakukan oleh komunitas ini dilakukan secara kolaborasi dengan pengguna Wikipedia lainnya. Wikipedia Bahasa Sunda memiliki jumlah penyunting aktif yang sedikit dan terus menurun angkanya. Konsep lomba ini adalah permainan berjenjang, di mana ketika seorang peserta lomba telah berhasil memenuhi kriteria dalam suatu jenjang, maka ia akan mendapatkan hadiah dan lolos ke jenjang lainnya. Lomba ini memiliki 10 jenjang yang harus dilalui oleh peserta. Peserta yang berhasil melewati jenjang terakhir akan mendapatkan hadiah dan sertifikat. Pemenang pertama Wiki Sabanda adalah Yusup Ramdani, pemenang kedua adalah Sopiyulloh Anwar, dan pemenang ketiga adalah Ahmad Fauzi. Sebagai informasi, Ahmad Fauzi yang berusia 12 tahun berhasil mengedit 118 artikel menggunakan ponsel pintar berlayar 4 inci, dengan suntingan kode! Upaya yang didukung oleh Ford Foundation ini selesai pada bulan Maret 2016, dan berhasil menjaring 60 peserta. Sebanyak 540 halaman artikel berhasil dibuat dari kegiatan ini. Selain membuat artikel baru, peserta lomba juga diarahkan agar saling berjejaring dan bekerja sama dengan peserta lain, seperti berkomentar di halaman pembicaraan mereka, berdiskusi mengenai artikel, dan memelihara Wikipedia bahasa Sunda itu sendiri. Berita tentang Wiki Sabanda tampil antara lain di Majalah Sastra Sunda Cupumanik dan portal berita daring nasional MetroTV.

Starting in September 2014, Sundanese Wikipedia community held a Wikipedia writing competition named "Wiki Sabanda". Wiki Sabanda is a short form of "Wikipedia Raksa Basa Sunda", meaning to preserve Sundanese language. The community did a meaningful collaboration to take care of their language, by running a competition in Sundanese Wikipedia which has very few and keep declining numbers of active editors. They create a level-based competition, where participants who have passed their first stage, they will receive a small gift and are granted to proceed to the next level. There are 10 levels in this competition, with every level has different requirements to be passed through. Participants who have reached the 10th level will receive an award and certificate. First winner of the competition is Yusup Ramdani, the runner up is Sopiyulloh Anwar, and the third winner is Ahmad Fauzi. FYI, Ahmad Fauzi who was only 12 years old managed to edit 118 articles using a 4-inch smartphone, using source editor! This effort, supported by Ford Foundation, ended in March 2016 after 17 months up and running. A number of 60 participants joined this competition, and 540 articles were created during the event. In addition to creating new articles, the participants are directed to do networking and collaborating with other participants, for instance, giving comments in their user talk page, joining a discussion, and looking after the Sundanese Wikipedia itself. Wiki Sabanda is featured in Sundanese Literary Magazine Cupumanik and national online news portal MetroTV, among others.

WIKIMEDIANS IN THAILAND

Taweetham, a professor at Mahidol University and active Wikipedian teaching how to edit Wikipedia

To build a stronger community, Wikimedians in Thailand organised two meetups in March 2016 at Mahidol University International College, Thailand. The events served to promote and encourage university students into editing Wikipedia. Participants were asked to complete the Wikipedia Adventure and contribute to existing articles or write new articles to win rewards postcards, calendars and t-shirts. The meetups gathered around 30 new editors. Since our college is made up of a large international community, contributions by students were made in multiple languages. One participant was a student with visual impairment. We could demonstrate that disability, besides difficulty, was not a barrier and did not deter aspiring person like him from contributing. We look forward to organising more meetups in the future.

เพื่อเสริมสร้างชุมชนวิกิพีเดียที่แข็งแกร่งยิ่งขึ้น กลุ่มอาสาสมัครวิกิมีเดียในประเทศไทยได้จัดงานพบปะขึ้นสองครั้งในเดือนมีนาคม 2559 ณ มหาวิทยาลัยมหิดล ซึ่งนับว่าเป็นครั้งที่สองและสามของปีนี้ งานนี้จัดขึ้นเพื่อส่งเสริมและสนับสนุนนักศึกษาในมหาวิทยาลัยเข้าร่วมแก้ไขและพัฒนาทความบนวิกิพีเดียให้มีคุณภาพดียิ่งขึ้น ผู้เข้าร่วมเรียนรู้การแก้ไขวิกิพีเดียผ่านเกม "เดอะวิกิพีเดีย แอดเวนเจอร์" (The Wikepedia Adventure) และได้รับเสื้อยืด ปฏิทิน ไปรษณียบัตรเป็นรางวัลหากมียอดแก้ไขตามจำนวนที่กำหนด เนื่องจากมหาวิทยาลัยประกอบไปด้วยนักศึกษาต่างชาติจากหลายหลายประเทศทั่วโลก จึงก่อให้เกิดการมีส่วนร่วมและการแก้ไขในหลายๆภาษาบนวิกิพีเดีย การพบปะครั้งนี้ทำให้เกิดผู้ใช้ใหม่ 30 คน ซึ่งหนึ่งในนั้นเป็นผู้บกพร่องทางการมองเห็น เราแสดงให้เห็นว่าความทุพพลภาพมิได้เป็นอุปสรรคต่อการเข้าถึงวิกิพีเดียแต่อย่างใด และในอนาคตทางเรามีความคาดหวังที่จะจัดการพบปะในลักษณะนี้ขึ้นอีก

WIKIMEDIA TAIWAN

台灣分會在3月的後兩週，模仿「維基人在歐洲議會」活動，帶著5名攝影志工，為國會議員拍攝CC-BY-SA的照片。台灣的國會是「立法院」，議員稱為「立法委員」，總共有113席，其中有38位參與了這次的拍攝。參與的人數已經超過這屆國會中，第二大政黨的席次（35席）。拍攝的成果將在四月底前上傳到維基共享資源，可在分類「WikiLovesCongress Taiwan 2016」中找到。

台灣的國會每四年改選，目前第9屆的立委是在今年1月16日選出，2月1日就職，其中有很多人都是首次當選。參與本次拍攝活動的林麗蟬委員是這次進入國會的新人之一，特別的是她並非出生於台灣，而是柬埔寨人，因為與台灣人結婚才取得中華民國國籍。

The final two weeks of March, Wikimedia Taiwan imitates the event of Wikipedians in European Parliament to bring five voluntary photographer and take photos of the Taiwanese Congresspeople under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license. The congress of Taiwan is also known as Legislative Yuan, and the congresspeople are also known as the members of the Legislative Yuan. Totally there are 38 out of 113 congresspeople have participated in this event. The total amount of participation has out numbered the number of seats of the second largest party in the Congress, which is 35 seats. The results of the photo-shooting event will be uploaded into Wikimedia Commons before the end of April. You can find the outcome in the category of WikiLovesCongress Taiwan 2016. The congressional election in Taiwan is held every four years. The 9th term of congress was just elected on 16 January this year and the inauguration day was on 1st February. Many of the congresspeople are in their very first term. Legislator Lin Li-Chan is one of the freshmen in the congress. As a matter of fact, she is not born in Taiwan but from Cambodia. Because of married to a Taiwanese, she acquired the nationality of Taiwan.

WIKIMEDIA HONGKONG

Venus Lui was invited to give a presentation about building up an Arts database in Asia on Wikipedia, along with Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons in g0v summit 2016, which took place in Academia Sinica, Taipei on 13 and 14 May 2016. This presentation aimed to introduce the importance of having the database in Asia, and also how we can do it on Wikipedia. Building database is especially important for promoting the artwork of Asia to the world as well as to preserve the artwork itself. It can also be an open trusted source for Asian cultural heritage content and make the resources available to users wherever they are, whenever they want it. Wikipedia is an ideal platform to establish such database, considering it is not owned by a particular institution, mostly easy to access by people, and open to edit by contributors. At the end of the presentation, the Ministry of Culture in Taiwan expressed their interest to cooperate with us in order to establish the database.

香港維基人呂美儀受邀到台灣 2016 g0v 零時政府高峰會發表一場在維基百科上，搭配維基數據以及薇姬共享資源，建立亞洲藝術資料庫的演講。這場在台北的中央研究院的高峰會於2016年5月13-14日舉行。演講的主要目的是介紹建立一個亞洲資料庫的重要性，而我們又如何能夠透過維基百科來達成這樣的資料庫。建立資料庫尤其對於推廣亞洲藝術作品到世界各地，還有藝術作品本身的保存也具有極大的作用。同時，亞洲資料庫也可以作為一個開放而可信的參考來源，來建立亞洲文化內容以及讓人只要上網，就無論何時何地都能獲取這些資訊，同時也能夠開放志工編輯的參與。在演講的最後，台灣的文化部的工作人員表達了他們對建立這樣的資料庫感到興趣。