Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/Ultron90

Knowledged learned from the conference

I acquired various approaches on how to conduct Wikimedia projects and attract as well as retain newcomers. These approaches mainly involve regularly engaging with workshop participants and providing adequate tokens of appreciation to maintain proper connection between the volunteers and the impacts of their contributions to the Wikimedia projects as well as various minority communities.

Participation during the conference

15 August

I attended the WikiKata Bulan Bahasa workshop as a facilitator and photographer. The workshop involved students from 4 schools in Singapore learning how to input entries of usage example sentences for Malay words in the Malay Wiktionary. They managed to improve up to 53 pages by adding usage example sentences to the pages.

16 August

I attended Day 2 of the ESEAP Strategy Summit and we were tasked to give suggestions on what should be ESEAP's focus in the region as well as what the general structure of the organization should look like.
I then attended the workshop on Manuscript Digitization for Wikisource Loves Manuscripts. The workshop showcased how volunteers from Indonesia managed to track down several ancient Indonesian manuscripts and digitized the contents through High Definition photography as well as transliterating and translating the text into Wikisource.
At the end of the day, I witnessed beautiful performances during the Wikimania opening ceremony as well as the unveiling of awards for selected Wikipedians.

17 August

Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia organized a small meetup to present a plan to preserve the endangered Mendriq language in Kelantan through the utilization of WikiKamus (Malay Wiktionary).
I attended a talk by the Bashkir community about how they retain a high number of active contributors for their Wikipedia even though the contributors are of elderly ages. They regularly engage with the community as well as provide physical tokens of appreciation to motivate the contributors to be more active in preserving their language for the future.
I attended the Secrets of Effective Editing Workshops talk and learned several ways to improve managing editing workshops. A proper editing workshop would need an organized plan that focuses accommodation for participants whether it's before the workshop, during the workshop, or after the workshop. Pre-workshop engangement with the participants is important to initiate interest and curiosity while providing them with satisfactory registration and guaranteed participation in the workshop. Intra-workshop engagement with the participants is important in providing aid and understanding for the editing activities to run smoothly. Post-workshop engagement with the participants is important to retain their interest in editing as well as aiding them with new issues they face as they contribute regularly. Adequate preparation is also important to ensure the workshop does not run into unexpected technical issues.
I attended workshops by the Paiwan and Puyuma communities from Taiwan. They emphasized the importance of locating sources and documentation of their indigenous languages as well as using cultural history and knowledge to determine the proper words to be used for certain concepts when editing Wikipedia articles so that the articles are not just informative but can be culturally understood and connect with the readers. Collaboration with organizations that involve cultural and historical artifacts such as museums is important in systematically building up the database of terms for the languages for current and future uses. I also got to experience their cultural dances and singing with other participants after the workshops ended.
I was able to also watch the performances from Aotearoa Pasifika. They displayed such beautiful and meaningful cultural dances.
I also got to be in the global group photo that involved all the Wikimanians and felt like we were one big family.
At the end of the day, I attended an entertainment session watching several Wikimanians participate in a Wikipedia race and also watched a Wiki fashion show where Wikimanians showcased their different outfits that had Wiki motifs and designs.

18 August

I attended and recorded the Inauguration Ceremony for the Kent Wiki Club by the Kadazandusun delegates. Hopefully with the formation of this Wiki Club, the Kadazandusun community will be able to promote their language and culture further.
I attended a talk regarding Wikitongues, an initiative to document and preserve endangered languages by collecting video footage of the speakers speaking their mother tongues while talking about their stories or cultural history for Wikitongues to post on social media, giving the language more exposure to the public while also spreading information about the language. I plan to use Wikitongues to document the endangered indigenous languages in Malaysia.
I watched the Kadazandusun and Bajau Sama delegates perform their cultural dances and joined them with other Wikimanians as well.
At the end of the day, I enjoyed a fun karaoke session with Wikimanians where we all sang and danced through the night.

19 August

I attended a talk by Tofeiku where he talked about how he managed to collaborate with various organizations such as universities and embassies to conduct workshops and engage with new Wikimedians. His efforts has garnered much attention, which led him to well-deserve his current status as Wikimedian of the Year 2023.
Afterwards, I attended the closing ceremony of Wikimania, which also featured Dody Ismoyo dressed in a Minion cosplay while advocating for cosplay-related events as an untapped outlet for media contribution to Wikimedia Commons as well as promotion of Wikimedia projects.
At the end of the day, I attended the dinner at Gardens by the Bay and enjoyed good food, danced a lot, watched a beautiful light show, and viewed several interesting plant species kept in the garden dome.

Plans after the conference

Provide more assistance to Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia and related subgroups in conducting workshops and various other activities to promote Wikimedia projects.

Advocate for better protection and documentation of indigenous languages and cultures as well as helping them grow.
Contribute to the documentation of old manuscripts containing Jawi and help other indigenous communities improve, advocate, and create their own writing systems as a form of cultural promotion and preservation.

Comments regarding the conference

The conference overall was fun and very informative. My only comments are mostly regarding food preparation with proper signage on whether the food is halal, kosher, vegetarian, vegan, etc and also making sure the food does not taste bland as well as allocating enough tables and seats for lunch breaks. Evening activities should also clearly indicate the locations as there were several times many Wikimanians were confused on where to go because there were a few buildings with the same name. Proper allocation of multi-prayer rooms separate from the conference room should also be taken into consideration because mixing the prayer rooms with conference rooms made some Wikimanians confused on whether they can stay in a particular room or not.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia for granting my sponsorship to attend Wikimania 2023 and providing incredible guidance throughout the conference.

I would also like to thank all the Malaysian delegates for coming together and enjoying every part of the conference as one big family. It was lovely meeting everyone for the first time and I hope we will meet again in future activities.