ESEAP Conference 2024/Report/Supaplex

• From: Taiwan
• Organization: Wikimedia Taiwan
• Name: Dennis Raylin Chen

Things learned at the conference

My Section 1: Can Oral Hokkien Language be Written? How Can Wikidata Help?

My talk is half Wikidata and half language. From the beginning, I told them I took Maylaysia Airline flight to Kota Kinabalu, one of my flight you have to use you own device to steam the on-flight entertainment system's content. And the entertainment system put one of Taiwanese Hakka Album from Julia Peng(彭佳慧) 《我在客廳做的夢》 into Mandarin category. And two G.E.M.(鄧紫棋)'s Cantonese albums into Mandarin category. Even in Southeast Asia with quite a huge Hokkien, Hakka or Cantonese speaking populations, people outside these communities have no idea of their culture. And next part is talking about the language history of Taiwanese Taigi, how it is suppressed and the recent language revitalization in Taiwan. Some attendees might found it quite boring due to the historic aspect and not any Wikidata editing yet during my first part of speech.

I might have to consider the target audience and prepare more straight to Wikidata part for foreign audience. And prepare much detail historic explain for both the Peh-ue-jit system and Taigi Chinese character usage.

My Section 2: Crowdmapping is More Fun with OpenStreetMap!

I presented with Eugene Alvin Villar on site, and Arnalie Faye Vicario from OpenStreetMap Philiphine and OpenStreetMap Foundation remotely. The first 30 minutes is lecture form, then the rest is workshop. It seems that the OpenStreetMap workshop is in the last day of the whole ESEAP event, not many people attend, only 12 people, quite dissatisfied.

We have also demo live editing, and also the OpenStreetMap x Wikidata crosslink tool by Edward. During the Q&A section, one participant from East Timur ask if there is a community exist in the area. But it seems not at all. We recommended he ask the neighbor country, or ask anyone from East Timur on the OpenStreetMap Community Forum.

Wikidata Project

I have a quite a deep conversation with Alan from WMDE, and learned his plan to incubate a local Wikibase community in ESEAP area. I mentioned the SLY art space Alien Fund want to deal with Wikibase, but reviewer from Wikimedia Foundation kept challenge their attempt to support a local Wikibase community. Alan said that the Wikimedia Foundation doesn't know much about Wikibase, should contact WMDW for support instead.

I also heard the conflict of WMID that made the WMID Wikidata team split out from WMID, and they are looking for new funding to support themself. It might be a problem in the future for Wikidata Taiwan, due to it is quite unique in nature and have different approach compare to Wikipedia.

Temporary Interpreter for Amis Friend

On Sunday I have to help my Amis friend for interpretation in the section Indigenous Languages and Wikipedia: What New Possibilities Can They Bring? due to the schedule interpreter no show during the ESEAP Conference. I interpreted one sentence by one sentence after the presenter spoke. Sometimes due to grammar difference between language, you have to switch the order of the sentences. There is one Māori asked about how to do the interview with elders, there might be possible that the content is not suitable for Wikipedia. Our speaker responded that they will write a formal interview question list, and ask for permission to upload content online.

Unofficial OpenStreetMap Workshop and Commons Workshop

On Monday after the ESEAP conference, so many still around Wikipedians original have plan to do, but it is too hot to wander around, so much of the people just stay in the hotel lobby. Four people including me occupied a desk and start editing OpenStreetMap and taking photo for Wiki Commons. If someone has questions, the more experience editor will guide him.

Things the participant contributed or participated in or since the conference

Japanese Community

It is quite impressive to saw Japanese Wikipedian in a Wikimedia event. We once thought that a country-level Japanese Wikimedia user group not possible due to Japan anonymous nature of Wikipedia contributions. A retied Japanese librarian Yuriko Kadokura not only participant but also write a book about Wikipedia, her action reminds me of the early history of Taiwan Wikimedia Movement, KaurJmeb wrote a book about Chinese Wikipedia in 2006. Her talk marks a milestone in Japan Wikimedia ecosystem.

Last year Eugene Ormandy san, the 2023 Wikipedian of the year, share his story as a Wikipedian contributors. He asks from his school library if the library and the Wikipedia edit can collaborate. And finally he found a library that can hold editathon in the library. Other impressive work from Eugene san is he spends huge amount of time writing diff blog posts. Then after he accumulates many articles, he will use these articles as proof that Wikipedia is not a scam and done some serious work, making collaboration negotiation much easier.

Mongolia Wikipedia

I ran into Mongolian Wikipedia Admin Chinto, who is quite far-away from the coastal or island part of ESEAP, and make everyone quite surprise. He said that Mongolian people are quite busy with their daily life, so not much to do on Wikipedia stuff.

If you are a Mongolian and want to participate, you might have to not only contribute to the content, but also the on-site rule regulations, or moving template from other Wikipedia. There are only 2 admins for the whole Mongolian Wikipedia, and he himself already migration to other country, making him quite hard to take care the Mongolian Wikipedia Community. For example, it is quite hard for him to form a relationship with the Mongolian government due to he is not in Mongolia.

Other problem is the writing system, it is Old Mongolian Script in the China side, which is quite hard to integrated into the Mongolia Wikipedia due to the Mongolian side using Cyrillic script system.

The advice I give to Chinto is start small, like small competition. Every Wikipedia has its own starting period, some might passed it quite fast, some might still in the early stage. No need to worry and use your own pace to do the promotion activities. Maybe be a part of Asia Month or Wiki Loves Monument might be a good idea because you don't have to start from scratch.

Singapore User Group?

It seems possible after Wikimania 2023 in Singapore, just like Wikimedia Taiwan after Wikimania 2007 in Taipei. But I ask some people from Singapore, it is not possible due to logistic reason. Butch is foreigner from the Philippine. Alan is already have life and based in Berlin, German. Robertsky is a local Singapore people, but that is all. And make things worse is the lease price for Singapore office space is quite high. I think we will see these guys in ESEAP event but not possible under the Singapore User Group umbrella in the near future.

Lack of participants from Chinese Wikipedia

We might have to have a stand alone event for Chinese Wikipedia due to most of the active Chinese Wikipedia contributors not fluent in English. And they are more interested in issue on Chinese Wikipedia, at least from my observation for Wikimedia ecosystem in Taiwan.

And for the China part, the How to Encourage Women in Mainland China to Actively Participate in the Wikimedia Global Movement section is quite sarcastic. Wikipedia is not only blocked, but also not possible to have a health community in China due to China authority not allowed social gathering. And the women rights in China is heavily criticized. There is an human traffic incident, Xuzhou chained woman incident, a woman is chained in a cabin and force to give birth in the detention status. And it is not possible to raise aware of LGPTQ+ rights. The LGPTQ+ rights in Taiwan is quite common and possible to do. The Wikimedia Taiwan hold some LPGTQ+ rights meetup pre-COVID19.

There is a Great Firewall in China to block outside services, and block content that the China authority doesn't tolerance. Some audience have no knowledge of the Great Firewall, which surprise me.

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

Language collaboration with Hokkien content

I have been promoted to write Hokkien Language scene 2022. And honestly speaking, Taiwanese are not that attract to the idea to contribute to nan Wikipedia or Wikidata due to its limit time available or ideology. So I think we should get in touch with Indonesia Community or Malaysia Community, they have Wikitutor or Wikikata separately.

Comments/ suggestions about the conference

in some quite low possibilities of scenes in the future that may force Taiwan or Taiwan Community not in the mood for hosting next ESEAP Conference if the international communication is no longer a thing. For the whole ESEAP 2024 event, sometimes I feel something that make people not in their contribution mode, and have no interested to know other people's hard working projects, even further to incubate cross countries collaborations.

If people no longer feel those needs, maybe we should focus on our own, and doing our best in Taiwan. Of course we can still host events and write articles to promote our own projects. If there is one day people feel the need to incubate cross-countries collaborations, then we will connect our Taiwanese community with other countries communities.

The Philippine Drama

I have varies conversations with different people to talk about the Philippine community. Different fractions in Philippine form different user groups or thematic groups, technically separated people with different option. Is there a way to have a unstable but temporary national-wide Philippine group. And in the future, to pave the way for a still might be straggling but co-govern community by different fractions?