User:Azuru79/ESEAP Conference 2018 Report

Hello, my name is Zulfadli and I am from Brunei. On 5 and 6 May 2018, I attended the first ESEAP Conference held in Bali, Indonesia – it was my first ever experience attending a Wikimedia conference and indeed it was an insightful one.

Outcome
The conference really helped to reshape and improve my perception towards Wikipedia and other platforms under Wikimedia, as well as the Wikimedia movement in general especially in regards to Wikimedia 'communities'. Prior to the conference, I did not have much of established ideas on the existence nor the significance of user groups and chapters, nor was I really paying attention to this community-based concept. My primary goal on my involvement has been to simply edit and improve articles in Wikipedia. In the conference, I have found out that majority of the attendees come from the background whereby they are part of established Wikimedia chapters or user groups in their respective countries and it is really admirable to see serious commitment by many of the attendees in advancing their respective communities. Perhaps the most notable of such commitment is that done by a Wikimedian from Timor Leste who had successfully established a new user group in his country with initially only three members (if I recall correctly). As someone who come from the background whereby any kind of cohesive local Wikimedia community has yet to be established in my country, such particular achievement and the commitment towards community building in general is really motivating and ought to be replicated in my country's context.

Plan
It is this inspiration that factors into shaping my goal and vision for the Wikimedia movement in the future especially for Brunei. In general, I would like to see Wikimedia to have a much more active and inclusive role in the knowledge welfare in my country. However, I acknowledge that achieving this goal is realistically an uphill task, in regards to the present engagement on Wikimedia platforms, in particular Wikipedia, by the Bruneian people. Currently, there is still the fundamental issue on the lack of participation by the Bruneian people in making contribution to Wikipedia, even more so on other Wikimedia platforms. Another important issue is devising ways to connect the Bruneian Wikimedians – we are still pretty much disconnected – I myself have yet to communicate with any of the Bruneian Wikipedians. In short, I think user involvement is the most important issue that needs to be address for Wikimedia to thrive in Brunei.

In regards to the knowledge itself, I envision for Wikipedia to be an established source for encyclopedic information pertaining Brunei. At present, there are still much to be done on the Brunei-related articles, in which the issues include, among others: missing articles, out-of-date information, even the technical aspect of proper article formatting. I think local agencies and people have yet to realise the full potential of Wikipedia as a really dynamic platform for encyclopedic references. For example, Wikipedia can become a reliable source statistical information such as population census and land areas. This has actually been done in many countries with established encyclopedic information, in particular developed countries like Australia and the UK. Wikipedia really has powerful tools in the form of templates, especially infoboxes, as well as Wikidata which is connected to popular search engines and its information usually appear in top search results – this should be harnessed by local agencies as means to give easiest proper access for such information which could be vital to a number of Bruneians.

I also envision Wikipedia to be a platform for strengthening the role and prestige of Malay as the official language in Brunei. At present, although there are about 300,000 articles in Wikipedia Bahasa Melayu (Malay Wikipedia) it is still incomparable to the 5 million article count in English Wikipedia. Also, many articles in the former platform need quality improvement and refinement, even those pertaining Brunei itself. It is acknowledged that although Malay is the official language, English is widely used particularly in writing and, assuming that there is an increasing rate of English as a language medium, it is therefore crucial to seriously improve the state of Malay Wikipedia to the level comparable to its English counterpart. Indeed, I am currently making contribution to the articles in that Wikipedia as much as I can yet in the end it is the concerted effort among the Bruneians as well as those interested in Brunei that would really help realise this vision.

As mentioned previously, it is indeed an uphill task to realise this plan. Given its supposed complexity, I consider it to be a long-term plan. It may take some time before there will be some kind of gathering among the Bruneian Wikimedians or those having interest on this country. During the conference, I have been suggested by a member of the Malaysian Wikimedia user group to establish a new user group for Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore in which I have of the same opinion, considering the extremely small user base for Bruneian Wikimedians that at present it might not be feasible and sustainable for Brunei to establish its own Wikimedia community. It may be a while before any of the action for realising the goal will be undertaken after the conference but hopefully it will begin to be carried out within a year.

Conference
I am generally satisfied with what the conference has offered for the attendees, in regards to it being the first ever held in the context of this region. It was perceptive for the organiser to create two kinds of session, one catering for users and community members of more towards the beginner level, and the other the more advanced ones. The workshop and the presentation are generally engaging and interactive. I have to admit though that a few of them seem to be too advanced for me, or yet to be applicable in my present context as a Wikimedia individual without being a member of any existing established communities, but nevertheless should become relevant in the future. Timing progression during the conference was also satisfactory.

Wikimedians
It is my pleasure to have met many Wikimedians from countries in the ESEAP region. In this report I would like to give my foremost mention to Taufik from Malaysia in which he was the closest I was with during the conference, upon knowing that he came from Sabah and is able to understand Brunei Malay so I was able to be comfortable conversing in my own mother tongue. We were also happen to be the only users from Malay Wikipedia who attended the conference and so I took the opportunities to discuss matters and issues in Malay Wikipedia. Taufik is an admin in this Wikipedia and it was actually surreal to be able to see face-to-face with on of the admins in the Wikipedia I am active in and discuss Wikipedia-related matters in real life. Although he is currently more active in Wiktionary he still keeps track of the current edits in the Malay Wikipedia.

I would also like to give special mention to Tanweer, a Bangladeshi Wikimedian but attended the conference as an Affiliates committee member and also gave a presentation. It was really nice to have a personal discussion on Wikimedia-related matters in the evening after the conference, as well as exchange personal experiences and local issues in Wikimedia movement. Similarly, another special mention also goes to Liang, my roommate during the conference. At times he might have been busy as he was an organising committee and had two presentations to be prepared but during the time when we had the chance to talk it was really a pleasure to discuss Wikipedia-related matters and inform him on the state of Wikipedia in my region.

Special mention also goes to Daniel, who first came up with the idea to create a new user group for Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore.

I would also like to mention Raphael, a French who currently resides in Timor Leste, who shared with me his experience in making bot to expedite the mass creation of repetitive articles like populated places, in which I find it to be very benificial and ought to be applied to my situation as I am currently into creating and improving articles on settlements in my country.

I would also like to briefly mention the following Wikimedians, which I have personally met and personally talked with: Cahyo, Kartika, Ivonne, Isabella, Biyanto, Jeongyeol, Kangcheol, Anthony, Conan, Bonaditya, Takashi and Leni. For others whom I have personally met and talked to but no mention, sincerest apology, it is still a pleasure to have met you guys.

Concluding remarks
I would like to thank Wikimedia for the sponsorship of my trip and attendance to the conference. It was really a memorable experience to be able to attend a gathering with like-minded people, who are into Wikipedia and other Wikimedia platforms. I would also like to congratulate Wikimedia Indonesia for successfully organised the event. I wish the best of luck to Wikimedia Australia for hosting the ESEAP Conference next year in 2019. I hope I would have another chance to attend this conference again in next year's edition, and perhaps attend other types of Wikimedia conferences. Zulfadli51 (talk) 17:43, 11 May 2018 (UTC)