This year’s Wikimania in Nairobi is another success, looking at the number of participants who have attended both in-person and online and the variety of presentations from different communities. Although we may not have been able to be present in person and meet some of our old-time friends or mingle with new participants, our virtual attendance at this year’s conference has provided a wealth of knowledge and a renewed sense of purpose. Volunteers of our group have attended several sessions to gather insights from different communities and apply them to our local context. Here are some of the key takeaways and our plans for the future.
Key Learnings from Wikimania 2025
The sessions we attended were diverse, offering a holistic view of the Wikimedia movement’s challenges and opportunities.
Community and Collaboration: The “Nigeria Community Micro-Grant” and “Bike-quest for WLM in Moldova” sessions highlighted the power of local initiatives and creative approaches to engagement. We learned that success often comes from tailoring projects to a community’s unique needs and resources. We have modeled some of our projects in the past based on local community needs, such as our Community Merienda and WikiDunong Program. This reinforces our belief in community-led activities and inspires us to explore more innovative outreach methods.
The Power of Data and GLAM: The session on “A Network of Places—Wikidata in Every GLAM professional’s toolbox” emphasized the crucial role of structured data in connecting cultural heritage. We saw how Wikidata can be a powerful tool for linking diverse collections and making them accessible to a global audience. This is a game-changer for our efforts to preserve and promote Filipino heritage. While we are mostly active in Wikidata by adding Central Bikol lexemes, we plan to also make use of this wikiproject to preserve our local tradition.
Navigating the Digital Landscape: With sessions like “Wikimania@20 Keynote Panel on AI” and “Defending our wikis against weaponized generative AI,” we gained a deeper understanding of the opportunities and risks presented by artificial intelligence. The discussions on the “dark side” of AI and the importance of information literacy from the “Information literacy skills of a conspiracy theorist?” session were particularly eye-opening. There are indeed pros and cons in using AI, and on quite numerous occasions, especially in content translation, relying deeply on machine-translated text can lead to misinformation. On the other hand, with careful guidance and proofreading from experienced editors, AI can be an effective tool in developing articles.
Building a Stronger Community: The session “Handling reports of code of conduct violations” provided practical frameworks for maintaining a safe and welcoming environment for all members. With some of our volunteers working as administrators in local WikiProjects, being knowledgeable on handling conflicts even online is a must. Also, the session “Storytelling and Learning with Diff” underscored the importance of sharing our stories to inspire and connect with others. Diff Blog gives us a platform far from the technicalities of an encyclopedic article, where we can freely share our unique experiences and learnings as Wikimedians.
Photographs of WAP volunteers and Kornelia, our Wiki cat, attending sessions online, Kunokuno,CC BY-SA 4.0
Our Plans for the Future
Based on these learnings, volunteers of the Wiki Advocates Philippines User Group are charting a course for the coming year.
Harnessing Wikidata for Filipino Heritage: In our recent project to document the Capalonga bamboo weavers, we aim not only to utilize Wikimedia Commons as a repository of this cultural heritage but also to link it to Wikidata by structuring data to the images.
Developing a Community-Specific Learning Program: Inspired by the “WikiLearn challenge,” we will design and implement a tailored training curriculum for new and existing members. This has been started through our Hatch-A-Wikimedian course on our website.
Proactive Stance on AI: More of our work that had depended on AI was on language translation, and upon carefully reviewing those generated texts, there are still a lot of mistakes in syntax, spelling, and grammar usage. We will explore more tools and language models to be adapted for our edit-a-thons.
Strengthening Community Governance: We will adopt a more structured approach to our code of conduct, incorporating the principles discussed in the Wikimania session. Considering that there are different cultural practices among different regions, we should ensure that the policies we create are compatible with our local community.
Photographs of WAP volunteers attending sessions online, Kunokuno,CC BY-SA 4.0
Wikimania 2025 has provided numerous learning opportunities for our volunteers and our group, despite our limited in-person attendance. We’re excited to apply these learnings and continue our mission of advocating for free knowledge in the Philippines. See you all at next year’s Wikimania!