9th Waray Wikipedia Edit-a-thon

The Sinirangan Bisaya Wikimedia Community (SBWC) in cooperation with the Division of Humanities of the University of the Philippines Visayas Tacloban College (UPVTC) conducted the 9th Waray Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at the AS College Conference Room, University of the Philippines Visayas Tacloban College, Magsaysay Boulevard, Tacloban City on April 26, 2019 as part of the University's celebration of National Literature Month. The main objective of this edit-a-thon is to promote free knowledge by improving Waray Wikipedia and related Wikimedia projects through adding information and editing existing content. An edit-a-thon is an event in which people come together in a place to collaboratively contribute to online projects, in this case, the Waray Wikipedia and related Wikimedia projects. This event was funded by generous donors. Two Wikimedia volunteers from Manila served as resource speakers and assisted in the conduct of the wiki editing activity. The Division of Humanities of UPVTC invited the participants who are freshmen students whose majors are Accountancy, Management and Computer Science and provided the venue. This is the third edit-a-thon hosted by the UPVTC. The previous edit-a-thons, the 6th Waray Wikipedia Edit-a-thon and the 8th Waray Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, were held in November 2016 and April 2018, respectively.

Activities

Pre-event

Discussions about a follow-up for the edit-a-thon at UPVTC were initiated between Prof. Joycie Dorado-Alegre of UPVTC and Michael Glen U. Ong, the SBWC coordinator during December 2018. Michael sent the letter to UPVTC to formalize the activity on March 2019. Prof. Alegre confirmed the final date of the third edit-at-hon at UPVTC and the plan to carry out the edit-a-thon started. It would be a whole-day event on April 26, 2019 and the participants would be students of Prof. Irma Tan whose majors are Accountancy, Management and Computer Science, very much unlike the previous edit-a-thons at UPVTC. Michael then contacted Wikimedians Jojit Ballesteros and Bel Ballesteros to give talks and facilitate the edit-a-thon.

The following are the final details of the edit-a-thon as agreed by all parties:

Organizing Partner

University of the Philippines Visayas Tacloban College

Prof. Joycie Alegre, chair of Division of Humanities

Prof. Irma Tan - Coordinator for the event

Date and time: April 26, 2019; 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
Venue: University of the Philippines Visayas Tacloban College, AS College Conference Room, Magsaysay Boulevard, Tacloban, Philippines
Participants: 32 college students whose majors are Accountancy, Management and Computer Science

Actual event

The event did actually happen on April 26, 2019 and held at the AS College Conference Room of UPVTC. Participants who are Accountancy, Management, and Computer Science students started to arrive at around 8:30 am and the event officially began when Michael Ong gave the welcome remarks. It was followed by a presentation by Bel Ballesteros about the general idea of Wikipedia and other related projects.

After Bel's talk, there was a short break and then Jojit Ballesteros gave a series of demonstration on how Wikipedia works specifically the editing part. For the first time, Jojit discussed the creation of Infoboxes due to a request from a participant. He did not explain Infoboxes during previous edit-a-thons because it is an advance topic but since some of them are Computer Science students, he accommodated the request to expound the subject. He also made a live uploading demo in Wikimedia Commons. In addition, he also showed the Internet-in-a-Box device, which contains offline versions of the English Wikipedia, Waray Wikipedia and other educational content that can be accessed through Wi-Fi. The device is a credit card sized Raspberry Pi 3 Model B single board computer acting as a server for those educational content.

After lunch break, the edit-a-thon began while they were being guided by Jojit and Bel. It was announced that the cut-off for their contributions would be at 4:00 pm but they were free to edit until the end of the event. Just like with the 8th Waray Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, the winners for this edit-a-thon were determined through judging their works' quality and all the participants' new entries were included for judging. There were also prizes for top participants who contributed the most number of characters. While the edit-a-thon was ongoing, Jojit and Bel counted their number of contributions to determine the winners while Dr. Victor N. Sugbo judged the quality of their works.

Here are the criteria for judging the quality of the participants' outputs:

Criteria for judging	Description	%
Well-referenced	Cites independent, reliable and verifiable sources	40%
Broad in scope	Addresses main aspects of the article	30%
Neutrality	Presents all viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias	20%
Well-written	Free from grammatical and spelling errors; Written in clear and concise manner	10%
Total		100%

Schedule

Time	Activity	Speaker/Facilitator
9:00am	Registration
9:30am	Welcome remarks	Michael Glen Ong, Wikimedian and SBWC Coordinator
9:40am	Introduction to Wikipedia	Bel Ballesteros, Wikimedian
10:20am	Snacks
10:30am	Demonstration on how to edit Wikipedia	Jojit Ballesteros, Wikimedian
12:00nn	Lunch Break
1:00pm	Start of Edit-a-thon	Participants and facilitators
4:00pm	End of edit-a-thon, tallying of contributed characters and judging of participants' contributions	Bel Ballesteros and Jojit Ballesteros (facilitators); and Dr. Victor N. Sugbo (judge)
4:00pm	Snacks
5:30pm	Announcement of winners and awarding of prizes	Michael Glen Ong (SBWC), Dr. Victor N. Sugbo (UPVTC) and Prof. Maria Zenia Mariveles (UPVTC)
6:00pm	Giving of tokens by partners	Prof. Maria Zenia Mariveles
6:05pm	Giving of plaques of appreciation and tokens to partners	Michael Glen Ong
6:15pm	Closing remarks	Michael Glen Ong
6:30pm	Event ends

Participants and their output

There were thirty-two (32) expected participants and the actual attendance is thirty-three (33), which are all students of UPVTC. The participants were advised to create a Wikipedia user account beforehand. Only a few of them had done so. One of them, Brian G. Añano, was a participant from the 5th Waray Wikipedia Edit-a-thon in Guiuan, Eastern Samar in 2016. He already had a user account during the previous event that he attended but he forgotten his password. In this event, he used a user account he created in 2017. Apparently, Brian won 1st place in both quantity for contributing the most number of characters and in quality for his entry Mga Pahimatngon kanan Bagyo ha Pilipinas in the Waray Wikipedia. Incidentally, he also volunteered to help in organizing this event.

Among the thirty-three (33) attendees, only one person did not create an account and there were only two (2) persons who did not participate in the actual edit-a-thon. Only seven (7) students submitted a total of nine (9) entries for quality judging. In terms of gender distribution, fourteen of them (or 42%) were females and the rest are males. Likewise, six (6) out of the top ten participants (60%) who contributed the most number of characters were females.

Prizes were given to the top ten (10) students who contributed the most number of characters and all of them received a Wikipedia Offline DVD of the English Wikipedia having more than 45,000 articles. The top three (3) contributors for the most number of characters also received a USB thumb drive containing Wikipedia Offline for both English and Waray editions. There were also prizes for the top two (2) students whose works were judged according to its quality by Dr. Sugbo. Both winners received USB thumb drive containing also offline versions of English and Waray Wikipedias. Meanwhile, all attendees received a key chain with the logo of UPVTC and Waray Wikipedia on it.

Name	Username	Gender	Created articles	Edited articles	Number of characters contributed	Projects^[1]	Notes
Brian G. Añano	Nairb.Idi9	Male	Mga Pahimatngon kanan Bagyo ha Pilipinas, PAGASA	Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer	25,365	war, wikidata	1st place - based on quality and quantity of the articles contributed
Shania Belle H. Gamez^[2]	Shgamez	Female		Tabontabon, Leyte	11,605	war, commons	2nd place - based on the quantity of the characters contributed
Cornelia T. Jabiguero^[2]	Cooons11	Female		Dulag, Leyte	10,223	war, commons	3rd place - based on the quantity of the characters contributed
Lester Nhel A. Tan	Latansumuroy	Male		Palapag	9,216	war	4th place - based on the quantity of the characters contributed
Glendel B. Calvo^[2]	CaraTargaryen	Female		University of Eastern Philippines	8,916	war	5th place - based on the quantity of the characters contributed
Alfonso B. Busa Jr.	Abbusajr	Male		Dolores, Eastern Samar	7,384	war	6th place - based on the quantity of the characters contributed
Ruchie M. Salas^[2]	RMS411	Female	Clint Gonzales	Tacloban	7,274	war, commons	7th place - based on the quantity of the characters contributed
Alyzza Jane L. Pilpa	AlyzzaJLP	Female		Calbayog	6,326	war	8th place - based on the quantity of the characters contributed
Samson D. Rollodo^[2]	Sasmos12	Male		Calbayog (en), Calbayog (war)	6,076	en, war	9th place - based on the quantity of the characters contributed
Anellerex A. Abella	Got7.ahgaxer	Male		Ormoc	5,528	ceb	10th place - based on the quantity of the characters contributed
Shara Michelle J. Vy	V199x	Female		Waray_(pinulungan)	5,302	war
Rugie C. Gabitanan	Rugie gabitanan	Male	The Obelisk (Catbalogan)		4,472	war	2nd place - based on quality of the article contributed
Zion L. Atis	Zayonathese	Male		Calbayog	4,401	war
Edu S. Petilos	F3et1L0s	Male	Ginbalo	Caibiran	4,075	war
Fettilyn Grace B. Cuartela	Fettilyngrace	Female		Burauen	3,992	war
Vince Rupert O. Aseme	Muckhunter	Male	Python (programming language), Joji (magkaranta)		3,496	war, wikidata
Ma. Ashley E. Camasin	Maash134340	Female		La Paz, Leyte	3,448	war
Kyle Jasper Q. Ballon	KJazzper	Male	Johnny Sins	Palo, Leyte	3,299	war, wikidata
Francis A. Luna	Iamflkiko	Male		Borongan	3,016	war
Cris Nino N. Sulla	Cnsulla	Male		Game of Thrones	2,913	war
Germarlita Q. Desalin	Cofraitar	Female	John green	Borongan	2,893	war
Derville Paz L. Cinco	Dervillepaz	Female		Dulag, Leyte	2,733	war
Gil Christian T. Centina	Gil Inchan	Male		Basay	2,629	war
Gregorted Josef L. Cabello	Gregorted	Male		Jaro, Leyte	2,300	war
Dari Jane B. Esperas	Durrknob	Female		Waray (pinulungan)	2,241	war
Zander R. Zartiga	Kuan24	Male		Calbiga	1,588	war
Kim C. Yu	Misayka	Female		Biliran	1,566	ceb
Adrian Lorenzo U. Mabansag	Adrian08354	Male		Catbalogan, Tulay San Juanico, Uyag, Samar State University	1,511	war
Danica P. Caysido	Danonepiece	Female		Tanauan, Leyte	1,103	war
Kliezl P. Eclipse	Mrjry24	Female		Yolanda Shrine	914	war
Sean Matheus Dichosa		Male					Attended the morning session but did not return for the actual edit-a-thon
Michael Joshua C. Orais	JoshuaOrais	Male					Attended the actual edit-a-thon but did not contribute
Euvan Dave S. Siervo	Euvan Dave	Male		Pambujan		war	Attended the actual edit-a-thon and participated by deleting some characters

Notes

^{^} Legend: war = Waray Wikipedia; en = English Wikipedia; commons = Wikimedia Commons; ceb = Cebuano Wikipedia; wikidata = Wikidata
^{^} Unable to get their prizes during the awarding ceremony because they left early after the edit-a-thon. They claimed their prizes after the event from Brian.

Lessons learned

What worked well

As with the previous edit-a-thons in Eastern Visayas, generally, everything worked well. The venue and internet connection provided by the University were conducive to the event. This edit-a-thon was well attended and productive courtesy of the University which invited the participants. As requested by SBWC, the Division asked the participants to create their Wikipedia usernames and encyclopedic articles before the event. With that, participants were able to contribute 155,805 characters for the whole duration of the actual edit-a-thon. This is more than the 148,407 characters contributed during the previous edit-a-thon, which was also hosted by the University in 2018.

The first prize winner for this edit-a-thon in terms of quality, Brian G. Añano, composed a long and very well-written article with lots of references and Infoboxes. It helped that he attended a previous edit-a-thon and the project team is pleased that he became a fruit of the edit-a-thons in Eastern Visayas since he turned into an active Wikipedian.

What didn't work

The organizers were hoping for a Wikipedia Education Program (WEP) type of a project in UPVTC where students contribute to Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects in an academic setting and the culminating activity would be an edit-a-thon. The WEP did not push through due to some challenges. Nevertheless, organizers agreed to have an edit-a-thon for the University's celebration of National Literature Month. Hopefully in the future, a WEP would be implemented in UPVTC.

One of the targets of this edit-a-thon is to have at least five (5) quality articles based the judging criteria. Out of the nine (9) entries submitted, only two (2) articles were judged as of good quality. This specific goal was not met perhaps because the participants are not oriented in writing since none of them are Communication Arts students unlike with the previous edit-a-thons in UPVTC. Additionally, they seem interested in the technical part of the Wikimedia projects. Next time, the project team may modify the goals that would suit the interests of the audience.

Outcomes and impact

Outcomes

The thirty-one (31) actual participants of this edit-a-thon (the biggest audience so far for an edit-a-thon in UPVTC) have improved Wikimedia projects by adding nine (9) new articles and improving twenty-six (26) existing articles in Waray Wikipedia as well as editing one each article in Cebuano Wikipedia and English Wikipedia and editing entries in Wikidata. This was the first time during an edit-a-thon in the Eastern Visayas that someone contributed in the Cebuano Wikipedia. As with the previous edit-a-thons, the organizers allow participants to contribute to any Wikimedia projects despite that the focus of the edit-a-thon is the Waray Wikipedia. This is done to emphasize the openness and freedom that Wikimedia advocates.

The participants also uploaded sixteen (16) new pictures to Wikimedia Commons which they used in the articles they added and improved in Waray Wikipedia. However, as of this writing (June 2019), five (5) files coming from one contributor were later deleted due to lack of copyright information.

In terms of contributed characters, this edit-a-thon has added an approximately 155,805 bytes which exceeds the 148,407 bytes contributed during the previous edit-a-thon hosted by this University in 2018 making it the most productive edit-a-thon in UPVTC. As of this writing (June 2019), this edit-a-thon is second only to the 7th Waray Wikipedia Edit-a-thon for the most number of characters contributed in any documented edit-a-thon in the Philippines.

To determine the number of contributed characters or bytes: (a) the facilitators of the event took note of the usernames of the participants; and (b) contributions were counted after the actual edit-a-thon with the use of "global edit summary" and the "recent changes" features of MediaWiki for each project that the participants have been editing. MediaWiki is the software behind Wikimedia online projects.

All goals of this edit-a-thon were achieved except for the last one, which is about creating five (5) new quality articles. This edit-a-thon managed to produce only two (2). Nevertheless, the first prize winner created an exceedingly good article beyond the expectation of the judge.

Progress towards targets and goals

Project metrics

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
There should be at least 15 participants for the event.	Aside from the SBWC and UPVTC partners, 33 students attended the event but only 32 created an account or already had an account and 31 contributed and edited Wikimedia projects during the edit-a-thon.	Prof. Joycie Alegre, chairperson of the Division of Humanities of UPVTC, assigned Prof. Irma Tan to invite participants for the edit-a-thon.
There should be 30,000 characters or equivalent to approximately 20 pages of printed text added in the Waray Wikipedia and other Wikimedia-related projects.	There were 155,805 characters contributed mostly in the Waray Wikipedia and a few in the Cebuano Wikipedia, English Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons.	The participants actively participated in the edit-a-thon. They asked questions and followed instructions on how to edit Wikipedia.
There should be at least five (5) quality articles based on the judging criteria set by the project team.	Of the nine (9) created articles, only two (2) articles were judged as of good quality.	The participants, except one, prepared the articles only during the edit-a-thon. Majority of the participants edited existing articles.

Global metrics

For more information, see Global Metrics.

PARTICIPATION (COMMUNITY)
Metric	Achieved outcome	Explanation
1. Number of active editors involved	4	Three (3) active editors were with the project team; one (1) out of the thirty-three (33) participants have participated in a previous edit-a-thon and also an active editor in Wikimedia projects. The rest were new or have never edited or contributed to Wikipedia before this edit-a-thon
2. Number of newly registered users	31	Thirty-one (31) participants have created their user accounts. Only one participant already had an active account since 2017.
3. Number of individuals involved	42	Three (3) individuals as the project team; six (6) individuals belong to the UPVTC organizing group; thirty-three (33) students attended
CONTENT
4. Number of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages	16 new pictures	Sixteen (16) new pictures are uploaded in Wikimedia Commons and used in Wikipedia articles, however, five (5) pictures were later deleted due to lack of copyright information.
5. Number of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects	9 articles added and 28 articles improved	Nine (9) new articles are created and twenty-six (26) old articles are improved in the Waray Wikipedia and 1 each improved old article Cebuano Wikipedia and English Wikipedia.
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects	approximately 155,805 bytes added	Only the bytes added were considered
LEARNING QUESTION
7. Did your work increase the motivation of contributors, and how do you know? Yes, since participants actively contributed in this edit-a-thon. There is possibility in the future that another edit-a-thon or similar activity would be conducted in UPVTC.

Impact

Just like with the previous edit-a-thons hosted by UPVTC , this activity again focused on enhancing Waray Wikipedia by adding quality content. Furthermore, since most of the students have technical background, they learned other advanced topics in contributing to Wikimedia projects. There are new editors in the Wikimedia projects as a result of this edit-a-thons. One of the participant who attended a previous edit-a-thon became an active editor.

In terms of quantity, this edit-a-thon created nine (9) new articles, improved twenty-eight (28) existing articles and uploaded sixteen (16) new pictures. This edit-a-thon had a significant impact to the Wikimedia Movement's vision that everyone could "share in the sum of all knowledge." This is because all the participants except for one are new editors and they all were able to produce 155,805 bytes of contributions in about four hours.

In terms of bridging the gender gap in the Wikimedia movement, the project lead for this edit-a-thon, Bel Ballesteros, is a female and the two coordinators of UPVTC are also females. Fourteen (14) out of the thirty-three (33) attendees are female. That is only 42% females. The top ten (10) contributors in terms of characters contributed are equally 50% in both females and males. This edit-a-thon has somehow managed to narrow the gender gap with regards to event organizing and productivity.

With the success of this edit-a-thon, future collaboration with UPVTC is most likely and the organizers is hoping to other type of collaboration aside from just an edit-a-thon. The biggest impact of this edit-a-thon is the very strong partnership with UPVTC. After nine edit-a-thons across the Eastern Visayas, the general assessment of the Wikimedian organizers of these edit-a-thons is that the academe particularly in UPVTC is steadily accepting the positive impact of Wikimedia projects in education.