ESEAP Conference 2024/Report/1233

ESEAP Conf 2024 is the second conference that I participated in (first one being in 2022).

I am offered an organizer scholarship to participate in this conference. At the same time, I also returned from another Wikimedia-related/sponsored event (1st Global Wiki Advocacy Meet).

Thank you

I must thank for the opportunity for attending this conference (and the Advocacy meet), which are both sponsored by the WMF. I have also shared my experience on the Advocacy meet at this conference. I would also thank Ghozi in helping me navigate the whole conference and provided suitable assistance as I felt (very) unwell after the opening cocktail (till the very end of the conference) (and a week thereafter).

Volunteer

I provided live interpretation to Mandarin at the second day and the opening session for the first day at the same time. I also helped screen scholarship applications.

Things that I have learnt

I have consolidated and built new connections with people, and this is also my first time presenting in Wikimedia Conferences. It sharpened my skills in presentation and have gained some insight in leading and facilitating internal discussions.

I have also learnt a bit about preserving minority languages. Although the case in Hong Kong is become more precarious (i.e. the government actively tries to russify the society), preserving Cantonese is still very important.

At the same time, I would propose not to offer technical work (i.e. interpretation) to volunteers as we are not trained for these activities. It feels a bit out of ability to let editors volunteer in these fields. I think volunteers are best tasked with generic ones (i.e. assist in non-technical work) but technical work that needs training actually seems to be a bit out of ability for an untrained volunteer.

Sharing

Due to the challenging environment from where I reside, I have shared my experiences with members of the community only internally.

Next steps

As building platforms are easy but maintaining them (and surviving) are harder, we need to work towards a better environment for large online communities to work like communities, and be regulated like communities. There are various insights, particularly those provided by Australian editors and the Taiwanese community, that are found to be helpful to protect the continuity of operation of the community in Hong Kong.