Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/Dody Ismoyo

The Wikimania 2023 was the annual international conference of Wikimedia Foundation which took place in Singapore on 16–19 August 2023.

Wikimedia Foundation sponsorship

I would like to thank the Wikimedia Foundation for the full sponsorship I received to attend this conference, especially to Gisca Syalindri, the Wikimania Scholarship Coordinator for fully facilitating the process.

ESEAP Hub Interim Committee

I had a truly awesome time working with the ESEAP Hub Interim Committees to prepare the upcoming ESEAP Preparatory Council. We had to finish our work passed 12 a.m. for several days just to catch the deadline. Slept at 3 a.m. and woke up before 7 a.m. the next day for several days. Big thank you especially to Vivien, Joyce Chen, William Chan, Reke Wang, Belinda Spry and Johnny Alegre.

ESEAP Strategy Summit 2023

For the very first time, Malaysia has been selected to host our first international Wikimedia conference, the ESEAP Conference 2024 which will be held in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah in mid 2024! The decision was made during the ESEAP Strategy Summit 2023 in which the final host candidates were Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan.

BERNAMA

I would like to thank the Malaysian BERNAMA news for covering the conference and the Malaysian delegates throughout the conference, especially on our ongoing works in Wiktionary for preserving the local endangered languages of the aboriginal people in Malaysia, especially in Kelantan and Sabah. I told them that we hope we can establish long-term cooperation between us to spread this movement even more within Malaysia. We wish to have more and more Malaysians to join our movement, we are open to all who wish to dedicate their time and efforts in spreading free knowledge to the world.

IPGK Kent Wiki Club launch ceremony

I was grateful to be given a chance to give an opening speech for the officiating ceremony of the establishment of the very first Wikimedia student club in Malaysia which will be located in Tuaran, Sabah.

Discussion with UNESCO

I was happy to have the chance for a discussion with the Director of UNESCO with delegates of Wikimedia Indonesia and Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia to discuss our cooperation and what helps we can give to each other to spread the free knowledge movement, especially in the Southeast Asia region. I told her I started to delegate more and more task and responsibilities to the new and younger Wikimedians in Malaysia because I am focusing more and more to ESEAP Hub to manage the regional Wikimedia affiliates within the East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific regions.

Rebranding Wikimedia: Wikimedia for Cosplay & ACG World talk session

Rebranding Wikimedia: Wikimedia for Cosplay & ACG World talk session

I am grateful to be given a chance to give a talk on stage (while I was cosplaying as Minions) about rebranding Wikimedia to suits the current evolving world among young people, especially in the cosplay, animation, comics and gaming world, specifically using Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata. I also presented our plan to open booth and participate in the upcoming gaming and cosplay-style event NOIZUCON 2023 in Kuala Lumpur, in which we prepare to bring back the animation character of Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipe-tan by having someone to cosplay her throughout the event. I had so many discussion after my talks with other Wikimedians talking about this new movement, including delegate from Wikimédia France where he might connect me with French cosplayer friends of his and invite me to France to develop this new movement. I was also approached by Wikimedia Italia and asked for some encouragement words for their local community to contribute to Wikimedia while having fun at the same like (e.g. like being a cosplayer like me). And I was also approached by several Wikimedia Foundation staffs saying how brilliant the presentation idea was.

The live recorded video is available on YouTube at 4:12:45 until 4:25:55.

Wiki Loves Cosplay

It was a fun experience to go to an anime convention (Asia Comics Expo 001) with some of the "otaku" Wikimedians for cosplayers photo hunting under the Wiki Loves Cosplay activity initiated by Wikivibrance editor Francesc. I bumped into this famous Malaysian cosplayer Hayate 小爹 (we came to the Malaysia-Japan Festival 2022 in Kuala Lumpur organized by Din (LOL Cosplay Malaysia) where I presented about Wikimedia to the cosplay community that time) and introduced her to my Wikimedia friends.

WikiMemes User Group

I finally met one of the member of WikiMemes User Group after my talk about cosplay and Wikimedia. We used to talk a lot in Telegram and this is the first time we met in person. He said he could just give the user group to me to manage it, to make it officially recognized by the Wikimedia Foundation. But then I said to him, well let's all of us contribute a bit by bit so that we can really realize this official group of ours. Everyone can play a role in it.

Wiki Karaoke!

During the karaoke night, I sang Under the Sea, the soundtrack of The Little Mermaid (1989 movie). And afterwards and also the next day, people kept coming to me and said thank you for bringing back their childhood memories. One friend of mine even said she kept hearing the "under the sea" words on her head while she is on bed about to sleep, hehe.

Wikimedia East Timor community

I was happy that the Wikimedia East Timor community had enquired a lot regarding the formation of our Malaysia user group with very detailed and lengthy discussion, and he wished to have a cooperation between us for the near future. I told him of course we are more than happy to help our regional friends to grow also, and I hope to see Wikimania Conference be held in Dili (East Timor's capital city) one day.

Johor Bahru Photowalk

I got the chance to showcase the city of Johor Bahru to some of the Wikimedia Conference delegates who took part in our Johor Bahru Photo Walk. It was indeed a long walk (I had 15,000 steps and 10 km) and the weather might be a bit unforgiving for some people. I think I should find a better timing (not as hot as that day) for outdoor walk and photoshoot to document historical buildings in Malaysia in Wikimedia Commons.

See: Wikipedia:Meetup/Johor 17 and City tour of Johor Bahru, Malaysia