Collaboration beyond the horizon and contributions beyond just Wikipedia: celebrating B20180, the admin of all Thai Wikimedia projects! 

In person events are a great opportunity to meet, connect and learn from one another. And they are also an amazing space to Wikicelebrate! In May, we saw our community from ESEAP host the ESEAP Conference 2024 in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia under the theme of Collaboration Beyond the Horizon. 

In line with the theme, the conference brought together nearly 150 wikimedians from 13 ESEAP countries to come together and celebrate the diversity, commitment and ambition of our movement. It was during the end of the conference, in consultation with the COT, that we celebrated the work of user B20180 (along with surprising them), a prolific administrator of Thai Wikimedia projects and a content contributor, whose work spans across Wikimedia content in Thai and beyond!

About B20180

B20180 is most active on Thai Wikipedia. This project, started in 2003 with an article containing just one word (“ดาราศาสตร์” – astronomy), has grown to 164,621 articles, and 53,995,663 monthly pageviews. Since he joined, almost 15 years ago, B20180 contributed to the growth of this project, by adding 2,905 articles. He writes about many different topics. You can stumble upon his articles, when trying to learn more about Swedish cuisine, shopping, a fighting video game from 1998,  female Estonian chess player, tourism in Uruguay or the situation of women in Ukraine. B20180’s contributions bring together both sides of a neverending dispute between cat people and dog people – he did write both about kittens and dogs! 

But for B20180 the Wikiworld doesn’t limit to Wikipedia:

While Wikipedia is the most recognized, Wikimedia hosts various unique projects. As the sole administrator for all Thai siblings projects for over a decade, I wish more people appreciated the diversity and richness of these initiatives. 

Among his many edits in siblings projects you can find B20180 adding Japanese and Ukrainian words to Thai Wiktionary, editing templates and pages in Thai Wikisource, adding quotes from sportspeople to Thai Wikiquote and working on Thai Wikibooks. He is also a contributor to Wikimedia Commons, adding photos about sport, monuments of the world, and community events. And if that wasn’t already impressive, there is also a large number of edits in Wikidata! 

From a passion for knowledge

Like many other Wikimedians B20180, is a passionate reader, who loves to read many different types of books. And among many books he loves, there are encyclopedias. He was always drawn to those sources of knowledge – even as a teenager, he often visited his local library to read the World Book Encyclopedia. So it is no surprise that, when he found Wikipedia – the global encyclopedia, covering everything from fiction, sports to academic knowledge – he instantly got interested. He tried his first edit as an anonymous typo corrector in Thai Wikipedia, and then – almost 15 years ago, he created a Wikipedia account and became a passionate editor with almost 150 000 edits across Wikimedia projects. In 2011 he became a Thai Wikipedia administrator, and in 2021 – a bureaucrat. And since bureaucrats are users who have a technical ability to extend the rights of other users (for example, making them administrators), this requires a lot of community trust. 

And a part of his work he is really dedicated to is supporting newcomers. When asked what keeps him going, he says: 

The joy of assisting new users, particularly the quick-learning younger generation, keeps me motivated. They grasp policies swiftly and are invaluable to our community’s future. 

To a passion for the community

Just a quick look at B20180’s userpage shows that the community doesn’t only show appreciation through granting him extended rights. There is also a whole collection of barnstars, special virtual badges that Wikimedians use to express gratitude and appreciation, that was awarded to him. His peers use barnstars to thank him for being a great mentor, a good admin, and a helpful Wikimedian, for participating in campaigns, adding content to different topics, and supporting others. B20180 is humbled by community appreciation: These honors inspire me to continue my dedication to the community, he says. 

The future of the community is something that occupies his mind as he adds;

One significant challenge is the relative inactivity of the Thai Wikipedia community, which has fewer than 200,000 articles as of 2024. Balancing content quantity and quality is crucial. We rely on expert advice and collective growth to overcome these hurdles.

Thank you for all that you do, B20180. Your work for Thai projects and beyond is absolutely amazing. And we are happy that the Wikicelebrate barnstar will soon join the barnstar collection already present on your userpage!