WikiTutuwuhan: A Journey to Document West Java’s Botanical Treasures in Wikimedia Projects

Wikimedia Bandung Community, through the Dana Wiki program by Wikimedia Indonesia, has successfully carried out a project called WikiTutuwuhan over a three-month period from January to March 2025. This project focused on documenting both local and non-native plants in West Java Province through Wikimedia Commons and the Sundanese Wikipedia. The project was carried out by four community members: Ahmad Fauzi (User:A2613), Lany Pirnasari (User:Lany pirna), Rafli Noer Khairam (User:Raflinoer32), and Hayati Mayang Arum (User:Hayati Mayang Arum).

What has been implemented?

We carried out plant documentation in three locations in West Java Province: Taman Hutan Raya Ir. H. Djuanda on January 24, 2025, Kebun Raya Cibodas on February 1, 2025, and Taman Bunga Nusantara on February 2, 2025. We documented both local and foreign plant collections in these three locations. The documentation covered both vegetative parts such as stems and leaves, as well as generative parts such as fruits, flowers, and seeds. After completing the documentation, we uploaded the results together to Wikimedia Commons.

In addition to documentation on Wikimedia Commons, we also added information about the plants we documented to the Sundanese Wikipedia. This effort aims to enrich botanical aspects, which is still very limited on the Sundanese Wikipedia. The article writing process involved not only the project organizers but also 10 other Wikimedia volunteers in Bandung through an online meetup held on March 1, 2025.

What has been achieved?

Through the WikiTutuwuhan project, we have successfully documented 186 different plant species on Wikimedia Commons. All of these species are represented in a total of 542 photos. This result exceeds the initial target we set, which was 60 species in 120 photos. Additionally, we have successfully added 60 new articles about local and foreign plants on the Sundanese Wikipedia, consisting of 40 articles written by the project team and 20 articles written by volunteers. The articles we wrote also surpassed the initial target of 1,000 bytes per article. By the end of the project, we achieved an average of 2,500 bytes per article by including infoboxes, photos, and general information.

Lessons learned

WikiTutuwuhan has provided us with valuable lessons. Through this initiative, we realized that information about botany on Wikimedia projects in Indonesia is still very limited. This has inspired us to contribute even more to this topic so that others can easily access information through Wikimedia projects.

We also learned that the enthusiasm and dedication of the project organizers and participants were the key to the success of this project. The project team put in a great deal of effort to ensure the project’s smooth implementation, allowing it to run successfully and far exceed its initial targets. Additionally, we truly appreciate the volunteers in Bandung who enthusiastically joined the online meet-up to help enrich articles on the Sundanese Wikipedia.

Next steps

We see great potential in continuing this project. We hope that botanical knowledge will continue to grow across Wikimedia projects, especially Wikimedia Commons and the Sundanese Wikipedia. We believe that content related to botany can support and enrich open educational resources (OER) in the field of biology. In this way, educators, students, researchers, and the general public can use it as a scientific reference, teaching material, or a guide to exploring local and foreign plants in West Java.

Following the completion of this project, the Wikimedia Bandung Community plans to continue it through the Dana Wiki program by Wikimedia Indonesia in the following year, as well as through the Rapid Fund program. Through this project, we also aim to involve more volunteers in Bandung to collaborate and contribute toward the goal of freeing knowledge. We believe this effort will result in even more content being produced.