Pitabangan is turning 1! Celebrate the global editathon campaign with MORE editing!

Back in September 2024, Wikimedia CUG Malaysia was invited to join the Celtic Knot 2024 Conference in Waterford City, Ireland. In the spirit of celebrating languages, we decided to organise a fun activity for Wikimedians around the world to join while the conference was ongoing. After brainstorming multiple concepts, we came up with an editathon campaign called Pitabangan.

What is Pitabangan?

Pitabangan was conceived as a 9-day online activity for any Wikimedians to create articles in their respective language Wikipedias or sister projects in order to add information about the city (or country) hosting a Wikimedia event. The idea was to encourage non-mainstream or minoritised language communities to actively contribute while showing other communities that they exist.

Pitabangan is a Kadazandusun word which means “to collaborate or work together in achieving a common goal”. Being a word from a non-mainstream language, the choice of name was a deliberate decision to emphasise minoritised languages and communities, highlighting the importance of all communities around the globe. This is in hopes that the underrepresented communities would take this chance to show themselves off to the wider Wikimedian communities and create new connections.

After the first Pitabangan activity in Waterford, we received immediate feedback from participants, thanking us for organising the event. It encouraged them contribute to Wikimedia projects after being on hiatus for a long time due to their commitments. Others also expressed their eagerness and happiness to have been able join in a multilingual and global editathon, feeling a sense of belonging in the Wikimedia movement.

What’s been done

During it’s first year, Pitabangan has been organised seven times in conjunction with seven different events—sometimes even without the event organiser’s notice. Pitabangan was held for the Celtic Knot Conference 2024, Wikimedia+Libraries International Convention 2025, Wikimedia Youth Conference 2025, Wikimedia ESEAP Strategy Summit 2025, EduWiki Conference 2025, and Wikimania Nairobi 2025, along with a 30-hour Wikipedia Article Competition by Wikimedia Estonia.

Throughout that journey, Pitabangan succeeded to attract the involvement of multiple communities from 24 Wikipedia editions, which are: Arabic, Banjarese, Kadazandusun (Central Dusun), English, Basque, French, Hausa, Iban, Japanese, Tyap, Malay, Inari Saami, Tagalog, Minangkabau, Indonesian, Sundanese, Mon, Spanish, Madurese, Hindi, German, Kelantan-Pattani Malay, Korean, and Thai.

Pitabangan also successfully attracted 55 Wikipedia editors working together on creating and improving a total number of 355 articles related to the host cities and countries regardless of subject area. More details can be found at: Pitabangan report for 2024-2025.

So, what’s next?

As it will be Pitabangan’s first anniversary, it is our hope to encourage more communities to join us in spreading knowledge. This is why we are organising a 3-day Pitabangan editathon in conjunction with the Celtic Knot Conference 2025. Interested parties are invited to create content on any Wikimedia project about any of the theme countries for past Pitabangans throughout the campaign’s first year.

For this special Pitabangan, participants will receive limited edition Pitabangan anniversary postcards as a token of appreciation for contributing to open knowledge through the Wikimedia movement. Additionally, we will also be unveiling Pitabangan’s official logo! Come and take a look during the start of the Celtic Knot Conference on 23^rd of September.

We hope that many of you will join us in this celebration of diversity and language empowerment while we all strive to understand one another in this globalised world.

You can find more details about the editathon here: Pitabangan Anniversary 2025