“Wikipedia Nyaun Vol. 8① Share Tango’s pride with the world on the Internet!”

On Sunday, September 21, 2025, “Wikipedia Nyaun Vol. 8① Share Tango’s Pride with the World on the Internet!” was held in Kyotango City, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan.

Komaneko Festival and “Wikipedia Nyaun”

The Komaneko Festival is held every autumn in Kyotango City. Kotohira Shrine is home to two stone statues called “komaneko” (guardian cats) instead of “komainu” (guardian dogs). These stone statues are associated with the history of the Tango Chirimen textile industry, and the festival has been held since 2016 as a local revitalization event.

“Wikipedia Nyaun” has been held since 2018 as part of the Komaneko Festival. The event focuses on a topic related to the Tango region, and participants create or add to a Wikipedia article on that topic. It is positioned as one of the “Wikipedia Town” taking place across Japan. Wikipedia Nyaun is organized by the local organization edit Tango, and as a member of the group, I participate as both an organizing staff member and a participant.

The Komaneko Festival is an event held in various parts of Mineyama Town, centered around Kotohira Shrine, and this time the venue was the Nissin Manufacturing Founding Memorial Hall, located adjacent to the shrine grounds. Kotohira Shrine is one of the leading shrines in the Tango region, and Nissin Manufacturing is the largest company in the Tango region. Both were the subject of editing in the 2019 “Wikipedia Nyaun”, and many participants edited them to create rich articles.

Wikipedia explanation

Participants at “Wikipedia Nyaun” received explanations about Wikipedia and “Wikipedia Town” from edit Tango members, then created Wikipedia editing accounts and edited topics for which literature had been collected in advance, such as “Longevity in Tango” and “Shimazu in Amino Town.”

Many participants came from far away, including a woman who came to the Komaneko Festival from Nantan City, male traditional short comedic drama performers who had performed at the Komaneko Festival the day before, and a woman who had come from Wakayama City for the second year in a row. As the venue was the Nissin Manufacturing Founding Memorial Hall, which is usually closed to the public, there was also an elderly woman who looked with nostalgia at the panel exhibits about Nissin Manufacturing and documents about the Tango region.

Editing Wikipedia

I created new Wikipedia articles for “Shimazu (Kyotango City)” and “Renge-ji Temple (Kyotango City)“. I found the settlement’s history of thriving in modern Tango Chirimen silk crepe and its history of suffering major damage in the 1927 Kitatango earthquake fascinating, but since there was little information available on the web. I created the Wikipedia articles primarily based on paper documents such as the “Amino Town History”.

Shimazu is a large settlement within Kyotango City, and the Shimazu Union District has been introducing its recent activities on its official website. Official websites and encyclopedias have different roles, and having both the Shimazu Union District’s official website and a Wikipedia page about Shimazu settlement has made it possible to understand Shimazu settlement from multiple perspectives.

Pre-prepared literature

For “Wikipedia Town” hosted by edit Tango, the topic is decided in advance, and reference services are requested from libraries such as Kyoto Prefectural Library and Kyotango City Library, and dozens of books and other documents are brought to the venue. A wide variety of documents are prepared, from general books with many photographs and multicolored covers to solid documents such as the thick “History of Kyotango City” and scrapbooks of newspaper articles.