On October 25, 2025, WikiConference Seoul 2025, the largest wiki gathering for Koreans, was held at the Seoul Global Center. The theme of this conference was “Beyond Technology and Language: A House of Knowledge Built by Everyone”. Embracing diversity in culture, ethnicity, and technology, the conference featured presentations on the ‘Japanese Wikimedia Community’ and selected keynote presentations on ‘Collaboration with the ESEAP Hub’ and ‘Wikipedia Activities as a Person with Neurodiversity’.
Given the hot topics, approximately 40 participants attended both online and offline. Despite language barriers, attendees listened attentively to the presentations and showed enthusiasm during the discussion time, enabling the conference to conclude successfully. This article will focus on the keynote presentations to explore efforts toward diversity in Korean and other language Wikipedias.
Japanese Wikimedia Community
This session featured presentations by Eugene Ormandy and Narumi.SBT. Eugene has been involved in various Wikimedia activities at Waseda University, the Toumon Wikipedian Club Japan, and Japanese GLAM institutions, and was selected as the 2023 Newcomer of the Year. Japan has abundant language resources, leading to active Wikipedia participation. However, language barriers limit international engagement, and there is a strong tendency toward individual rather than organized Wikimedia group activities. Recently, though, there’s been a shift toward collaboration for Wikipedia’s development, participating in Wikimania, publishing Diff articles, and forming user groups.
Next, Narumi.SBT shared activities about Wikimedians of Japan User Group. The Japan User Group was established in 2023 and has over 20 members. It has been recognized by the Foundation as an user group. Established with the goals of reducing knowledge imbalances and creating an environment conducive to Wikimedia activities, the group encourages young people to participate in Wikipedia through participation in open-source communities and library fairs, in addition to its regular activities.
The presentations provided valuable insights for Korean speakers who had limited access to news from Japan, and the discussion session created an opportunity to explore concrete collaborative measures, such as improving cultural heritage documentation related to Japan.
Collaboration with ESEAP Hub
The ESEAP Hub, serving as a hub for East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Pacific region, is an organization established to strengthen the capacity and foster collaboration among the regions, which have historically been underrepresented within the Wikimania community. They are working not only to enhance capacity and promote interregional cooperation but also to represent participation globally, engage diverse language projects, and establish a transparent decision-making structure.
Activities at the Hub introduced a new trend to the Wikimedia community, which has traditionally operated on a per-language basis. Attention is now focused on whether the Korean community can participate in such projects alongside its neighboring regions.
Wikipedia activities as a neurodiverse individual
Next, 쿠키몬스터 shared about neurodiverse community. The Neurodiversity Project is defined as a free and comfortable gathering regardless of disability status, contributing to information accessibility and fostering self-esteem. After introducing the editorthon and photo walk activities, participants expressed that they want interaction with neurotypical individuals, the creation of activity booklets, and collaboration with experts.
User Presentations: A Glimpse into the Diversity of Technology and Community Engagement
There were two user presentations. First Greenia presented about “understanding the trend created by WikiVault” Despite having only recently begun editing, she delivered an insightful lecture that leveraged her computer science background. She acknowledged that AI doesn’t merely provide incorrect information, but that Wikipedia itself trained that AI, and you explained that nurturing Wikipedia is how we prepare for the AI era.
Next, NZ 토끼들 presented a three-step strategy for moving beyond the metropolitan area, connecting with regions, and building a path toward Koreanization(localization). By introducing the concept of Koreanization, you clearly outlined the direction: reviewing content to align with Korean culture and creating Korean-style documents. It was a time when the presenter’s affection for Korean documents and culture was palpable.
The future of Wikipedia lies in diversity.
This conference served as an opportunity to bridge the Wiki Gap – inequalities in Wikipedia participation across groups, regardless of language, culture, or disability, and to enhance the diversity of the international Wikimedia user community. In an era marked by increased remote work, online meetings, and the narrowing of psychological distances between regions, it demonstrated that for Wikipedia to evolve into a future-oriented knowledge community, it must embrace Wikis in diverse races and languages rather than focusing solely on its own language editions.
쿠키몬스터’s presentation can be seen as an event that made visible the social participation of neurodiverse individuals, a group that has been marginalized within Korea. It was a presentation that showed the solution to the long-standing issue of ‘expanding Wikipedia editors’ on the Korean edition is not discrimination, but diversity. Wikimedia Korea will continue to strive for global collaboration and enhanced internal diversity on the Korean edition.
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