When Indonesia’s Wikimedia Administrators Finally Met: A Note from WikiCendekia 2026

Affandy Murad, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Common

There is a moment I find hard to forget — sitting among twenty people I had only ever known by their usernames on a screen. They were administrators from various Wikimedia Indonesia projects, gathering for the first time in the same room in Surabaya. That was WikiCendekia 2026: not merely a training program, but a gathering of digital “heroes” who had long been working quietly behind millions of encyclopedia articles.

From a December Email

It all started on December 10, 2025, when an email arrived in my inbox. The message was brief but exciting: I had been selected as one of the participants of WikiCendekia 2026, an in-person training program to be held in Surabaya in February 2026. In this program, I represented two projects at once: Indonesian Wikipedia and Betawi Wikipedia, two communities I had been serving as an administrator.

For me, this invitation was no ordinary thing. Previously, I had the opportunity to receive a travel scholarship to Wikimania 2025 in Nairobi, Kenya, while also attending the pre-conference Users with Extended Rights Convening (UWER), a forum specifically for users with extended rights across Wikimedia projects worldwide. It was there that I first felt how valuable it is to meet fellow administrators face to face. WikiCendekia 2026, therefore, was the Indonesian version of that gathering — held on home soil for the very first time. To understand why this moment felt so meaningful, it helps to look back a little.

What Is WikiCendekia?

Affandy Murad, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

WikiCendekia is a capacity-building program organized by Wikimedia Indonesia (WMID). It is a continuation of a long series: WikiPelatih (2018 to 2021), WikiCendekia 2022, and WikiCendekia 2024. For 2026, however, its scope shifted. No longer limited to trainers, it now specifically targets administrators from various Wikimedia projects in Indonesia.

It is worth noting that the WikiCendekia name had actually existed earlier as a community program. Before 2022, it was used by the Wikimedia Yogyakarta Community, including for a program adding articles about Muslim scholarly figures on Javanese Wikipedia. It was only in 2022 that WMID adopted the name to replace the WikiPelatih brand. With that background in mind, the organizing team designed a format that could reach all administrators, wherever they were.

Hybrid: A Solution for All Administrators

Affandy Murad, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Recognizing that administrators are spread across Indonesia with various constraints of time and distance, the organizing team (consisting of Hardi, Ayu, Dimas, Dian, Giovani, Sony, and Nave) designed WikiCendekia 2026 as a hybrid event. Among them, Giovani is an intern from the city of Manado. He also helped with the WikiMaknyus event in Manado, which was initiated by Sofi Solihah, one of the WikiCendekia 2026 participants and an administrator of Betawi Wikipedia.

The online sessions came first, serving as a warm-up. It began with an opening session titled “Introduction and Information on the Self-Study Sessions in the LMS” on January 15, 2026 via Zoom, followed by two main sessions: “Administration 101: From Local to Global Involvement” by Jeromi Mikhael on January 21, and “Safety for Admins” by Ramzy and CMaslak on January 28. All of this was complemented by a self-study session through the Wikimedia Indonesia LMS based on Moodle at belajar.wikimedia.or.id, available from January 19 to 30, 2026.

The offline sessions were held at Hotel Kampi, Surabaya, from February 6 to 8, 2026, attended by 20 participants, 14 men and 6 women. Participants who could not attend in person due to personal reasons were still able to follow all the online sessions independently. As for why Surabaya was chosen, I asked the organizing team directly.

Why Surabaya?

Affandy Murad, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Ayu, one of the WMID staff members on the organizing team, explained that the decision was layered. First, throughout WMID’s programs, Surabaya had never been chosen as an offline venue, so it was about time the city had its turn. Second, in terms of accessibility, Surabaya offers better flight connectivity and more affordable costs for participants coming from outside Java, including from Sumatra and Kalimantan. Third (and this is what I found most practical), two of the organizers, Mbak Dian and Mas Dimas, are from the city, making it easier to handle accommodation and any last-minute matters.

There is also something that made choosing Surabaya feel symbolically fitting. The city is known as the City of Heroes, as many of Indonesia’s national heroes were born, lived, and fought here. That philosophical value resonates with the contributions of Wikimedia administrators who are heroes for their respective projects, and the work they do today will one day become history for future administrators. It was that spirit that seemed to flow throughout the three days of the event.

Three Packed Days at Hotel Kampi

The offline sessions consisted of four formats: Opening, Conference, Cangkruk, and Warung Kopi. The first day’s conference, on February 7, featured two technical topics I had been looking forward to: “Abuse Filter” by Raymond Sutanto, and “Editing the MediaWiki Namespace” by Nohirara. The second day, February 8, continued with “Creating and Running Bots” by BennyLin, and “Digital Security for Admins of Wikimedia Projects in Indonesia” by Ramzy, held online.

What set WikiCendekia apart from regular conferences were the Cangkruk and Warung Kopi sessions. The word Cangkruk comes from Javanese, meaning to sit or hang out casually, very much in keeping with the spirit of Surabaya. These sessions divided participants into small groups for more focused thematic discussions. Meanwhile, Warung Kopi allowed all participants to move between tables and talk freely across topics, a space that felt like a real conversation at a roadside coffee stall. It was in one of those Cangkruk sessions that I got my turn to share.

Facilitating Cangkruk B

Affandy Murad, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Among all the moments at WikiCendekia 2026, one of the most memorable for me was being given the opportunity to facilitate Cangkruk B alongside Mas BennyLin. We presented the topic “Template and Module Maintenance”, a technical subject that has long been a quiet challenge for many administrators. Sharing knowledge with fellow experienced administrators was an honor in itself. The full materials for this session can be accessed on the WikiCendekia 2026 page. After the session, I realized that the most valuable thing was not only what I had shared, but what I was taking home.

What I Brought Home

If WikiCendekia 2026 left something concrete, there are two things I implemented immediately after returning. First, thanks to the Abuse Filter session, I successfully set up a Basic Spam filter on Betawi Wikipedia, something that had long been overdue. Second, inspired by the bot session, I created a new bot called Berbobot, which is now actively welcoming new users on Indonesian Wikipedia using the Pywikibot toolkit.

But there is one thing with a longer impact than a few lines of code: a remark from Agus Damanik, an administrator of Indonesian Wikipedia, that I have been reflecting on ever since.

“If in Indonesian Wikipedia we strive to liberate knowledge, then in Regional Language Wikipedias, it is more fitting to think of it as learning the regional language as an effort to preserve it.”

That remark confirmed something I had long felt but could not quite articulate: Wikimedia projects in regional languages cannot be run with the same logic as Indonesian Wikipedia. Search engines prioritize Indonesian Wikipedia, so regional language projects cannot simply chase article counts. They must become living spaces for language preservation. And for that, collaboration with regional language bodies and speaker communities is an increasingly urgent step.

Closing: A Meeting That Has Only Just Begun

Affandy Murad, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

WikiCendekia 2026 was not just about technical tools or administrative policies. It was about twenty people who had long been working alone in corners of the internet, finally sitting at the same table, discovering that their anxieties were the same. The togetherness forged in Surabaya, in the Cangkruk sessions, at the warung kopi, in the margins of the conference, is the most valuable thing I brought home. When I next hit a wall in a Wikimedia project, I know there are twenty people I can reach out to, people who also know how lonely it can be to work as a digital volunteer.

May this gathering become the seed of a togetherness that grows far beyond three days at Hotel Kampi.

Complete information about WikiCendekia 2026 can be found at meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCendekia_2026.