Cebuano Wikipedia: From Ghost Town to Growth Engine

I was busy minding my life and our non-government organization, growing Shared Knowledge Asia Pacific ( SKAP) in Northern Luzon island of the Philippines and to be honest, our team has a lot to do. Building strategic alliances was a huge, doing due diligence, looking for places to put Wikiprint (Wikipedia footprint) in towns and communities that have barely any or no Wikipedia projects and build communities too.

Then I read somewhere and heard from other Wikimedians that the second largest Wikipedia which happens to be in the Philippines, in one of the largest provinces, rich in culture and heritage, will be deleted because 99% of the articles were created by a bot. Most importantly, according to the conversation, there is no human heartbeat as the former editors from a decade back or more were no longer active and were not replaced by younger ones.

The Cebuano Wikipedia failed to create a community pipeline to sustain its growth and existence.

Without human editors, Cebuano Wikipedia became a ghost town

So the second largest Wikipedia, next to English Wikipedia, with over 6 Million articles had become a ghost town.

It feels terrible for the Philippines and some Filipino Wikimedians to even think of deleting those bot creations. If only there is a community that will continue on, the talks of deletion may be stalled, perhaps. Crossing fingers.

The SKAP Officers met and explored the probability of establishing a WikiClub in Cebu. Just a small one, 5 people at first, at least, hopefully. And we gambled.

It is not easy to build. We do not speak the Cebuano language and it was clearly the greatest barrier in community growth. But the Cebuanos are kind and generous for assistance, speaking patiently with us as we try to meet in the middle. I met Aileen, Charmaine and Bim. We learned Cebuano words fast and steady and we try to blend English or try to speak in Ceblish ( mix of Cebuano ang English language) to cope up and be understood.

And then we launched

Launching a community is not easy especially in a ghost town. Resurrecting a dormant community is harder than building a new one from scratch. Sometimes people will be nice and they come to your event. Most frequently, they don’t show up thinking they have nothing to gain form aliens like us. Cebuanos have a very strong community spirit though, and they are proud of their culture and heritage.

Giving up is not an option, even if it is difficult to navigate the terrain

It is very easy to pack up and leave. When people are not interested in your cause, you get hurt and the first thing that comes to mind is not fight, but flight. When we invited a thousand people, successively, only 250 will respect and atted. Only one in four. Its not that bad if 25% is the batting average but.. we wanted more. There was a time we said, okay let’s pack our bags and leave Cebu. Let the Movement decide its fate. Whether they delete all of it or not, so be it. However, I still gave it one last chance.

In the darkest of nights, a silver lining appears. We met partner schools who are interested in language preservation, tourism promotion, AI literacy, narrative strategy, and Cebuano studies. We met with government officers and collaborated with them. We asked what they need and if the WikiClub can help with content, as long as it is within the boundaries of Wikimedia policies, we proceed. WikiClub Cebu has attracted like minded organizations and offered help, offered a free venue like the Cebu City Public Library which is open 24/7. Universities and public high schools send their students to join WikiClub Cebu events and edit-a thons, controlled numbers but significant.

Each participant discovers the ‘opposite of Wikipedia is not reliable because everyone can edit it’, and eventually realize that Wikipedia is credible because every editor needs to abide by the policies and guardrails within projects before they can edit Wikipedia. They also learn that Wikipedia is one of the massive source of structured data used to train machines.

QueenCityCebu, WikiClub Cebu Community Co-Lead

Gradually, people start to attend, participate, edit, upload and celebrate with the community.

Time to celebrate

During Wikipedia’s 25th Birthday, WikiClub Cebu collaborated with SKAP to celebrate its milestone. Our partner Library provided a place for us to edit, do a mini Wikiexpedition, bond with other Wikimedians and share a birthday cake.

Barely after a year, and almost deciding to pack up and leave, the Cebuano Wikipedia is no longer a ghost town. It has silently developed a heart beat, mostly from Cebuano women who believe in the cause, the outreach and advocacy of open knowledge and the commons. A sprouting community is a good gift for Wikipedia @25. WikiClub Cebu has been the model for Mindanao cities to establish their own WikiClubs too. It inspired three (3) WikiClubs across Mindanao, such as WikiClub Zamboanga, WikiClub Davao and WikiClub Iligan to organize their own too.

From ‘Ghost town’ to Growth Engine

WikiClub Cebu tries to overcome its challenges and pave the way for other WikiClubs to start their own. And that is a truly positive impact. Aside from the humble numbers of Cebu, its outcome could not happen without the trust of its strategic institutional partners, Wikimedia Foundation included.

With 9 strategic partners on board, the Cebuano language is officially entering a new era of open knowledge. We are not just surviving; we are leading the Cebuano language into a new era of open knowledge while slowly inspiring other local communities to start and grow their own. We are starting to be Visayas and Mindanao region’s growth engine. Our numbers may be small and conservative, but we recognize each member’s effort. We will just continue to tread on and spread the knowledge and grow our projects across the two main islands of the Philippine archipelago.

This article is co-written with LadyPinayForever and Bim24.