Image by Bim24 CC BY-SA 4.0
A large language edition Wikipedia, Cebuano Wikipedia has a new WikiClub! Established by Shared Knowledge Asia Pacific (SKAP) in cooperation with Cebu WikiClub‘s core team, this feat took months of coordinating, planning and execution before this remarkable activity has been finally launched.
Guests from the Cebu community of media professionals, bloggers, vloggers and communication influencers of the queen city of the Southern Philippines attended and signed up for the launch. There were also guests from the Department of Education who signified support for the WikiClub.
The capacity for core team members started ahead of the launch, with SKAP officers training and handholding the new Wikimedia community in Cebu. They had photowalks, editathon, training and partnership building with the WikiClub’s possible alliances in the future. They have identified relevant partners, what projects will the WikiClub do, how will members meet and how will new editors be trained.
A day after the launch, WikiClub Cebu went in the news in the province. Members were taught to create their own Wikipedia accounts and what do they need to do to start editing. Various resources available on Metawiki and other pages were also shared with them.
After the launch, members were invited to a photowalk along the main streets of Cebu City capturing images of its living heritage, local culture and monuments that members can upload on Wikimedia Commons.
Image by Bim24 CC BY-SA 4.0
Participants were amazed to know that Cebuano Wikipedia became a large language edition of Wikipedia by article count, wherein most of the 6 million plus Cebuano articles were written not by human editors but an automated account, the LSJ bot. In 2017, some Wikimedia community members petitioned to have the project closed and it was decided in 2018 that “it is up to the Cebuano Wikipedia community to decide for itself what to do about bot-created content in the project.” The Cebu WikiClub members committed to help improve the quality of the Cebuano Wikipedia and requested for more trainings on the technical aspect of editing and contributing to the repository of global knowledge by sharing Cebu’s wealth of open knowledge.
The Cebuano language is one of the largest languages in the Philippines, ranking fifth spoken languages with 6.5% of the households speaking Cebuano according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) 2020 data. The Tagalog language is the main language spoken by Filipinos.
After the launch, members of the Cebu Online Press Corps asked for a training on how to edit the Cebuano Wikipedia so they can help in growing the local Wikipedia with their own content.
SKAP trainers have imparted the necessity of citations and being mindful on conflict of interest in editing Wikipedia, making them understand the importance of credible editing and the use of references and sources as requirement for a good edit. It was also emphasized that sharing information belonging to the public domain is open knowledge and contributing to the open knowledge repository is a good advocacy where Cebuanos can immortalize their culture, heritage, language etc.
Image by Bim24 CC BY-SA 4.0
It can be recalled that Cebuano Wikipedia, with all its might and depth, lacks an active human community for more than a decade so SKAP established one through the help of the media and content creators and communication influencers. As a result, like minded people stood up to the challenge of having Cebu’s community of human editors, thus the WikiClub Cebu.
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