Wiki Masyarakat Adat: Compiling Data of Indonesian Regulations about Indigenous People in Wikimedia Projects

We, a group of five Wikimedians from Yogyakarta, Indonesia, received an e-scholarship from WikiCite. The scholarship had supported our project that we call Wiki Masyarakat Adat or Wiki Indigenous People in English.

Background
According to Statistics Indonesia in 2010, Indonesia is composed of 1,340 ethnic groups. The number reflects diversity within the Indonesian society where indigenous people (masyarakat adat) are part of it. Despite that fact, Indonesia does not have any law (undang-undang, a nationwide regulation) with the subject on indigenous people with its recognition and protection, whereas indigenous people often become victims of human rights violations due to the absence of a law about their existence, lands, and traditional customs. Nevertheless, the subject about indigenous people is scattered across other regulations lower than laws.

In Wikimedia projects, there was barely any piece of such regulations when we searched on October 2020. Considering that they are government products, those regulations are public domain in Indonesia. Therefore, it is possible to store them in Wikimedia Commons and to compile data of them. By putting them into Wikimedia projects, we thought that they could gain a wider attention and be accessed in various ways than they are in local government websites. That idea motivated us in initiating this Wiki Masyarakat Adat, a project of compiling data on regulations about Indonesian indigenous people into Wikimedia projects.

What we did
The first thing we did was collecting various files of regulations about indigenous people from several government and the Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance of the Archipelago (Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara, shortened to AMAN) websites. The collected amount was 128 files of varying types of regulation from top to bottom, i.e. People’s Consultative Assembly Decrees (Ketetapan Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat), Laws, Presidential Regulations (Peraturan Presiden), Presidential Decrees (Ketetapan Presiden), Minister Regulations (Peraturan Menteri), Minister Decrees (Ketetapan Menteri), Regional Regulations of Provinces (Peraturan Daerah Provinsi), Governor Regulations (Peraturan Gubernur), Regional Regulations of Regencies and Cities (Peraturan Daerah Kabupaten dan Kota), Regent Regulations (Peraturan Bupati), and Regent Decrees (Keputusan Bupati). Even though we also collected several laws, the subject of all the laws is not about indigenous people, so is not the subject of the People’s Consultative Assembly decree and the presidential regulation above, yet they allude to it.

The next step was preparing for uploading to Wikimedia Commons. Before we started uploading, we made sure that all files were in PDF and one regulation equaled one file. We prepared a sheet containing file summaries that listed file names, file descriptions in English and Indonesian, dates of ratification, and creators of all regulations. All files were then uploaded en masse through Pattypan and then automatically stored in one category Regulation on indigenous people of Indonesia.

After all files were already in Wikimedia Commons, we created index pages in Indonesian Wikisource. The creation of index pages was carried out one by one. Each file resulted one index page and all the indices are stored in one category Wiki Masyarakat Adat. The creation of these index pages is a preparation for future proofreading attempts. It is open for anyone willing to help proofread the regulations.

The last part was compiling data of the regulations in Wikidata. We created a sheet containing a list basic data of all regulations, i.e. dates of ratification or dates of establishment, dates of enactment, effective dates, source links, Commons links, Indonesian Wikisource index links, jurisdictions, and main subjects. All the data were then uploaded to Wikidata via QuickStatements. The compiled data was then visualized in the map of Indonesia. By the visualization, we can see clearly which part of Indonesia still lacks of such regulation, e.g. Lesser Sunda Islands (except Bali) and Papua provinces.

Conclusion
Results of this program i.e. data, index pages, and PDF files hopefully can ease any party, be it government, individual, society, or human rights and environmental activist, in accessing regulations about indigenous people of Indonesia for any purposes. For Wikimedians, we invite you to help proofread the index pages, so they can bring a greater impact.

Last but not least, this is our pilot project. We are aware that this project is far from perfection. We welcome any feedback from you.

This piece is rewritten by Wirjadisastra from its Indonesian version by Afal Ranggajati dan Elis Fajariyati.