Worlds of Wikimedia 2022

WOW Conference 17-18 November 2022

23 November 2022, James Gaunt.

This post is a draft and is subject to change without notice.

The Worlds of Wikimedia (WOW) 2022 Conference was held 17-18 November in The Sibyl Centre at University of Sydney, Camperdown, New South Wales, and was a partnership between Dr Frances Di Lauro and Dr Bunty Avieson from University of Sydney, and Wikimedia Australia.

WOW was previously held in-person during June 2019, and for 2022 the conference featured in-person, online, and pre-recorded presentations from people around the globe. Many presenters had arrived from Asia and were also presenting at the Wikimedia ESEAP conference that weekend.

Photos and conversations were shared using #WOW2022, and retweeted by the WorldsofWiki Twitter account. Photos were also added to Wikimedia Commons.

Wednesday 17 November 2022

Following a welcome to country by Indigenous Elder Brendan Kerin, Bunty Avieson gave an introduction to WOW 2022 and spoke about what they hope to achieve next.

Keynote: Portals, platforms, and participation – building online collaboration around GLAM collections

The opening keynote was given by Tim Sherratt, who joined us remotely from Canberra to share his work online and across the GLAM sector. His slides are available to view here.

Tim highlighted the resources of Trove, where volunteers have corrected over 400 million lines of text in digitised newspapers and documents. He spoke about his GLAM Workbench, and noted the use of persistent links and access to metadata has gone backwards for many online resources.

Open Knowledge using Indigenous Language – the Waray Wikipedia ExperienceJoseph Ballesteros and Belinda Ballesteros from Philippines. Waray is a major regional language of the Philippines and this presentation showed how Lsjbot had been used to increase the number of articles on Waray Wikipedia. Waray Wikipedia is accessed by people from around the world who want to read Wikipedia in their language.

Challenges and Rescue Balinese Manuscripts (Lontar) on the Balinese Wikisource by Creating Metadata, Cataloging, and Digitizing.

From Bali, I Gede Gita Purnama Arsa Putra and Dewa Ayu Carma Citrawati showed how they've been adding Lontar palm-leaf manuscripts to Balanese Wikisource. Their project WikiPustaka has used Wikidata and Wikisource to collect metadata and assist with proof reading and transcription. The Lontar are kept in private collections, and are often deteriorating making their preservation difficult but even more urgent.

Pasifika arts & Wikipedia

Lisa Maule and Sophia Coghini presented on their work with the project Pasifika Arts Aotearoa, which aims to increase the number of Wikipedia articles and editing knowledge about Pacific Island artists in Aotearoa.

Sophia also shared her personal story of becoming a Wikipedia editor, and the difficulties finding appropriate reference material on Pasifika Arts. Both Sophia and Lisa would like to add more images to Wikipedia, and find ways to include oral histories as references.

Keynote: Vandals, scandals, and Wiki-archaeology: I (can't) see for miles

Graham Pearce spoke with Gerard Goggin about fighting vandalism on Wikipedia. Graham, who is blind, uses a screen reader to correct spelling mistakes and errors he finds. He discussed his interest in the "wiki-archaeology" and fixing the problems he finds across Wikipedia.

The Adrianne Wadewitz Panel

In honour of Adrianne Wadewitz, legendary Wikipedian, feminist and English scholar, this panel features four dynamic women, each the driving force behind a range of campaigns that continue to battle gender inequity on Wikipedia.

Documenting the gender gap in Indian Wikipedia communities: Findings from a qualitative pilot study

Keynote: women scientists in Wikipedia

Jess Wade has recently made news for creating over 1700 new Wikipedia articles about women scientists. In her presentation she ???

Due to a tech issue on the day, prolific Wikipedia editor Jess Wade's presentation wasn't able to be screened during WOW, but is now available to watch on the WOW website here.

Book Launch with Heather Ford

Thursday 18 November 2022

Keynote: Wikipedia - the last great place on the Internet

Wikimedia and the multisector evidence ecosystem

Assessing the use of Wikipedia as a fact-checking tool in Australian Capital Territory public schools

Feminists’ Movements and Campaign for Gender Parity and Conflict Mediation in the Global South: Using Social Media for Long-haul Activism

Jumbunna Institute - First Nations knowledge: protocols for description and access

The Unconference

To close WOW 2022, editing hacks, tips & tools, Wikidata, photos for Commons, Wikispore, and more were discussed and shown off around the room. Facilitators included Margaret Donald, Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight, Alex Lum, Annie Reynolds, Gideon Digby, Sam Wilson, Pru Mitchell, Toby Hudson, Tom Hogarth, and Kerry Raymond.

Further Reading

• WOW 2022 website with Program and Abstracts
• WOW 2022 photos on Wikimedia Commons
• WOW 2019 Wrap Up