ESEAP Conference 2022/Report/MargaretRDonald

ESEAP

(Friday, 2022-11-18, to Sunday, 2022-11-20)

Highlights

1. The amazing welcome ceremony on the Friday evening. Who could not forget the Maori song from the New Zealanders. The extraordinary leading of the Australians in a round by their president. The beautiful dance and song from two of our Indonesian participants. The Korean karaoke. And on and on. With more and more welcomes in more and more languages being teased from the crowd, to be enjoyed by us all. Such a feeling of joy in the room.
2. Medical metricsː Using page view analysis to see which topics in Grey's anatomy were needed by patients and potential doctors. That is, mining wikipedia to develop a medical curriculum
3. wikisource session with Beeswaxcandle

Things the participant contributed or participated in

1. presented a session on wikidata using openRefine on the topic of adding author names and publications to taxa
2. worked one-on-one with two participants to show them these skills (and followed this up via subsequent videos and emails to them)

And plans on doing post-conference

1. Translation of properties (via google translate) Hopefully this might motivate a native speaker to improve the translation
2. continuing to work across enwiki and wikidata to find and link author names for taxa
3. and find images from public repositories for taxa without images

Comments/suggestions about the conference

1. I am sad that I did not manage to exploit this opportunity as effectively as I should have. (Not sure why - Perhaps the long period of lockdown meant that I had forgotten how to)
2. The accommodation was excellentː allowing easy access to both conference venues and to the city.
3. The venue for ESEAP did not allow easily for notetaking .(The tables were cramped and the light was poor. Both the lighting and the low ceilings were oppressive for this claustrophobe.) It would have been good to have had more open space to welcome informal discussions outside the presentation rooms.
4. For this participant, it would have been good to have been offered what we have become so used to with online meetings, and that was the capacity to share one's screen. (However, it was wonderful and amazing to be physically meeting up at last)
5. More reminders about the translation possibilities and the possibility of participating via zoom might have been helpful. This person struggled with understanding the sometimes very rapid and very different English of speakers whose native language was probably not English. It was only at the very, very end of the conference that I realised that I might have been able to understand such speakers better if I had been using the translation/transcription facility (English to English).
6. One thing I always struggle with at conferences is parallel sessions. I always feel I should have been elsewhere.
7. Future conferences should also have good spaces for people to take a break from the formal presentations and learn about each other. (To some extent this was possible via breakfast at the hotel, but as we were all rushing to get to the conference or anxious about our presentations this was less possible than using the more easy time of the end of the day.. (My presentations were last so this time was also less available to me, due to anxiety)

WoW

(Thursday, 2022-11-17, to Friday, 2022-11-18)

Highlights

1. "Welcome to Country" by Uncle Brendanː reminded us of how recent the ongoing genocide of indigenous people in Australia is. He, too, was taken from his family. (But as someone from my table reminded me his birth was in an era when it was commonplace to take children from unwed mothers (both white and black).
2. Tim Sherratt's talk on how he mines official records. (It would have been even better had he been at the conference in person. I am sure many, apart from me, would have liked to pick his brains.)
3. Amanda Lawrence and Brigid van Wanrooy on the general requirements for reliable sources versus the requirements for medically related articles, and the role of grey literature. The talk also discussed the Analysis & Policy Observatory (APO) repository and how it might be more easily exploited. (99of9 suggested a wikicite button as is found in Trove, as opposed to uploading articles to wikidata, the bulk of which, would be unlikely to be found.)
4. Rachel Cunneen & Mathieu O'Neil on designing wikipedia online literacy curriculum material for (ACT) primary students, and the difficulties of getting such important material into the curriculum. Some of the questions leading their materials wereː Is the earth flat? Is wikipedia reliable? The "street sandwich". The dragon in my garage.
5. Balinese lontar - palm-leaf project
6. Pasifika presentation by Pakoire & Kowhaiarewhana. (Wonderful to hear a long, melodious introduction in Maori(?), just to listen to its beauty, knowing that we would also get the chance to learn what had been said. And I also liked Kowhaiarewhana's grandmother sayings (but did I write them down)
7. Watching Graham listen to 750 words/minute as he finds irritating misspellings and faulty punctuation.
8. women in red sessionː with Rosie Stephenson-Goodnight (Dame of Serbia), Oronsay, tenniscourtisland and others
9. Kirsten Thorpe & Nathan Sentence in "collaborative yarning". See https://atsilirn.aiatsis.gov.au/protocols.php (For this listener, the message is to urgentlyc apture and archive in the national sound libray, the voices of all those "aunties" and "uncles", whose voices may soon be lost.) The work that Glen Wightman is doing in the Northern Territory in capturing indigenous knowledge of plants and animals could be exemplary. See

Comments/suggestions about the conference

1. Venue was excellentː allowing sufficient room for participants to circulate, take notes, work and participate.