ESEAP Strategy Summit 2025/Report/Canley

Profile

I'm Alex (User:Canley) from Australia. I have been an editor on the English Wikipedia since 2005 (twenty years this year!) and am also an administrator there, although most of my work is on Wikidata these days. I was a member of the board (then called the committee) of Wikimedia Australia (WMAU) for four years from 2019 to 2023, and was president of WMAU from 2020 to 2021. Unfortunately, my term as president coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, and due to travel restrictions and the resulting cancellation of the 2020 Wikimedia Summit and Wikimania in Bangkok, I was unable to participate in in-person events such as conferences and summits related to Wikimedia.

I stood down from the WMAU board in 2023 as I was studying for a postgraduate qualification and also working full-time, and did not have the capacity to manage all three commitments. I completed my studies in 2024, and was considering gradually resuming participation in Wikimedia-related activities (in addition to editing which I continued to do). I was contacted about the upcoming ESEAP strategy summit and encouraged to apply for a scholarship, which I did, and was very happy to be accepted and to be able to catch up with old friends and colleagues to help this amazing movement we all are a part of!

Learnings

Day 1

Governance

The first session attended was a workshop on designing a framework for governance and strategy for ESEAP. The facilitators described the proposal, which was to appoint a group of "trusted" Wikimedians as Liaisons, and some of this group would form a steering committee. This was also covered in a pre-conference online session several weeks earlier. I may have misunderstood that presentation but I had thought the liaisons and steering committee were separate options, but at this session they were more clearly presented as both aspects of the proposed governance framework.

In the pre-session, I had noted that the final version would be presented at the summit, but it wasn't clear to me whether this would be after a community vote, or whether this would be voted on at the summit. I have to say, it still isn't clear to me, as it seems this was presented after the summit as if it had been approved in Manila, but it didn't seem to me that there was any such vote or decision-making mechanism. In a way, this is illustrative of the complexity and difficulty of ESEAP and hub governance: how you define the community, membership, consensus and the decision-making process?

Annual plan

The second session split into five groups to discuss and identify ideas and opportunities in the following areas/topics:

• Translation and interpretation
• Newbie (affiliate) handbook
• Support for emerging communities
• Training
• Advocacy/public policy

I mostly participated in the translation and interpretation group, but it was easy to walk between the five groups and participate in the discussions and add ideas to the flipcharts. Each group presented a summary of the discussions.

Regulatory trends for advocacy

This session was very interesting, with presentations from Indonesia, Australia, Philippines and Malaysia.

Being based in Australia, I was aware of the issues with Australia going rogue on policy, but this was very well-presented by Elliott.

I was keen to learn more about TAROCH, which came up in several of the presentations in this session.

I was also interested in the Malaysian presentation by Farouk.

Day 2

Much of the theme of the second day was about cross-border collaboration and connection, defininately one of ESEAP's strengths, but one which has much more potential to be improved! There was also a theme following on from the previous day of global trends such as AI and regulation.

Connecting and Collaborating between Affiliates and Countries

This was a great topic, I am very impressed with Wikimedia Malaysia's collaboration with other countries, either through visiting or via embassies and consulates.

Australia and New Zealand have a close connection historically, but geographically it can be difficult for these countries to engage physically with the rest of the region.

In an open mic sessions, some interesting ideas were proposed, such as regional competitions (such as the Wiki Loves... photo competitions), and a regional hackathon (which I would be very keen to be involved with).

Tactics: A Simple Partnerships Playbook

This session expanded somewhat on the previous one, with some ideas for identifying opportunities for, and forming, partnerships with non-Wikimedia organisations. Some great real examples from the movement were presented, such as partnerships with embassies, universities, donors, and tech-for-good funders.

CEE Hub

Barbara Klen from the CEE Hub presented some of that group's experience and activities, and proposed an experiment to try out new ways of working and thinking together while looking at some of the bigger global trends such as trust, participation in online communities, content quality and AI, neutrality and governance, and the decline in the number and proportion of users with extended rights (admins, sysops, bureaucrats).

Day 3

Collective advocacy actions in ESEAP

I summarised and presented one of the topics in this discussion, on coalition building, how to do it and potential allies.

Update on the Global Resource Distribution Committee

Jorge from the Wikimedia Foundation presented an update on the WMF's grant-making methodology and the importance of equity in decision making.

Elliott from WMAU raised some issues with Australia's role in the region as a "global north" anglophone nation geographically located in the global south, which has some potential to foster inequity – on one hand, WMF essentially cannabalises substantial donations from Australia, but Australia also takes a substantial portion from the ESEAP funding pool.

Next ESEAP Conference

The ESEAP Conference in 2026 will be held in Kaohsiung, Taiwan from 15 May to 17 May 2026.

I would be very keen to attend, I attended WikidataCon in Taipei in 2024, and really enjoyed Taiwan, and was on the organising team for the ESEAP conference in Sydney, Australia in 2022. Additionally, attending this summit as "dipping my toe in the water" for a gradual return to participating in the Wikimedia movement has fuelled my excitement about the importance and potential of ESEAP, and the future of the movement.

Participation

I was able to attend and participate in every session, except for the GLAM Wiki meetup which was at the same time as another session which I did attend. I did my best to engage in each session, contributing ideas (on PostIt notes or by speaking), and presenting and summarising group discussions.

I was very impressed at both the facilitation of the sessions, and the passionate and articulate engagement by so many participants, despite some language barriers.

Social events were enjoyable and well-organised, with excellent food, music... and karaoke!

Future plans

For most good conferences, it's the little meetings and discussions you have over coffee or lunch in the mezzanine that make the summit so worthwhile, productive, and enjoyable. It was great to catch up with old friends, and meet new people.

I am particularly excited about potentially resuming work and research on the topic of my Wikimania talk in 2024 in Singapore, about bot-created content on the Cebuano Wikipedia and Wikidata, and working with some of the Filipino groups and the Cebuano language community on addressing issues and perception with this content. Some discussions about holding a regional hackathon (potentially in Australia) were also exciting.

As mentioned previously, the strategy summit was me returning after several years to participating in the Wikimedia movement, particularly in a strategy sense. It was an amazing opprotunity to see what had changed (a lot!) and what had stayed the same (also a lot!) during my time away, and to be excited by opportunities and potential about what I (and Wikimedia Australia) can offer and assist with in the region and globally.

Comments and suggestions

I filled in the feedback form, saying that the organisation of the summit was excellent and a credit to the organising team, the WMF and all the participants, volunteers and attendees.

Trust and safety are always important aspects of organising and running such events – I was not aware of any incidents but always felt safe and if anything did happen that it would be easy to contact the trust and safety team. There was unfortunately a COVID outbreak, and I think this was well-handled by the organisers, although it was somewhat triggering to have to wear masks and take other precautions after a few years of respite!

My main suggestion is to sort out the governance proposal and communicate it well, as that is what I had the most confusion about – of course I do realise how complex it is and how difficult it can be to get agreement and consensus on such issues, but it is important and if done well will be of great benefit to the ESEAP hub and related affiliates.

All in all, a worthwhile and I think very productive summit, and I look forward to participation in future events.