Education/News/January 2024/Cross-Continental Wikimedia Activities: A Dialogue between Malaysia and Estonia
Cross-Continental Wikimedia Activities: A Dialogue between Malaysia and Estonia
Tell us about yourself and what you are doing in Malaysia. How did you come to Wikimedia?
I am actually a Filipino by nationality but I was born and raised in Malaysia. I am doing my BA degree in business and I am going to graduate in five months. Now I am also a part of the Wikimedia community. It has been five months since I discovered them and since August I have been actively involved in Wikimedia Malaysia activities. My participation started in a collaboration project between the European Union delegation and Wikimedia Malaysia, where they hosted a 24-hour Edit-a-thon in Kuala Lumpur. The organizers invited 15 top universities in Malaysia. My university was participating as well and I got the award of the best Wikipedian and I also got a scholarship to Wikimania 2023. After this, I got the insights of the Wikimedia Foundation and I felt I wanted to stay connected to this. It has really enlightened my values because in my community access to knowledge is really limited and a lot of people cannot afford to go to school. I think it is good that people can go to the Internet and learn something from there and I want to be the person who spreads awareness about this.
In Wikimedia Malaysia, I am a volunteer and I work as a secretary for this organization. Now Wikimedia Malaysia is working with many non-profit organizations and also the government and I feel I want to be a part of this and help people in my community to get access to Wikimedia and to know how to use it properly.
You have also slightly seen the work of Wikimedia Estonia. What do you consider the most significant difference between Wikimedia functions and activities in Malaysia and Estonia?
In Wikimedia Malaysia, we work a lot with the Ministry of Education and embassies. The universities contact us if they want to collaborate. Here I see that you also work with the Ministry and they provide you with funding. In Malaysia, the Ministry does not give us money but they help us gain participation from the universities. They help us with promoting the events and they can better reach out to the universities with their access to them. Mostly, we collaborate with public universities and less with private universities. And we also cooperate with the embassies that help us organize the events. In Wikimedia Malaysia, we are also working on a lot of indigenous languages’ preservation in some of our indigenous communities that are reachable. In the case of Estonia, some similarities can be connected to the Võro Wikipedia. For us, it will be like the Kadazan-Dusun, Bajau-Sama, and Mendriq language for now.
Similarly to you, in Malaysia, we also try to focus on improving the articles. This is hard, as many people are not very good at proper language and most people speak some dialect. Some other initiatives that I see often are the friendship article writing events. To my knowledge, Wikimedia Malaysia does this with a few neighboring countries like Japan, Indonesia, and others. I believe that the Estonia Chapter may work on this as well.
What would be the collaboration opportunities between the Wikimedia organizations of Malaysia and Estonia? Are there any specific projects or initiatives that come to your mind?
One thing we could plan together is the Malaysian-Estonian article contest and the winners would be sent from Estonia to Malaysia or from Malaysia to Estonia. Another similar event could be the Malaysia-Estonia Friendship Day where volunteers from both countries can gather online (or maybe physically) to write or translate articles about each other’s countries.
Also, in Malaysia, we have the opportunity to invite so-called Wiki Residents to our country, who could travel around there, do photo walks, and visit our country. It is an opportunity for Estonian Wikimedians to experience the culture and heritage of Malaysia from within and for Malaysian Wikimedians to Estonia as an exchange. It will also help increase the exposure for both countries to learn about each other and share their experiences and knowledge on Wikipedia. Malaysian Wikimedia and Estonia Chapter can find something in common explore the chosen topics and write about them.
How does the Malaysian Wikipedia community interact with other Asian language versions?
We have some joint projects with Japan and Taiwan. For example, we have had a Friendship project with the Japanese in which we got together online and start editing. Currently, we are working on a similar project under the Wikipedia Asian Month with Japan, so it can be said that it is an ongoing collaboration. We are also working on this with the Japanese Embassy in Malaysia.
We do cross-cultural knowledge exchange and some other activities where we learn about indigenous languages` preservation from the respective countries we are working with, and then about GLAM, governance, and others. We have been actively doing these with our fellow Asian countries such as Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Taiwan.
What challenges or obstacles do you see in interlanguage collaboration and how do you propose to overcome them?
The main challenge is to find speakers who are very well-versed in the language itself and the main communication language because not many people are multilingual. Sometimes, we have issues where speakers of the indigenous language have familiarity issues with their language, so we try to curb this by having intermediaries who can communicate in their own language and the main communication language.
How do you evaluate the role of different language versions in the system of Wikimedia?
This platform helps to improve the literacy rate in the reader's own mother tongue or language. Even better, the different translations can be an opportunity for the readers to learn a new language. For instance, we can learn how to read English just by comparing the translated articles. This can be a safe space for us to also gain accurate information because we will have a better understanding of what's written. Say that if Wikipedia articles are only available in English, some people will be able to read but not understand it and it is very important for the readers to understand the message delivered in the article because then it would not be educational. So, the different languages in Wikipedia allow people to know information in their own language when they do not know another. Finally, we can expect accuracy in the articles and the information shared because they are written in the writer’s main language. Less errors to expect, and editing will be easier too.<