Grants:TPS/Sky Harbor/FOSSASIA 2017
This Wikimedia Participation Support request was not funded. Reasons have been communicated with the request submitter on the Discussion page.
Proposed participation[edit]
Hi, my name is Josh Lim (Sky Harbor), and I have been an active Wikimedian for the last twelve years. Currently, I serve as President of Wikimedia Philippines, and I was previously a member of the Affiliations Committee.
Half of my active life as a Wikipedian has been spent analyzing and studying the social dynamics and power relations between communities, specifically our own. Initially starting off as an academic endeavor I undertook as part of my studies, my research work on the Wikimedia community has since been presented at international conferences, including Wikimania (2013 and 2015), Open Source Bridge (2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016) and AlterConf San Francisco (2016). I still conduct practical research endeavors into our community, its past and its future from time to time, although recently I have expanded this to encompass Internet research in general, and this year, I intend to present "The Promise of Collaborative Magic" at this year's FOSSASIA, which has already been accepted.
I previously delivered "The Promise of Collaborative Magic" during Open Source Bridge 2014, but I will be retooling the presentation so that it better applies to a primarily Asian audience as opposed to a primarily American one when I first delivered this presentation in 2014. In this session, I hope to bring together different communities to discuss on how they deal with the idea of a “magic” collaborative ethos, as we do on Wikipedia with boldness and "Wikimagic", how we can continue to foster an environment of constructive collaboration and to prevent sending signals to users that their work is of lesser value, and whether the solution to reinforcing this ethos of collaboration is dependent on the creation of structures or on the redefinition of our values as open-source communities.
Goal and expected impact[edit]
As a result of my presentation, it is my hope that I will be able to make participants aware as to how Wikipedia deals with the idea of 'collaborative magic', in particular how this relates to some of our core movement values (such as boldness, assuming good faith and not biting the newcomers), and whether there is something that we can learn from other communities. Given the increasing urgency of needing to deal with editor decline on Wikipedia, some outside perspectives on how we can fix cultural issues within the movement would be helpful in determining the right course of action, and I look forward to presenting those outcomes on Wikipedia and through other avenues.
Asian tech communities would greatly benefit from the deep experience the Wikimedia movement has in building communities and building strong collaborative cultures, and so I hope Asian communities will be able to learn something from this presentation and, in return, we pick up something from them. I am also preparing a Wikimania 2017 presentation proposal tackling what was discussed here, and I look forward to presenting this as well in Montréal should it be accepted.
Finally, I also hope to bring back to the Philippines new ideas and perspectives as to how we can make the open-source movement more effective here at home.
Budget breakdown[edit]
- Speaker ticket: SGD 370 (approx. USD 265)
- Airfare: USD 200
- This is for a flight on Jetstar Asia Airways, departing on Wednesday, March 15th, and returning on Tuesday, March 21st. This is an approximation; I will give a final figure (which should be lower than this, and hopefully not higher) should this request be approved.
I will make my own arrangements for accommodation during the conference.
Other instructions[edit]
I would appreciate it if the Wikimedia Foundation could purchase the speaker ticket for me. I could purchase the plane ticket on my own and be reimbursed for it later, but if it could be purchased in advance as well, that would be great.