Presentation slides for Wikimania 2023
Title: Wikipediplomacy: the story of Philippine diplomatic missions on Wikipedia, and how you can write them too!
Speaker: Josh Lim (User:Sky Harbor)
Abstract: Since 2018, several articles have been written about Philippine diplomatic missions. This talk chronicles the story of how those articles came about and why, some best practices on writing articles about diplomatic missions, and how this can be used to engage with government.

While I started doing this work even earlier, it was only in the last five years that I seriously took to writing about Philippine embassies and consulates, eventually covering many of the countries where extensive records are available.

On Wikipedia, or at least the English Wikipedia, the vast majority of articles about embassies and consulates are short stubs with an infobox and, if possible, a picture. Because this is an area which is often seen as mundane and uninteresting, these articles are often not updated, even if the missions themselves have interesting stories to tell. But, truth be told, diplomacy can be a very fun and interesting place to learn something new, and Wikipedia can help facilitate that exchange of knowledge that is more often than not lost to time or, at least, is only known to diplomats.

In this talk, I intend to cover the following:

• The story of how these articles came about and why
• Interesting stories and anecdotes that I've encountered while writing these articles (e.g. how Philippine diplomats in Iraq consented to a suicide pact, or how the former Philippine embassy in Argentina was once a house, hotel and retirement home)
• Some best practices on writing articles about diplomatic missions and how to piece together information to make a narrative
• How this can be used to engage community members and even government agencies moving forward
  

Presented at: Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre, 2023-08-15 07:50 to 08:10 UTC