Wikipedia:New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 21

2016 New Year Honours

I've just updated the 2016 New Year Honours with the New Zealand honorees. There are only a handful with bios. Is there anyone from this project willing to create a few biographies, even if they're just started as stubs? Thanks and happy new year!. —Мандичка^YO 😜 19:23, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Richie McCaw nominated for in the News

I've nominated Richie McCaw's ONZ to be on Wikipedia's front page for In The News: Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates. Please add your opinion on whether or not it should be featured. —Мандичка^YO 😜 16:44, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Replace redirect for 'Jenny Harper' with article Comment

Kia ora koutou. I'd like to replace the current redirect page for Jenny Harper (which points to a section of the Two and a Half Men page about a character named Jenny) with a bio of New Zealand museum professional Jenny Harper, previously director of the National Art Gallery and currently director of Christchurch Art Gallery. I haven't done this before - does anyone have any tips or advice? I've read the pages on Redirects but can't get a firm enough guide from them to satisfy myself that I'm doing the right thing.

Harper has never gone by 'Jennifer' (including on her MNZM announcement) but I guess the alternative is to create 'Jenny Harper museum professional' or use her middle name as well.Auchmill (talk) 21:04, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi, all you need to do is edit the Jenny Harper page, turning it into an article. I wouldn't worry about preserving a redirect to a fictional character from a defunct TV series. Nick-D (talk) 22:26, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks so much Nick-D - appreciate the advice Auchmill (talk) 00:35, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Anyone writing biographies of Māori women?

Kia ora koutou, a group of WP writers who are focusing on biographies of indigenous women is asking around about any Aotearoa/NZ editors working in this area. Anyone? MurielMary (talk) 22:46, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Kia ora MurielMary - we've done some work on biographies of Maori and Pasifika artists as part of our Wikipedia / Artists project at The Dowse (including hosting two editathons in 2015).Auchmill (talk) 02:44, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

I've done a non-trivial number of biographies from the DNZB. I did hundreds of one-line bios based on DNZB articles, so every single-person article there had a corresponding article here (even if it was a single line article). Most of the white males were already here, so the ones I created tended to be minorities (women, Māori, etc), but I won't claim that makes me an expert. With the help of other editors, I've done Te Atairangikaahu, Carmen Rupe, Te Paekiomeka Joy Ruha, Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, Mamari Stephens, Arapata Hakiwai and Cindy Kiro for example, and I've also done some work on organisations in this area (Māori Women's Welfare League, Te Roopu Raranga Whatu o Aotearoa, etc). I'm keen to help anyone working to make Wikipedia more representative. Stuartyeates (talk) 10:44, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks both! SusunW and Megalibrarygirl here are a couple of people with experience working on Māori women bios. MurielMary (talk) 11:11, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

I think that's meant to be User:SusunW and User:Megalibrarygirl, right? Stuartyeates (talk) 19:22, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi! At Women in Red, we are gearing up for an edit-a-thon featuring women from indigenous cultures. We're looking to add more notable women to our redlink list here. We're also looking for works, such as books, organizations, art, etc. created by women, too. So these can be added to the list. :) If you have any Maori names or works created by Maori women to add to the list, that's awesome. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:38, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

While I'm in general a fan of Wikipedia:WikiProject Women/Women in Red, I'm not comfortable being part of a group of non-indigenous people actively focusing specifically on writing about indigenous people. Sorry. Stuartyeates (talk) 19:52, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

I can only add a wee bit to what Megalibrarygirl has already posted. Right now we are compiling a list of red links on women, or works created by women, who/which do not have articles. The editathon is proposed for August 1-14, 2016 and will cover Indigenous Women throughout the world in honor of Indiginous Person's Day on August 9th. Anyone can create articles from the list or add to the list at any time. But we'd like to have selections available to appeal to people for a worldwide virtual editathon by August. It is helpful if at least a weblink or two are added with the name to give people a jump start on proving notability.

Stuartyeates it is a crowd sourced list, meaning there are both indigenous and non-indigenous people involved in both creation of the list and the articles. If you don't feel qualified to discuss a topic, certainly don't. The goal is to increase coverage on indigneous women which has been a neglected topic on WP.SusunW (talk) 20:03, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

If you really want a list of Māori women who have achieved mainstream recognition, Māori_Women's_Welfare_League#Presidents lists the highest honour achieved by each (may be out of date). QSM and Justice of the peace don't automatically infer notability. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:47, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Thus the reason we ask for a weblink or two. As you are no doubt aware, notability for WP may or may not represent the real import of anyone in their community. ;) SusunW (talk) 21:45, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

There are a number of persons with a current DNZB entry (and thus they are notable) as per this list that contains a number of Maori women. Schwede66 23:13, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Schwede66. It's nice to reconnect with you. Thanks for pointing us to that list as I think some of us from Women in Red would like to work on the women's biography redlinks in 2016. Cheers, --Rosiestep (talk) 00:56, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

@Stuartyeates: what would be the easiest way to get a list of stub articles for Māori women who are in DNZB? Would it be a case of picking them out of Category:Māori stubs and/or Category:New Zealand people stubs, or is there a better way? Nurg (talk) 07:38, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

• Most Māori bios are not tagged with the Māori stub tag, but with the general NZ bio stub tag. But it would be easy to run CatScan. Schwede66 07:45, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
  • I believe that all the Māori stubs I created from the DNZB data are classified by iwi if the DNZB had iwi info in the metadata. Beyond that, it's anyone's guess. If there's something clear in the current DNZB website, I can probably script that, if there's a desire for it. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:46, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Years in New Zealand

I've started work on adding deaths of New Zealanders to the 'years in New Zealand' pages. My process uses Wikipedia:CatScan, which returns all the deaths for a particular year (the same can be done for births, of course). I started with 1830 and I've got as far as 1855 so far, i.e. not that far at all. Is there anybody who would help? Here's the link if anybody would like to tackle 1880, for example (just to choose a random number, but if you'd rather pick a different year, you'll see where to change it once you've opened that page). Schwede66 18:54, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I've been working on these periodically also, and have done births and deaths for 1914–1917, 1920, and 1989 onwards so far. Paora (talk) 21:53, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Ah, great. Maybe we should track progress here. Schwede66 23:09, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia on Radio NZ

Mike Dickison: 15 years of Wikipedia with Kim Hill this morning on Radio NZ's Saturday Morning show. Linnah (talk) 01:32, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Logan Campbell (politician)

Could consideration be given to a change of name of this article? The subject was a very early pakeha settler in Auckland and made a very large fortune (he was also a philanthropist) from brewing. He ended up Sir John Logan Campbell (technically a medical doctor as well) and the founder of what became Campbell & Ehrenfried, -> New Zealand Breweries, -> Lion (Australasian company) and donor of Cornwall Park, Auckland amongst many gifts. As the name stands it has misled others into assuming his name was Logan Campbell. This is the same as listing Graham Bell (a fellow countryman but of the next generation) when what is meant is Alexander Graham Bell. Suggestions / instructions please. Eddaido (talk) 00:12, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

He was known as Logan Campbell. See "So did John Logan, or Logan as he was more generally known, ..." http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1c3/campbell-john-logan Stuartyeates (talk) 00:19, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

That's fine but to stick with that leads to puzzlement and confusion however closely it follows policy. Eddaido (talk) 00:23, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

This (on page 5) says Bell was known as Graham to family and friends. (Scots are special, like with wives keeping their maiden names). Eddaido (talk) 00:31, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Change If you look at most of the links to the Logan Campbell article in Wikipedia, almost all of them have to, in some manner, identify him as "John Logan Campbell". My distinct impression is that in non-Wikipedia publications, he is primarily identified as "John Logan Campbell" (but sometimes continuing with the expression "Logan Campbell" used as if that was just his surname). Even in the Te Ara articles he has to be primarily identified with that full name. Any writing on him which used just the term "Logan Campbell" would be considered lacking a vital piece of identifying information, at least at the beginning of the piece. I agree with Eddaido.Rick570 (talk) 01:03, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm surprised to see the article title was changed from "John Logan Campbell" 3 years ago. The DNZB article is cited saying "Logan as he was more generally known". I take this to mean that his friends and acquaintances called him Logan. The DNZB article was written by Russell Stone, who also wrote two biographies of Campbell. He titled the bio about his earlier life, "Young Logan Campbell", and the one about his later life as "The father and his gift : John Logan Campbell's later years", so Stone used both forms.

Google search result count:

"sir logan campbell" 944

"sir john logan campbell" 18,200

Papers Past result count:

"sir logan campbell" 104

"sir john logan campbell" 4,562

While his mates called him "Logan", he is far more often referred to as "John Logan Campbell" than as only "Logan Campbell". The editor who moved it from "John Logan Campbell" (Schwede660) 3 years seemed happy in the subsequent discussion to see a formal move request back to the earlier title. I agree with Eddaido that a change should be considered. Nurg (talk) 09:06, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm pretty ambivalent, to be honest, I hadn't realised John Logan Campbell redirected to this article. Stuartyeates (talk) 09:25, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Until I came to live in Auckland Campbell (that was easy!) had never been of any interest to me, I'd have had only the vaguest idea of who he was until I'd been here a few years. I've never heard of him being referred to as Logan Campbell. I have beside me an official facsimile of his book Poenamo (Poenamo Revisited) published by Godwit in 2012 to mark the centenary of his death. Haven't seen a mention of a Logan Campbell there but true the bulk of the book (nice pictures) looks impenetrable to me. Eddaido (talk) 09:32, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Article content 'crossover'

Poking around after the recent notable earthquake in NZ I noticed that a large part of Student Volunteer Army (SAV)and Sam Johnson (activist) are basically the same.
The SVA section of Johnton's BLP is basically the entire SVA page. I believe the text was added to both pages by the same editor, back in 2013! [1] & [2].
Both articles may need pruning to remove the less relevant parts. 220 of ^Borg 00:41, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

I have long thought that Sam Johnson is editing his own article; knowing him through his numerous media appearances, he's certainly very keen on self-promotion, and having a favourable article on Wikipedia fits his attitude. Looking at the diffs, I see that there are different editors editing the two articles. Just for clarity, are you suggesting that one is a sock of the other, or are you saying that one editor is copying the other editor's work? Schwede66 01:10, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

A large amount of the content from both articles came from User:Prepareforthefuture. Mattlore (talk) 01:27, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, both diffs I gave above are from User:Prepareforthefuture. This picture [3] used on Johnson's BLP was uploaded by same editor, but the author is give as Sam Johnson. 220 of ^Borg 03:31, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Aotearoa New Zealand feminist art timeline Suggestion

I've just started the Aotearoa New Zealand feminist art timeline, modelled on the Australian feminist art timeline. Additions and edits gratefully sought: the page is just what I've been able to pull together with two hours and the scant information available online and will get a lot better when I have time to do some paper research. Auchmill (talk) 09:58, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Categories in Wikimedia

I just went to add a couple of photos of Centennial Highway —a collection of accident black spots between Pukerua Bay and Paekakariki and I tried before uploading to categorise them without success. New Zealand's categories in Wikimedia seem to me to be a bit confused. I may have added to the confusion by trying to sort out Kapiti Coast and its various localities. I have stopped because there seem to be many inconsistencies in the categorisation. Does anyone hold a watching brief over this part of Wikimedia or do I just go ahead and try as far as possible to follow the existing precedent. Strange but Masterton is in Wellington Region yet Carterton is in Wairarapa in Wellington Region etc. Advice please (waiting on more info re Campbell above). Regards, Eddaido (talk) 00:35, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Action of 27 February 1941

Action of 27 February 1941 pls review the c-class rating after recent improvements. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 18:28, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Assessed as B-class. Cheers. Zawed (talk) 09:51, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks babe. ;O))Keith-264 (talk) 10:16, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Buying a beach

Now that the community has bought a beach (probably an unusual event on a world scale), I wonder whether we should have an article about it. And if so, what's a good title for it? Schwede66 01:19, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

The campaign doesn't seem to have a single established name, some media refer to it as the Buy a beach campaign or Buy this beach campaign. Alternatively, it could either be the main part of an Awaroa Inlet beach article, or as a section in the Abel Tasman National Park article. Mattlore (talk) 01:27, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

I think it's worth an article on its own. Maybe "Buy a Beach Campaign 2016" just in case there's another similar campaign later? MurielMary (talk) 10:56, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Attack on Convoy BN 7

Attack on Convoy BN 7 revised and expanded.Keith-264 (talk) 18:45, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

A-Class review for 25th Battalion (New Zealand) needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for 25th Battalion (New Zealand); please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! AustralianRupert (talk) 10:26, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Reorganisation of requested articles page

Hi all - I've just revamped and re-ordered the Requested articles page. Hopefully it's a bit easier to navigate now. Have a look and tell me what you think. Grutness...wha? 01:08, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Category:Government-owned companies of New Zealand

This category is really State Owned Enterprises of New Zealand and it should be renamed. My next point is that the above category includes (probably because their ownership has changed relatively recently) enterprises that are only partly State Owned. I think Partly State Owned Enterprises of New Zealand should be another category. Is there a better way to make the distinction? Do I take this to CfDs? Eddaido (talk) 03:38, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

See also some discussion at Talk:Mercury Energy. The approach taken for NZ on this should be consistent with that taken on Wikipedia for other countries. And there are lots of them listed in Category:Government-owned companies by country. Of course, if Wikipedia has got it wrong globally, then it should all be fixed. The article State-owned enterprise (which has global scope, not just NZ) defines SOE as "fully owned or partially owned by government" and it notes some uncertainty about what level of state ownership makes an entity stated owned. For example, Category:Government-owned companies of the United Kingdom states that it applies to companies that "are fully or partly-owned by the UK Government". --Pakaraki (talk) 07:35, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

I'd be against changing it. The SOE article has a section for former non-SOE state-owned corporations, which are not SOEs but which belong in this category. Also, the term State-Owned Enterprise is a relatively new one, only being in official use in NZ since 1986, and the category includes older crown organisations such as the Colonial Bank of Issue. Grutness...wha? 23:59, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't mean to suggest the current system is deliberately misleading (what is the difference between an SOE and a Government-owned company?) and talk about a state-owned enterprise to an Australian (let alone USA national) and you'll both be confused and then of course there is local government / national government. I am just irritated to see that Air NZ is state-owned when it is not. Yes, within the article's lead and in the infobox the extent of privatisation is recorded. It needs to be much clearer in the categorisation that (to the orthodox WP editorial mind) State-owned includes largely privatised. Then I'm happy. Thanks, Eddaido (talk) 00:06, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

The current arrangement is straightforward and is consistent with the approach taken for other countries. What would it be changed to? One option would be to have several categories (wholly government owned, majority government owned, minority government owned, formerly government owned, formerly privatised and now government owned, crown agents, etc, etc), but I think this would be unnecessarily complicated and more difficult for readers to easily understand. The disadvantage of this sort of approach is that it won't be consistent with how it is done for other countries. The current categorisation seems to be better than the alternatives. --Pakaraki (talk) 18:54, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

There is a difference between identifying a minefield and walking into it. I have suggested that the top of each category concerned tells a reader the government, the state, may (or may not?) control the business concerned but may not own all of it. I am sure there is a better way to put that but I think it is a message that needs to be there. Eddaido (talk) 21:48, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Deborah Mahuta Coyle Delete Article

There is a page for Deborah Mahuta Coyle. Which until I edited it said she was an MP, It says its not a wiki page and im not sure if its published but I found it on google.

Deborah was a candidate who did not win her seat or enter parliament as a list MP.

As such she shouldnt even have a page, the page for some reason was made in anticipation of her becoming an MP. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.56.207.84 (talk) 00:43, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Are you referring to Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand/politics/New MPs/Deborah Mahuta-Coyle? It's clearly marked as a draft, and is not in "article space". I agree that it could be deleted as it does not appear that Ms Mahuta-Coyle meets WP:BIO at present. Nick-D (talk) 23:54, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

She clearly does not meet notability criteria, as we would have otherwise tidied the article up and moved it into mainspace. I for one cannot see anything wrong with leaving the article sit there; she might run again at the next election. The same could apply to any of the other draft candidate bios, hence I'd rather they be left alone. I'm aware that websites can deny bots access, and search engines won't index them in that case, but I haven't been able to find out how to do that on Wikipedia, or whether it is in fact allowed for. Does anyone know how to do that? Schwede66 06:24, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Seems fine to be kept in the draft space but if it can be stopped from appearing on google then I'm all for that as well. Mattlore (talk) 06:54, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

I've found the instructions on how to stop pages appearing on search engines at Wikipedia:Controlling search engine indexing, and added the necessary code to do this to the article Nick-D (talk) 07:56, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Good. I suggest that the code be added to the template instead. Schwede66 09:12, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Ten Pound Poms

The Ten Pound Poms article was written as if the term was used for immigrants to Australia only. I've added a bit of New Zealand content, but don't know much about this part of our more recent history. Others might want to help achieve a more balanced article. Schwede66 18:41, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

New Zealand local elections, 2016 work

I'm seriously considering running a Wellington based event to get photos of candidates running in the New Zealand local elections, 2016. It would be in the window 17th August - 16th September [4], probably in Lower Hutt or northern Wellington. Most of the electoral races and candidates aren't notable, of course, but there's an opportunity to get some great content. Has anyone tried anything like this in the past? Thoughts? Ideas? Stuartyeates (talk) 19:51, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi @Stuartyeates: I haven't ever thought to organise an event specifically for the purpose, but last general election I definitely went to event(s) someone else had organised and took as many photos as I could. So I'm not sure if *you* need to specifically organise an event, but definitely a good idea to use events to get photos. Every so often I also email politicians asking for photos and link to this blog post about why they should license their pics. Ballofstring (talk) 06:05, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Due to a young family and scheduling stuff, I don't necessarily find it very easy to turn up to other people's events especially in the evenings, but my plan is to have a family-friendly location and have people come to me. Stuartyeates (talk) 07:32, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Intermittent access problems to WP

Anyone else in NZ having intermittent access problems last night and tonight, per Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Wikimedia sites intermittently not responding? Nurg (talk) 09:45, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I am—but only very intermittent interruptions to access. It's usually OK, but I've had a couple of minutes tonight with no access. (Orcon.) Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 09:53, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Apirana Ngata page move

The article name has been changed to incorporate the macron on the "A". [5] Is this a conventional move on Wikipedia articles? BlackCab (TALK) 12:24, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

See WP:NCNZ. Schwede66 15:15, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

None of the references seem to use the macron (including Te Ara, which is definitely capable of it) and it's not discussed in the article. Stuartyeates (talk) 18:19, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Actually, DNZB uses the macron in the Māori language version but not the English version, and Te Ara appears to use the macron exclusively, e.g. see Story:Ngāti Porou. Paora (talk) 20:49, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Seems like Te Ara is variable, but http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/ngati-porou is dated 2015, which is good enough for me. Stuartyeates (talk) 22:28, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

A-Class review for Charles Heaphy needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Charles Heaphy; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! AustralianRupert (talk) 12:30, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

"Balfour Declaration"

The primary topic of "Balfour Declaration" is under discussion, see Talk:Balfour Declaration -- 70.51.45.100 (talk) 04:53, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Edit-a-thon at Te Papa, May 29

I'm organising an edit-a-thon at Te Papa on Sunday May 29th (with the help of Ambrosia10), focussed on beginners creating NZ flora and fauna stubs. It would be good to have some more experienced editors along to help any complete newbies, so if anyone is interested in attending, feel free to add yourself to the Wikipedia:Meetup/Wellington/2016_Edit-a-thon. It would be great to have a good turnout and show Te Papa there's an active local editing community. Please do spread the word. I'd love to see folks from DOC, NIWA, and Vic attending, just to see what it's all about. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 23:16, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

What's the child-friendly rating? If I turn up with kids in tow am I likely to be able to make a decent contribution? NDF seemed to go not too bad. Stuartyeates (talk) 10:04, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

That's a really good point: I hadn't even thought about accommodating kids, having childcare etc, but of course it's a big issue for many people. I'll chat with my co-organiser and we'll figure out how child-friendly we can make the space, even if it's just providing a kids' corner with books and puzzles. Will amend the project page when we know more. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 22:05, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

I like the thought of it being child-friendly. However it may be more than just providing a kids corner. You'll need someone to keep an eye on them or keep track of them. A kid wrangler of sorts. There'll be those who need to go to the toilet etc or may wander to look for something. The wrangler will need to keep track that they come back etc. Perhaps ask in the meetup page if there's someone who knows an early childhood educator etc who would be willing to volunteer some time. It also occurs to me that you may have a range of age for kids. Perhaps some of the older kids could be encouraged to join the edit-a-thon. Perhaps one can be tasked to write a report of the day (with pics of those who don't mind pics). Linnah (talk) 08:02, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Note that this just got a mention at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/digitalnz/rli72hLdR2U User:Giantflightlessbirds. It occurs me that other people here may have views on getting their hands on Te Papa's data. Stuartyeates (talk) 19:59, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Just to be clear, this edit-a-thon is happening at Te Papa, but they're not sponsoring it; it's the Friends of Te Papa. There's actually been very little interest in this from the staff at Te Papa, with one or two notable exceptions (Leon Perrie, the Library). So we won't be getting any special access to Te Papa's database or images, which for species are mostly CC-BY-NC if I recall correctly. Auckland Museum has better image permissions, so theirs might be the ones we use on the species pages, something we should make a point of mentioning to both parties afterwards perhaps. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 22:15, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Sounds great! The Dowse have some information on their website about how they have organised WP events in the past, and one of their recommendations is to provide a kids' corner and promote the event as child-friendly in order to attract as wide a range of people from the community as possible. Here's the link (you may have seen it already?) Dowse Women on Wikipedia MurielMary (talk) 11:17, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I thought that was a great initiative of the Dowse. We're certainly looking at having a kids' corner if there's space. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 19:35, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Love the idea. Questions (or thinking aloud).

• It says "Participants from anywhere in the world are welcome to join in remotely, using #NZspecies". How do hashtags work on wikipedia?
• Social media: Are you intending to have chatter on twitter and facebook? Do you have a facebook event created? If you do, I suggest putting a link the event's meetup page so people can use it to invite others who are not on wikipedia. If not let me know if you want one created for it. Same with google+ event. I can also create an eventfinder event.
• How do you see remote participants communicating with those at the event's meetup? Perhaps talk on your meetup page?
• What's your capacity for this event?
• Does anyone know if geonotices still work? If they do, Wikipedia_talk:Meetup/Auckland#Geonotice_js_code has sample for Auckland which you could adapt for Wellington.
• Nametags: I suggest you ask people to bring nametags. Many have a name tag or at least a lanyard with some clear plastic sleve hanging around. They can just put their wikipedia username and perhaps a firstname (if the username isn't something easily pronounced) on BOTH sides. Just say you'll provide for those who don't have any. In the past (for Auckland meetups) I've used spare clip on name tags I had from previous events, some markers and stack of old business card so people can write on it. It works and at least you have people being able to address each other rather than trying to remember names. If you don't have a stack of these I can try to get my pile to you by the end of the month. People just return their the tags at the end of the day.
• Do you have access to extension cords and power boards? Or are the desks/tables already have them? I could ask around to see if there's people in wellington who have a stash of these to lend for the event.
• Suggest you ask people attending or interested in future Wellington meetups to watch Wikipedia:Meetup/Wellington so they will know when next meetup happens. Highly likely changes are made to that page when someone creates a new meetup. Linnah (talk) 07:45, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Lots of good suggestions, thank you! Wikipedia added searchable hashtags to edits a year ago; I've added a note to the page clarifying. We'll of course be using Twitter, and I'll create a Facebook event tonight when I'm back in civilisation. I'm not sure about Eventfinder. We want everyone to be enrolling via the Friends of Te Papa page, so they can gauge numbers. Go ahead and make a Google+ event if you use it (I don't). We'll be Periscoping the intro session for remote participants (anyone can watch via a URL, they don't need to install anything). Otherwise there'll be Skype troubleshooting for remote participants, and event Talk page Q&A of course. Capacity; well, the space of configurable for dozens. If we have more than that enrolled, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Nametags are a great idea. We have spare ones at the museum, and I'll encourage people to bring their own (will put that in the To Bring section right now). Te Papa is supposedly supplying ample cords and boards for everyone; we'll see. And pointing all the participants to Wellington meetups is a good idea too. Ta! Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 21:34, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

* Name tags: I'm inclined to let them decide whether they will include their full name or not. Just some form of first name if their wikipedia username isn't speakable. There's a chance there'll be wikipedians who will hesitate to have their wikipedia username associated with their name. They may hesitate to attend if they think they'll be outed. Same with photographs, let them decide if they wish to be in photographs or not.

* Eventfinder events: Perhaps use for future events. You can point the eventfinder event to your signup page or say in the description to the signup.

* Remote participation: Periscope is a good idea. If you want to use skype/google hangout, it is something you should decide ahead of time so people can sign up to skype or google accounts if they don't have it and ensure they have the right stuff installed on their laptops/computers to get it going. I probably think keeping it simple and using the event talk page for conversations would be better. What if (yes this is what if) on the day internet isn't going or flakey? You may not be able to hold a video chat session but something like event talk page would be ok even if things are flakey.

* Just re-reading wikipedia pages: Wikipedia:Meetup and Wikipedia:How to run an edit-a-thon, Has been some time since I've read them. They also suggest Post a notice at the relevant page of wikipedia.meetup.com. Would you like me to do this for you? Linnah (talk) 22:52, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, that'd be great! We're not using Eventfinder because Friends of Te Papa wanted to handle bookings using their own system. I've used it for edit-a-thons in the past, and it is very good. We've using Periscope specifically because people don't have to download or sign up for anything first. If the wifi is too flaky to handle a Periscope stream, we'll have bigger problems than that! Of course we're at the mercy of Te Papa's wifi, as with every public edit-a-thon. Fingers crossed. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 11:40, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Post Edit-a-thon (for those reading the noticeboard)

• "New Zealand's Wikipedia Edit-a-thon" on RNZ Afternoons 19 May 2016 was good publicity for the edit-a-thon.
• Outcomes section has a list of what was done
• Post edit-a-thon coverage in Cook Strait News: Hennessey, Kelly. (2 June 2016). "Editing in the Gaps". Cook Strait News, p12.

Well done to Giantflightlessbirds — Preceding unsigned comment added by Linnah (talk • contribs) 12:48, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

NZ's cars etc

I don't follow the logic used in categorisation except where it is very obvious. Is it correct that e.g. New Zealand Motor Corporation should be one of the Motor vehicle assembly plants in New Zealand‎ and also one of the Motor vehicle manufacturers of New Zealand? (they made not just assembled something?) I notice that the first is a sub-category of the second which looks like over-categorisation. Maybe not.

We have articles about these (former) assembly plants in New Zealand: Ford Motor Company of New Zealand, Holden New Zealand, New Zealand Motor Corporation, Nissan New Zealand (no real coverage), Toyota New Zealand. Should we have articles about the owners of all the (major) assembly plants - the highest number of them was sixteen? NZMC is now Honda New Zealand which gets no article at all. I'm right over the first rush of enthusiasm for Automotive industry in New Zealand though I have plenty more info to add I'd welcome comment or additions there. Eddaido (talk) 22:46, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Edit-a-thon in Christchurch, May 29 - focus on improving content on women

I've had a meeting today with a photographer who has an exhibition coming up in Chch later in the month and would like to also host events in their exhibition space. One event she was keen to have was a woman-focused WP editing event (as in an event which focuses on adding content on women to WP, whether that be by women or men) so I've offered to organise one, and picked the afternoon of May 29 (coincidentally the same date as the Wellington event, I see!). I'd like to promote this as the first in a series of approximately monthly WP events in Christchurch; I would prefer to hold them at libraries so that reference material is to hand, however there's also an advantage to doing the event in conjunction with something else in terms of publicity and promotion. If any Chch-based editors would like to help promote the event, or organise, or turn up on the day and assist with talking to new editors, please get in touch with me. MurielMary (talk) 11:14, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

• I'd be most happy to show up and show newbie editors how it's done. Good initiative! Schwede66 18:07, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
• If it becomes a regular event I'd be happy to help next time I come down to Christchurch. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 19:36, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
• Great idea! I like the idea of monthly edit-a-thons. Linnah (talk) 08:18, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks both for your support! I'm currently mulling over an appropriate, catchy name for the event/the group which might form from this event to organise ongoing get-togethers. What do people think of "Wikipedia Women of Christchurch" or "Women in Wikipedia Christchurch" or "Wikipedia Women Otautahi" ..... I don't want to use "Women in Red" in the title as it's not only getting biographies of women into the encyclopedia, but getting all manner of content about women on here. Or keep it broad, "Wikipedia Writers of Christchurch". Any ideas?? MurielMary (talk) 11:51, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Here is the event registration page; if you are coming please register or if you are just interested in hearing about future events you can also sign up for notifications of future events. sign-up page for Chch events MurielMary (talk) 08:57, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Critter of the Week

I've been supporting this weekly segment on RadioNZ Afternoons, in which Nicola Toki from DOC talks to host Jesse Mulligan about an endangered NZ species. A few months ago I offered to help improve the relevant Wikipedia articles, which they were both very enthusiastic about, and DOC Information Services have been helpfully supplying photos from their image library as CC-BY. It's been going well so far, but I could use some help: here are the critters so far and a To Do list. I suspect if this continues to grow it should be moved to its own subpage on WikiProject New Zealand. Suggestions for how to better handle it welcome. It occurs to me this might be a good topic to pitch to DOC as an Edit-a-thon theme one day. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 23:48, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

What a neat initiative! I wonder whether this is helpful in convincing DOC to move to CC-BY licenses in general? Why restrict it to one critter a week? Schwede66 00:08, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

I think one critter is the most Jesse has time to talk about and Nicola to research. And if I'm having to create a page from scratch, as I did last night, the most I have time to work on. But once our crack wikiteam has cleared the backlog we could ask them to pick up the pace perhaps... DOC has had no problem releasing plenty of files under CC-BY once I explained that a Crown Copyright statement could indeed be included in the Commons page. Their image database seems to be difficult to extract things from, and there's sometimes nothing suitable they can find. I suggested they work with a volunteer to simply upload everything to the Commons instead! Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 03:11, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

2 Native mushrooms now endangered

Two native mushrooms now endangered. Radio New Zealand story on 7 May 2016 http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/303302/two-native-mushrooms-now-endangered links to the red list pages. I started to look at updating the actual wikipedia pages for those, Boletopsis nothofagi and Claustula. However the more I look into it I think I better leave it to someone who knows what other pages + tags need updating. Well it is easy for the Claustula since there's nothing in that page. For example I found IUCN Red List endangered species (Fungi). Linnah (talk) 13:08, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

In such situations, I strongly suggest that you just add a link from the article to the new source. Sources are _really_ important and RNZ isn't the natural place to look for a source on this. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:54, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

June WP writing event in Christchurch

FYI following on from the successful May writing get-together, another event is planned for Sunday 26 June. Focus again is on getting more women editors involved, and getting more content by and about women into the encyclopedia. Here's the page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Christchurch_June_2016 MurielMary (talk) 10:08, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Auto-assessment of article classes

Following a recent discussion at WP:VPR, there is consensus for an opt-in bot task that automatically assesses the class of articles based on classes listed for other project templates on the same page. In other words, if WikiProject A has evaluated an article to be C-class and WikiProject B hasn't evaluated the article at all, such a bot task would automatically evaluate the article as C-class for WikiProject B.

If you think auto-assessment might benefit this project, consider discussing it with other members here. For more information or to request an auto-assessment run, please visit User:BU RoBOT/autoassess. This is a one-time message to alert projects with over 1,000 unassessed articles to this possibility. ~ Rob^Talk 01:16, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

This seems like a good idea to me! — Ballofstring (talk) 06:43, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

There's 5000 articles left that need to be assessed and nobody is working on getting that number down. I'll look into this and get us signed up. Schwede66 17:51, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Operation Michael

Operation Michael please re-assess after recent improvements. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 08:53, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

You should put it up for GA review. Schwede66 20:57, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

User EllsworthSchmittendorf's changes to importance ratings on WPNZ articles

Kia ora koutou, I am surprised at some of the changes that EllsworthSchmittendorf is making tonight to importance ratings of WP NZ articles. Is anyone permitted to change these ratings willy nilly without consensus or discussion? I have reverted three of them so far - Truby King, Lorde and Lydia Ko who were all downgraded from top importance to mid importance. The city of Hamilton's article has also been downgraded. These seem to be significant changes - why no discussion?? I have posted on ES's talk page asking him/her to explain the changes made on the relevant talk pages but no response as yet. Just more changes being made. MurielMary (talk) 09:16, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Schwede66 or Grutness any thoughts?

I have reverted quite a few of those assessments. Clueless and uninformed. I'll go through that editor's history tomorrow to straighten this out. Schwede66 09:22, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Hi MurielMary and Schwede66. I was changing articles as per Wikipedia:WikiProject Lists/Assessment. I can revert them all if you like? EllsworthSchmittendorf (talk) 09:33, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

If someone is going to assess the importance of an article they need to know not only the subject of the article very well, but also the context and the field in which that subject sits. With all due respect, it doesn't appear that you have that particular knowledge. For example, to consider Lorde "only notable within her particular field" (which is the definition of "mid importance") is extremely inaccurate as she has achieved international notability, thus the ranking of "top" for her article. Thanks for offering to revert all your edits, yes please do this, as it is extremely time consuming for other WP:NZ editors to revert them individually. Thanks for your interest in the articles nevertheless. MurielMary (talk) 09:41, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

2007 New Zealand police raids

I've been doing some cleanup on this and think that "cleanup" tag can now probably go - but would prefer that someone else give it a quick look over first. Snori (talk) 20:56, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Govhack NZ 2016

Govhack NZ 2016 is an event where participants are create something (software, graphics etc) from Government open data. Hack part of Govhack is for Hackathon. The event itself is actually multiple events around the country for 29 – 31 July 2016. Current events are in Whangarei, Auckland, Hamilton, Hawke's Bay, Whanganui, Wellington, Christchurch, Queenstown and Dunedin. I am posting about it here because some of you may be interested in participating in the hackathon. If you aren't in a team, you will be teamed up with others on Friday 29 July. I also think would be good for a NZ Wikipedian to attend in each city to see and get in contact with people who can tell us more about them. It sounds like at some events, there is someone from a local government there. Can we use some of open data from government (local and national) to create tables needed in some pages? Perhaps someone can write something to convert the data into something that can be pasted onto a wikipedia page. You don't have to be a programmer. They need people with all sorts of skills. Data available for Govhack 2015(last year). If you are in Australia GovHack is happening there too. Did anyone participate last year? Linnah (talk) 04:02, 25 June 2016 (UTC)