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GLAM/Newsletter/November 2018/Contents/New Zealand report

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New Zealand report

Equity, Wikidata, and the New York Times

Edit for Equity

User:Ambrosia10 helping a new editor at Edit for Equity

This year marks the 125th anniversary of women winning the right to vote in New Zealand – the first country in which it happened. Women's suffrage has been marked by numerous commemorative events, including a series of Wikipedia workshops. Sisters Anna and Kelly Pendergrast of Antistatic (AnnaStatic and KellyStatic) applied for support from the Suffrage125 fund and ran five Edit for Equity workshops. The final one, on 28 November, marked the 125th anniversary of the first suffrage election. All the events were extremely professionally organised, with custom stickers and postcards, fabulous catering, good publicity, and documentation and evaluation of each session. Almost all attendees were female, and 38 were editing Wikipedia for the first time. Local Wikipedians Ambrosia10 and myself ran training and troubleshooting at each one.

Edit for Equity Wikipedia edit-a-thons, Oct–Nov 2018, Wellington, NZ
Event Date Attended New editors Pages created Pages improved
STEM 9 Oct 18 10 3 13
Film, TV and Music 11 Oct 9 4 1 16
Art and Literature 13 Oct 19 12 7 28
Politics and Social Change 14 Oct 17 7 11 50
History 28 Nov 14 5 1 26
77 38 23 133


  • Getting started
    Getting started
  • Mike giving an intro
    Mike giving an intro
  • Two editors work on a Wikipedia article together at the Edit for Equity event at the Sustainability Trust in Wellington, October 2018.
    Two editors work on a Wikipedia article together at the Edit for Equity event at the Sustainability Trust in Wellington, October 2018.
  • Editors discussing Wikipedia updates at Edit for Equity event in Wellington, New Zealand.
    Editors discussing Wikipedia updates at Edit for Equity event in Wellington, New Zealand.
  • Editors hard at workFile:Edit for Equity event 01.jpg
    Editors hard at workFile:Edit for Equity event 01.jpg
  • Materials at check-in table, Edit for Equity event, Wellington
    Materials at check-in table, Edit for Equity event, Wellington
  • Materials at check-in table, Edit for Equity event, Wellington
    Materials at check-in table, Edit for Equity event, Wellington
  • Participants in the third Edit for Equity edit-a-thon
    Participants in the third Edit for Equity edit-a-thon
  • New editors
    New editors
  • Snacks
    Snacks

Asaf Bartov visit

Asaf Bartov's Wikidata masterclass
It was a pleasure to have Asaf Bartov visit New Zealand for the National Digital Forum and run an intermediate-level Wikidata workshop (his slides are here). Many thanks to the Wikimedia Foundation for making this possible. The NDF this year seemed especially friendly to open knowledge, and both Asaf's and my presentations were well-received (video of his talk and of mine). Wikidata is still a new concept to the GLAM sector in New Zealand; the country is physically isolated from the rest of the Wikimedia community, and though one might think information sharing could easily happen via webinars and YouTube, it makes a huge difference to have knowledgeable people on site to pepper with questions and to work through hands-on tasks with.

As well as a brunch with local Wikimedians, we were able to take Asaf to Zealandia, a local wildlife sanctuary, where he got to experience endangered birds and that icon of New Zealand evolution, the tuatara.

  • 23 Nov: Wikidata Masterclass with Asaf Bartov • Dragonfly Data Science, 158 Victoria St, Wellington • Link

Wikipedian at Large

At Archives NZ with Chief Archivist Richard Foy

In November in the role of NZ Wikipedian at Large I gave presentations to Archives New Zealand, to Australian Wikimedians at the meetup in Melbourne, to staff at Melbourne Museum and the Building Research Association NZ (BRANZ). I also gave two talks at the NZ Ecological Society conference in Wellington: one on the students' day, and one called "How to get your research into Wikipedia", and ran a drop-in Wikipedia clinic for researchers. Wellington Wikipedians had a Wikibrunch meetup and a Wiki in the Pub evening.

There has been plenty of positive media coverage of Wikipedia and of the Wikipedian at Large project, including in the New York Times and the Independent. Wellington journalist Nikki Macdonald wrote two stories examining the issue of notability in Wikipedia, compared to encyclopedias and Who's Who – more in-depth than most of the Wikipedia coverage in mainstream media.

Media coverage


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