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New Zealand report

Update from Auckland Museum; Let the Wikifying Commence; Listful Thinking

Update from Auckland Museum

Auckland Museum Wikimedian in Residence User:Winnieswikiworld and Collections Online Data Analyst User:Dactylantha held a session at the Auckland Writers Festival 2025. The Wikipedia Edit-a-thon- Aotearoa Authors Edition is part of a larger initiative to spotlight underrepresented topics and enrich Wikipedia with more diverse content and help support how Aotearoa's literary heritage is represented online. The session covered; what is Wikipedia?, why contribute?, impacts of Wikipedia, addressing bias & representation, the five pillars, notability, reliability & neutrality, conflicts of interest, copyright & plagiarism, talk pages & user pages, setting up your user page, visual editor and making your first edit. New Wikidata items were created for authors and their works as well as photographs of authors which will be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.

Christchurch WikiCon

Wikicon Aotearoa 2025
Aotearoa New Zealand's fifth national WikiCon was held at Ara Institute of Canterbury in Ōtautahi Christchurch over 16–18 May. There were 32 attendees, including the Wiki team from Auckland Museum (User:Winnieswikiworld,User:Dactylantha & User:Prosperosity). One of the sessions facilitated by Auckland Museum staff was Attracting Younger Editors, on the impact of the Wikipedia summer studentships, the possibility of setting up NZ wiki youth support groups and catering editing events to younger tertiary student audiences. Other sessions included batch uploading to Wikimedia Commons, the role of Wikipedia in fighting disinformation, tools like like Pattypan, OpenRefine and Quick Statements, the metrics tracker GLAMorgan, OpenStreetMap and how it can be used in infoboxes, modelling Māori ethnicity and tribal affiliation correctly in Wikidata, Commons templates, making lists from Wikidata, and getting reliable sources. This was the largest New Zealand WikiCon to date, with 32 attendees, and only the second in the South Island.

Let the Wikifying Commence

Tamsin and Mike at the Otago Medical School 150th Anniversary

Thanks to a Rapid Grant, Tamsin Braisher (DrThneed) and Mike Dickison (Giantflightlessbirds) have been busy Wikifying conferences: this includes improving Wikidata of speakers and attendees, creating or improving Wikipedia articles, and clearing photographs for Commons or taking them in a makeshift photo booth. The project goal is to document the best ways to go about this and produce a handbook for Wikipedians. Mike attended Printopia, a print-making fair in Auckland, and then both Tamsin and Mike attended the Otago Medical School's 150th Anniversary celebrations. We have one more event to Wikify, an international congress in three weeks’ time, and then we’ll get to work documenting our process.

Tamsin also started as the new Wikimedian in Residence at the University of Otago at the end of May. This is the first university-wide WiR position for New Zealand, and is a half-time role for six months.

  • Portraits from Printopia and the OMS 150th
  • Ina Arraoui
    Ina Arraoui
  • Sophia Jenny
    Sophia Jenny
  • Eduardo Sanchez Ojeda
    Eduardo Sanchez Ojeda
  • Sunny Collings
    Sunny Collings
  • Rebecca Grainger
    Rebecca Grainger
  • Doug Sellman
    Doug Sellman
  • Venus Michaels
    Venus Michaels

Listful thinking

Tamsin (DrThneed) has recorded three screenshares for Listeria, Petscan and the Wiki List Tool, and an overview video talking about what these different list-making tools are good for and how they can be used in editing workflows. The overview video was originally a talk at the recent Wikidata and Sister Projects event but was re-recorded due to technical issues. Tamsin would love to hear from other editors if there are other good list-making tools or workflows that we can share.



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