Wikimedia User Group of Aotearoa New Zealand/Annual Report 2023
Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand Report January 2023 - June 2023[edit]
Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand is changing its activity reporting cycle to a July - June cycle to align with our funding from Wikimedia Foundation. The start of the 2023 year can be found in the Annual Community Activity Report July 2023 - June 2024.
Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand Incorporated Society (WANZ)[edit]
The first Annual General Meeting[edit]
Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand Incorporated Society (WANZ) held its first Annual General Meeting on 17 April 2023 and recorded a report from the President and the financial statements for 2022 presented by the Treasurer. The President noted that the Membership Policy stated that only natural persons can become members of WANZ and that organisations cannot. Annual membership fees were set a $NZ 5 GST inclusive.
As the term limit for committee membership had not yet expired and there were no nominations for additions to the committee, the committee remains:
- Einebillion (talk · contribs) (President)
- Giantflightlessbirds (talk · contribs) (Vice-President)
- Noracrentiss (talk · contribs) (Secretary)
- Marshelec (talk · contribs) (Treasurer)
- Pakoire (talk · contribs) (Committee member)
- Schwede66 (talk · contribs) (Committee member)
- MurielMary (talk · contribs) (Committee member)
WMF Funding[edit]
The User Group received its first General support grant from ESEAP / Wikimedia Foundation in July 2022. This funding supported activities during the period of this report.
Some individual editors have received in kind support such as fee waivers for conference attendance by conference organisers.
WANZ spent the remainder of the grant provided by InternetNZ in 2021 to support diversity and inclusion at WikiCons during the Wellington WikiCon 2023. It assisted Pasifika attendees with travel costs to attend the WikiCon. This funding was unspent due to the cancellation of the Wellington WikiCon in 2021 due to restrictions in response to an outbreak of the COVID-19 Delta variant in Auckland. An email of thanks was sent to InternetNZ. The WANZ committee submitted its mid-term report for the 2022-23 general funding grant.
The WANZ committee applied for and was granted WMF general purpose funds for three years of activities and support for July 2023 – June 2026.
Organisational development[edit]
During the first half of 2023 the committee:
- approved a communication message on the benefits of being a member
- drafted a Welcome message for new editors
- set a membership subscription, promoted membership of the society, and began processing applications for membership
- ensured the society was GST registered
- accepted written role descriptions for President, Vice-President, Treasurer and Secretary
- provided the first of the regular compulsory annual reports to the regulator - Charities Services
- held an Annual General Meeting
- approved a Travel and Expenses Policy
- approved a Membership policy and developed a membership acceptance process
- developed a Grant-making Policy and a funding application procedure and grant agreement
- approved a Conflict of Interest Policy and Procedures
- started initial organisation of the annual WANZ committee in-person strategy weekend 2023
- in preparation for the 2023/24 general grant application being approved, began drafting an Executive Advisor contractor position description, reporting structure document, and job ad
Providing funding[edit]
The WANZ committee:
- provided funding for and supported the Wellington WikiCon 2023
- provided funding towards and administrative support for the Wikidata Fellowships in partnership with Wikimedia Australia
- funded a Women + Architecture Editathon
- in preparation for the 2023/24 general grant application being approved, considered three grant applications for members to attend conferences
- in preparation for the 2023/24 general grant application being approved, began drafting a Wikipedian at Large request for proposal
Relationships[edit]
The WANZ committee:
- provided support to Auckland Museum staff with advice on successfully running meetups
- continued to meet with and deepen relationships with Auckland Museum and Te Papa
- continued to meet with and deepen relationships with the Parliamentary Library
- continued to support and deepen relationships with the Pacifika group of new editors
Press and promotion highlights[edit]
Critter of the Week article in Forest and Bird newsletter
Conferences[edit]
Wellington WikiCon[edit]
- Wellington WikiCon 2023 was a well run event hosting 30 people over two days in March 2023. The main organiser was Pakoire. Attendees came from around New Zealand and also included Alex Lum from Wikimedia Australia. The programme delivered presentations from editors and organisers from a number of key projects from around New Zealand. Outcomes and highlights included:
- A presentation on tools and tricks is now publicly available for people to work through See this link for google slides or you can see the slides in Wikicommons.
- The editing community provided ideas and a prioritisation for the WANZ committee to develop as part of their funding application. Photographs of resulting sticky notes and popularity.
- Launched the Wikisource project for the Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute. See Wikiproject Transactions NZ Institute.
- Pasifika, Mana Moana and Wikipedia - an enlightening presentation by Sophia Coghini identifying possibilities for the future
- Professional photographic headshots of all participants ready for upload to Wikimedia Commons
- A tools learning session, dreamed up the day before the conference, is planned for Dunedin on the weekend of June 17–18.
- Wikidata item and WikiCommons gallery of Our Lady's Home of Compassion, the venue.
- Wikidata item for Danilo R. Reyes, a local printmaker whose art was gifted to attendees
- Image request filled for St Patrick's College, Kilbirnie, Wellington
Representation at other conferences[edit]
- Wikimania 2023 - a large contingent of New Zealanders have received scholarships from Wikimedia Foundation or support from WANZ to attend this conference in Singapore in mid August. In the past New Zealanders haven't had much representation on a global level and this is an excellent outcome of the hard work of our community over the past few years. WANZ anticipates that attendees will return invigorated and informed on more efficient and effective ways of working and connecting with the global Wikiverse movement.
- SPNHC 2023 - Ambrosia10 applied for and received ESEAP/Wikimedia Foundation rapid grant funding to attend in person the 2023 conference of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections. Held in San Francisco at the end of May this conference brings together a global community of natural environment specialists. This group of specialists has been a recruitment target for Ambrosia10 due to the growing acceptance of linked open data in the natural sciences and the use of Wikidata as a linking mechanism and disambiguation tool for collectors and identifiers. She also presented two papers at this conference related to Wikimedia Foundation platforms. One was titled Reuse in the Wiki world empowers engagement with Natural History Collections and the other was titled Names, dames and campaigns: a botanical case study in digitally narrowing the gaps. The highlight was meeting in person Adania Flemming, the cofounder of the US based group "Black in Natural History Museums" and Miranda Lowe from the Natural History Museum, London who is the co author of "Nature Read in Black and White: decolonial approaches to interpreting natural history collections" a seminal work in guiding natural history institutions to decolonise their collections. Both these women attended the presentation "Names, dames and campaigns: a botanical case study in digitally narrowing the gaps" & recognised that the Wikidata workflow used in that project to highlight underrepresented women's contributions was equally application to other marginalised groups. Prior to the conference & currently Ambrosia10 is collaborating with Adania to create a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) using a similar workflow to that given in the presentation. Attendance at this conference enabled Adania and Ambrosia10 to meet for the first time in person and to strengthen this collaborative relationship. Ambrosia10 also offered to assist Miranda Lowe with any efforts she may want to undertake with any Wiki Projects to highlight marginalised groups. Impactful conversations were also had with other attendees that may bear further Wikiverse benefits in the future.
Wikimedia community support[edit]
Community meetups[edit]
Regular meetups were held during the year, both online and in person, around New Zealand. These included:
- Aotearoa New Zealand Online Meetup: monthly online meetings open to everyone across the country, including regular attendees from Australia. The first 15 minutes is allocated to Aotearoa New Zealand User Group business. 7 meetings held, 65 total attendances
- Wellington Meetup: monthly meetings in person (or online if required by New Zealand COVID-19 Alert Levels). 6 meetings held, 45 total attendances
- Auckland Meetup: meetings are occurring more regularly for Auckland during 2023 thanks to significant support from Auckland Museum and MOTAT staff. 3 meetings held, 18 total attendances
- Christchurch Meetup: meetings are occurring semi-regularly. 1 meetings held, 4 total attendances
Note that total number attending include multiple counts of individuals, as they are counted for each meeting they attended.
WANZ social media activity[edit]
- Facebook private User group: group is used to assist editors and promote Wikipedia events and meet-ups. 199 members as at 30 June 2023.
- Facebook public page: this was created with the goals of raising awareness of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects in New Zealand, showcasing New Zealand content and highlighting opportunities for people to get involved. 237 likes and 264 Followers at 30 June 2023.
- Twitter. The Wikimedia Aotearoa twitter handle has 268 (+23) followers and continues to actively post and share information.
Training[edit]
- Wellington Intro to Wikipedia 4 attendees - organiser lead Pakoire (talk · contribs)
Outreach, events, and major projects[edit]
Campaign dashboard for 1 January to 30 June
Joint Wikidata Fellowships campaign with Wikimedia Australia[edit]
- Wikidata fellowship applications were received between 9 January – 23 February 2023 and were awarded. The three successful Fellows have projects are underway, with one being mentored by DrThneed. One fellow has recently withdrawn as they were unable to continue due to illness so the fellowship is being re-advertised.
#1Lib1Ref campaign, 15 May – 5 June 2023[edit]
- Avocadobabygirl organised a day long #1Lib1Ref session for Te Papa staff. Giantflightlessbirds, Ambrosia10, and Einebillion attended to assist. A total of 12 editors contributed including Te Papa Librarians that had attended Te Papa's 1Lib1Ref session the previous year and a number of new editors.
- By the numbers:
- 12 editors, including 4 new sign-ups
- 410 references added
- 17 new wikidata items created
- 102 articles edited, 167 wikidata items edited
- Over 1000 total edits
- 91.5K words added
- Marshelec organised a low key Wikipedia Open Day at Wadestown Library, Wadestown, Wellington. 3 people attended in total.
New Zealand Wikidata Thesis Project: Connecting New Zealand dissertations to the world[edit]
Background on this project and an update were published in the March 2022 GLAMwiki newsletter. In short, the project involves taking metadata for approximately 66,000 theses from 13 New Zealand educational institutions and uploading it to Wikidata, and citing the theses on Wikipedia where relevant (e.g. when the author has a Wikipedia page). It is the first project to upload dissertations data for a nation, and also possibly the first multi-institutional collaboration for thesis data. During this period of this report DrThneed has created a helpful video to support editors and is continuing to promote and talk about the project. On 12 February 2023 DrThneed presented on the project to the ESEAP meeting. DrThneed has also been accepted to present at Wikimania and to the Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa Conference on 31 October 2023. DrThneed has also submitted a short paper to the Journal of Academic Librarianship regarding the project, and was invited to give feedback on the Wikidata Thesis Toolkit. A longer scholarly article by DrThneed, Zeborah and Ambrosia10 is underway.
New Zealand Women in Architecture Edit-a-Thons, 20 May 2023[edit]
Hosted in three locations - Auckland (in person at Auckland Museum), Dunedin (in person at the Hocken Library) and Online - during Saturday 20 May, these edit-a-thons were successful in increasing the Wikiverse content on New Zealand Women architects. The edit-a-thon was prompted by the publication of the book Making Space: A History of New Zealand Women in Architecture.
- By the numbers:
- 25 editors, including 13 new sign-ups
- 351 references added
- 41 new wikidata items created
- 130 articles edited, 545 wikidata items edited
- 964 total edits
- 54.4K words added
- 17 commons uploads
DrThneed has been invited by Heritage New Zealand to run a follow-up event during the Dunedin Heritage Festival in October.
Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) use of Wikidata[edit]
Partially as a result of requests by Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand member Ambrosia10 as well as Pigsonthewing BHL has been harvesting persistent identifiers (PIDs) from Wikidata and ensuring that these as well as the Wikidata items are reused on BHL catalogue pages. Ambrosia10 then assisted BHL in publicising this reuse of Wikidata and the Wikidata Query Service by co writing a blog post about it as well as a Diff post concerning this round tripping.
Ambrosia10 assisted with the creation of the BHL Biodiversity knowledge to Support Life on a Sustainable Planet white paper outlining potential and planned engagement with Wikimedia projects by BHL. Ambrosia10 was interviewed for this white paper and also provided assistance and feedback while it was being drafted.
Interviews and panel presentations[edit]
- Ambrosia10 has been interviewed in the March 2023 Creative Commons Open Culture Season 2 Episode 6 about her Wiki work and the importance of creative commons licenses to it.
- Einebillion and Giantflightlessbirds presented in March to the a group of museum professionals via a National Services Te Paerangi zui (zoom hui) on the how GLAMs can successfully engage with Wikipedia.
- Ambrosia10 presented on Citizen Science and Wikipedia as part of a panel discussion about citizen science in Australasia in April 2023 to celebrate Citizen Science Month 2023. This panel was hosted by SciStarter and the video can be seen here.
- Ambrosia10 participated in the WeDigBio symposium in April 2023 outlining her motivations for participating in this transcription event and highlighting workflows she uses including connecting natural history collectors to their specimens via Wikidata and the website Bionomia Tracker. She discussed writing Wikipedia articles on species, natural history collectors and the locations the collectors travel to, to collect specimens. This presentation can be seen here.
Encouraging GLAM contributions: Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum[edit]
Engagement[edit]
WANZ considers the relationship with Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum to be a high strategic priority as Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum is investing significantly in engaging and contributing to Wikimedia Foundation projects and is lead exemplar for this type of GLAM Wiki engagement in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Meetings continued between committee members led by Einebillion and James Taylor, Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum to discuss the museum's project grant from ESEAP and support for the Understanding Our Past Project including contributions and support needed from members of Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand. Discussions have raised the location of the next New Zealand WikiCon as hosting this in Auckland will help to build the editing community.
Contributions[edit]
- Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum staff continued to support, organise and facilitate a regular meetup for Auckland editors.
- Their Wikipedian in Residence Prosperosity has continued to improve on Auckland suburb articles. Prosperosity also travelled to the Wellington WikiCon to present on the his work at Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum and to encourage other editors to adopt his templates aimed at improving local areas for the benefit of the new national curriculum in New Zealand history for secondary students.
- Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum also hosted the in person New Zealand Women in Architecture Editathon, 20 May 2023 organised by Pakoire
Encouraging GLAM contributions: New Zealand Parliamentary Library[edit]
The relationship with the New Zealand Parliamentary Library has been in hiatus while those at this organisation interested in editing and establishing a programme of work obtained authority to do so by their managers. As of mid-July, WANZ has heard back that they have received approval and are now keen to proceed.
Encouraging GLAM contributions: Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa[edit]
Engagement[edit]
WANZ considers the relationship with Te Papa to be a high strategic priority as Te Papa is New Zealand's national museum and national art gallery and engagement with Wikimedia Foundation projects by that institution will strongly influence other GLAM institutions within New Zealand. For the sake of transparency: Einebillion, President of Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand is an employee of Te Papa and has been advocating for more engagement with Wikimedia Foundation projects. During the period of this report Avocardobabygirl, who also acts as Te Papa's Digital Channels Outreach Manager had her role made permanent at Te Papa and continues to develop Te Papa's Wikimedia strategy and workplan and encourage new editors from Te Papa's staff.
Contributions[edit]
- Significant contribution to the #1Lib1Ref campaign by hosting an all-day session for staff editors
- Fixed term Wikimedian in Residence established for the quarter of autumn 2023 with Giantflightlessbirds starting a programme of work.
- Future work programme being developed with new editor recruitment, identification of content available for open release, and events.
Wikipedia / Radio New Zealand Critter of the Week Project[edit]
Giantflightlessbirds continued to coordinate and expand the Critter of the Week Project. Critter of the Week is a long-running and popular Radio New Zealand show in which Nicola Toki (originally of the Department of Conservation, now head of Forest & Bird) and the host Jesse Mulligan talk about New Zealand species both endangered and neglected. It has been running since 2015: on [1]. Almost from the start Giantflightlessbirds and other volunteers have been creating or improving the corresponding Wikipedia article for each species to coincide with the Friday broadcast. This was initialy coordinated through Twitter; a project page was created in 2017 (and now contains a more accurate episode list than Radio New Zealand's own website).
West Coast Wikisource Project[edit]
Work continues with Wikisource proofreading and validation on a number of books. There's a significant number of books that have been scanned and are awaiting loading into Wikisource however the restricted editor base has meant that this work is being paced to ensure that editors focus on finishing the books already loaded.
Left Bank Art Gallery[edit]
Giantflightlessbirds collaborated with the Left Bank Art Gallery in Greymouth on a project to improve the coverage of West Coast artists. A researcher at the Left Bank compiled print articles into artist files, and Giantflightlessbirds created Wikidata items, Commons categories, and new articles on 7 artists.
Women Genera project[edit]
Ambrosia10 continues to collaborate with an international group of botanists researching the flowering plant genera named after women. This project uses Wikidata as a pivotal knowledge base creating and link the women and female beings to the plant genera named in their honour. As part of the outreach undertaken by this group to share this project and the methods used by the researchers (including Wikidata) with the wider biodiversity Ambrosia10 presented the paper Names, dames and campaigns: a botanical case study in digitally narrowing the gaps at the SPNHC2023 conference. The collaborator researchers are currently writing two research papers which they anticipate will be published in the near future.
Otago Zoology Wikipedian in Residence[edit]
Giantflightlessbirds completed a short Wikipedian residency at the University of Otago's Zoology Department, including scanning historic photos from the departmental archive, running an edit-a-thon for the 2023 bug-of-the-year competition, and giving a seminar titled "Getting your Science into Wikipedia".
Editing for Effie editathon[edit]
After the death of Digitaleffie, members of the Aotearoa New Zealand community who knew Effie took part in the international Editing For Effie editathon to commemorate her impact on our lives.
Improving coverage of New Zealand topics[edit]
- Music coverage, ensuring that all of the top songs and albums by New Zealand artists have coverage. Articles have been made for all Top 20 Albums by New Zealand artists of 2022 and 2021, and the Top 20 singles of 2022 by New Zealand artists.
- Film coverage, ensuring that New Zealand films have Wikipedia articles. Two New Zealand films were released to theatres during the first half of 2023: We Are Still Here and Red, White & Brass. Users Andykatib and Prosperosity collaborated on the page for Red, White & Brass.
- Location data cleaning. Many geographic locations and buildings in New Zealand have poor data. Some locations such as streams and bays may be misplaced, and many features often have multiple Wikidata items and pages on the Cebuano language Wikipedia. This causes a multitude of problems for editors, such as misplaced geocoordinates on new articles, confusion over which Wikidata is the most appropriate for an item, or for users of Wikidata-powered tools such as WikiShootMe, who will be asked to photograph features that aren't located where the map shows they should be. User Prosperosity began a project to review the geocoordinate data of places across New Zealand, based on the New Zealand Gazetteer and other available maps, and merging duplicates of features (for example, items featured in multiple databases, such as listed historical buildings which also serve as accommodation, or Wikidata items created for different points along the course of a river). As of mid-2023, these areas have been reviewed:
- Rangitāhua / Kermadec Islands
- Manawatāwhi / Three Kings Islands
- Northland Region
- Auckland Region
- Waikato Region as far south as Hamilton / -37.8 degrees south.
- Tauranga, Katikati and Waihi Beach
- Wellington, Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt and Porirua
- Christchurch
- While this project has resulted in the deletion and merging of many Cebuano Wikipedia pages and Wikidata items, it has also helped to increase the number of recorded locations in the New Zealand Gazetteer. After reaching out to the staff at LINZ, a number of features such as Mission Point, Ratamaroke and Tamahine o Karewa Peak were able to be added to the database.
- Wikidata additions: DrThneed continues to add lists to Wikidata. Work in this period included the Birthday Honours list, university professors as promotions were announced, new Royal Society Te Apārangi fellows, all emeritus professors for the University of Canterbury, and living emeritus professors for the University of Waikato. She also created a new Wikidata project on NZ Women In Architecture to support editathon events and improve information on awards and award winners, creating more than 200 new Wikidata items and several Wikipedia pages.
Auckland War Memorial Museum local suburb project[edit]
In late 2022, staff at Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial applied for Wikipedia Alliance Funding to enhance local Auckland suburb pages for use as local history resources in the classroom for the new Aotearoa Histories Curriculum, building on our earlier successful Research Fund project Wikipedia and the Aotearoa New Zealand History Curriculum. The new curriculum, which started in 2023, is the first time that there has been compulsory study of New Zealand history in primary, intermediate and secondary schools (years 1-10, ages 5-15). This is a huge opportunity for GLAM organisations to expand their audience of school-aged students and their teachers, as it has a strong local history aspect. Alongside understanding the big ideas of Aotearoa New Zealand history and developing critical thinking skills students are expected to understand and engage with their local contexts. However, in the research that we earlier undertook teachers told us that they are struggling to find suitable local history resources and we believe Wikipedia, particularly enhanced local suburb pages, can fill this gap, providing detailed historical narratives of local places that are well referenced, illustrated with rich imagery and point to further resources.
Within the first six months, the article for West Auckland was improved to GA status, and articles on three major areas of Auckland were improved or created: South Auckland, Pōhutukawa Coast and East Auckland. This leaves two major areas yet to be done, as well as five regional towns outside of metropolitan Auckland.
So far, 38 articles on Auckland suburbs have been improved with local history information.
| Month | Articles |
|---|---|
| February | Lynfield, Mount Roskill, Waikowhai, Wesley |
| March | Kingsland, Morningside, Mount Albert, Owairaka, Pollok, Sandringham, St Lukes, Te Atatū Peninsula |
| April | Favona, Māngere, Māngere East, Manurewa, Papatoetoe |
| May | Pohuehue |
| June | Beachlands, Botany, Botany Downs, Bucklands Beach, Burswood, Cockle Bay, Clevedon, Dannemora, Eastern Beach, Farm Cove, Golflands, Half Moon Bay, Highland Park, Howick, Maraetai, Ōtara, Pakuranga, Shelly Park, Somerville, Whitford |
In the same period, 56 articles on geographic features or buildings of the Auckland Region were created or greatly improved.
Wellington Harbour collaboration[edit]
An on-going collaboration between editors from the Wellington Wikipedia meetup group has produced a wide range of improvements to articles associated with Wellington harbour. Early in 2023, the Evans Bay Patent Slip article was assessed as GA. The most significant achievement for the 2023 period was getting a large article about Matiu / Somes Island to GA status. New articles were also created in 2023 for CentrePort Wellington, Wharves in Wellington Harbour and Waiwhetu Aquifer. Extensive improvements were also made to Wellington Harbour, and a group of articles associated with the Wellington Harbour Board and the heritage buildings they established on the Wellington waterfront.
Some related work included development of a new article Waiwhetū Stream, and this led to engagement and a presentation about Wikipedia at a public meeting of the community group Friends of Waiwhetu Stream.