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Photo Donation by Horowhenua Historical Society

The Horowhenua Historical Society have very kindly released some photos under a wikipedia compatable license. The first photo I've uploaded is here and gives us a good free photo of Robert Muldoon which his article currently lacks. If you have some time can you please go over to the Society's website and find photos (there are over 14,000 there) that you think might be useful and then post the links to my talk page. I'll merge and upload them this weekend (and probably another batch later). Please do not copy them directly since there are a couple of extra steps involved ( you will note the license actually posted on the site is incompatible with wikipedia). - SimonLyall (talk) 08:51, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Fantastic! Thanks for mediating this.-gadfium 09:23, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

The 48 photos are here. They are still pending commons permission checking but hopefully it will be fairly quick since they are the same as the first one. Roughly have we have about 4 Prime Ministers, 9 Governor Generals, a dozen other politicians, 1 Tongan prince, 2 authors , 1 singer, 2 broadcasters, half a dozen All Blacks and a few other bits and pieces. Most of the pictures will requires cropped versions created before they can be used. If you have any others pictures at the site you are interested in (such as landscapes and buildings which I didn't really check for) please let me know and I may be do another batch later. Personally I'm really happy with this donation as it really helps with some gaps we have in our photos of prominent NZers - SimonLyall (talk) 08:56, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

I've added a couple of pictures to articles. --Lholden (talk) 23:26, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

NZ templates up for deletion

See Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2009 June 23. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 10:16, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Statistics NZ is going to relaunch its website in July. "URLs are going to change, so you will need to update ... links when the new site goes live ... there will be no redirects to the new site."[1] I presume this will apply to the links in Wikipedia, many of them in references. Nurg (talk) 23:16, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I've always had difficulty finding information on their website, so a reorganisation might be good. It will involve us in a lot of work to update links. [2] gives a list of links to their site from Wikipedia.
It might be useful to create some templates, similar to {{TKI}}, to access frequently-used references. If the reference website changes in a consistent manner, then sometimes just the template will need to be updated. For example, links to "Quickstats about <a place>", which currently follow the form http://www.stats.govt.nz/census/census-outputs/quickstats/snapshotplace2.htm?id=3512000, could be templated to take the id parameter, which with a bit of luck will still be the defining part of the new url after the reorganisation. Until we actually know the new organisation, it would be premature to create such new templates.
Once the new website is operational, it might be appropriate to set the New Zealand collaboration to be the task force updating the links.-gadfium 23:40, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
Phew! 991 refs to the stats website that we have to change! Not sure if a template such as {{TKI}} needs to made for the stats nz refs. If there is a degree of consistency in updating links we could use AWB to do the update. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 20:19, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
The Stats website change is scheduled for tonight. Nurg (talk) 21:59, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

The site has changed. The Quickstats have changed their url but the old id still works, so it is relatively simple to convert references. For the example I linked to above, see Quickstats about Titirangi South There is also the table builder, which needs to be expanded first to "Total NZ by Territorial Authority/Area unit" and then to the appropriate territorial authority. It then gives population for the last three censuses, but no other information, which makes it considerably less useful that the Quickstats format for citing in Wikipedia.-gadfium 19:33, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I've created {{NZ Quickstats}} for linking to population data. This might make us more adaptable should the site change again, and will reduce the clutter in references. Use it as {{NZ Quickstats|3512000|Titirangi South}} to produce Quickstats about Titirangi South. I'll start converting articles to use it this afternoon.-gadfium 00:08, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I've fixed about 350-400 refs to stats.govt.nz in the last 12 days, mostly using {{NZ Quickstats}}. This takes care of the majority of the population / geographical refs. There's at least 150 refs fixed by other people. There are probably about 650 remaining links to stats.govt.nz, but some are from talk pages, and I presume they'll slowly get updated or replaced. I'm bored with fixing these links now so I'm going back to destubbing rivers, assuming any have been left for me.-gadfium 05:47, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Bollocks! Many links from here are just not on the new site at all.. its internal search is a bit weak. Hope Google reindexes it soon. .. Ropata (talk) 07:58, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Electoral history tables

Each New Zealand politician has a hard-coded "electoral history table" giving the electorate or list position, party, parliament and parliament for each election where they have been successful. An example can be seen in Michael Cullen. A longstanding anon editor of New Zealand political articles (currently on User:60.234.226.62 but the address is dynamic) has suggested a better layout at Gerry Brownlee which was rejected on the grounds that the table layout is now a standard.

I suggest that instead of using hard-coded tables, we introduce a series of templates such as was done for the electorate articles with {{MMP election box}}, which presumably would need a template for the table header and one or two different templates for the individual lines, depending on whether the MP was elected to a seat or on a party list. The introduction of the templates would give us a chance to experiment with different layouts. Does anyone want to take this on as a project and perhaps return a few options for layout here for discussion?-gadfium 19:43, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I would, but I have no idea on how to put such a template together. --Lholden (talk) 20:44, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm in the same boat as Lewis, not my area of expertise. I also think having the years makes it look a bit messy, but that's just my opinion. Cheers Mattlore (talk) 23:04, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
I don't know how to write a template but I've spent a lot of time lately on a web site of my own that uses that sort of table a lot. I think Anonymous's information is good (particularly in that it gives years and not just which Parliament it is), but that the smaller type face on the existing format would be better than the larger one Anonymous has used. Other suggestions I have would be to either centring the data instead of left justifying it, or adding non breaking spaces as the first and last characters in each data cell, or both of the above. Daveosaurus (talk) 07:18, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I personally think that the tables look ugly/messy with years, although it is useful info. A template for this would be VERY helpful, because inexperienced people could enter the data easily.It would also be faster to set the table up–if you get what I mean...?Adabow (talk) 09:12, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
The idea of a set of templates has my full support -- would that my coding skills could help. If someone can point us to where anyone has defined and discussed and agreed on a standard for New Zealand election-results, that would form a good basis for discussion. Such standards may just beg for improvement. - I don't care about the typeface-size or about the aesthetics of centring or of looking messy, but I do care about relating Parliamentary numbers to a standard widely-accepted calendar, and I also care about getting rid of opaque abbreviations. And we could add columns for (say) number of votes, size of majority, and percentage of the valid votes cast. -- 60.234.226.62 (talk) 09:23, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I have also been thinking about this. At present many politicians have up to three infoboxes on their pages, which is not great even if the article is long and ridiculous if the article is stubby. I would like to see one infobox per page which has all the relevant info in it: dates of birth and (if applicable) death, major positions held, electorates represented, list positions etc etc. The trick will be minimising the amount of space all of this takes up. At the moment all ministerial positions get an enormous section so some people have a huge infobox even though they weren't of huge importance. I don't really know how to create templates either but am willing to give it a crack, I just don't know when I'll have time. --Helenalex (talk) 09:27, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

It seems pointless to have substantial amounts of information duplicated in the infoboxes and page footers. In the case of Michael Cullen there are certainly far too many infoboxes in any case. DerbyCountyinNZ 11:06, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the Ministers templates are too big, they are all right for PM, Leader of Opp, Minister of FA or Finance but when they are added for Minister of Land Information etc they become a bit silly. On Cullen's page (and many others) the "Political offices" information is duplicated in the side template. On the other hand I don't see the problem with Pos. = Position and Parl. = Parliament, but again might just be me. Perhaps the answer is creating a NZ only version of Template: Infobox MP? Mattlore (talk) 21:58, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm starting to think we should just remove them for the sake of clarity. Thoughts? --Lholden (talk) 02:46, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm not to sure I agree, I think I'd rather get rid of the larger side and (especially) the end boxes before we got rid of the small coloured box. Mattlore (talk) 06:41, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm happy to work on templates for the electoral history table. As regards the duplication between {{Infobox MP}} and the footers, and the excessive size of the infobox, I'd be reluctant to create a NZ-specific infobox as the current one is extremely generic and flexible. Perhaps any concerns could be raised at Template_talk:Infobox_Officeholder. However, it's up to us as to which fields we use, so perhaps we could favour use of succession boxes at the bottom of the article over including this information in the infobox.-gadfium 07:12, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Templates

I had a go at a template here User:Mattlore/template. Rather basic and a bit messy. As of yet it doesn't have an option for someone not on a list. If someone else is having a go feel free to start with mine and modify it Mattlore (talk) 00:20, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
Looks good, works well - example here: User:Lholden/temp1. Only problem is the "list" box - is it possible for it to merge with the electorate box if the "list" box is left blank? Perhaps we need to have some sort of toggle between FPP / MMP elections. Seems very complex to me - can't figure out how we'd make it work.--Lholden (talk) 01:15, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, that's on the to do list, I think it's a bit beyond my capabilities atm but it must be possible. Mattlore (talk) 01:37, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
I've got it working, if "list1" is left blank then the electorate box takes up both columns. Only problem is, if they are only ever in FPP elections, List is still in the header. Mattlore (talk) 01:49, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Here's my preliminary cut at a template set. I have produced three templates: one for the header, one for an election in an electorate seat, and one for an election in a list position. At the moment the series must be terminated with the usual table termination; it might be cleaner to wrap this trivial code in a "NZ parlbox footer" template.-gadfium 02:20, 2 July 2009 (UTC) 

{{user:Gadfium/NZ parlbox header}}
{{User:Gadfium/NZ parlbox electorate|party=New Zealand Labour Party|parliament=40th|electorate=St Kilda}}
{{User:Gadfium/NZ parlbox electorate|party=New Zealand National Party|parliament=41st|electorate=St Kilda}}
{{User:Gadfium/NZ parlbox list|party=New Zealand First|parliament=42nd|electorate=List|list=3}}
|}

produces:

Parl. Electorate List Pos. Party
40th St Kilda Labour
41st St Kilda National
42nd List 3 NZ First

If we want to suppress the "List" column for politicians for who it's irrelevant, my header template could take a parameter "nolist=true", and Mattlore could either laboriously test all 13 listn parameters, or accept a single parameter similarly. The nolist parameter would cause the "Electorate" header to span two columns, so the body of the table would still have as many columns either way.-gadfium 02:30, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Here's an example of my template with the nolist parameter: 

{{user:Gadfium/NZ parlbox header|nolist=true}}
{{User:Gadfium/NZ parlbox electorate|party=New Zealand Labour Party|parliament=40th|electorate=St Kilda}}
{{User:Gadfium/NZ parlbox electorate|party=New Zealand National Party|parliament=41st|electorate=St Kilda}}
|}
Parl. Electorate Party
40th St Kilda Labour
41st St Kilda National

Okay, I added a nolist paramater to my version as suggested, although we could get it to test automatically if we wanted it to. Now I guess we just need to discuss what style to use and what information to include. Here is my version with the same info inputted as Gadfium's for reference. Mattlore (talk) 03:22, 2 July 2009 (UTC)


The difference in appearance between the templates can easily be adjusted: Mattlore's template could incorporate party colours if it was felt that was desirable, and mine could include years. The differences in font style and size are trivial and easily adjusted. The real difference is whether it is easier to use a collection of templates, as I've produced, or a single template, as Mattlore has. In theory, mine is more flexible, since you could add an unlimited number of lines to it. In practice, Mattlore has made provision for 13 terms, which is likely to be plenty for any real world situation (and it would be trivial to extend it for more terms).
There are a few MPs who lost their seats, spent some time out of parliament, and then were elected again. Roger Douglas has two tables to show this, because there was a very large gap in his parliamentary career. Richard Prebble had a one-term gap but again, two tables. Damien O'Connor was away for a few months, and we have a single table for him with a gap to indicate lack of continuity. It would be simple for me to provide a template to produce such a gap, but I'm not sure if it's easy for Mattlore to do so. Perhaps there could be a gap-n parameter for each of the 12 terms apart from the first, which would produce a gap above that line.
I think that the single template is more intuitive to use than my multiple-template approach, but are there any more variations in table style which might be easier to implement in one approach or the other?-gadfium 04:37, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
It wouldn't be difficult to merge my "NZ parlbox electorate" and "NZ parlbox list" templates to handle an optional parameter for list position, but there's probably no point in doing that until we've decided on the better approach.-gadfium 04:41, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
Also some MPs switch parties during a parliamentary term, The worst case in modern times is probably Gilbert Myles - SimonLyall (talk) 06:39, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
With the years you would have the option of entering it twice, eg "1990-1991 National", "1992 Liberal" & "1993 NZ First" or just listing the party he was originally elected as. Mattlore (talk) 07:16, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
It does seem somewhat excessive to have such an elaborate information sidebar for Richard Worth, given that he was a relatively low-ranked Crown minister, outside Cabinet, and now isn't even a New Zealand MP. However, the same probably isn't true for more senior Cabinet portfolios- finance, health, justice, industrial relations, social services and SOEs - where there might be a case for more substantive detail, due to the workload and prominence involved in their management.

Calibanu (talk) 02:28, 8 July 2009 (UTC)User Calibanu

Hi guys, I've gone ahead and created Template:NZ parlbox. Currently it works like gadfium's model but looks like the existing ones. The documentation is at Template:NZ parlbox/doc, currently trying to work out how to add this to the pages without messing up the template code. I'll leave it here for discussion and then might roll it out to some pages sometime later. Cheers Mattlore (talk) 02:37, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Looks good. I suggest that {{NZ parlbox break}} have less height, as in the Damien O'Connor example. I'm not quite sure why the existing code produces the large break that it does yet the very similar code in the O'Connor article produces a small break.-gadfium 01:19, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
It was working before, it has only become larger after the documentation and categories were included. Might have a play around with it later. If you can work it out feel free to make the changes! Mattlore (talk) 01:41, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Waikato naming problem

There seems to be a difficult problem in finding an unambiguous good name for the article currently at Waikato (region/district). If any New Zealanders can have a look at the debate at Talk:Waikato (region/district) and provide some perspective into common names and so forth it would be much appreciated. YeshuaDavid • Talk • 23:40, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

New Zealand Mint

Could someone who doesn't have a COI please clean up New Zealand Mint. dramatic (talk) 11:02, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

It's been rewritten. XLerate (talk) 15:00, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

New Zealand river articles

Hi all - a considerable number of stubs on New Zealand rivers have just ben created - almost all of them simply contain the text "The Foo River is a river in New Zealand", along with a survey reference. If anyone knows anything about these rivers - even if only whereabouts in NZ they are, then help would be appreciated in adding the regional category (e.g., Category:Bay of Plenty) and the relevant regional geo-stub (e.g., replacing {{NewZealand-geo-stub}} with {{Otago-geo-stub}}). More info would also be useful, of course, but sorting them by region would be a good place to start. All of these stubs are currently to be found in Category:New Zealand geography stubs. Grutness...wha? 02:10, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm working my way through them. See Harman River for an example (although I'm still waiting on the flickr upload bot for an image for it).-gadfium 02:34, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
I've gone through what I could find of the "A"s at a quick glance through Wises and the Reed NZ Atlas (e.g., Araparera River). I suspect that AlbertHerring (the user who did these) will be adding more stubs for I-Z sometime soon, BTW. Grutness...wha? 02:59, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

The LINZ records have lat/long coords (e.g. [3]), usually multiple entries for rivers. With the District field, I queried about Tauranga being in South Auckland, the response was:

"The district refers to the land district, which for Tauranga is considered South Auckland (it's easier to think of it as south OF Auckland). The south auckland district covers from the Bombay hills to Taupo and includes most of the Taranaki area too.".

There is the template {{LINZ}} also. The URL structure to the records changed around January this year, but the identifying numbers were kept the same. XLerate (talk) 04:42, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

As far as Tauranga is concerned, when I'm stubbing articles about that area (and up to about Waihi) I use BayofPlenty-geo-stub, as per Regions of New Zealand. Certainly the area described (Bombay Hills to Taupo etc) is in several distinct regions. It almost sounds like the old provincial boundaries for South Auckland might still be being used! Grutness...wha? 06:44, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

My understanding is that the land districts were set up after the abolition of the Provinces so that the land registration system of each province (all of which described land differently) could be accommodated into a single system with the least strife. The old Auckland Province was split into the Auckland and Gisborne land districts, and later Auckland Land District was split into two. There are other discrepancies between provincial and Land District boundaries: for example, at least half of the Southland Land District was never in Southland Province, and that part of the Nelson Province situated on the east coast ended up in Canterbury. Daveosaurus (talk) 11:22, 12 July 2009 (UTC)


OK, filling in the redlinks is done. Two things: I've gone and left the stub tag as "New Zealand geo", primarily because I don't know anything about the composition of the districts (which is what LINZ gives me), or where they would be. And there are some rivers listed as "XX or YY River", which is the title of the article given them; I haven't filled those, because I don't know what the proper procedure would be.
Thanks for your patience with me as I've done this...I hope I haven't made life too difficult for you. I don't suppose you'd like me to start filling in the list of lakes, now... :-) --User:AlbertHerring Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla! 19:50, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
I've had a go through your stubs shifting everything in Otago or Southland notable enough to get its own article in Wise's into the Otago or Southland categories plus a very short addition saying roughly where each river is. While doing so I've noticed a couple of things. (1) You have added rivers such as Lillburn River and Swin River. If these are the rivers I think they are, their actual names are "Lill Burn" and "Swin Burn". The Otago / Southland area was originally a Free Church of Scotland settlement and many rivers hereabouts were called Burn instead of "river". I'd rather they were moved sooner rather than later, but I don't know how to move articles and am unsure of the etiquette of doing so. (2) You haven't included watercourses which are called "stream" rather than "river". Many such watercourses (for example, the Titipua Stream and Titiroa Stream) are comparable in size and notability with the "rivers" you have included. Daveosaurus (talk) 09:25, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
Regarding how to move pages - check your talk page; I've left (OK, will have left) more information there for you. As to streams, they weren't on the list; all I was filling in was the redlinks on the list. If you give me a list of those, I'd be happy to do the same for them as I did for the river. --User:AlbertHerring Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla! 14:28, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
I'll reply at my talk page. ... It would be appreciated if you didn't do so many all at once again though... I don't know if this is affects the whole of Wikipedia, or just users of Firefox on Windows XP, but Wikipedia:New articles (New Zealand) appears to be a casualty, the lower third of the page contains only placeholders with a message in the source code: "!-- WARNING: template omitted, post-expand include size too large --" (within angle brackets).Daveosaurus (talk) 07:20, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
I've proposed this as the next collaboration topic. See Wikipedia:New Zealand collaboration#New Zealand river stubs.-gadfium 22:44, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
A couple of notes: it's good to mark your progress by adding {{WPNZ}} to the talk page. The majority of small rivers would have low importance. I gave the Arthur river mid importance because its on the Milford Track. Secondly, although the geolocator ([4]) is usually a handy tool, Don't trust google maps when it comes to rivers. When they are labelled, they are often labelled incorrectly, e.g. the Henry River is labelled Waiau. Topomaps online is a better (albeit painfully slow loading) resource for this: [5] - just set your browser to allow popups for the site. I've ended up using the geolocator to suss out the surroundings, since it zooms much faster, and topomaps for the detailed stuff and identifying rivers and place names. dramatic (talk) 10:18, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
I've got a useful piece of free mapping software somewhere, Terraview Fish Eye (will have to re-load it onto my computer though) which includes topographical vector data from LINZ and raster data from the 1:50 000 topomap series; that plus local knowledge should enable me to write a quick paragraph about each river in my immediate surroundings. The problem is I'm a bit wary of committing "original research" in doing so. Daveosaurus (talk) 07:01, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

OK, I think I've weeded out all the Southland and Otago ones. I can help out with other regions if it's needed, but I'll be fairly much flying blind as I don't know my way around northern parts too well. Should I give it a go? Daveosaurus (talk) 08:30, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Don't worry if you're unsure - only do what you're happy with. There are several others of us going through them - Gadfium's working from online data, for instance, and I'm using the Reed New Zealand atlas, which lists a huge number of NZ rivers along with other book sources. The number's going down fairly quickly. Grutness...wha? 00:54, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

KIWI-WIKI in January in Wellington?

Hi,

My name is Brianna, I'm the president of Wikimedia Australia. In January 2010 I will be in Wellington for the linux.conf.au (LCA) conference. It's a big community-organised open source tech conference and it's lots of fun. I hope I might see some of you there. :)

Beyond that... I would love to meet up with some NZ editors, so I was thinking we could try and organise a one-day event the weekend before LCA (16th or 17th). Like maybe a wiki-themed BarCamp/unconference ("WikiCamp" or RecentChangesCamp would do fine, but I am quite taken with "KIWI-WIKI" as a name :))

So I was wondering what people think about that, and if they would be likely to attend? I am happy to help organise a bit (publicity, t-shirts, whatever) but I can't really do the on-the-ground stuff (mainly, locate a suitable venue for a suitable price, oh and maybe ensure there is internet). What generally works best, I think, is if there is some business that is happy to let us use their space and be a sponsor of the event (if it is big enough). Otherwise, you start looking at venues for hire which can either be off-set by registration or finding sponsors. A bit more work. :)

What d'you reckon?

-- pfctdayelise (talk) 12:37, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Hey. I would be keen on that in any case :) Brian | (Talk) 09:14, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
I suggest a more modest event, similar to the Auckland meetups be held. There are certainly some Wellington-based Wikipedians, but few people in New Zealand announce their geographical location at Wikipedia:New_Zealand_Wikipedians_by_location. A more substantial list of Wellington-based editors can be found at Category:Wikipedians in Wellington, most of them from displaying {{User_Wellington}}.-gadfium 09:36, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
It might be worth talking to Mike Brown of Webstock fame. He now puts together events full time, seems fairly altruistic, and might be able to coordinate something on a minimal budget. If I'm travelling 300km to be there, I don't mind chipping in $40 or so towards costs (I can even bring a big bag of award-winning coffee). dramatic (talk) 10:23, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi Brianna, I would happily attend whatever ends up happening, and am happy to help with the "on the ground" stuff. I also know how to screen print t-shirts.

I suspect Gadfium is right, if by "modest" he means "don't expect more than a dozen people to turn up". I think that would still be worth doing. Lanma726 (talk) 10:24, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Im coming to Wellington for LCA so I'm interested either a small meetup or something bigger is fine. What we really need is a Wellington person or two to put their name forward to organise (if only to book a room somewhere). I'd strongly recommend getting the date and scale of things decided by the End of August so people can plan their tickets and accommodation. - SimonLyall (talk) 21:54, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm happy there's a good response :) Gadfium, one meetup I went to had two people, so a dozen people sounds pretty good to me ;) although I expect a few people attending LCA might come along to this as well.
BTW dramatic - do you know Mike Brown yourself, or know anyone who knows him?
I created Wikipedia:Meetup/Wellington and I suggest anyone interesting in helping plan something, bring yourself along there to continue discussion. cheers --pfctdayelise (talk) 13:44, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Hi Brianna, I'm a wikipedian and an event organiser based in Wellington, and I'm interested in documenting your event. Would media be given the opportunity to film amd interview people and event activities? I've had a bit of success with media, having my footage on TV3 this week ( Illuminate Paint Party ) and on TV1 a few weeks back (in my STARS interview), and a recent global award from 100 Hours of Astronomy (IYA2009) for my work here. Dates are imperative though, as January has the best events where i run camera crews around the country, so lets have that fixed asap.mozasaur (talk) 03:17, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
Uhm... well if it happens, it will definitely be January 16 or 17. But I am not sure it will be a big enough event to really warrant media. It may be not much more than chats over tea (or beer :)). Maybe you are better off doing media for the LCA (linux.conf.au) conference, which will have hundreds of attendees?? cheers --pfctdayelise (talk) 13:58, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll be in Wellington from 14 Jan. ClaudineChionh (talk) 21:50, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Fairfield College

Could I have some experienced editors contributing to Fairfield College please. The school is in turmoil, and there are numerous newspaper articles, in the Waikato Times in particular, to bear this out. We have an anon who is probably connected to the school, who is making good faith attempts to document events, but who does not understand our requirements for verifiability or NPOV. Ideally, someone with a bit of time on their hands could read through the references given and do a few searches for more, then rewrite much of the article. The earlier history of the school appears to be sourced to the school's 50th anniversary yearbook, which is not available in public libraries, but this material does not appear problematic.-gadfium 21:54, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I appreciate it.-gadfium 09:37, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

2degrees

If anyone has got a bit of time/expertise can they have a look at this article?. Somebody commented to me it looks like it was written by a PR firm and I'm inclined to agree ( as in it *looks like* not that is *was written* ). - SimonLyall (talk) 23:29, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Some inaccurate maps

There are a number of maps around which seem to be based on Image:New_Zealand_locator_map_blank.svg or ones like it. However, I'm afraid the region boundaries aren't correct — they seem to have been based on those from Google maps, but those aren't accurate. (They've been improved since when this map was made for Wikipedia, but they still aren't perfect.) The ones shown by, for example, Image:NZ_Regions_Modification.png are the proper ones, as can be seen at official local government site run by the Department of Internal Affairs (and with more accuracy if you get the GIS information that Statistics NZ makes available). There seem to be a number of derivative maps around, so fixing things might not be simple, but even if the existing maps aren't changed, it would be nice to stop making new ones that incorporate the errors. -- 203.97.105.173 (talk) 07:50, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Would it not then be sensible to promote Image:New_Zealand_locator_map_blank.svg for deletion? L-Bit (talk) 19:45, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Tasman Region/District

Hi all -I've proposed (at Talk:Tasman District) that the article be moved to Tasman Region (currently a redirect. As a unitary authority, Tasman is both a district and a regionj, but being a region has precedence as the higher designation (both the other UAs in NZ are referred to primarily in their articles as regions, even though they are controlled by District Councils). Any thoughts, please add them at Talk:Tasman District. Grutness...wha? 01:42, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Do we need both of these?

Category:New Zealand prisoners and detainees and Category:Prisoners and detainees of New Zealand? The Donna Awatere article has both on it. Kaiwhakahaere (talk) 21:30, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I've adjusted your post so the categories are linked to, for ease of reference.
The first category is for people who are New Zealand citizens (or who have a strong connection to NZ) who are imprisoned, which might be by a foreign government. The second category is for people who are imprisoned by the New Zealand government. They may not always be New Zealand citizens or residents. The majority of people who would be in either category are New Zealanders who are imprisoned by New Zealand, who thus fall in both categories.
I agree this is confusing. The simplest solution I can see would be to adjust the first category to apply only to people imprisoned by foreign governments. Now that I look for it, there is Category:New Zealand people imprisoned abroad. It would seem that there is thus little purpose for "Category:New Zealand prisoners and detainees" to have any content. However, it is part of the larger grouping Category:Prisoners and detainees by nationality. It might be appropriate to start a wider debate on this higher-level category, possibly by nominating it and all its subcategories for deletion, or perhaps it would be wise to nominate the NZ category for deletion first as a test case. I don't have much to do with WP:CFD, so you might like to consult with someone who's a regular there.-gadfium 23:06, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
Best thing to do as far as CFD is concerned is usually to see whether there's a standard pattern for similar categories with other countries. If there is, it should be obvious which one needs nominating for deletion. In this case, though, both patterns are used in different ways, so they should both be kept. NZ P&D is for New Zealanders, no matter where they are detained; and P&D of NZ is for people detained in NZ, no matter what nationality. It's confusing in NZ's case, because "New Zealand i" is both a noun and adjective - it becomes clearer with things like "Prisoners of the United Kingdom"{ and "British prisoners". In New Zealand's case, the two categories are very similar, but they both form part of an overarching structure within Wikipedia so should be retained. Grutness...wha? 00:38, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Regional categories and articles

Hi all - I've made a proposal at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New Zealand concerning changing the titles of various articles and categories relating to new Zealand's official regions. Please take a look at it and comment! Cheers, Grutness...wha? 10:10, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Anyone else having problems editing?

Is anyone else having problems when trying to edit page/s when logged in? I can edit while not logged in, but only get white empty pages when trying to edit while logged in. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.152.177.154 (talk) 04:18, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Do you use the classic or Cologne Blue skin? If so, see Wikipedia:VPT#Unable to edit in Classic skin. There's no solution yet, apart from changing to Monobook or Vector, but it's being looked into.-gadfium 05:40, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Many thanks for your response. I see the boffins have rectified the problem. Great. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.152.177.154 (talk) 06:15, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Macrons in placenames

A suggestion has been made that Otara should be moved to Ōtara. Please add to the discussion at Talk:Otara#Otara/Ōtara.-gadfium 20:30, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Now closed as no consensus.-gadfium 20:54, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I noticed this morning that links to the 1966 An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, which used to take the form of http://www.teara.govt.nz/1966/L/LawsonRobertArthur/LawsonRobertArthur/en, are now formatted as http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/1966/lawson-robert-arthur/1. Links to articles in the current Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand still work, eg Aupōuri Peninsula. Their search facility appears to be broken, perhaps by this change, and it is no longer finding articles in the 1966 or current encyclopedias. A note on the broken link page says that old urls should still work, so perhaps they are in transition and we should hold off on any concerted effort to update urls for a while.-gadfium 20:54, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Latests post on their blog indicate move to new CMS and at least some permanent URL changes. According to their twitter acct there will be more updates next week. note that the current articles now have "en" in the URLs. - SimonLyall (talk) 11:58, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
I've chased this with the appropriate people at MCH. They're now aware of the issue and say that redirects are imminent. Stuartyeates (talk) 02:16, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
The redirects now seem to be in place. I've clicked on a few links and they work for me. gadfium, let me know if ther're working for you and I'll thank my MCH contact. Stuartyeates (talk) 21:59, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
Yes, the links now work. Thanks to the Ministry of Culture and Heritage people.-gadfium 23:16, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

WTF?

What happened to New Zealand general election, 2008? It puzzles me.

  1. Avenue made this edit way back on 16 Feb. Note the intro to the article.
  2. User:Mickleover made this edit on 19 Feb. According to the diff, all he did was delete the POV tag. BUT, check the intro to the article when he left it.
  3. Check the current article. It is as Mickleover left it, and has been for nearly seven months.
  4. Now, go back to Avenue's version, here
  5. Click on Edit, and voila. There's an infobox and results and other important info showing in the edit mode, but it is not displaying in the page, and still isn't in the latest version..
  6. I tried to fix it, but got a bit lost. Can anyone figure this out? Kaiwhakahaere (talk) 00:57, 17 September 2009 (UTC).
Sorry, but (without having diffed the text of the entire intro section) they all look identical to me. Could you describe what difference you are seeing? dramatic (talk) 01:15, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
I don't see any significant change to the lede either. The picture of Rodney Hide changed, the Progressive party now has "1 seat" rather than "1 seats", and a comma has gone from the second paragraph - all improvements (and all since Mickleover's edit). However, I do see a notice at the top of my screen on every article, saying "Software updates are being applied to Wikimedia sites; we're shaking out a few remaining issues", which might account for any intermittent formatting glitch you're seeing.-gadfium 01:48, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
Confirmed as a software glitch. See WP:AN#Serious issues rendering pages which begin with some templates.-gadfium 01:54, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
Tks for that. Not only could I not see the top half of the page, but also I couldn't see the image of Rodney. Boo hoo. Kaiwhakahaere (talk) 02:07, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Any Northland Wikipedians able to help?

I'm busy going through that huge mass of bot-made NZ river articles, and I've had trouble with one just south of the Hokianga Harbour. Of the maps and sources I've checked, half seem to indicate that the Waimamakau River is a tributary of the Waimamaku River; the other half suggest that it's two different spellings of the same river name. Any editors in the Hokianga area able to clarify? Grutness...wha? 01:22, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

While I have no first-hand knowledge of the river, it looks to me like there are two different spellings of the name, and the -maku name is the more common one. I see no google hits for 'Waimamaka Waimamakau', which I would expect if one was a tributary of the other.(I do see hits when I spell it correctly as Waimamaku). On the other hand, my most detailed atlas, Peter Dowling (editor) (2004). Reed New Zealand Atlas. Reed Books. Map 22. ISBN 0-7900-0952-8. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help); Unknown parameter |nopp= ignored (|no-pp= suggested) (help), gives both names, -maku for the river to the west of State Highway 12, and -makau for the river in the vicinity of Wekaweka to the east of the highway.-gadfium 02:21, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
Well, that may explain it - two stretches of the river with different spellings. You've confused me further though, since my most detailed atlas is also Peter Dowling (editor) (2004). Reed New Zealand Atlas. Reed Books. ISBN 0-7900-0952-8. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help); Unknown parameter |nopp= ignored (|no-pp= suggested) (help)... and it shows the river on map four and only gives the version of the name with the -ku ending! Are there two different versions of the same book around, with the same date and ISBN??? The cover on mine is a stylised NZ flag, with white lettering for the title, if that helps... Grutness...wha? 05:57, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
I seem to be rather careless today. I cut and pasted the wrong ref. The actual book is Roger Smith, GeographX (2005). The Geographic Atlas of New Zealand. Robbie Burton. map 22. ISBN 1-877333-20-4. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |nopp= ignored (|no-pp= suggested) (help), which is more detailed than the Reed Atlas (although I find the maps in Reed to be clearer).-gadfium 06:12, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
I've found exactly the same sort of problem with two Wairarapa rivers - the Wainuiora River appears on some maps as a tributary of the Wainuioru River - others suggest it's a spelling mistake. Grutness...wha? 07:05, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
I had that problem while trying to unpick the relationship between the Wairua River and the Wairoa River, Northland; all the while mumbling things about the Geographic Board that would make Michael Laws turn green if he heard them. I think I got it sorted out correctly in the end. Anyway, I've checked the Waimamak/a/u River in my mapping software (LINZ CRS data as at August 2005 for the place name labels) and it's labelled the river as Waimamaku near its outlet and as Waimamakau near Wekaweka village. However the LINZ 1:50 000 topo raster layer names the river Waimamaku at almost exactly the same point near Wekaweka. As I have had enough personal "experiences" with the LINZ CRS to know that it is far from perfect I think it quite possible that "Waimamakau" could be a spelling mistake. The situation in Wairarapa seems similar (I'd guess that "Wainuioru" is correct, based on there being a Wainuioru village and a Wainuioru SD land registration district). Daveosaurus (talk) 09:45, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I took a look at the Department of Survey and Land Information TopoMap series today. The 260-O06 map, titled "Waipoua", edition 1, 1987, shows the river as Waimamaku River both at its mouth and near Wekaweka. The second printing of the name is just where the spelling Waimamakau appears in the Geographical Atlas. The 260-T27 map, titled "Te Wharau", edition 1, 1979, shows the Wainuioru River, with no sign of a Wainuiora River. I think the LINZ CRS has a few corruptions in it, and all recent atlases will be printed using the LINZ information.-gadfium 01:55, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Interview on Radio New Zealand National

Don't know if anyone heard it, but I've had the best interview I've done on Wikipedia ... in NZ! :) -Reagle (talk) 16:41, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Good to hear! FWIW, I gave a 40-minute talk on Wikipedia and the growth of Web 2.0 at Otago Polytechnic last week, at the invitation of the course lecturer (who is also an occasional WP editor). Grutness...wha? 23:39, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Sound file at Aotearoa

Hi all - the sound file at Aotearoa sounds pretty bad - if there's someone out there who knows how to make and load sound files and has a better grasp of pronouncing te reo, there's a small job for you... Grutness...wha? 22:08, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Kiwi (people)

There is a dispute over whether a person needs to be born in New Zealand to be considered a kiwi. Please give me some guidance at Talk:Kiwi (people).-gadfium 09:53, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

A person from New Zealand Department of Conservation has asked permission to fix broken links to their website. Given the mess around Filmtvfan, I am asking for wider feedback before we allow or deny this request. The request is at User:Conservation ranger. Please comment at User talk:Conservation ranger.-gadfium 23:02, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Hello New Zealand Wikipedians,
Earlier in the year, the State Services Commission and Department of Internal Affairs created two pieces of guidance that may be of use to New Zealand State services organisations when interacting on Wikipedia.
I understand that Wikipedia's rules are the only ones that matter on Wikipedia, but hope that these might be of some complementary value.
Grey cardigan on Molesworth (talk) 21:41, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
That first document is very insightful. I look forward to working with you on Wikipedia.-gadfium 01:43, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

History of Air New Zealand

Just stumbled over History of Air New Zealand. Seems an enthusiastic editor added quite a lot of material earlier this year. There's a LOT of typos, but more seriously, it's not written in a neutral or referenced fashion (but it is interesting). Thus, I haven't wholesale deleted the material. If I can still remember how I'll try and throw a cleanup tag on it, but I'm too busy to tidy it up myself. --Limegreen (talk) 11:02, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I've added the tag. The article is too large for me to attempt any worthwhile cleanup myself for the next few days, if nothing's been done by then then I'll have a go. Cheers, DerbyCountyinNZ (Talk Contribs) 19:48, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
I've taken out some decent chunks of advertorial. The article still needs some reorganisation (sections, order etc). DerbyCountyinNZ (Talk Contribs) 07:19, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Tsunami info missing in bios

Hi all - I notice that very few NZers who were directly affected by the Samoan tsunami mention it at all in their articles - I would have expected both David Tua and Neemia Tialata's articles to mention it, for instance. May be worth checking who was badly affected and adding a line or two? Grutness...wha? 00:15, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Invitation from the National Libaray of New Zealand to a Wellington gathering

The National Library of New Zealand / DigitalNZ is going to be holding a gathering on Sunday the 22nd of November, the day before the NDF (the big libraries-with-content-on-the-web event) to which they're inviting Wikipedians.

http://www.digitalnz.org/blog/news/article-digitalnz-get-together

If you're planning on coming (or have strong ideas on what DigitalNZ should be doing in this realm), I'd also encourage you to drop them an email and the address given. Note that I'm not formally affiliated with the National Library in any way. Stuartyeates (talk) 04:03, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Government datasets online

See Government datasets online. The site is a pilot and will be reviewed in June 2010. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 22:17, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

NZ Cricketers on Wiki

Hi all We had some great help from XLerate and others at the beginning of this year to set up our new website at procricket.co.nz. The links from wiki through to this site have been great and a main source of website traffic. We have now changed the site and have new urls for our players. I was wondering if XLerate or another person can help show us how to put these new URLs on the guy's wiki sites. The website is still procricket - just a slightly different page address. Thanks Aidan —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aidan hobson (talk • contribs) 00:01, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi Aidan, the new site looks nicer. Taking a look the URLs appear to have changed So I've updated the template to change the base URL, if you'd like to go through the player pages updating with the new key, then the job is complete. The key update is simply changing {{NZCPA|old_key}} to {{NZCPA|new_key}}, I've updated Vettori as you can see here. The list of players using the template is here. Also, I tried to upload the photos like we discussed, but the initial image was deleted. XLerate (talk) 01:34, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi XLerate - thanks again for this I have had a go and understand the process. Will update all the sites next week. In terms of photos can you uplift them from the new site. We are happy for you to do this for all head shots of players - we dont own the 'professional' photos. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aidan hobson (talk • contribs) 21:10, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Birkenhead Library

Hi, I'm trying to decide whether we do anything about Birkenhead Library, building controversy - The fact that it is so extensive and thoroughly researched suggests that the creator, [OohAh] is pushing a PoV, and indeed it looks very much like a Single-purpose account. (I simply haven't had time to read the whole article). It seems very much a local issue, as the Auckland Herald has run only a single story on the controversy, in February 2006. I am unable to judge whether the North Shore Times is a reliable source. If it is a typical NZ community newspaper then it probably fails that standard. Even the article on the library itself (same user) seems like overkill, despite WP:NOTPAPER dramatic (talk) 23:22, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

This does not seem sufficiently notable to have its own wiki article. The issue is not particuarly important outside the local community and I suspect pretty much a non-event outside the North Shore. I wouldn't think it desereved more than a couple of paragraphs in a section in Birkenhead Library which is itself a far more extensive article than a small community library deserves. I think it should be nominated for AfD. DerbyCountyinNZ (Talk Contribs) 03:08, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Sigh... There are soooo many more important things that need adding to WP. I think a merge of any salient info to the library article would be the go. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 06:04, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

in Wellington on 23rd January?

Hello, I posted before about meeting up in Wellington. I have a related request - I'm planning to staff a table at the LCA Open Day on Saturday 23rd January 2010 for Wikimedia Australia. (We will likely have lots of general Wikimedia stuff too.) It would be great to have one or two people to sit with me and help answer people's questions. It apparently is only going for three hours, too. If you could commit to that, please email me as I am supposed to get the names of the helpers to the LCA folk ASAP. thanks --pfctdayelise (talk) 05:07, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


Flat Bush

The existing article on Flat Bush begins "Flat Bush is a large rural area in Manukau ...". This was no longer true at least 10 years ago, and is now completely misleading. See http://www.manukau.govt.nz/EN/Yourcommunity/FlatBush.

Where do I look for guidance on this? Is there an applicable template? Is it a good idea to approach the City council about it?

Jlittlenz (talk) 09:24, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I have changed it to "town" as per the MCC link above. LINZ still calls it a locality but their database might be out of date. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 10:22, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
MCC use of the word "town" looks like council/developer aggrandisement, it's really just a suburban development. DerbyCountyinNZ (Talk Contribs) 21:28, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
I've expanded it somewhat. Does anyone have good photos we can use? -- Avenue (talk) 12:18, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
The {{Template:Infobox New Zealand suburbs}} would be a useful addition. DerbyCountyinNZ (Talk Contribs) 21:28, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
BTW, if you discover any other articles like this, {{update}} can be used to indicate that the information's out of date. Grutness...wha? 00:14, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Wanganui / Whanganui

The name change is to be announced today. I've suggested a course of action at Talk:Wanganui#Spelling. Please feel free to comment on how the Government decision should affect Wikipedia there.-gadfium 17:20, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

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