Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New Zealand/Archive 2

Removal of material from Schools

It has come to my attention that User:Mr Bluefin has been going around NZ schools removing a lot of useful information arguing that it is not encyclopedic. Please keep watch on this issue to make sure that these articles are not reduced to sub-stubs as what happened to Mt Roskill Grammar: [1] (now reverted).--Konstable 01:54, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Input needed on mountaineer

British/Irish mountaineer Brede Arkless who assumed NZ citizenship is up for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brede Arkless. Please provide input. More NZ related links at Talk:Brede Arkless. Thanks. ~ trialsanderrors 00:54, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Karori

• I received the following note on my talk page. Could a knowledgeable Wikipedian check this. I cannot possibly go check myself and Google wasn't helpful. Please leave a note on my talk page if you answer this. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:13, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Could you inform Pook51 that the paragraph about 'Tom Chong' is false information. The 'Tom Chong' statue does not exist nor is the fact about how Tom Chong was one of the first chinese settlers to reside in Karori. Rovemcmanus 01:43, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Māori terms

I have started on an attempt to clean up the usage of Māori terms throughout New Zealand articles. What I mean is that making sure that the proper spelling is used for example Maori -> Māori, Pakeha -> Pākehā, Pa -> Pā. The full list of what I am using can be found here (I keep on adding to it as I go) can be found at User:Konstable/Māori terms, along with the more specific description. Basically I do this using AWB, but reviewing (and editing if needed) all the changes so it is not a fast process for so many articles. If anyone has any terms they wish me to add to the list, wants to help do the same, or any other thoughts - let me know on User talk:Konstable/Māori terms.--Konstable 10:55, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Category:New Zealand people

There seems to be a wish to put people directly in this category as well as any sub-categorys. I think this is a bad idea. The category will become too long (several thousand names) and unweldy. I think either everyone should be in a subcategory (or two if applicable) or perhaps we should split it by letters of the surname or something. Even large countries like Franch or Australia don't list many in the top category. I also not that subcates like Category:New Zealand World War II people don't show up until you go to the second page. - SimonLyall 11:23, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Simon, I took the liberty of fixing a category link in your post above. I agree with your point.-gadfium 20:25, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I often find it amusing to see such spelling errors in a comment designed to improve the accuracy and usability of structure in an encyclopedia, as opposed to a dictionary. categorys? how about categories, weldy? try unwieldy, Franch to France, subcates to subcats. Look my tongue is in my cheek, so lets lighten this up. Cats have always been curious to me, especially the wiki kind, and I'm still working through it here. I support the current model, as it simply works, although I would prefer to see a complete alphabetical list of articles in each category on a single page, and a complete list of subcategories on its own page if required, but I'm unsure why the 200 limit messes up the lists. I dont see a list of several thousand being an issue at all, but obviously it is to some, I deal with such lists everyday. Is it a problem with text editors or browsers? I'm not about to try and change policy though, that path (already well trodden) is a waste of energy, better spent building and improving articles. My ultimate thought is that there should be roughly 4 million people listed in this category, an idea unacceptable to most wikipedians, but one shared by most revolutionary thinkers, see Equality_of_opportunity.moza 04:26, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Moz, if you remove the colon from this title it categorizes this page under Category:New Zealand people. Please be more careful in future, as this mistake could undermine the accuracy and usability of the encyclopedia ;) Ziggurat 04:29, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I was checking and fixing it when your edit conflict forced me to wait a few seconds more. do you really think that the "this mistake could undermine the accuracy and usability of the encyclopedia " is necessary? I dont.moza 04:32, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Just noting that everyone makes mistakes, and pointing out spelling errors in an otherwise unrelated post seems needlessly rude. Ziggurat 06:28, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

ok well how about: "My ultimate thought is that there should be roughly 4 million people listed in this category,.." seems related to me. It is possible to see the humourous side, depends on the readers mental set and setting.moza 08:31, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

And as for rudeness, how do you think the next of kin feel about the deceased Rod Donald being mis-named on up to a hundred articles as co-leader of a NZ political party? its scandalous, and the failure of ANYONE doing ANYTHING about it renders any further discussion and/or opinion completely worthless. I see interminable bickering over incredible trivia and yet you all allow this to continue without significant or meaningful discussion and almost no action. A few have shown the way, but less have followed. Does that mean I can go and create a hundred lying articles and have them up for six months? I dont think so. rude? I think its disgusting and utterly shameless, and we are all tarred with the same brush.moza 15:50, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Re NZ people by occupation, we don't need Category:New Zealand educationalists (nil in) as well as Category:New Zealand educators (about 23) do we?? And there is only one in Category:New Zealand schoolteachers Hugo999 (talk) 03:16, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Subcategories of Category:Regions of New Zealand

It's worried me for a while that the subcategories of Category:Regions of New Zealand don't conform with the official regions into which the country is divided. it's mainly my fault - I created most of these categories a year and a half ago while making a few hundred geography articles. I think, though, that it's about time these were formalised. Luckily, most of the seventeen categories won't need much work at all. Twelve will need only the slightest of tweaks if any (Category:Northland, New Zealand, Category:Waikato, Category:Hawke's Bay, Category:Taranaki, Category:Manawatu-Wanganui, Category:Wellington Region, Category:Marlborough, New Zealand, Category:West Coast, New Zealand, Category:Canterbury, New Zealand, Category:Otago, and Category:Southland, New Zealand, plus the still useful, even if not "official" Category:New Zealand outlying islands). The other five need a little more work.

I'd like to propose the following changes:

• Category:Auckland → Category:Auckland Region (name change alone so as to avoid confusion with the city)
• Category:Bay of Plenty-East Coast→ Category:Bay of Plenty and Category: Gisborne Region
• Category:Nelson, New Zealand → Category:Nelson Region, New Zealand and Category:Tasman, New Zealand (same reasons as Auckland, plus splitting into its two regions)
• Category:Central North Island, New Zealand → merge into other categories then delete
• Category:Thames-Coromandel → merge into other categories then delete.

Unless there are any serious objections to this, I'll start the ball rolling with a CFR of the Auckland and Nelson ones, then see where to go from there. (crossposted at Wikipedia:New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board) Grutness...wha? 07:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

On further inspection, I can simplify this scheme a little further -

• Category:Thames-Coromandel can simply become a subcategory of Category:Waikato
• Category:Auckland can be kept for the urban area alone and made a subcategory of a newCategory:Auckland Region

Grutness...wha? 06:07, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism watch Page

As per a bit of discussion at thr Auckland meetup I am thinking of setting up a subpage of this to help coordinate the watching of NZ related pages to reduce vandalism. It would probably be a list of top 20 articles and links to pages like Special:Recentchangeslinked/Category:Cities and towns in New Zealand to help people keep an eye on other pages. Thoughts and suggested names or better places to put this? - SimonLyall 13:19, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

You know, I've been here two years, and an admin for a year and a half, and I never knew about Recentchangeslinked! Thanks you! :) BTW - do you think that the "Cities and towns" category needs to be taken to CFD for renaming? It deals with lots of places which are much smaller than town size as well... perhaps "Cities, towns and settlements...", or just "Inhabited places..."? Oh, and yes, the vandalism page is a very good idea - perhaps as a subpage of this page, something like Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand/Vandalism patrol (WP:WNZV)? Grutness...wha? 00:57, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the idea of a vandalism watch page, but perhaps we could just add a section to WP:MVP. Lots of people look for vandalism to any pages listed there. Otherwise, we're vulnerable to vandalism during the small hours of the morning.-gadfium 01:02, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure WP:MVP is the best place, compared to George W. Bush most of ours are fairly minor problems. Im also thinking of something more general to catch the random vandalism of NZ pages. Eg this one on Simon Upton I found two weeks after it happened (and this that sat for a month) and there are probably older. Sort of a g'tee that almost all NZ related pages are watched by a couple of people and prioritising it to ones most often hit. - SimonLyall 09:43, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Waikouaiti and Stewart Island/Rakiura are often hit, I think they think its funny to include an international airport down there, and there seems to be a 'wasp' response to the dual naming thing, Mt Taranaki has had a similiar trail.moza 10:53, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I've set up WP:WNZV as suggested by Grutness. It needs to be populated, and regularly checked for vandalism.-gadfium 20:18, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Any feedback? The transcluded list of List of towns in New Zealand isn't ideal, as it includes a few linked items which are not towns in NZ. I could convert it to part of the WP:WNZV page easily enough, but then we'd have to add any updates manually. Should we also include or transclude List of New Zealand-related topics, List of New Zealanders, Category:Years in New Zealand etc, or only add articles as someone notices a vandalism problem?-gadfium 09:29, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Tagging talk pages and assessing articles

Wikipedia Assessments within AWB. Click on the image to see it in better resolution

Hi. If you still have work to do tagging talk pages and assessing articles, my AWB plugin might be of interest to you.

The plugin has two main modes of operation:

• Tagging talk pages, great for high-speed tagging
• Assessments mode, for reviewing articles (pictured)

As of the current version, WikiProjects with simple "generic" templates are supported by the plugin without the need for any special programatic support by me. I've had a look at your project's template and you seem to qualify.

For more information see:

• About the plugin
• About support for "generic" WikiProject templates
• User guide
• About AWB (AutoWikiBrowser)

Hope that helps. If you have any questions or find any bugs please let me know on the plugin's talk page. --Kingboyk 14:37, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

joining WikiProject New Zealand

Hello, I would like to help with this WikiProject. Where do I sign up? --James Bond 00:35, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Welcome! Just add your name to the list at Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand#Participants. Grutness...wha? 01:17, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Missing pages that are no longer missing

I just created New Zealand telephone numbering plan, because it was on the list of missing pages, (and I needed a reference article for work purposes too). I also added it to Wikipedia:New articles (New Zealand) and put a project template on the talk page. I think it can still be improved, but do not have the time just yet. What is the protocol for what happens to the Wikipedia:WikiProject_New_Zealand listing? Do I remove it? Let someone else review the article, and they remove the listing? Put a new one in its place? -- Cameron Dewe 01:49, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

There's no official protocol, but what normally happens is either it gets left until someone updates the list, or (if you're more diligent :) you could remove it and note in your edit summary what has been removed. Grutness...wha? 23:04, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

How about adding it to Wikipedia:New articles (New Zealand) and taking it off the list? -- Cameron Dewe 01:02, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Battle of Greece

This article has been vastly improved and expanded. New Zealanders participated in this campaign during World War II and I was hoping some of you might want to contribute. It has also been nominated for A-class status. Take a look if you'd like. Periklis* 06:40, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 16:30, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Scouting in NZ

The other day I added to Wikipedia:WikiProject Scouting/Todo this list:-

• Get participants from NZ.
• Add details of structure (e.g. Areas), National Jamborees and much else to Scouting New Zealand.
• Create articles on Scout areas.
• Create Guides New Zealand.

Anyone care to pick this up and run with it? I'm over the Tasman and know little about Scouting in NZ. --Bduke 00:59, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I Don't think many people in New Zealand do scouting. Glamgirljaspreet101 (talk) 02:47, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Sir Brian??

Was Brian Lochore actually knighted, or was an editor a little overenthusiastic about the form of address for a holder of the OBE? dramatic 10:49, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

He was knighted in 1999 - see here. Grutness...wha? 11:05, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Phew!

I'm pleased to announce that everyone listed on List of New Zelanders and all the major lists linked therefrom, now has Birth/death dates included on the year in New Zealand pages. Ok, the above lists are not all-encompassing by a long chalk, but its a start. dramatic 10:53, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Good work! I'll add my own "phew" - I've just sifted all the NZ-bio-stubs, NZ-geo-stubs, NZ-company-stubs, NZ-org-stubs, and Maori-stubs from the main Category:New Zealand stubs, which now looks a little slimmer at 580 stubs than it did at just over 800! Grutness...wha? 10:59, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

On a related stub-tidying note, I've been sifting my way through some of the NZ-geo-stubs and re-stubbing them as the appropriate regional stub, but I've noticed that changing the stub, doesn't always move them from the NZ Geography Stubs category into the appropriate sub-category e.g Tolaga Bay. Am I doing something the wrong way - or is there something else I should be doing to fix this? Malathos 00:04, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

No, that's perfectly fine. The standard way of subdividing countries in geo-stub splitting these days is to create templates for each region but to only create categories for those where there are a large number of stubs (usually 60 or more). other stub templates simply feed into the parent national geo-stub category. WP:WSS runs regular checks on the number of stubs marked with each template, and once a particular template appears to be heavily used it will get a new category. The reason is that while main categories are intended for readers, stub categories are mainly aimed at editors, and it is far easier for editors to find particular articles if there are a "comfortable" number of stubs in a category, not too many and not too few. If all categories were made as soon as a national split occurred, there might well be a large number of categories many of which would be nearly empty. Don't worry - given time and the exponential growth in stub numbers, the other categories will appear sooner or later! Grutness...wha? 01:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

In fact, it's likely there will be a new category for greography stubs on the Wellington Region within a few days. Grutness...wha? 01:21, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. In that case, I'll carry on re-stubbing where I can . Malathos 01:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 20:19, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Crimes Act 1961

Enough articles refer to Crimes Act 1961 that it may be worthwhile to create an article for it. I'll leave it to the experts here to evaluate ... ✤ JonHarder ^talk 21:54, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

There are quite a few Acts which need pages. Apart from the Crimes Act, there is (just off the top of my head):

• State Owned Enterprises Act
• whichever act gave women the vote
• the act making NZ nuclear free
• various 1st Labour govt acts
• Employment Contracts Act
• Employment Relations Act
• the Human Rights Act page needs expanding

Its pretty easy to do the basic stuff - you just grab a copy from New Zealand Statutes, which most libraries have, and fill in the template. You can pinch this from the Treaty of Waitangi Act page or several others. --Helenalex 22:18, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

All the legistation is online[www.legislation.govt.nz], so that should make it even easier.--Limegreen 23:11, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

This doesn't seem to include repealed legislation, but for stuff which is still current it is useful. --Helenalex 23:15, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Geography of New Zealand

Hi all, I've done the major revision needed of the Geography of New Zealand. It would be good to get a temperature map and this site has some good maps but I'm not sure of the copyrights etc. Tim_ 00:11, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

strangly enough I was also starting to do an update. My version is User:SimonLyall/test . Feel free to grab bits I have into what you have done etc. I'll have a look myself but I'm a little behind right now. - SimonLyall 01:59, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah yours is looking great, the geographic regions section is very nice, I'll add a lot of the stuff from yours to the main article in the next few days if you haven't already. =) Tim ^{{talk | contribs}} 08:00, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Aroha Island

I'd like to add Aroha Island to the List of islands of New Zealand, but am not quite versed enough to know which section in the list is best for it. Please advise. I came across this since I decided to try to de-orphan an article, and started working on Aroha Island. Keesiewonder ^talk 01:34, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I would think it belongs in the "Open sea islands" section, although I confess I don't know exactly where Aroha Island is. You could improve the article on the island by giving its location in greater detail, and perhaps even including a map to show where it is.

Incidentally, where are our blank maps of New Zealand and North and South Island kept? I thought I'd find them at commons:Category:Maps_of_New_Zealand, but the only blank one there is Image:NZ Locator Blank.png. To use that one, see Rakiura National Park for an example of how to superimpose a dot.-gadfium 04:23, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Aroha Island is located just off the northern coast of Kerikeri Inlet in the Bay of Islands. (There's a nice map showcased here.) It's connected to the mainland by mangrove flats and a causeway, so I wouldn't exactly describe it as an "open sea island", but that section is probably the closest fit. -- Avenue 09:49, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I've added Aroha Island to the Open Sea Island section of the island list. Since I'm focused on de-orphaning (from 0 to 4 in the 'what links here' count) right now rather than expanding the stub article, I'll save expanding/improving the article for another day. Keesiewonder ^talk 02:05, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

William Stevenson

According to William Stevenson (New Zealander), Sir William Alfred Stevenson was born when his father (William Stevenson) was only 4 years old. Stevenson senior, not content with that feat, founded his company at the age of 15, so methinks that it is his birthdate which is in error. Does anyone have a source to fix it?dramatic 11:23, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Flora and fauna

Is anyone interested in forming a WikiProject focusing on the biota of New Zealand? I'm doing a course in ecology and conservation at the moment and I'm interested in continuing along this path, so I may be able to contribute a bit to this area. If other editors are interested we could look at drafting up a sub-project. Richard001 06:37, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

You should fish (ba-dum!) for interest in the various Tree of Life Wikiprojects. One of my current personal projects is the New Zealand wrens, feel free to give it a look over. Sabine's Sunbird talk 22:34, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps this would be better as a Work group instead? Starting as a work groups seems the safer plan. There seem to be enough New Zealand editors for it to work, perhaps we could make a start at Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand/Biodiversity? Richard001 03:14, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I've started a few articles on plants of the Three Kings Islands like Tecomanthe speciosa and improved others like Meryta sinclairii... was about to ask about making a subcat of Flora of NZ. Have pix of quite a few other plants that would be relevant to that category. Kahuroa 05:07, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Bilateral relations discussion

I would like to invite you all to participate in a discussion at this thread regarding bilateral relations between two countries. All articles related to foreign relations between countries are now under the scope of WikiProject Foreign relations, a newly created project. We hope that the discussion will result in a more clean and organized way of explaining such relationships. Thank you. Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 18:57, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Puffies

This page needs some work especially references. Is it a piss take? Is it notable? Alan Liefting 01:32, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I would say delete, unless someone can find references. Neither of the contributors has done much else, which is never a good sign. --Helenalex 02:18, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I've prodded it, and removed the unrelated definition.-gadfium 04:58, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

ANZAC Day

Hi guys and girls. I am not part of the WikiProject as such, but I am a New Zealand Wikipedian (or should that be Wikipedian New Zealander :P?) and I am quite concerend about the state of the ANZAC Day article. This article will be on the Main Page tomorrow as one of the featured anniversaries. What is concerning is the article is not of a very high standard and New Zealand seems to take a back seat to Australia for much of the articles. Just look at the images and you will see none from New Zealand, although I will take some (will be at the cenotaph service in Wellington at 0545) and upload them tomorrow. I hope that some Wikipedians will see this and decide to take action before tomorrow. I would but I have little time to edit theses days (see my contributions). Thanks--Hamedog_Talk|^@ 06:13, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Designline - When/why deleted?

I just noticed that Designline, a significant NZ company, has had it's article deleted at some point since December. I can't find any reference to it being deleted. Anyone know what happened? --Lee Begg 04:03, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

In fact, just looking up the deletion log, I note that it has been deleted twice (delete log). The first appears to be deleted as "nonnotable corporate spam", and the second doesn't give any reason at all. Now I don't remember much about the article, except that I know that Designline has made a large number of buses in NZ, and exported a lot too. They are certainly notable in Transport in NZ. Does WikiProject NZ have guide lines on the Notability of Companies? --Lee Begg 04:10, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Has it has several non-trival mentions in the media? In that case it probably can have an article. Mathmo ^Talk 05:34, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

The second deletion was probably because the article consisted of three short paragraphs with no source. The first deletion, however, was of a reasonably substantial article with no blatant POV or advertising problems, although the only sources mentioned were the company's website and a print version of one of their press releases. If anyone wants to work on providing better sources for the article, I'll undelete the first version and put it in their user space so it can be improved before being moved back to article space.-gadfium 08:45, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the Chrischurch Press had one or more feature articles in 1998-99 covering the design of the Olymbus (fleet of buses for the Sydney Olympics - designed by David Thornley, who I knew back then) and the diesel-electric hybrid buses on the Christchurch inner city shuttle service. Probably too early for archivestuff, but if any Wikipedians happen to be digging around in the newspaper archive at Canty publicc Library, a check would be appreciated. (Library staff index the Press each day - not sure if it is on computer yet). dramatic 11:00, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I have just made a Designline stub. I've copied the above into the talk page.Nankai 02:31, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Each recreation of the article has been briefer than the previous one. The original article was much better than the stub that is there now.-gadfium 04:22, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Michael Redman (New Zealand)

I started the article for this NZer yesterday without actually noticing it was on this page (I found it just now through 'what links here'). Because he is now a former mayor it seemed inappropriate to call the article Michael Redman (mayor), so I labelled him as an NZer. However, because I had not heard of the bloke until I saw the bizarrity of the page, his new page has next to nothing on it. Feel free to add more (and please do!); it is still on the list of articles that need doing up on this project page.
- - - THE DARK LORD TROMBONATOR (((¶))) 03:35, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, we have plenty of links (albeit many of them redlinks) for foo (mayor) whn foo was mayor of somewhere in 1904. It is what they were best known for. Of course given Mr Redman's age he may go on to be better known for something else. dramatic 08:45, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Scope

Why do we have a limited scope for this project? I think the scope should be as broad as possible, to allow new sub-projects and work groups to bud off from it over time. Should we expand our definition? Richard001 04:21, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

What do you think we are not covering? - SimonLyall 04:10, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, look at the scope section:

This WikiProject aims primarily to help coordinate pages on:

1. New Zealand
2. The History of New Zealand
3. New Zealanders.

The scope is basically just the article on New Zealand, it's history, and New Zealanders - there are certainly a few things in Category:New Zealand that don't specifically relate to what is mentioned above. Richard001 07:49, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm misreading it? What is meant by 'pages on New Zealand'? Is it trying to say anything related to New Zealand at all? Perhaps it just needs rewording a little, like 'This project covers all subjects closely related to New Zealand, including its history, geography, people, biodiversity, and many other topics'. When I see the second two points I tend to think that the first one is being equally specific. Making it clear that the second two are just examples of the first point would solve any ambiguity. Richard001 07:55, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Could you please name the things you don't think are covered. We arn't really here to write a 20 page consitution for the wikiproject - SimonLyall 14:16, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think Richard was suggesting that. I like his wording much more than what was there, so I've put it in. -- Avenue 14:34, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I see a problem with the new wording - it now overlaps with Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand places. Given that that WikiProject is fairly sluggish these days anyway, should a merger be proposed? Grutness...wha? 00:28, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that Avenue. I'm not familiar with the places project, but having subprojects doesn't limit the scope of the parent, it's just a smaller branch of the parent project where people can go for more specialized guidelines, help and discussion. If the project is too small or inactive it might be an idea to turn it into a 'work group' rather than daughter project. Richard001 02:59, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree there's not necessarily any problem having overlapping projects. It helps if members of each are aware of the other's existence, so I've expanded the section on related projects. I have no objection to a merger with the NZ Places project. -- Avenue 12:05, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Raa

If someone types "raa" (all in lower case) in the search box and clicks "Go", they end up at Tama-nui-te-rā (via the redirect Raa). I think RAA would be a more logical destination. Would anyone object to me changing Raa to redirect to RAA instead of Tama-nui-te-rā? -- DH85868993 07:59, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

That would seem to make sense. --Helenalex 21:39, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Agree. Kahuroa 00:06, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Agree - on the condition that RAA is refactored slightly. At the moment it is headed "Abbreviations" - it needs to be altered to look a little more like ALF. I'll get onto it :) Grutness...wha? 00:52, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

New Zealand Collaboration of the Fortnight template color

Shall we change this to something a little less bright? No offense to the creator, but I wouldn't want to paint my room that colour :) Richard001 01:51, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed - I blink in shock every time I see it! Maybe it should be silver or black (the latter may be too hard as it means redefining text + all link colours) dramatic 00:10, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Changed it to gray - does that look alright? Richard001 03:39, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Grey is a distinct improvement, however it looks like the Wikipedia:New_Zealand_Collaboration_of_the_Fortnight project is inactive as it has been on Otago for a lot longer than a fortnight.--Mendors 05:10, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it should be changed to month then? Richard001 05:17, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

From looking at the history page for {{Template:NZCOTF_article}} it seems that it was last changed in April so we really need to get a bit more interest in the project.--Mendors 09:23, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

The NZCOTF hasn't really been active since late last year, and its now officially inactive. I've removed references to it from {{New Zealand welcome}} and {{New Zealand welcome2}}.-gadfium 19:27, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

River template

Hi all - I've just created {{clutha}}, based on a template in use for one of Britain's major rivers. It's a bit bulky and probably needs cutting down a little, but it could also serve as a templ...erm...model for similar templates for NZ's other main rivers (the Waikato, Whanganui, Taieri, and Rangitikei could possibly use something like this). Anyway, have a look and see what you think. Grutness...wha? 02:00, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Ray Ahipene-Mercer

I've been helping out with a new article about Ray Ahipene-Mercer in an attempt to improve it and prevent it from succumbing to AfD. Making a general call here for anyone who can assist in improving this article, especially for sourcing from newspaper or magazine articles that aren't available on the internet. I'm in Alaska, so I don't have easy access to New Zealand printed sources. Most info thus far has been contributed by the person who created it, Projectbob. --Ace of Swords 20:02, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Supergroove

Should supergroove be included in wikiproject New Zealand? particularly with their reforming to tour with Crowded house, it seems as though it might be in need of some peoples to watch over it and make appropriate updates. Any NZ wikipedian Supergroove fans out there??? Thanks. 203.97.237.98 01:37, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Since we don't have a music subproject of task force/work group, it would fall under the project. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian music for an example of a similar subproject. Richard001 03:05, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

My answer would be, yes, if it's about New Zealand or entities pertaining, put it in. (And cool, they're reforming? I liked their "traction" album) Orderinchaos 02:44, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Crowded House & Split Enz

Hey folks!

I've just kicked off a wikiproject for Split Enz and Crowded House. I couldn't think of a title that encompassed both of them, so I went with Crowded House, so if you've interested, come on over.

Hi! I've seen you editing Crowded House related articles, and would like to invite you to join WikiProject Crowded House, an effort by Wikipedians to improve the band's coverage on the encyclopedia. Please consider signing up here.

--linca^linca 13:52, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand/Assessment

Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand/Assessment needs some attention also see [2] and [3]Blacksmith2 ^talkEditor Review 08:12, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of Kiwi shopping mall articles

If you have not been watching the NZ deletion sorting page, you might not be aware that a number of shopping mall articles in your part of the world have been nominated for deletion in the last 24hrs. Your brethren across the tasman have stepped in to help where they can, but some additional help to research, cleanup, and help determine notability would be greatly appreciated if you can assist. Cheers, Thewinchester ^(talk) 02:26, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

As I have offered there, could anyone please send me by whatever means just a quick list (off the top of the head is fine) of major Auckland regional shopping centres (ones in any other cities as well also)? We'll do our best to rescue them from the stub wilderness. :) Orderinchaos 02:41, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I suppose you know there's a list at List of shopping malls in New Zealand? :) Grutness...wha? 00:30, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

New map uploaded

You may be interested in a new map I uploaded, Image:Nz large simple downsampled.gif. Separa 18:08, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Scouting New Zealand

Can someone render "Scouting New Zealand" and "Be Prepared", the Scout Motto, into Māori? Thanks! Chris 05:23, 8 August 2007 (UTC) im not good at maori but ill contact some people at the maori wikipediaBlacksmith ^talk —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 07:49, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikiproject ad

should we have an ad for Template:wikipedia ads?Blacksmith ^talk 05:33, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't like ads, and wouldn't display it. If you want one for your user page, then request one, preferably suggesting the wording, and then link to it here, but don't display it on this page.-gadfium 07:18, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Religion in New Zealand

Hello Kiwipedians, I noticed today that there was a small article about recent census changes. I thought it a bit silly to have an article on such a specific thing, and noting that articles on country's religions seem to be all the rage I moved it to religion in New Zealand. I've added a link to this in New Zealand and expanded it to include a lead, a section on Maori religion and details on the those following the Jedi code. Perhaps some of your could help out - give a bit more history etc, maybe add a picture of a church in NZ. We could even try for a Did you know, though it would have to be enlarged to 8kb within the next few days. Anyway, it's quite an important topic for the project I guess, so I thought I'd mention it here. Richard001 04:39, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

The census information that you moved to religion in NZ comes from 2006 census data. I don't think this is clear in the article. I support your intiative to incorporate the material. —F^red11⁴ 07:48, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

It says so in the lead, though the demographics article seems to be about 2001 data. There are also some comparisons between the sets. Richard001 02:33, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Clearly the statement "The population increased 7.8% from the last census in 2001. The most notable trend in religion over that time is the 26.17% increase in the number of people indicating no religion." implies that the date is in the future. The only census taken in the future was 2006. The data used is from 2006. —F^red11⁴ 05:10, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

That's what I'm saying... what is your confusion? If it's unclear it's probably easier if you just fix it. Richard001 05:22, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Photographs

The pages that request images seem a fairly limited set. What is the approach to upload photos? I am basically happy if any of my photos might be usable by Wikipedia, but I'm never quite sure what is the best approach to upload them (is there a tutorial somewhere?), and what is the preferred license for photos to be uploaded. A subset of my photos is at http://gallery.mcmillan.net.nz/ but I have many more NZ photos in particular. It's easy for me to take photos of anything that might be requested within a 1/2 day drive of Wellington also (or Auckland, with a little more effort, I guess). Thanks. Karora 12:55, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

The best thing is to load them at Wikimedia Commons rather than on this Wikipedia. That means that the files are available for use in all the Wikimedia projects. Make yourself an account on Commons, then click on 'Upload file'. On the next screen click on 'It is entirely my own work'. Then on the next page fill out the template that will appear in the edit box. It will look like this

{{Information
|Description=
|Source=self-made
|Date=
|Author= [[User:Karora|Karora]]
}}

Fill all that info out. Before you save this, you must add a license tag and a category tag - for license, when it's my own work I use {{PD-user|MY USER NAME}} which means I am releasing the pic into the public domain with no conditions on use. In your case {{PD-user|Karora}}.There are 'tutorials' on Commons about licensing, but they are a bit confusing IMHO.

Then add a category tag - at least [[Category:New Zealand]] but ideally something more specific. You can get an idea by looking at the sub-categories of [Commons Category:New Zealand].

Then you can upload the pic. Kahuroa 19:55, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) The best place to upload photos is not to Wikipedia itself but to the Wikimedia Commons, a repository of free images which can be used by all language Wikipedias and by many other projects as well. Look through the licences available to you there; I would suggest a CC-BY licence if you want the photo to be as free as possible while still always attributed to you, public domain if you don't care about attribution, or GFDL if you want to make it more difficult for people to use your photos in print publications (because they would also have to include several pages of licence material). The images can be added to Wikipedia articles using the same syntax as if they were uploaded to the English Wikipedia.

I think almost all your photos of landscapes would be a valuable addition. We wouldn't want to put more than a couple in most articles, or the text would be overwhelmed, but it might be worth uploading almost all of them so other projects can pick the most appropriate photo for their needs. For example, our article on the Marlborough Sounds already has some decent photos, with space for perhaps one more, but the articles on the individual sounds, e.g. Pelorus Sound, have in many cases no picture at all.

Some of the event photos are also valuable, others possibly too local. A high school performance might be able to be used in an article on that high school, or perhaps on the play being performed. Car and aircraft images are usually valuable; Wikipedia has rather a lot of articles about cars and alternative images of each model are welcome. Similarly, photos of animals, birds and insects are things we can hardly have too many of, if they are of good quality.

Please upload photos using meaningful file names, e.g. "Pelorus sound looking north.jpg" rather than "dscn1234.jpg", include a description of what the photo shows, and place them into categories, for example Category:New Zealand or its subcategories. This will help people to find suitable photos.

It's more difficult for us to look through your photos and say "We'd like that one", because many of them are not sufficiently well labelled for anyone who doesn't already know the geography intimately to identify exactly where they were taken.-gadfium 19:58, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Currency

Hello if anyone is interested they can created articles on NZ denominations if you want, help would be greatfull. Here is the template.Template:New Zealand currency and coinage. Enlil Ninlil 06:43, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Why do we need a separate article on each note and coin? Seems like... currency-cruft to me. Richard001 06:52, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the other Richard: The new article on the $20 Note only has a couple of sentences which are not already covered by New Zealand Dollar. Here's a proposal: We trim down New Zealand Dollar to talk about the currency in its abstract sense (history, trading and value), and create the articles New Zealand banknotes and New Zealand coins (plus possibly New Zealand pre-decimal banknotes etc. That way you can read about the complete set of currency at any given point in our history in a single article, and eliminate the need for all those navboxes weight down pages. dramatic 21:54, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Awards

I see that we now have a section on awards, starting with this revision [4]. Was there any discussion about this? Kahuroa 19:46, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

No discussion, and no one has received the award from any other person. Just delete the section.-gadfium 20:22, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

done. Kahuroa 05:11, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

List of years in New Zealand

I've recently added this page and am working backwards from 1900 on the individual years (mainly just the sports champions to begin with). It was suggested on the discussion page that it should be a category but there is already a Years in New Zealand category and I feel that they serve different purposes. Any comments/suggestions?DerbyCountyinNZ 06:19, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

It is largely a duplication of Timeline of New Zealand history - SimonLyall 08:17, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree, except that the timeline doesn't link to the "19xx in New Zealand" articles for years before 1947.-gadfium 09:32, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

About half the years before 1947 were missing links, fixed - SimonLyall 11:15, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Project tagging and assessment

Hello. Just wanted to give you a heads-up that as part of an assessment drive for WikiProject Ships, I recently tagged the RNZN ship disambiguation pages with the {{WikiProject New Zealand}} project banner as well as our normal {{WikiProject Ships}} and {{WPMILHIST}} banners. While I do not generally assess articles for projects of which I am not a member, the instructions at WikiProject New Zealand/Assessment were very clear and concise, so I went ahead and marked each of these pages as having NA as both their class and importance. Please let me know if you have any questions, issues, or if I screwed it up. Thanks, Kralizec! (talk) 00:59, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Tagging Kahurangi National Park

Hello! I gave Kahurangi National Park the {{WikiProject New Zealand}} project banner. If I shouldn't have, please forgive me.GreenGourd 19:41, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Naming conventions

New Zealand's somewhat unusual placename naming conventions are unde fire again at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (New Zealand). I've defended them, though I'm beginning to wonder whether it would be less fuss to change them all...(crossposted to Wikipedia:New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board) Grutness...wha? 23:12, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

On a similar subject, Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand places seems to be completely moribund - is it worth merging it back into this WikiProject? Grutness...wha? 23:27, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Category:New Zealand books

I have set up Category:New Zealand books. -- Alan Liefting-talk- 00:10, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Is there anything established for authors? I just did a quick search and no joy but there are results for Oz authors. In fact there is an incredibly detailed list giving links breaking them down by state, genre etc. It would be good if something comparable on New Zealand born/resident authors 203.190.199.174 (talk) 14:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

New Zealand Football Championship

G'day everyone, I'm new to editing on here and have made it bit of a project of mine to work on article relating to NZ football, especially the NZFC. The NZFC article recently got rated as start class and other people have been making edits, so hopefully thats a good sign that the NZFC is getting some well needed attention! I'd like to ask if anyone could please give me any advice as to how any work I do is effective, especially in the context of the NZ WikiProject? Either on here or on my talk page is fine. Much appreciated, and GO TEAM WELLINGTON! Gialloneri (talk) 11:19, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Any work you do on expanding articles on NZ soccer will help - there are a fair few kiwi footy fans here, best way of finding others is to look at the history of some of the relevant articles (you'll see my username prominently on one or two of them, such as Chatham Cup). As to its relevance with regard to the NZ WikiProject, nothing specific, though in general it's helping with NZ articles so it is definitely useful. I've often wondered whether it would be useful to form a "sub-project" to this for NZ sport articles in general - some of them need quite a bit of work. Grutness...wha? 12:02, 4 January 2008 (UTC) (another lousy season for Otago United... sigh)

Barnstar

The pic for "The New Zealand Barnstar of National Merit" looks a lot like the one for Hero of the Soviet Union (the USSR's version of the VC and a whole lot of other things, combined) :D Perhaps something a bit less Soviet might be in order, hehe (Just a gentle smile...) 202.89.150.246 (talk) 11:04, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

The design is fairly standard - see Category:Barnstars of National Merit templates. The item handing from the flag is a barnstar, which is a German / American icon widely adopted within Wikipedia.-gadfium 18:20, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Edmund Hillary...

...has recently died, for those that do not know. The article is currently being heavily edited and may require some people to keep an eye on it. Regards from across the ditch, Mattinbgn\^talk 23:08, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

River templates

Hi all - I've just made an (incomplete) {{Waikato}}, along the lines of the {{Clutha}} I made last year. Feel free to edit it and add it to any articles relevant to the river's catchment. If I get time, I'll make similar ones for some of the other major rivers in NZ soon. Grutness...wha? 01:50, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

There's now also {{Taieri}}. Grutness...wha? 06:09, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

...and {{Whanganui}}, {{Rangitikei}}, and {{Mataura}}. I'm hoping to make similar templates for each of NZ's ten longest rivers (so 6 down, 4 more to do). Grutness...wha? 06:08, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

You might want to disambiguate Clarence River to Clarence River, New Zealand :-) dramatic (talk) 08:51, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Oops - right you are, gov :) Grutness...wha? 23:45, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

{{WaiauSLD}} done now - that only leaves {{ClarenceNZ}}, {{Waitaki}}, and {{Oreti}} to do. Grutness...wha? 04:47, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Photos

Should we not add a |needs-photo= parameter to the WPNZ template? I.e. adding the this field (with 'yes') will have the same effect as having to add a separate {{reqphotoin|New Zealand}} template. I haven't had a look at the coding of this feature so I'm not sure if I'd be confident making the change myself, but I'm sure someone here can anyway. Richard001 (talk) 00:44, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I've got someone at WP:TR to add this, so it should be working now. Richard001 (talk) 07:44, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Law

I notice we don't have an article Law of New Zealand, while many other countries do (Law of Australia, Law of the United States, more). We do have Category:New Zealand law, but it has no main article. This is a very major omission, no? Richard001 (talk) 07:09, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I've made a start. Please chip in. -- Avenue (talk) 17:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Avenue. Have added it to the NZ topics template. I would have to actually go and learn something about NZ law before I could contribute anything useful, so I'll leave it to others to work on. Richard001 (talk) 03:43, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Environment

Speaking of new articles, should we also have an environment of New Zealand article, as many other countries seem to have? It would overlap with a few others but might also bring a lot of things together.

Water resources in New Zealand might also be a good topic. Richard001 (talk) 04:52, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

William Samuel Bambridge

Greetings from the UK. I normally write articles about football and in researching for an article on Charles Bambridge who was the England national captain in the 1880s, I came across his father William Samuel Bambridge. The more I read, the more I realised that he warranted an article of his own. I have now created this but, writing as a humble Pom, could I ask someone from your project to review the article and check the New Zealand aspects. Cheers. --Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 08:07, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Info on NZ$

For the purpose of the NZ dollar article, does any one have info on how common Millenium Commemorative $10 notes are. 1.5 million were released, which means they would be about 1/15 of total $10 notes. My question is how common are they in normal circulation, and the quality of the notes in normal circulation. Are they still commonly seen? Thanks. Tarcus (talk) 07:25, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Strangely enough I got one a couple of weeks ago that looked brand new. It is the first one I've seen for a few years though - SimonLyall (talk) 08:00, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Now to find a reference... Tarcus (talk) 09:15, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:AUK

This is an invitation to WikiProject Auckland, a WikiProject which aims to develop and expand Wikipedia's articles on Auckland. Please feel free to join us.

Taifarious1 22:33, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Tokelau

I moved this to the bottom of the page.
Hello! Tokelau could use some attention. All help is appreciated. Perspicacite 04:29, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Apparently they have had an election in the past couple weeks and have a new head of government. Fellow named Pio Tuia. http://www.eventpolynesia.com/news&info/tokelau/TK2_page_newsroom.htm

Fishal (talk) 17:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I've become a "fan" of the islands since reading about their referendum. I'm happy to join the project and do what I can. No one's interested in a Tokelau work group, are they? Fishal (talk) 15:06, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Date of formation of New Zealand?

The editors of the New Zealand article have settled on 1907 as being the foundation of the state (I note with concern though that this date lacks any external referencing, per official Wikipedia policy WP:VERIFY).

But this article - List of countries by formation dates - claims that the 'Date of statehood' of New Zealand was actually 1840 (again, completely unreferenced). Both articles cannot be correct, so which is it? Please come to the party armed with some proper external refs, per official Wikipedia policy WP:VERIFY. --Mais oui! (talk) 12:33, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Please read Independence of New Zealand - SimonLyall (talk) 10:56, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Cavalcades

Cavalcade mentions the Otago Goldfields Cavalcade. More information about this cavalcade and any other long trail rides in New Zealand would be much appreciated. --Una Smith (talk) 02:57, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't know enough about it to write an article, but it's an annual event, following the trail of the goldminers of the 1860s - it roughly parallels the route of the Otago Central Rail Trail, though it doesn't follow that trail. Theres info on the web here, here, and here. Actually there's probably enough from those three to add that article... Grutness...wha? 10:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I have added some detail to Cavalcade#New Zealand, but I am not sure about the relation of the Otago Central Rail Trail to the Dunstan Trail. Could you check that? Also, this website mentions a new book about the re-enactment cavalcade; has anyone here seen the book? --Una Smith (talk) 14:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I've added some more info about the cavalcade and the Dunstan Trail's route to that article. There's a map at this page which shows the Dunstan and Rail Trails. Sadly, I don't have that book, though. Grutness...wha? 00:23, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! --Una Smith (talk) 01:51, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Year in New Zealand

The Year in New Zealand series of articles ought to have a section on the economy - a topic on which data is readily available, as far back as 1860 for some measures. I've never studied economics, so suggestions are welcome as to what should be listed, e.g. GNP. GDP (real or nominal?) Top 5 export sectors? Please make a list below. An indication of what is available is at Statistics NZ - plus of course almanacs and yearbooks. dramatic (talk) 05:19, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Article requests: waste management

I have added many requests to the requests page, some of which are extremely important articles that have thus far been neglected. One example is waste management in New Zealand. The only other country that has such an article is Switzerland. An good start could be made from the freely available chapter on the subject at [5]. I'll probably only be able to create one or two of these articles over the next year or more, so if anyone is looking for something to do feel free to help out. Richard001 (talk) 08:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

New Categories

Noticed that for NZ Occupations:

• No category “New Zealand farmers” (no backbone?). The only NZ category for Bishop Monrad?
• Under NZ Military Personnel there is Army & Air Force but not Navy
• Both need someone who understands categories and subcategories! Hugo999 (talk) 20:56, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Will do the farmers one. --Helenalex (talk) 03:38, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Done. Can other people populate it? Other than Monrad I can't think of anyone except Jim Bolger and William Massey. I suppose I can add in a few agricultural subcats if I can find them... --Helenalex (talk) 03:51, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Well plenty of people like Charles Upham or Colin Meads were farmers. However very few of them are famous for being farmers. I'm not really sure it's a good category as such. - SimonLyall (talk) 00:49, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

It's clearly an occupation with quite a few practitioners in NZ, which means it does no harm. Also, while Meads and Upham aren't famous for being farmers, their farming is quite well known, and is a major part of the Meads mythology (running up hills with sheep under his arms and so forth). It's common practice to categorise politicians under their former careers, and that alone should populate it reasonably well. --Helenalex (talk) 11:33, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

There are bound to be quite a fewwhose farming experiences were important in their chosen careers - I've added Samuel Butler (novelist), for instance. Grutness...wha? 01:40, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Waipatiki - move to Waipatiki Beach?

The article Waipatiki seems to be about Waipatiki Beach. According to Reed NZ Atlas, Waipatiki is a village at lat 40 22 S, 176 17 E - at least 25ks inland from the east coast, 50 or so ks east of Palmerston North and at least 100 ks south of Napier. Waipatiki Beach is on the coast 20ks north of Napier, at 39 18S, 176 58 E. Looks like we should move it to Waipatiki Beach, as most of the article and the pics appear to relate to Waipatiki Beach rather than Waipatiki. Only the coordinates seem to relate to the more southerly, inland settlement. Kahuroa (talk) 11:50, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Move it and change the coordinates. If you feel inclined, create a stub article on the inland settlement too.-gadfium 19:56, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

done Kahuroa (talk) 06:25, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Merge of templates?

Should we merge {{NZ Military}} and {{Military history of New Zealand}}? Richard001 (talk) 09:45, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the idea is that one is used for articles on branches of the NZ armed forces, and the other for history articles. Australia has two equivalent templates. Britain has a template for the branches of the armed forces, but does not appear to have an equivalent military history template, possibly because there are very few articles such as "Military history of Britain during the xxx war" - such topics are dealt with in the "xxx war" article instead.-gadfium 19:48, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Murder of Liam Ashley

This needs some expansion, but I know this was a major controversy in NZ. If anyone from NZ or more familiar with NZ has more info about Murder of Liam Ashley they are welcome to contribute.. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I had been wondering whether to nominate it for deletion, as it's my understanding that individual murders are not considered notable. However, looking for a guideline about this, I found Wikipedia:Notability (criminal acts), which is a proposed guideline. I don't dispute that the murder received significant nationwide news coverage and it meets this proposed guideline. However, a substantial proportion of murders in New Zealand receive such coverage, and few have articles. I am concerned that such articles are Recentism, but I'm not sure what to do about it.-gadfium 00:54, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

No, the reason why the case is notable is due to the political fallout - I linked to several articles that explain how the prison system was criticized. Since lead to a criticism of government policy, it is notable. - The fact that Ashley was placed with a guy like Baker was criticized, so I'll add that too. WhisperToMe (talk) 13:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll second deletion. Killing sprees may be notable, but single murders aren't (though they may merit a mention on the killer's page, if they are notable enough). IdiotSavant (talk) 03:03, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't the best remedy for recentism be expanding our coverage of older cases, rather than deleting notable newer ones? Maybe a List of murders in New Zealand could provide a useful framework. -- Avenue (talk) 03:02, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

That presumes recent murders are notable. They're not. IdiotSavant (talk) 03:03, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I wouldn't say that murders are inherently notable (at least, not the the standard required here). Although they often receive national coverage here, I think that's primarily because this is a small country. Having said that, I think the Liam Ashley case is notable because of its unusual circumstances. --Helenalex (talk) 04:50, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I found this http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0612/S00213.htm - this lead to a political controversy, so it is notable. WhisperToMe (talk) 13:29, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Let me clarify what I meant. It is common for lists to omit unimportant cases that fail some criterion. For example, there is only one NZ wind farm in the global list of wind farms, because most of ours are too small to qualify. I did not mean to suggest a list covering all NZ murders, just those that might reasonably deserve an article. This presumes that we can find a suitable criterion that include the most important cases, and not too many others. It would probably only add value beyond Category:Murder in New Zealand if there are important NZ murders we do not have articles on yet. -- Avenue (talk) 08:08, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

On a related note, I've just moved Mona Blades to Mona Blades case and Kirsa Jensen to Kirsa Jensen case. Does anyone know of other instances where we (against guidelines) have articles on the victim rather than the case? dramatic (talk) 19:00, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Harvey and Jeanette Crewe , There seems to be a lot of dup cats over under Category:Crime in New Zealand. ADifferent cases are under the perp, the victum or the top lvel cats and some are in more than 2. - SimonLyall (talk) 00:42, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Archeology in Polynesia

Good evening! As I know New Zealand is one of the countries whose population pays a lot of attention to the history of Oceania. For example, there are a lot of museums in your country devoted specially to this region. But at present there is a great need in free photos of some important archeological sites, archaeological evidences that were found there (for example, photos of Lapita pottery from Samoa and other places in Oceania). It would be great if some free photos were downloaded to Wikimedia Commons. Best Regards, Переход Артур, talk 19:07, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Merging pages

I'm a NZ member of the Milhist project, where they have a lot of talent with page/board changes etc. Would it be useful to merge this page with the NZ Wikipedians' notice board, with all archives being maintained? I think some of the people over there could do that quite easily, if it was thought a good idea. Buckshot06 (talk) 04:04, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the NZWNB and the wikiproject have a lot of overlap and a merger would be a useful simplification.-gadfium 07:56, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I've never understood what the difference between the pages is supposed to be. --Helenalex (talk) 01:04, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. You might argue that the notice board is for the more important things, but this project doesn't get all that much discussion and it's too much trouble to watch both (I've only ever watched this one, and even on-and-off at that). Richard001 (talk) 08:54, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Student Life articles

I have merged Student Life New Zealand into Student Life (university ministry), and plan to do the same with Student Life Australia. The article they are being merged into seems to lack notability too, as I have indicated with the template, and might itself be merged into the apparently notable Campus Crusade for Christ. Nobody seems to be watching them, and they were all created by one-edit wonders, so I need some more feedback. Maybe I should take them to AFD (even though the content is technically being merged) to get some? Richard001 (talk) 03:50, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd support a move to AFD them. DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 04:42, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Assessment: Too many top importance articles

I think we have way too many articles in Category:Top-importance New Zealand articles. A lot of these don't even qualify for high importance, IMO. For example, politics of New Zealand is probably worthy of top importance, but not individual elections. This category should probably only have 10-20 articles or so; the ones that are of critical importance and most urgent in getting to FA class. It wouldn't actually be a bad idea to recommend discussing things first before adding to this category (though people will still do it anyway, of course). Richard001 (talk) 08:49, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Definitely agreed on the elections articles - I would rate most of them as mid with the five or six most recent elections as high. dramatic (talk) 09:15, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I suggest that proposals for how to rate articles should be added to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New Zealand/Assessment, as I've done for geographical articles. How do you decide which elections are important? Which politicians are important?-gadfium 09:22, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I've just rated 1893 as 'high' (universal suffrage) and all the other 19th century elections as mid. The next 'high' would be 1935, I think - it ushered in a new era of politics which was the basis for the next 50 years. dramatic (talk) 11:11, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Toyota; I've just gone through and classified them all (other than 2008) as "mid". Would 1984 or 1999 also be considered "high" then?IdiotSavant (talk) 11:14, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

One of the criteria for rating elections would involve whether the major party making up the government changed, and the most recent election is more important than most of the previous ones because it shaped the present government. The upcoming election is also relatively important, especially in an election year. The current year does affect how importance recent election articles are. I like dramatic's idea that certain elections had extra importance due to a change in the political era resulting. Would 1996 be considered such an election, because it was the first MMP election?

I agree that no single election (so far) should be in the top importance category, and that reducing the number of top-level articles is desirable.

I suggest the various articles on wars, military and battles be reduced from top to high-level, leaving only Military history of New Zealand as top level. The following articles would drop to high-level: Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (army corps), Battle of Gallipoli, New Zealand Army, New Zealand in the Vietnam War, New Zealand land wars. Perhaps the New Zealand Defence Force article, currently high-level, should go up to top-level.-gadfium 20:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. - Shudde ^talk 20:42, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed with the exception of New Zealand land wars - I think that's a major part of our history. dramatic (talk) 21:09, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Re:Elections, I'd say there are very few that would rate as high, though 1984 would be one of them (that wasn't just an election, it had the makings of a major constitutional crisis), as would 1893. A case could perhaps be made for 1999, but I'd rate it slightly less high than the other two. I can't think of any others that should be rated high. Grutness...wha? 01:13, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Keep in mind that due to the coarse nature of the importance ratings it may be possible to have articles that are more important than others while still being, say, mid importance. Regarding land wars, I would say 'high'. New Zealand/(Human) history of New Zealand/Land wars. That's two steps down in the hierarchy. Richard001 (talk) 00:56, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

• One other change I'd suggest: Dropping English language and replacing it with New Zealand English - the general article is largely irelevant, but New Zealand English balances the articles on the other two official languages.dramatic (talk) 08:28, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Draft Guidelines for Lists of companies by country - Feedback Requested

Within WikiProject Companies I am trying to establish guidelines for all Lists of companies by country, the implementation of which would hopefully ensure a minimum quality standard and level of consistency across all of these related but currently disparate articles. The ultimate goal is the improvement of these articles to Featured List status. As a WikiProject that currently has one of these lists within your scope, I would really appreciate your feedback! You can find the draft guidelines here. Thanks for your help as we look to build consensus and improve Wikipedia! - Richc80 (talk) 13:37, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Regional Councils

Is it time to create articles for all of the regional councils? A page for the Canterbury Regional Council has been created. As shown by the Canterbury Regional Council article the is sufficient information on the geographical region and the political entity that is in charge of it. Note that the Canterbury region (Canterbury, New Zealand) article has an infobox for the regional council that should go to the Canterbury Regional Council article. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 04:21, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd say that regional councils are inherently notable, so if you want to create the pages, go for it. --Helenalex (talk) 10:25, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Ad

Hey, im just wondering if anybody thinks that we should create an ad for the WikiProject to be put on Template:Wikipedia ads to advertise the project. I would do it myself, but im no good with animation or much coding at all, so if theres anyone who would be willing to create one, that would be great. There is a guide available here for anyone who's interested. Taifarious1 07:30, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Māori textiles and weaving - help needed

I've started a rescue job on Māori traditional textiles after someone redirected it to Phormium - I think this should be one of the important articles on New Zealand culture. However, most references are offline, and I hope there are people more expert/scholarly in that field who can help. We also badly need an article on Tukutuku panels and possibly articles on some of the other main woven artifacts (e.g. kete). Talking of tukutuku, are the images on http://whakaahua.maori.org.nz/tukutuku.htm GDFL-compatible? (no copyright statement, request that an acknowledgement would be appreciated, implication that images are for re-use). dramatic (talk) 09:47, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks go to user:Islandbaygardener for some sterling work. There should be some good out-of-copyright drawings around, too. dramatic (talk) 22:07, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Old government buildings

We have a duplicate at Old Government Buildings and Government Buildings (Wellington, New Zealand). My inclination is to take the infobox and the information from the second one and put it into the first, because the first one is better structured and has a better name - 'government buildings' sounds more like the ones that the government are still in. But then I wrote most of Old Government Buildings, so I'm probably biased. --Helenalex (talk) 08:43, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

No, it makes sense to put it in the first article, i don't think bias comes into it, more like common sense. I don't think there will be much opposition but I agree with you proposition. Taifarious1 09:06, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Given that the GBWNZ article goes as far to call use the name "Old Government Buildings", this is highly logical. -- THE DARK LORD TROMBONATOR 10:06, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Henalex, but I was wondering if Old Government Buildings should cover both the Wellington ones and the Christchurch ones (Southeast corner of Cathedral square, now turned into apartments and a restaurant called OGB)? dramatic (talk) 10:56, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

The official name of the building is "Government Buildings". Wellingtonians often refer to it as "The Old Government Building". Matt (talk) 23:47, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Maybe the article could even be "Government Buildings Historic Reserve" or "Old Government Buildings Historic Reserve" (http://www.doc.govt.nz/templates/page.aspx?id=34143). This would exclude the Chch ones. Matt (talk) 23:51, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps 'Old Government Buildings, Wellington'? There are probably structures referred to as 'Old Government Buildings' all over the world. --Helenalex (talk) 00:27, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

whakapapa in iwi/marae articles

I've seen two or three articles containing the whakapapa of an iwi or hapū recently, one of which was speedied (while I was in the middle of knocking it into shape) as "a text dump (entitled Whakapapa) of transliterated (and illiterated), incomprehensible dialect which was so out of context, it indeed seemed to be a hoax" by a non-nz editor. (the admin did apologise but still opposes the inclusion of whakapapa [6])

Yet this pakeha feels that a whakapapa is a central aspect of an iwi, and worthy of inclusion. To quote user:Kahuroa (on my talk page)

To me the best argument for the inclusion (within reason) of whakapapa with iwi articles is that iwi are by definition defined by genealogy. It's not that we Māori need to say who we are on every occasion, it's just that you cannot talk about an iwi without some kind of genealogy, since iwi are just families grown large.

So if there is consensus that whakapapa are worthy of inclusion, the challenge is to do it in a way compatible with wikipedia policy:

1. Sourcing: This may be difficult, since it is an oral tradition. How many whakapapa are actually published in print or online?
2. Translation: In the English wikipedia I think that a translation is essential (does this become OR if the source is only in te reo?)
3. Presentation: I would favour a two-column format with original on the left (italicised) and translation on the right, and a supporting link to the article on whakapapa.

dramatic (talk) 09:34, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

My comments quoted above about whakapapa were only intended to argue that it is ok/common sense to mention genealogical connections in iwi articles - they were not an argument for anything beyond that where it is not vital to the article. This could be a brief mention or at some length, if its relevant. I couldn't find the article Dramatic was referring to - I guess it was deleted.

Maori text: hard to see why this would be needed unless necessary to illustrate a vital point.

Presentation in column format - don't see the need for this. If there is a point to be made, then make it in text.

Sourcing: There should be verifiable sources for anything that needs to be included, since Te Ara/The encyclopedia of NZ has lots of articles on iwi in English, and there are also lots of books on iwi. Whakapapa is like any other traditional source and is therefore not usable in Wikipedia unless it can be quoted from a verifiable, reliable printed or reputable online source (not a personal website). This will exclude a lot of stuff, but it will also avoid made-up stuff, new-age crystal stuff, etc and arguments about what is the correct version of a whakapapa. If it's not verifiable, it doesn't belong here. Kāhuroa (talk) 10:36, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

• I largely agree with what Kahuroa has put here, and feel that in cases where major legends are associated with a specific line of ancestry it is worthly of mention, even in cases where what is written is veering towards the apocryphal - something that is bound to happen given that much of Maori history is oral. Even in those cases sourcing should be possible, even if the sources only say "Legend has it that...". By way of comparison, I have no Maori ancestry, but my own "hapu" has a pretty comprehensive article on Wikipedia that goes deep into the realm of legend (those legends are all well enough sourced to be encyclopedic. I see no difference between my Irish ancestry having such a detailed article and a similar article on a Maori hapu also delving into the lineages of that hapu. Grutness...wha? 12:41, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
  • And thanks to Dramatic for trying to rescue a new user (User:Ngati Kuri) who got bitten. Kāhuroa (talk) 18:53, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Article in desperate need of help

Rail privatization in New Zealand is probably a worthy subject, but the current stub has no actual information, just an unresearched commentary. dramatic (talk) 21:47, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. I just expanded it a bit to include a little historical context (and moved it to the correct NZ English spelling!), but there is a lot of work to do and references to find. I'll bring it to the attention of WP:NZR. - Axver (talk) 01:54, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Anyone from Otago or Wellington who would like to take some photos?

Is there anyone here who could take some photos of people from the University of Otago (see Category:University of Otago faculty). Perhaps some of these people would be interested? I had James Flynn in mind, though it would be great to get photos for as many as possible.

Another request: Kim Sterelny[7] from Victoria University of Wellington. I'm working on getting photos of people from my own university, the UoA; maybe someone from one of these universities (if there is anyone?) could join me in doing the same for theirs. Richard001 (talk) 01:48, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 732 of the articles assigned to this project, or 14.4%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 18 June 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. Subsribing is easy - just add a template to your project page. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:38, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

• The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
• The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
• A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 21:09, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Editor from over the pond

I have come across the following articles - Toll Shipping / Interislander / Toll NZ / etc. I split out Interislander from Toll Shipping because it appears to be it's own entity now after being sold, it would be good for someone with more of a clue look over it make sure I haven't stuffed anything up - I guess it ties in with Rail privatisation in New Zealand and everything else that won't stay still. Wongm (talk) 06:35, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Anyone active at Commons?

I created Users in New Zealand at Commons, but until today was the only person there. If anyone is very active at Commons be sure to add yourself to it. I have clocked up 1000 edits there now, so I guess I would be one of the more active members. I have added 3 other NZers to the category myself, being so desperately lonely as I was. Richard001 (talk) 03:58, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the add - I just looked up my edit count there - 3,289. Another very active Kiwi is Tony Wills if you want to add him. Kāhuroa (talk) 05:02, 15 July 2008 (UTC).

Done. Richard001 (talk) 22:42, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Is there a good reason...

...why Lew Zealand is marked with the WPNZ banner template? Okay, there's a very tenuous link, but he's a fairly generic muppet and not really much to do with NZ! Grutness...wha? 00:24, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, given the length of the article, a lot of it is about New Zealand. It's a pretty weak connection though. If it was longer, or has the potential to be, I would support removing it. Of course, we can't easily divide articles into 'related to New Zealand' or 'not related to New Zealand'; it's a continuum and some fall in the fuzzy middle zone. Personally I would prefer to see this article merged into a broader one, like Characters of the Muppet Show or something like that, if possible. Richard001 (talk) 00:42, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't that be "Fozzie middle zone"? ;) Grutness...wha? 01:26, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Auckland

It seems the NZ category is getting very large so I created this subcategory for WikiProject Auckland. Photo requests can be made using the banner now, just as with {{WikiProject New Zealand}}, by using |needs-photo=yes.

We might also consider splitting the category further, e.g. photos of New Zealanders, New Zealand places etc (just the ones where there are plenty, of course). Richard001 (talk) 22:42, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Two categories for people and places would be very useful (as might dividing the places one ito subcats for the two main islands). Grutness...wha? 01:33, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Would the people one be for people from NZ or in NZ? The former would be more related to WPNZ, but the latter more relevant for taking photos. Richard001 (talk) 23:00, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Keep it vague, I'd say - the requested photos category seems to have a mix of both. Grutness...wha? 00:26, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject report

I've come here to see whether your project would like to be featured in the Signpost as part of the WikiProject report (which has been absent for the past few months). I'd already asked another project but there has been no response. Thanks. Rudget (logs) 11:30, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

What do we have to do? If you want a few people to fill out a questionnaire, I think we can do that.

To give some background, here is my overview of the wikiproject.

There's no coordinator of WikiProject New Zealand. The WikiProject is based around this project page and the more active New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board, which provide mostly overlapping places for discussion on topics of New Zealand concern.

There was a New Zealand Collaboration of the Fortnight but it became inactive at the end of 2006. There's also Portal:New Zealand, which is a featured portal but is only intermittently maintained. Some editors are active in tagging articles with {{WikiProject New Zealand}} which results in the Version 1.0 Editorial Team/New Zealand articles by quality statistics report.User:AlexNewArtBot identifies new articles written relating to New Zealand, and the articles are checked over by a couple of experienced editors and added to New articles (New Zealand). WikiProject Deletion sorting/New Zealand is also active. There's a shared watchlist at Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand/Vandalism patrol; List of New Zealand-related topics also functions as a shared watchlist.

There have been three meetups so far in Auckland (the largest city), with reports at Wikipedia:Meetup/Auckland.

I'm not sure if any of the subprojects listed on the project page are particularly active. There's a WikiProject Auckland as well.-gadfium 20:38, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Aside: Should we have a project coordinator(s)? Should we revive the fortnightly collaboration (maybe once every 1/2/3 months instead?) Richard001 (talk) 08:26, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what a project coordinator does. Anyone who wants to run for the position is welcome, unless they expect to be paid in cash or accolades. A revival of the collaboration would be welcomed by me, but it shouldn't be too infrequent or people will lose interest in the current topic. I think fortnightly is probably about right; if that doesn't work then nothing longer will. If that proves to be highly successful then weekly is worth trying.-gadfium 08:53, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

NZ expatriates/emigrants/diaspora etc

The categories dealing with NZers and descendants of NZers living overseas are confusing. Apart from Category:New Zealand emigrants, which I've just gutted, we also have Category:New Zealand diaspora, which consists of two subcats - Category:People of New Zealand descent and Category:New Zealand expatriates. I would be fine with this if it divided people by whether they were born here or born elsewhere of a NZ parent or parents, but it doesn't. In 'descent' we have Category:New Zealand-Americans and Category:New Zealand Italians both of which include lots of people who were born here. To make things more complicated, a lot of the categories assign national identities to people based entirely on where they were born and/or where they live - it's really not clear that a NZer playing sport in Italy or Japan or whatever would consider themselves a New Zealand Italian or NZ Japanese. Putting that aside, I think we need one category which includes all the groups of NZers and people with NZ parents living outside of NZ. I'm just not sure what to call it. 'New Zealand expatriates' doesn't include people not actually born in NZ, but 'People of New Zealand descent' sounds a bit silly when applied to someone who was born in NZ of immigrant parents. I'm not sure that a 'New Zealand disapora' actually exists, and it's not something that many people would immediately think of, so I don't like that either. Each country seems to have its own way of doing this, but only a few have seperate categories for descent and 'from'. I suppose we could create seperate categories for each country, but for this to work that country would have to already have wider 'descent' and 'from' categories. Any ideas? --Helenalex (talk) 00:59, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

As an oz cat tagger (yes i have been tagging wpnz cats :) who has watched the beginnings of the australian demographics project - I would suggest that the oz project has been through all this about a month ago - it might or might not help to know that SatuSuro 01:10, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Um... did you come up with a solution? Cos if you did, and it worked, we're not above ripping it off. --Helenalex (talk) 04:55, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Some light reading: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 June 20#Categories:Australians by ethnicity or national descent. Enjoy! -- Mattinbgn\^talk 05:35, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

And a WikiProject grew from the discussion Wikipedia:WikiProject Demographics of Australia. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 05:48, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I couldnt have put it better myself - thanks matt - please rip off the idea- if it helps your project and saves talk page angst do it SatuSuro 05:51, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

For those who don't feel like following the links, the Australians have gone with grouping everyone into 'Australians of x descent' groups, and putting them all in Category:Australian people by ethnic or national origin. This seems to be becoming the standard thing to do - see Category:Argentine people by ethnic or national origin, Category:French people by ethnic or national origin, the British, Germans etc. I am not entirely comfortable with this, since it means that someone born in NZ to, say, English parents, would be considered to be 'of NZ descent' if they leave the country, which is obviously not the case. In fact, it would mean that were they to move to Britain, they would be classed as a Briton of New Zealand descent, when in fact they are a New Zealander of British descent living in Britain. To make things even more ridiculous, they might end up in both the Britons of New Zealand descent and the New Zealanders of British descent category.

Having said that, I think it is more important to have only one category, and for this to be consistent, so if no one objects I will start shifting things to 'New Zealanders of x descent' and 'Xs of New Zealand descent'. Damn Australians. --Helenalex (talk) 10:33, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Yay - cross tasman fans! - each WP seems to try to go its own way - no problems about that - its when the cross wiki category crunchers arrive at your project and you wonder if there is no appreciation to individual projects decisions or practices - they will be around for sure SatuSuro 10:37, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

For some reason, when I was writing my rant above, it did not occur to me that I'm one of the anomalous people who would be difficult to categorise (should I ever become notable enough to get a page). I was born in London to New Zealand-born parents, both of whom have English ancestry. Then we moved to NZ when I was 2. So according to this scheme, I am a New Zealander of British descent and possibly a Briton of New Zealand descent, which feels more right than British New Zealander or British expatriate in New Zealand, which implies I identify as British. Of course, its accurate more by coincidence than good design - I would still be in the first category even if my parents had come from China or somewhere, or if I'd arrived in New Zealand last year and still missed mushy peas. --Helenalex (talk) 11:02, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

There lies the rub - we have often in the oz project had english born pop musicians who have moved to oz - and the edit wars over where they belong are so damned boring and the conversations taking up the kbs are there in the archives of the talk pages and sometimes recurrent each year :( SatuSuro 11:07, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I've just thought that 'People of New Zealand origin in country X' covers absolutely everything - people born overseas to NZ parents, expat NZers born in NZ to non-NZ parents, NZers temporarily (but notably) in a particular country, etc. It isn't the standard anywhere, but it works, and would fit into other countries' 'Xs by ethnic or national origin', 'Immigrants in country X' etc categories. We would just have to specify that going somewhere to fight a war doesn't count, or all Gallipoli veterans would be 'People of New Zealand origin in Turkey', for example. --Helenalex (talk) 02:11, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I will take the lack of comment as support for this, and start changing the categories (again). --Helenalex (talk) 03:56, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

The debate about this is at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 July 24 --Helenalex (talk) 04:22, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Category:New Zealand Italians ought to be split between Category:New Zealand people of Italian descent and Category:Italian people of New Zealand descent, which addresses the first point. I agree that these are all a mess - if we had cfc (categories for creation) I would be against all of them. Occuli (talk) 11:08, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

The categories you are suggesting don't solve the problem, though. If we have a person born in NZ of Samoan parents now playing rugby in Italy (and they're out there), he would probably end up in the second category despite not being of NZ descent or Italian. --Helenalex (talk) 22:31, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Assessment

Who pays attention to Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand/Assessment? I noticed some time ago that articles I had placed under the "Requesting an assessment" section didn't get rated, so eventually I rated them myself. I've since attended to several requests. The most recent request for assessment was placed several days ago, and since I've rated a number of the same editor's articles previously I thought someone else could make the judgement, but it looks like no one else is watching the requests.-gadfium 09:09, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I've added it to my watch list. Hopefully I'll be able to help on a few. DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 10:29, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Template

Template:New Zealand topics is a little bit odd - it links to fortications but not Maori, for example. I put a note about this on its talk page but no one seems to be watching it. Since it is fairly important I'd like some other people's thoughts before I alter it. --Helenalex (talk) 09:50, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I did see your note there, but didn't get around to replying to it. I agree with your suggestions. Just be bold and make the changes you consider appropriate.-gadfium 19:57, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

New Zealand currency - what is its copyright status, and should it therefore be on Commons?

I noticed commons:Category:Money of New Zealand, which seems to be pretty incomplete. Also, according to New Zealand dollar, it would seem a lot of the images there shouldn't be there in the first place since they do not fall under a suitable copyright status. Of course, it's still possible to have other images (e.g. the graph) and surely some of the older coins/notes would be public domain by now (and thus we should get images of them all up). Richard001 (talk) 00:22, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Draft letter requesting photos

I've created a draft letter to send to people requesting photos. It's based on an existing one but I'd appreciate any thoughts. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New Zealand/Content task force - SimonLyall (talk) 09:33, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Somewhat of an aside: I have actually found it can be quite difficult to get photos directly off people. They seldom photograph themselves, so they then have to put you in contact with another person, if they can even be bothered with that step. Just getting someone nearby to take a photo of them is probably the best option, though we need to get a better idea of where our targets are and where our shooters are. Richard001 (talk) 09:52, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm aiming to target politicians first up and most of them will have somebody from their staff reading their email. Next will be sports stars or entertainers also with managers. I'll admit it's probably not the best approach from random scientists or similar. I'm hoping to give it a go with half a dozen front bench MPs later this week. - SimonLyall (talk) 11:37, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Let us know how it goes. I'm currently sending a few subject experts emails to see if any of them are interested in writing an article here. Hopefully some of them will reply. Richard001 (talk) 02:13, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I've sent out a few emails. ( David Farrar, Russell Brown, Nicky Hager, Bruce Simpson, David Parker, Steve Maharey ) - SimonLyall (talk) 11:15, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Good on you. I have some experience working around central government. Another idea would be to email each party that is represented in Parliament through their party website, noting those MPs already emailed. You could follow up with a phone call if needed. I think with an election looming they would be only too happy to oblige. It's also in their interests to have a favourable/recent/fair image on wiki. --Januarian (talk) 06:57, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

So far I've only got 2 pictures back, from Nicky Hager which just added them to his article. A couple of others have promised though. I've had a few emails back and forth with various others. Main problems seem to be that people are happy to send a photo but unsure about licenses and then get worried about them. One Staff member didn't want to release a photo as I got the feeling she was worried in case it was used for negative purposes. This was for someone who there are hundreds of photos out there of but I think she didn't want to be seen as having released *that* photo which was misused. The political parties also probably have lots of old photographs of past MPs and other figures. - SimonLyall (talk) 09:41, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm friends with a guy who works for Act (oh, the shame) so I will email him about getting some photos of their current MPs as well as hopefully past ones. A personal approach might work better than a letter from someone who they don't know. --Helenalex (talk) 22:32, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, that was easy. He sent me a whole set of copyright-free pics within a few hours. If anyone else has friends working for political parties, this may be the way to go. --Helenalex (talk) 04:24, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Deletion discussion

Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Afghan British (contains proposal for deletion of the New Zealander British article). Badagnani (talk) 04:57, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for New Zealand

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:48, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Image needs replacement

Hello all...

An image used in the Tirau article, specifically Image:1852517-Tiraus main road-Tirau.jpg, has a little bit of a licensing issue. The image was uploaded back when the rules around image uploading were less restrictive. It is presumed that the uploaded was willing to license the picture under the GFDL license but was not clear in that regard. As such, the image, while not at risk of deletion, is likely not clearly licensed to allow for free use in any future use of this article. If anyone has an image that can replace this, or can go take one and upload it, it would be best.

You have your mission, take your camera and start clicking.--Jordan 1972 (talk) 00:13, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Image needs replacement

Hello all...

An image used in the Buller Gorge article, specifically Image:Buller Gorge.jpg, has a little bit of a licensing issue. The image was uploaded back when the rules around image uploading were less restrictive. It is presumed that the uploader was willing to license the picture under the GFDL license but was not clear in that regard. As such, the image, while not at risk of deletion, is likely not clearly licensed to allow for free use in any future use of this article. If anyone has an image that can replace this, or can go take one and upload it, it would be best.

You have your mission, take your camera and start clicking.--Jordan 1972 (talk) 22:03, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Template

Is there a suitable category that can be used to identify a New Zealander such as Bob Heffron. I guess I need to also ask whether he should be identified as a kiwi anyway. Just thinking out loud. Kaiwhakahaere (talk) 00:42, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

YCategory:Australians of New Zealand descent covers people born here but better known for their work in Oz - and he's already marked with that. Grutness...wha? 01:47, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Wow. How cool is that. I ask my question at 00:42 and at 01:00 User:Mattinbgn adds the "Australians of New Zealand descent" category. Kaiwhakahaere (talk) 01:57, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Just like rust, Wikipedia never sleeps :) Grutness...wha? 02:07, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Category:Prime Ministers of New Zealand

I have created a category for NZ PMs at Commons. A gallery would be good, and there are still some more images to move (and images to take/upload). Feel free to help out if you're looking for a weekend job.

I'm not sure why Jim Bolger requires a fair use image - is he not photograph-able? Richard001 (talk) 00:58, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Politician Template

Hi, fellow NZers. Would it be possible to create a template for the NZ politician articles to show their terms, electorates, list positions, etc? For example, every politician currently has a table as follows:

Parliament	Term	Electorate	List Position	Party
40th	1981-1984	Mt Albert		Labour
41st	1984-1987	Mt Albert		Labour
42nd	1987-1990	Mt Albert		Labour
43rd	1990-1993	Mt Albert		Labour
44th	1993-1996	Mt Albert		Labour
45th	1996-1999	Owairaka	1	Labour
46th	1999-2002	Mt Albert	1	Labour
47th	2002-2005	Mt Albert	1	Labour
48th	2005-	Mt Albert	1	Labour

By clicking the edit tab, you will see that I have copied this "prettytable" in full code. It would be beneficial to articles, especially with the election approaching, if this could be transformed into a standard template where we can simply fill in parameters (Template:NZ politician?, however I do not have the expertise needed to carry this out. Leave any questions here or approach my talk page if you prefer. Thanks, -- THE DARK LORD TROMBONATOR 07:45, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Auckland meetup

In case you don't watch the NZ noticeboard and have missed my attempts to hunt you down, we're having a meetup in Auckland on Saturday. Richard001 (talk) 01:20, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

NZ Idol contestants

Hi, over at OTRS we received a photo of Robin Johnson, a contest from the 2004 season of New Zealand Idol. I don't think it fits into the article, but do Kiwi editors here think he's notable enough for his own article? Thanks. howcheng {chat} 18:02, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Not in my opinion. dramatic (talk) 22:58, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

No! DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 23:11, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

No to the article - as to the picture, if it's of him appearing on the show it could be used in New Zealand Idol - if not, it's probably of no use here. Grutness...wha? 23:21, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Suppose it could be put in a Commons category for NZ Idol even if not used. Richard001 (talk) 00:57, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Election 2008 taskforce

Many, many pages will need updating after the election, and I think that it would be best for tasks to be shared out in an organised manner so that we don't end up with some pages out of date for months, two people trying to do the same task, etc. So I have set up Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand/Election 2008 taskforce to list all the stuff that needs doing, who will do it, and roughly when it should be done by. If you want to bags a particular task, put your name next to it and try to get it done asap after the election. Some things, like updating the electorate pages, should probably be divided amongst more than one person, so if you want, nominate yourself for a certain range (A-M or whatever). Also feel free to add pages which should be on there but aren't. --Helenalex (talk) 05:11, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Collaboration of the month

I've just suggested that the actual happening collaboration for November is the 2008 General election, and that we should formalise that by deferring the collaboration on State housing until December. That way we can avoid the resurrection of COTF/M falling flat on its face at the first hurdle. dramatic (talk) 09:15, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Sounds sensible to me. Grutness...wha? 22:30, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Suggested split of Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in New Zealand

The category's getting pretty big, and splitting it into subcategories has been suggested aat Category talk:Wikipedia requested photographs in New Zealand. Input from here would very welcome. Grutness...wha? 23:32, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I should have really suggested some myself, though I haven't got around to that yet. I'll have a look at a few of the articles in there are make some suggestions when I have a little more time. Richard001 (talk) 01:20, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I have created Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of New Zealanders. Filling seems a tad boring; can we get a bot to populate it? Anything that had the BIO banner as well should be moved, for example.

anything with bio-stub (or geo-stub, for the one below) templates could be used by the bot, too. Grutness...wha? 07:32, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Another possibility is geographical photos - rivers, mountains, islands etc. We need at least three to reduce the size of each category to a manageable size. Richard001 (talk) 05:33, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah - my early suggestion was to divide by people/places/things and then if necessary divide the places by NI/SI/other. I think that should cut things down substantially. Grutness...wha? 07:32, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

What are 'things' though? We can't really have 'Requests photographs of things in New Zealand' (and people and places are both things - what we really mean is 'non-human, non-place things'. Perhaps (non-human) living things, e.g. plants and animals, though there don't seem to be that many of them at the moment. Buildings is another one. What are we going to do about the NZer one I created? I have put a few in there (A-D), but I really need some automated help. Should I file a bot request or something? Richard001 (talk) 22:41, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I have filed a request here; hopefully a bot can at least do some of the work. I don't think anyone particularly wants to take on such a mechanical task. Richard001 (talk) 08:13, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, that process doesn't work. I still don't particularly want to do this by hand though. Maybe I'll have to learn how to make one myself or something. Richard001 (talk) 00:25, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I've run through it with AWB, split by people or region as had been started. AWB has a very useful list comparer, can find articles in common to categories "requested NZ photos" and "Auckland Region" for example. A few articles have gone into multiple regions, like Kaimai Tunnel. The category is now down to 82 from over 700, many of the remainder are/were mobile (trains, ships, sports teams). If further sorting is needed I can suggest a historic subcategory, where it's not longer possible to go and take a photo of the subject. XLerate (talk) 21:36, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

New templates

Hi all - I've just made the first of what will probably be a small bunch of templates for common reference works on New Zealand - {{WisesGuide1969}}, {{ReedPlacenames1975}}, and {{DixStranded1988}}. I'm thinking of doing the same for a handful of other such books. If anyone has any suggestions of useful books to template in this way, let me know and I'll make them too (it might also be worth adding a list of these templated works somewhere on one of WPNZ's project pages). Grutness...wha? 23:02, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

How about New Zealand Official xxxx yearbook' with the year as a parameter? It's a serial (ISSN 0078-0170) which makes life easier. Publisher is NZ dept of Statistics, which changed its name to Statistics New Zealand in December 1994. dramatic (talk) 01:53, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, I tried, as {{NZYearbook}}, ...and thanks to user:XLerate's help it's now working beautifully! Grutness...wha? 08:37, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Grutness, you had it already, I just added a default so it looked a bit nicer when no year was supplied. XLerate (talk) 09:50, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Could this also be done for the Wises Guides? I have 5 copies of the Guide/Index but not 1969! I might have a go myself tomorrow and will probably add a couple of general sports ref books as well. Cheers, DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 01:04, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea - if you want to go for it, do so; I don't have the details for any other than the 1969 one I used to reference quite a number of NZ geography articles (which is why I did that year). Grutness...wha? 06:58, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I've also created a category: Category:New Zealand specific source templates, so any new templates of this type will go in there. Even if there are just a dozen or so templates for major reference sources, it'll save quite a bit of work writing reference sections. Grutness...wha? 00:43, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

BTW, although anyone's free to call the templates they make whatever they want, I'm trying to keep the ones I make in the form {{AaaKkkYyyy}}, where Aaa is (first) author's surname (or similar if no author's name is given, like with the Wise's guide), Kkk is a title keyword, and Yyyy is the four-digit year. I'm also piping them into the category at "|Aaa Yyyy". That will hopefully keep them in an easy-to-find order. Grutness...wha? 06:58, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

John Key importance

Greetings. I am from outside the project. I just want to propose to re-assess the importance of the article. He is a Prime Minister-designate now, and in mu opinion, the importance should be raised to "top" Sincerely, w_tanoto (talk) 19:54, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I'll be bold and modify it now. Mathmo ^Talk 03:46, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

well, I spoke too soon. Is already of high importance. Mathmo ^Talk 03:48, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

yes, the importance is high, but there is one more level:top. Helen Clark have top priority. w_tanoto (talk) 22:34, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I see it's done now. THank you and sorry for bothering you like a baby who can't do anything. This is because I respect the WikiProject's decision, and since I am not a member, I have no right to modify the rating/importance of WP New Zealand's box. w_tanoto (talk) 23:56, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I think high is enough. Something like politics of New Zealand is far more important. Richard001 (talk) 00:28, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I'd say a current PM is of comparable importance, perhaps if he only lasts one term then in the future we will look back and see him to be of less importance. But while he is the current PM then his article is of the utmost importance. Mathmo ^Talk 01:28, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of importance, it might be interesting to get some data on the number of hits NZ related articles get. They did this at the bird project and got some interesting results. Richard001 (talk) 06:07, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

See [8].-gadfium 08:16, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I have got a whole bunch of images of him from Flickr (see [9]). The uploader has said that he took them all himself. Does it all look legit? Richard001 (talk) 04:06, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Looks like this is the same guy so he's probably legit - SimonLyall (talk) 06:13, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I'll upload them as soon as I can get the Flickr bot working, probably tonight or tomorrow. What a great bunch of photos - yet another demonstration of how good Flickr can be for illustrating articles. Richard001 (talk) 04:52, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

That's the images taken care of - I have added a few to his article and there are more at the linked Commons category. Shouldn't we also make New Zealand National Party top importance, since it is the dominant party? I would think the NP would be more important in the present (and certainly in the long run) than Key. I don't really think either deserves top importance (neither are significantly covered at New Zealand, unlike say economy of New Zealand or geography of New Zealand). Richard001 (talk) 23:16, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

The relative ranking of NZ articles was of interest to me, so I've put together a list - Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand/List of articles by view count. XLerate (talk) 12:46, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

That's a useful and interesting list. I presume you have a script that creates it and which you can run periodically. Would it be possible to add the {{WikiProject New Zealand}} class and importance to each line in future runs? I realise that many of the articles are "unassessed". A cruder indication of quality would be to add the article size in bytes. These additions would allow easy identification of those articles which get lots of hits and/or are considered important but need work, and might therefore be good candidates for the New Zealand collaboration.-gadfium 18:57, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, yes as a side topic I have a 15k article list of {{WikiProject New Zealand}} candidates. It needs some refinement to remove non-NZ Boer War people, NRL topics, 1974/1990 Commonwealth games competitors etc. Article size would be useful here also to auto tag class=stub. The list was generated with a AWB recursive category search, then constructing URLs to stats.grok.se, URL list into download manager, combine the 20k webpages and winnow out the stats. There are a couple of URL hacks with stats.grok.se, removing month to retrieve year total, and prepending json to get just the data (e.g http://stats.grok.se/json/en/2008/New_Zealand). XLerate (talk) 23:05, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Very out of date page

New Zealand Parliamentary Caucuses and MPs' responsibilities is a huge and very out of date page. It was out of date even before the election, now it is completely off.--Anon 10:59, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

It's probably worth retaining such a list for each parliament from now on, so I've moved that page to Caucuses and MPs' responsibilities in the 48th New Zealand Parliament. A bit of history digging will help determine at which date the snapshot was accurate. We can start the 49th parliament page once the house is sitting in December. Note that archived references (such as webcite.org) should be used for pages such as these, as the NZ Parliament website is updated as necessary. dramatic (talk) 20:56, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Yep, I think that's a good solution.--Anon 07:10, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Schools

It is pretty meaningless to many readers to say that "St Joseph's school is a co-educational integrated full primary (years 1-8) school with a decile rating of 6 and a roll of 248". Are their suitable pages to which we can link the terms integrated and decile rating? dramatic (talk) 00:40, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Add a glossary section to Education in New Zealand? XLerate (talk) 05:05, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm adding an explanation of these and similar terms to the List of schools in xxx, New Zealand-type lists as I work on them (it was a featured list requirement). Linking the terms in the locality articles (such as St Joseph's School, Waitara - not the same school as dramatic's example) would be nice. The article decile doesn't use quite the same definition as the New Zealand education system. Adding a glossary to a central article as XLerate suggests is tempting, but I'm not sure if there's a precedent to support such a move. We could add a explanatory note separate from the references. Since I generate the basic text for the school paragraphs using a Python script, modifying it to produce such notes would be trivial.-gadfium 08:10, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Education in New Zealand doesn't really discuss the nature of the integrated schools (a vast majority having been Catholic Church schools. Perhaps we also need Catholic education in New Zealand ? dramatic (talk) 10:22, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

The decile system is notable enough to get its own page, although I'm not sure what it should be called. There should also be a page on Catholic education in NZ, as it is easily distinct enough to be notable. --Helenalex (talk) 03:38, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Changes needed to New Zealand Monarchy articles

Does someone want to look at List of New Zealand monarchs? --Lawe (talk) 06:42, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Map sources

I have recently completed a draft of an article for a subject related to the south Wairarapa region. In order to illustrate it, I'd like to include a map, but it is not clear which map sources it is safe to use with Wikipedia. I have on previous occasions used OpenStreetMap, but can't in this case as it doesn't have any data on the Wairarapa district. Google Maps has obvious licensing issues.

A street-map style is preferrable, rather than aerial/satellite photography. Ideally, the map would include roads, railway lines, and place names. The ability to save an image of a map so I could annotate it before posting to Wikipedia would also be helpful.

Any ideas? – Matthew25187 (talk) 19:47, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Most maps used on Wikipedia are created specifically in photoshop or other graphics editing tools by Wikipedia users. The information conveyed in maps (e.g. the location of towns, roads etc.) is not copyrightable, so it is legitimate to trace a map from any online source so long as none of the source map appears in the final output. You would usually start with a base map already on [10]. Then the key is finding an information source map with the same projection as your base map. dramatic (talk) 21:28, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Is the WikiMiniAtlas map of any use?-gadfium 22:32, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Wiki Mini Atlas looks promising, but it is unfortunate that it can't zoom in more than 15x. I'll experiment with it to see if I can get what I need from it. Thanks. – Matthew25187 (talk) 00:11, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

In case anyone is interested, I ended up using WikiMiniAtlas for the map. The results can be seen at Martinborough Branch. - Matthew25187 (talk) 23:48, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for letting us know the result. I didn't see the map at first, until I realised it was in a collapsed section of the infobox.-gadfium 00:28, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Joining

Can anyone join? --Kingliam1 (talk) 02:24, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes. --Helenalex (talk) 03:09, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

First you have to pass the ritual hazing. Step one, of an indeterminate number of steps, you need to fix a spelling error in any article with a {{WikiProject New Zealand}} template on the talk page. :-)-gadfium 04:56, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

United Tribes of New Zealand

Not sure what to make of http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_Tribes_of_New_Zealand&diff=next&oldid=252702256. Suited to someone who better knows the ins and outs of Wikipedia's policies for citations etc. Lanma726 (talk) 22:25, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

One of the links given is dead, and the other is selling mortgagesairing grievences. The claim is obvious nonsense, so I've removed it and warned the user for vandalism.-gadfium 22:59, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

When organisations edit themselves

See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Companies_Office&diff=262841241&oldid=245768137 and note the author.

Having read WP:CONFLICT it seems that it is not strictly wrong for an organisation to edit an article on itself. A good example of something related to this is the Te Ara discussion.

The edit in question seems neutral. Does a welcome template exist that says something like "Welcome to Wikipedia, please be aware of our policies on conflict of interest" etc.?

Lanma726 (talk) 22:44, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

We do have such a template: {{uw-coi}}. If you don't believe there's a problem with the edits, I suggest just using one of the standard welcome messages instead - perhaps {{New Zealand welcome}}, and keeping the coi message in reserve. Quite possibly, this is the same editor as Companies Office (talk · contribs).-gadfium 00:56, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I've normally left a short note on the user talk page, please be aware of the WP:COI guideline. XLerate (talk) 02:55, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Google trend

Is this google trend trying to tell us something? --Geronimo20 (talk) 02:54, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

If I read it correctly, almost everyone who googles for "New Zealand" is from New Zealand. That suggests that they are trying to limit their search to local websites only. That the number searching for this term is declining indicates that people have realised that there's a "pages from New Zealand" radio button that they can use more effectively, or perhaps Google is more aggressive in redirecting people to google.co.nz (which has this radio button) from google.com (which doesn't) than in previous years.-gadfium 03:12, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there may be something in that. However, wouldn't the same argument then apply equally to other countries? If you look at other countries, none seem to trending up. Some are trending done with New Zealand, and some are remaining level. But none, that I could find, are trending down as precipitously as New Zealand. So there is still a question here. --Geronimo20 (talk) 05:16, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Interestingly, there seems to be no consistent trend in the number of searches for "nz" (which is what I tend to use to restrict my searches). -- Avenue (talk) 06:04, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia hit rates do not support the google trend. In Wikipedia itself, "New Zealand" hits increased 20 percent in the 12 months from Jan 2008 to Jan 2009. But I would query your assumption, Gadfium, that it is mainly New Zealander's that search on "New Zealand". --Geronimo20 (talk) 20:40, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Maybe I'm misreading the graph. Under "regions" it shows a list of ten countries, but only one has a blue bar of significant length. I thought that meant that almost all the queries for "New Zealand" came from that country. If I look for trends for some term not closely associated with any particular country, the bars in the region area show no single country predominating in the same way, and very loosely appear to reflect the countries with the largest proportions of (English-speaking) internet users.-gadfium 22:38, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Arrr, you're right. I wonder why people in Dunedin are so obsessed with googling "New Zealand". --Geronimo20 (talk) 23:03, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Milestone Announcements

All WikiProjects are invited to have their "milestone-reached" announcements automatically placed onto Wikipedia's announcements page. Milestones could include the number of FAs, GAs or articles covered by the project. No work need be done by the project themselves; they just need to provide some details when they sign up. A bot will do all of the hard work. Click here for more information or to sign your project up.

I thought this WikiProject might be interested. Ping me with any specific queries or leave them on the page linked to above. Thanks! - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 22:09, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Info resource - Stats NZ Yearbook

The New Zealand Official Yearbook 2008 (ISBN 978-1-86953-717-3) is now out in dead tree format. It is full of lovely info that can be added to WP. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 07:14, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Dialect?

Odd edits at William Leonard Williams ... can someone look and at my comments on the talk page first before deleting what may or may not be vandalism ? Victuallers (talk) 12:49, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Certainly looks like nonsense to me, and reverted accordingly. It doesn't look like the work of someone who has a very poor understanding of English grammar, as links were broken and they weren't just trying to change one sentence but altered much of the article. They also did the same sort of thing to multiple unrelated articles, which might indicate they used the "Random page" button to find targets.-gadfium 17:36, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Southern Latitude Convention

Google Maps may not be the best reason to change a Wikipedia article, but it doesn't seem to recognize a latitude formatted as -10°N; it just reads 10°N. A few of the New Zealand articles are thus placed on the map to the northwest of Hawaii. Further, I'm no expert on geography, but it does seem a little strange to refer to -10°N instead of simply 10°S. I've seen it both ways here.

From the standpoint of the amount of work involved, it might take less (and be good in the long run) to ask Google to upgrade their software to recognize the -10°N format, but should there be (or is there already) a standard here for latitude and longitude? Khakiandmauve (talk) 14:16, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Um, isn't it much simpler and more logical to write 10°S. Many people wouldn't understand how to apply the negative. dramatic (talk) 18:12, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Do you have a few examples to look at? Per {{coord}}, ought to be heading or minus, but not both. XLerate (talk) 00:06, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

For example, Reserve Bank of New Zealand. If you go here on Google Maps (zoomed in so there's hopefully only one Wikipedia link), you'll find a link to the Bank, but if you zoom out, you'll find it's located northwest of Hawaii. The coordinates for the bank given in on its page are -41.278814°N 174.77503°E. Similar for Lake Marian and Westfield Riccarton, for example. However, if you look at New Zealand, here, its link appears in the right spot. New Zealand's coordinates are given on its page as 41°17′S 174°27′E. Khakiandmauve (talk) 22:07, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Well I add a lot of coord templates, always using numbers only, since that's the format my locator tool uses. But if you accept -10N, do you also accept -10S (which becomes a double negative)? Confusion arises over whether the - sign is negating or duplicating the cardinal direction. dramatic (talk) 00:21, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry dramatic, agree with you 10S would be better. Wanted to ask Khakiandmauve for a few examples, are there some articles to fix up? The coord documentation shows three options:

1. Positive degree/minute/second with direction
2. Positive decimal with direction
3. Positive/negative decimal without direction

Latitude before longitude. XLerate (talk) 01:56, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the examples, so I've just changed those three and The Palms Shopping Centre by removing the negative and changing the direciton to S. Suggest raising this at Template talk:Coord, there are probably others in the southern hemisphere, I don't know if its an issue for E/W also. XLerate (talk) 00:47, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 06:09, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Portal:Roads

The World Roads Portal is at Peer Review, if any editors know of any articles, images, news items or DYKs which could be added to the Portal, please add them directly to the portal or contact ....SriMesh | talk 01:06, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

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Thanks. — Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:29, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

I think we should subscribe to this.-gadfium 19:20, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I can't see that it is likely to be controversial, so I've started the subscription process. The subpage Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand/Article alerts should be generated when the bot starts operating.-gadfium 19:34, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Scott Base

Hi! I put a question here about the name of the station. Can you help me? --Arcibel (talk) 22:56, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Historic photos

The Alexander Turnbull Library has placed some historic NZ photos on Flickr The Commons with no known copyright restrictions. Very easy to upload to commons using the Flickr tools. Gwinva (talk) 23:42, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Note that there's a discussion on the correct license at the Commons Vilalge Pump. dramatic (talk) 05:55, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, Dramatic. Any new images can be added to commons:Category:Images from the New Zealand National Library. Gwinva (talk) 22:26, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Tagging of articles by NZ editor

I have become concerned recently by the edits of a New Zealand editor User:Wallie. He has been one of the parties involved in an edit war on Talk:Phar Lap. I was also concerned when he attached the WP:NZ tag to two Australian horse races - Talk:Caulfield_Cup and Talk:Cox_Plate. Further checking of his edits show the following have also been tagged WP:NZ :

• Talk:Nelson_Mandela - already been removed
• Talk:Charles,_Prince_of_Wales - rollback
• Talk:Duke_of_Edinburgh - rollback
• Talk:Bill_Clinton - already been removed
• Talk:Victoria_of_the_United_Kingdom - probably appropriate, she was monarch for the first 60 years of European settlement and is a primary party to Te Tiriti a Waitangi
• Talk:Winston_Churchill - rollback
• Talk:Elizabeth_II_of_the_United_Kingdom - probably appropriate, is tagged for most major Commonwealth countries.
• Talk:Diana,_Princess_of_Wales - I've removed it.

If this continues it will create a lot of work in reverting his inapropriate edits. Could someone from the project please have a word with him, or check all his recent edits and remove the WP:NZ tags. Cuddy Wifter (talk) 04:26, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks - I've taken action on most of these as noted above. dramatic (talk) 05:55, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

2009 in New Zealand

Apparently nothing has happened this year! Does anyone have time to give this page some love and at least add the major news stories (prefereably sourced from the NZ Herald, as their stories don't disappear like Stuff ones). (I only tend to catch up with the news a couple of times a week). dramatic (talk) 03:48, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

File:Swine Flu map NZ.PNG

File:Swine Flu map NZ.PNG has been nominated for speedy deletion. 76.66.202.139 (talk) 05:11, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Understandable. No source, vague, adds practically nothing to the understanding of the subject, and will be out of date almost immediately. DerbyCountyinNZ 05:23, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

All the other maps are constantly updated. 76.66.202.139 (talk) 05:53, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

The page was deleted but has been recreated. I am not sure whether the map is needed or not. If we get a 2009 swine flu outbreak in New Zealand article the map would be justified. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 05:24, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

As the MOH has ceased providing detailed geographic information as of update 17, the map is now out of date and I can't see how it can be kept up to date. In particular we don't know where the 4th confirmed case is.Hawthorn (talk) 09:03, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

And it's still practically meaningless! DerbyCountyinNZ 11:01, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

This is an utterly charming map. Please retain this quaint twaddle, based on a sample of 4. I hope the author is an authentic kiwi, so this can stand as a magnificent example of kiwi willingness to stand fast in the face of all adversary. If the author is not a kiwi, then delete the bloody thing. --Geronimo20 (talk) 12:31, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Dead WikiProject

Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand places appears to be totally moribund - only one non-vandalism-related edit to the main page in the last year, and no talk page edits (other than this one, which I'm crossposting) in almost two years. Should it be rolled into Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand, either totally or as a working party subtopic? Grutness...wha? 01:50, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Support - I do a moderate amount of work on NZ place articles (improvement, coords, etc. but I always think I am working as part of WPNZ not the other one. dramatic (talk) 01:59, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

What value is there to having subprojects or working party subtopics for WPNZ? Would it be to collaborate with other wikiprojects? Is it an advantage for a subproject to have its own assessment template, as a method of driving quality improvements for articles in its scope, as the Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/New Zealand cinema task force does? I see that there are numerous subprojects under WP:WikiProject Australia but if we were to set up similar structures I imagine the same few editors would be members of most of them.

I would consider myself mainly involved in New Zealand geographical articles, but as with dramatic I've always thought of this as part of WPNZ rather than a New Zealand places subgroup.-gadfium 02:25, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually there's a major technical flaw with subprojects: The assessment templates are NOT independent, so when I tried ranking the importance of films in a NZ context for the NZ task force of the Film project, it messed with importances project-wide. dramatic (talk) 10:11, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I support the merge too. I would join a subproject on NZ places if it was created, but I don't see much need to hive it off. -- Avenue (talk) 02:41, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposal for a 200-WikiProject contest

A proposal has been posted for a contest between all 200 country WikiProjects. We're looking for judges, coordinators, ideas, and feedback.

The Transhumanist 00:39, 19 May 2009 (UTC)