Talk:Ashburton, New Zealand

Ashvegas nickname

Does anybody have a better idea of how to get this sentence a little more objective, and backed up?

Italic textA common nickname for Ashburton is 'Ashvegas', an ironic allusion to Las Vegas. This may be due to the perceived respectability, and conservatism of the residents, and the notable lack of nightlife within the town, coupled with it being the bright lights in the middle of the desert (Las Vegas) or plains (Ashburton).Italic text

It seems reasonably self-evident that it is alluding to Las Vegas, unless there's some other reasonable explanation I'm missing. The exact origin of slang terms is always hard to nail down. However, inasmuchas the "-vegas" town-naming phenomenon, tends to apply to smaller towns, it is presumably ironic, and referring to a lack of nightlife. It's the kind of thing that might turn up in the next Dictionary of New Zealand English, but I'm not sure they'll be much in the way of 'objective' evidence until then.Limegreen 09:39, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

The reason behind the AshVegas name, was a result of the Licencing Trust that had total control over what time bars could close, this was usually 10pm.

Ashburton got this name because of its distinct LACK of nightlife under the rule of the ALT. Trumpy (talk) 09:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC)]

The current relevant statement, "'Ashvegas', Ashburton's common nickname, is an ironic allusion to Las Vegas," might be fine, but neglects the 'lack of night-life' idea.

I think it's worth noting that irony is not universal, and that sometimes it's worth spelling something out in full, particularly if the writing can reveal something of the local culture. We may agree Kiwis get irony, and I know little towns in NZ can have limited night life (I grew up in Southland). However, many readers won't get irony, and/or have limited English; Wikipedia needs to serve international audiences.

Would you believe the tourist who wrote the following? "[It] turns out that there are a few bright nightlife spots that give the town a glow similar to the glow of the Vegas oasis in the desert." Was he being ironic? wcrosbie (talk), Melbourne, Australia 12:05, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

References

Mid Canterbury

I'm concerned about the use of 'main town of Mid Canterbury'. Ashburton is the third largest centre in Canterbury, as specified in the article. However, there is no official place as 'mid Canterbury'. Christchurch lies in 'mid' Canterbury in terms of geographical location. There is no district called mid-Canterbury. Ashburton is in the Ashburton district. The article is then saying that Ashburton is the main town of an area that doesn't exist in local body politics and named for a place where geographically it isn't situated. Like I say, Ashburton is the third largest centre in Canterbury - isn't that enough? As for Central Otago, that's the name of a district council, a politically defined local body.Enzedbrit 20:05, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

By "official", I assume you mean territorial authority? And that the "Ashburton District" sports teams/organisations (e.g., [1]); Red Cross branch, and most of the locals calling it Mid Canterbury is unofficial? Any Cantabrian knows that Christchurch is not in Mid Canterbury (and that Ashburton is). Mid Canterbury is good enough for Te Ara [2]. Government agencies know about Mid Canterbury as well [3]. --Limegreen 21:27, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

True that Cantabrians know that, but the article doesn't express that and Wikipedia is written for humanity and not just Cantabs. It's true too that people refer to the area as 'mid Canterbury' but it doesn't exist as an official area. I say official and I should be saying governmental/governable, legal, political, statistical. A colloquial name for a region might exist but now it's been identified further by the inclusion of Ashburton as the 'largest town' of this area. I think that a solution would be to say that the area around Ashburton is known locally as mid-Canterbury. As Ashburton is already listed as the third largest urban area in Canterbury, the fact that it is the largest in this area doesn't need to be mentioned as it stands to reason that this should be the case. The Ashburton district is a recognised local body which to me makes it an official term, but otherwise, mid-Canterbury should be identified that this is the name given to the area by locals. Those who don't know New Zealand should be given insight into why we call things what we call them, but at the same time, we don't need to over simplify. Enzedbrit 08:01, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is written for humanity and not just Cantabs.

I'd turn that logic on its head, and say that is precisely why it should be in there. The purpose of an encyclopaedia is to provide information (presumably beyond what you had previously). Point of fact, the New Zealand Oxford Dictionary describes Ashburton as serving Mid Canterbury. You're quite correct that the current wording is clumsy, and saying that the Ashburton District can be referred to as Mid Canterbury is clearer than the present. --Limegreen 10:09, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that we've reached a good compromise! Enzedbrit 06:55, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Enzedbrit, have you heard of the terms North Canterbury (Rangiora and such places), Central Canterbury (Christchurch, et al), Mid Canterbury (Ashburton), South Canterbury (Timaru)? Trumpy (talk) 09:39, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Retsaot Island

"In January 2007, a small island in the lake at Ashburton Domain was claimed as part of micronation the Aerican Empire, and named Retsaot Island. Evidence of this can be found at the official Aerican Empire website." This is a well-documented and significant fact, but it has thrice been deleted from the Ashburton page without any discussion whatsoever. The Aerican Empire is one of the best-known and most well-established micronations on earth, and the fact that they have a 'colony' in Ashburton is of significance, as this is the case in only a very few places worldwide. If anyone disputes this significance, at least please discuss it, rather than just deleting with a short "rm nonsense" note.

The micronation is completely irrelevant to Ashburton. Wikipedia is not for such silliness. In particular, you appear to be attempting to use Wikipedia for self-promotion. Do not add such material again.-gadfium 18:40, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Never heard of it and I've been here 15 years, what rubbish. Trumpy (talk) 09:42, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Should not have district page redirecting to it

The town is not the same as the district; they should have separate articles. Rakaia and Methven and Mount Hutt and Mount Somers are not in Ashburton. (Not the only town and district pair in NZ to have that unencyclopaedic error, of course.) Robin Patterson (talk) 04:22, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Suggestions for additional content

Great work on the recent expansion of this article. It is close to B class (or perhaps might be a candidate for GA nomination soon). However, I suggest that a bit more content is added.

1. The economy of the town. The existing content under the heading Agriculture is mostly about the region, not the town, and doesn't tell the story of the significant businesses in Ashburton that service the rural sector. The existing content provides useful context, but it would be great to have something about the industries and employment in Ashburton. Here are some possible sources: [4], [5].
2. The history needs filling in. There is minimal content between the 1920's and 2020. Hopefully there are published works giving some of the history, such as the casualties in WWII of people from Ashburton, and events that would have made national news. One item from the past decade that should be included is the 1 September 2014 shotgun murders of two workers at the WINZ office. Fortunately, this kind of crime is rare in New Zealand, and it received a lot of news coverage. The offender received the third longest sentence on record. Here is one source: [6]

Marshelec (talk) 05:16, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Suburbs

I'm working on the demographics of the Ashburton District and will be tackling the city in the next few days. There's a list of the statistical areas at Ashburton, New Zealand#Demographics, and a map can be found at statsnz - tick the "Statistical areas" box on the right and zoom in.

I plan to added the demographics from the three Allenton statistical areas into the existing article on Allenton, New Zealand and the two Tinwald statistical areas into Tinwald, New Zealand. Ashburton Central has its own statistical area (which includes Ashburton Domain). Netherby and Hampstead have their own statistical areas, and I can write articles on them if that seems worth doing.

I'm a bit confused about what to do with the statistical areas of Ashburton North, East and West, which are not contiguous with each other. Are these three suburbs, or are any of them a part of an adjoining suburb, e.g. Ashburton West with Allenton, Ashburton East with either Hampstead or Netherby, and Ashburton North with Allenton or Netherby. I have no local knowledge, but my gut tells me Ashburton North is a "semi-rural" suburb and shouldn't be combined with any other. I see that Ashburton West has a much older population average than the other suburbs; is there a major rest home in the area distorting the statistics?

I also plan to redistribute the school information to the suburb articles, but I won't do this if anyone objects.-gadfium 04:27, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

@Gadfium: Thanks for looking into this. The boundaries of the statistical regions are a little odd ! While I have contributed towards the Ashburton, New Zealand article recently, it had escaped my notice that there were separate stub articles for Allenton and Tinwald !! The main article is currently written with a reasonably broad scope, with content that covers Tinwald, Allenton (and also locations some distance from the town centre, such as Fairton). The article also contains some content about the wider Ashburton District - particularly in relation to economic activity. Given the modest size of the town, I think that the present scope of the Ashburton, New Zealand is reasonable. It provides a good overview of the town as a whole, and sets it in the context of the district.

As an example, I think it is helpful to have a listing of all the schools in one article - distributing them to separate articles doesn't seem to add a lot of value. Splitting out existing content by suburb would have implications for topic areas other than schooling. (As examples, the Ashburton racecourse and airport are in the Ashburton North region - but moving the relevant content out from the main article is not helpful for readers, so it would need to be duplicated.) My inclination is to retain the overall integration that the present article provides. Developing new articles for each of the remaining named suburbs is clearly possible, but may add relatively little value. Is there a way of presenting summary level demographic information about the suburbs in the main article that would show basic information for each suburb, and leave it at that ?. If demographic information has been systematically added to separate articles for suburbs/statistical areas in all/most other places, then it may be best to proceed - for the sake of consistency - and create new stub articles for each of the remaining statistical areas. If this is the chosen approach, I still think that the scope of the existing main article should be retained, with only limited information distributed to suburb articles (particularly given the odd boundaries) Marshelec (talk) 06:29, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

@Marshelec: I agree that the statistical area boundaries are not always what I would expect. I sometimes refer to the Fire & Emergency boundaries as a more rational way of determining suburbs.

I am happy to leave the school information in the Ashburton article, although I will remove Wakanui School because that's clearly not a city school and is dealt with at Wakanui. I will add demographics to Allenton and Tinwald articles as above, and add infoboxes to them, but not move information out of the Ashburton article to those articles. I will slightly expand the demographics for Ashburton, keeping a slightly modified version of the table of statistical areas. I will also expand the Ashburton District article adding a table of the demographics of each ward.-gadfium 08:19, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

I've now finished working on the Ashburton town and district. If you want any changes to the demographics, feel free to ask me. If you want to change anything I've done, feel free to go ahead.-gadfium 04:00, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Ready for Good Article nomination

@Wildman NZ: You have made great contributions to this article over the past year. I think it is ready for being nominated for Good Article status. Are you interested in following up on this? It does take work to respond to points raised in the review process, but can be really satisfying, and definitely helps to improve the article even further. Here is the link to the page for nominations: Wikipedia:Good_article_nominations It would probably be best for you to be the nominator, but I could chip in to help with any improvements that are suggested.Marshelec (talk) 03:33, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Marshelec, great idea. Article's looking good, but the lead is way too short for a GA. Schwede66 04:36, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Peter Lynn is a notable Ashburton person, can someone add him?

Peter Lynn would be a good addition to the notable person section. He has lived and made his wonderful kites and other inventions in Ashburton for many years. Would someone familiar with editing the page consider adding him - he already has a Wikipedia page BarryRJackson (talk) 16:24, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Thank you Schwede66 for making the change so quickly . I am just learning how to use editing etc, I can't yet work out how to thank someone directly so I do so publicly! BarryRJackson (talk) 18:50, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

You are welcome. Schwede66 19:00, 16 June 2023 (UTC)