Wikipedia:Meetup/Wellington/2016 Edit-a-thon

What's it about?

An Edit-a-thon is an all-day attempt to improve Wikipedia's coverage of a particular topic. Led by an experienced Wikipedia editor, participants learn to create and edit pages, correct mistakes, add references, and upload photos. Complete beginners are welcome; training and troubleshooting is provided. This edit-a-thon is being hosted by the Friends of Te Papa, and will focus on adding New Zealand plant and animal species to Wikipedia.

When and where

Sunday 29 May, 2016
10:00–17:00 NZST
Te Aka Matua Reading Room, lvl 4 mezzanine, Te Papa, Wellington, New Zealand. Take the stairs behind the enormous hanging Treaty of Waitangi to get to the mezzanine.
Participants from anywhere in the world are welcome to join in remotely, using #NZspecies in tweets and edit summaries (Wikipedia can search for the #NZspecies hashtag now).

Timetable

10:00: Meet and greet, setup, account creation if needed
10:15–12:00: Intro: how to create and edit species articles on Wikipedia. This will be live-streamed on Periscope (get the app from Periscope site, or watch via @adzebill's twitter feed; Link to Periscope broadcast).
Lunch break (Level 4 Espresso cafe is nearby)
12:30–17:00: Wikipedia editing. Our goal is to beginners to create stub articles on New Zealand species, and to improve existing species pages. Experienced Wikipedia editors will be available to help and troubleshoot.

What to bring

Laptop and power cord. Te Papa has free wifi.
Any snacks and drink you want.
Spare name tag or lanyard if you have one (we'll have extras), with your name and Wikipedia username.
Any books, journals, magazine or newspaper articles relevant to pages you're interested in. Te Papa's library has made sure there will be a selection of reference books on NZ flora and fauna available.
Photos you've taken that could illustrate species articles; you'll learn how to donate these to the Commons so other Wikipedia articles can use them.

How to sign up

The Edit-a-thon is free and open to all; we would love you to register and make a commitment to coming, so we can make sure the venue will house everybody. Book at the Friends of Te Papa site; both members and non-members of the Friends are welcome.

Preparation

If you're coming, try to create a Wikipedia account beforehand: don't wait until the day to do it! Here's a form you can use. Creating an account make editing much easier (here's more info on why you should). You'll need to pick a "handle" for your username; you could use your real name, but it's nice to have the option to be a bit anonymous if you want. See the list of attendees below for the format.
Read up on Wikipedia: there are lots of tutorials, like the Wikipedia Adventure, and useful guides, like the Editing Wikipedia brochure.
Have a think about any species you'd like to work on. Check to see if their pages exist yet, and if they do look for any obvious mistakes or problems. Maybe even do a little research first so you're prepared. You don't have to be an expert; anyone who can do library research and write clearly can contribute to Wikipedia. The best candidates for Wikipedia articles are species that are notable in some way: that is, they're mentioned in print in various places, especially in news stories, textbooks, or magazine articles.

Some notable species that need articles

Extinct mistletoe Trilepidea adamsii, and some other extinct New Zealand plants
Marine spider Desis marina done
Newly-described stick insect Clitarchus rakauwhakanekeneke done
Tepakiphasma, and in fact all the NZ stick insects seem to be in a pretty dire state, worthy of an edit-a-thon in themselves.
The caddisfly Edpercivalia harrisoni
The giant fossil oyster Crassostrea ingens, with GNS illustration if possible done
The self-introduced ant Amblyopone australis, perhaps referencing Warwick Don's book. done
Species depicted in the images that Auckland Museum has made available here.
A list of a variety of New Zealand plant species discussed in Flora of New Zealand and illustrated by Matilda Smith
New Zealand cicada species in the following genera: Maoricicada, Amphipsalta, Kikihia and Rhodopsalta [1]
Weevils in the genus Didymus
New Zealand endemic species listed in the Department of Conservation NZ Threat Classification Lists
Solanderia ericopsis (and other Solanderia), recently highlighted in NIWA's Critter of the Week blog done
How is it that not a single species of tree wētā (genus Hemideina) has a Wikipedia page?
Freshwater invertebrate indicator species
Missing Coccinellidae of New Zealand (Wikipedia category) articles, as a result of this recent sighting in Auckland of invasive ladybird species
Two native mushrooms now endangered and in IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Radio New Zealand story on 7 May 2016 http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/303302/two-native-mushrooms-now-endangered links to the red list pages. Relevant wikipedia pages: Boletopsis nothofagi and Claustula. There's not a lot written about Claustula fischeri. Perhaps content can be found via references listed in the IUCN page on Claustula fischeri. www.iucnredlist.org.

Other editing tasks

New Zealand skink articles. Practising or aspiring herpetologists to the bridge! Cyclodina spp. have been merged into the Oligosoma genus, following a 2009 molecular phylogenetics study; articles could do with a spring-clean and some CC images.
New Zealand freshwater fish. There are pages for all of the species but most are brief, uninformative stubs.

Useful links

How to create a species stub article in Wikipedia: notes for this editathon
Editing Wikipedia Species Articles guide (aimed at students, but still useful)
How to edit pages using the Visual Editor: for when you click Edit
Google spreadsheet of Illustrations of the New Zealand Flora in the Biology Heritage Library's Flickr Album
Information about Creative Commons, Wikimedia Commons, and crowdsourced photos, harrychapman.nz

Media

"New Zealand's Wikipedia Edit-a-thon" on RNZ Afternoons 19 May 2016
Journalists: use the URL http://bit.ly/NZspecies in print; it'll take people to this page. (Note: bit.ly URLs are case sensitive.)
PDF of the flier
Shareable web graphic version of the flier
There's a public Facebook event you can share

Attended

Giantflightlessbirds (organiser)
Ambrosia10 (organiser)
StellaMcQ (native fish geek)
ParquetParquet
Ballofstring (until about 2pm)
User:Stuartyeates
ReedWade
Thorium90
Grayfion
Tanifa
Stephenhartley (ecologist, VUW)
Emilyc15 (paleontology, marine)
Oxlennon (PhD student VUW)
Pohutukawa63 (Tree Geek)
Xylvy
Arapawa

Attended remotely

Ejo33 – along withsome other students from the UC Marine Ecology Research Group!
Icey28
TFostBio
Troutpout
Valerovi4
Islandbaygardener
Markanderson72

Outcomes

The meetup was a great success, although the wifi was a little dodgy. We certainly appreciated the reference books from Te Papa, and the more-experienced Wikipedians who showed up to help the newbies. Thank you all! Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 06:04, 2 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]