Event:Meetup/Christchurch/48

 

Useful links

• Join the Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand user group – only $5!
• Wikipedia Aotearoa New Zealand on Facebook
• Wikiproject New Zealand in Wikipedia and Wikidata
• New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board
• We also have a Telegram group: search for "Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand"

The Ōtautahi Christchurch monthly meetups are a chance for Wiki people (Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, Wikisource, and so on) to get together, get advice, get collaborations started. Everybody's welcome, beginners or experienced.

• Scoundrel • 375 St Asaph St, Central Christchurch (map)
• Saturday, 15 August 2026
• 10 am–midday

Venue

Exterior of Scoundrel

Scoundrel is a bar and eatery on St Asaph Street. We will have booked a table under the name "Wikipedia".

• If driving, St Asaph is a one-way street so you need to approach from Fitzgerald Avenue (to the east).
• If biking, there are fixed bike hoops just down the road outside Space Academy and ordinary "wheel-bender" racks by the front door of Scoundrel.
• If taking the bus, most of the east<->west routes go nearby including the 3 and the 80. Otherwise the Bus Interchange is a 15 minute walk away.
• WiFi password is beans375 for Scoundrel Customers

Attendees

Add your Wikipedia username if you have one. Tip: in Source editing, you can just type asterisk-space-three tildes (* ~~~)

• Giantflightlessbirds (talk)
• Ratso56 (talk)
• Sameeenz (talk)
• Farakamba

Apologies

• David Palmer//cloventt ^(talk)
• ChristchurchHistorian (talk)

What have we been up to?

Edit with VisualEditor

• 

  PDF of Wikifying a Conference

  Giantflightlessbirds: Since the last meeting two months ago I've been representing WANZ at the Science Communicators of Aotearoa NZ conference here, and the NZ Archaeological Association conference in Kaikōura. I also staffed the Wikipedia table at the Dunedin Science Festival and gave a talk on "How to Vandalise Wikipedia". The little book DrThneed and I wrote, Wikifying a Conference, has been printed and is also available on Commons. I had a weekend in Geraldine, took some photos, improved the Geraldine article a little, and created new articles on the Geraldine Cinema and the Vicarage Geraldine. Met with the Scorpio Books team to go over the article, and took photos / created Wikidata of the Custard Square Bookshop in prep for an article.
• ChristchurchHistorian: General editing and adding things to 2026 in New Zealand. Tidied up Christchurch Northern Motorway, which had a out-of-date information and a big chunk of text in the opening that someone had drafted and not finished off from April 2021! Added 50 photos of Olveston House, Dunedin to Commons and added some to its page. Created page for the 55th New Zealand Parliament.

• Fantastic improvement to the motorway article! You could probably get that through to GA. David Palmer//cloventt ^(talk) 22:00, 14 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Thank you very much! There are still a few things I need to fix in it, such as the table and a reference needing its title added - small things really. How would the GA process work? I haven't done this before. - CH
    • You could definitely find some folks to help with that at the Aotearoa Online Meetup (the next is tomorrow, Sun 16th). —Giantflightlessbirds

• David Palmer//cloventt ^(talk): I am sad to report I have done no wiki work lately due to other commitments getting in the way. However, I am currently up in Auckland for the WANZ strategy weekend so I feel the tide is turning on that.
• Sameeeenz has been adding racing car numbers to the 1953 Lady Wigram Trophy.
• ratos56 Not doing much, but discovered https://www.govdirectory.org/new-zealand/ recently...

Upcoming events

• Mike will have a desk at Ōtautahi Zine Fest on Sun 6 September, with a selection of Wikizines.

Outcomes and tips

• WikiProject Philippine historical markers, documenting 1500 historical markers for 10 years
• NZ History has a CC licence for text, but the images like this one are copyrighted to individual photographers
• Report: Unlocking New Zealand’s environmental information (July 2026), Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment: https://pce.parliament.nz/publications/unlocking-new-zealands-environmental-information/
• Great suggestion from Ratso56 for a sequel to Wikifying a Conference: Wikifying an Exhibition.
• Interesting discussion of the effect of badly-bahaved bots ignoring the gentlemen's agreement of robots.txt and overhelming websites with 429 errors, with no human supervision. Cloudflare is paid to protect the sites, but then also charges the bot-senders for access, making money with both hands.
• Mike to talk to Tuakiri about a possible Books of Mana event on Sunday 20 Sept.
• List of different types of images that can be added to a Wikidata item from Wellington WikiCon talk

Next meetups

• Sunday 13 September 2026
• We may look for a different venue, as Scoundrel is getting crowded and noisy, at least on a Saturday.