Talk:Te Papa

How about a controversy section?

I'm wondering if there's enough content here to split off a controversy section. (I might just do this anyway, come to think of it, to see how it goes.) It wouldn't seem complete without some notes about the Virgin In a Condom controversy a few years ago, which had people arguing very noisily about the museum's principles. Would anyone be keen on perhaps researching and writing a bit about this, even if it's just a paragraph? I wasn't really taking enough notice of things at the time to be able to back myself to do it accurately without lots of work. Izogi 06:33, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I think its much better if the controversies are dealt with in the body of the article, rather than being split off into a separate section. I think the article should be primarily along historic lines, with a section on the site including the earthquake risk and strengthening, the Museum Hotel de Wheels and the opening, and then an "Exhibits and Conferences" section including the controversies over individual exhibits or meetings. There should be some praise mixed in - surely Te Papa has achieved some firsts for New Zealand.-gadfium 09:11, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

History

The article states that the museum was opened in 1998 - but ignores its previous history completely which goes back over a century (and was once known as the Doominion Museum). Sabine's Sunbird talk 23:56, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

The building

We need more on the building itself. It is weird looking. Who designed it?

Matt (talk) 09:18, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I removed the information about "Fletcher Construction", seems to be kind of an advertisment. It's quite unusual for an article about a museum to name the construction company. Therefore: architect. There probably should be an article about Jasmax Architects or at least Ivan Mercep.

88.67.90.14 (talk) 13:48, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I see no reason why the article shouldn't mention both the architects and the builders. I've changed the references to go to pages that actually mention these companies involvement in Te Papa rather than to their home pages.-gadfium 20:34, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Ok, but there should rather be an article about Jasmax and Fletcher on Wikipedia. Tofail (talk) 13:40, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

'No consensus to move. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:34, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa → Te Papa — WP:AT outlines conventions for naming article titles. The current title doesn't comply with that at all. Everybody knows the museum as Te Papa, as the lead acknowledges, and that should be its title. Schwede66 19:43, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

• Te Papa → Te Papa (disambiguation)

• Oppose Move - The evidence does not support use of WP:COMMONNAME, given that: "Te Papa" -> 2.1 million ghits. "Museum of New Zealand Te Papa" -> 934,000 ghits, "Te Papa" -"Museum of New Zealand" -> 710,000 ghits. Given that the last clearly includes results which do not refer to the museum (e.g. Te Papa Atawhai), there is greater usage online of the full name than the abbreviated. I agree that "Te Papa" is definitely used colloquially by most New Zealanders (after all, the full name is a real mouthful), but it is also completely menaingless to readers unfamiliar with New Zealand, whereas the full/official name provides useful context, and context should be given weight in article title considerations. The Te Papa redirect should definitely be retained, as should those at Museum of New Zealand and Te Papa Tongarewa. dramatic (talk) 08:58, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

• Comment - I have to admit that I can't fully follow your logic, Dramatic. I'm not saying that you are wrong, but what I'm saying is that I don't quite understand what you say. Would you concur that the existing name is rather clumsy, by the mere fact of its length? I would also suggest that the name "Te Papa" is much more widely known than "Tongarewa", as evidenced by this Googlefight. Hence, wouldn't this support that the article name ought to change? Also, it may be relevant to note that Te Papa has a rather large website. Restricting a Google search to their website, "Museum of New Zealand Te Papa" has 118,000 hits. Schwede66 00:26, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok - I first searched for the exact phrase "Te Papa" - getting 2.1 million hits, many of which included "Museum of New Zealand".

Then I searched for "Museum of New Zealand Te Papa" (being part of the official name) - getting 934,000. [1]

Lastly I searched for pages WITH "Te Papa" but WITHOUT "Museum of New Zealand". If Te Papa was truly the most common name, it should get more hits, but it doesn't, and some of what it does get clearly do not relate to the museum.

I concluded that even though "Te Papa" on its own is fairly popular, the official name is more widely used online. And even if you subtract 118,000 pages as being the museum's own site, that doesn't make a big dent in the figures.

[1] On a totally bizarre note, if I add "Tongarewa" to the second search, the results jump to 5 million. I don't see how a more-specific search can get more hits than a less-specific one.

I think we can regard the Māori and English parts of the official name as being akin to alternative names for New Zealand places - either one will suffice to be used, but both should be used in official documents. You may recall that prior to the construction of the museum (and it's branding) it was known as Museum of New Zealand and often referred to as MONZ.

And I reiterate - what does "Te Papa" on its own mean to a non-New Zealander? A name which provides context is an aid to understanding. dramatic (talk) 09:51, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

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Mistranslation and other name issues?

Several things:

1. It doesn't seem to be linguistically plausible that Te Papa means 'Our Place' yet Te Papa Tongarewa translates literally to 'Container of Treasures'.
2. The claim "A fuller interpretation is ‘our container of treasured things and people that spring from mother earth here in New Zealand’." appears to be either original research, or a non-credible aggrandizing claim copy-pasted from marketing materials. It's not linguistically plausible that a phrase that short encodes that much detail.
3. The exact string "Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa" looks to be a mishmash, both an English name and a non-English one run together, like "Mexico City Ciudad México". We do not title articles this way, but use the WP:COMMONNAME in English sources by default (this is usually the WP:USEENGLISH name, but there are exceptions, and the previous RM suggests this probably is one; "officialese" names in English like "Museum of New Zealand" are not always the most common name).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:35, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 17 September 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: (non-admin closure) MOVED to Te Papa. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 20:58, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

The article says Usually known as Te Papa, and consensus here agrees that the shorter name is the common name. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 20:58, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

---

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa → Te Papa – Move to common name, reverting an erroneous move from 2006. — HTGS (talk) 22:53, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 12:56, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

• @HTGS: Discussion in Talk:Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa decided "do not move". Anthony Appleyard (talk) 12:58, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
• Support I initiated the exact same move request 11 years ago (see above). It’s still the common name and should thus be the article title. Schwede66 18:22, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
• Comment. Thanks Anthony Appleyard, I clearly missed that previous rm (I swear I usually do better due diligence than that!).

Schwede66, I also find that argument about Google hits a weird one. Even if you assume that “Te Papa” minus “museum of New Zealand” included nothing of the museum, you could surely subtract that number from “Te Papa” results to get 1.3m hits, which is still more than the number of results for the full name. Anyway, hopefully we get it right this time. — HTGS (talk) 21:00, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

• Support As above. Common name. Everyone knows it as Te Papa. ShakyIsles (talk) 10:11, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
• Support per other users, Te Papa is definitely the most common usage by a large margin. Turnagra (talk) 02:55, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
• Support By far the most common name in reliable sources. Of course the full official name would be used in the lead, but it can be referred to as Te Papa everywhere else. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 05:27, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
• Support The most common name. A strange feeling to be alongside almost all the usual suspects and I've no government subsidy. Eddaido (talk) 09:35, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

COVID-19 under Controversies?

I don't understand why closing the Museum for two days for cleaning following a visitor attending with COVID-19 would be a controversy. Such was standard practice at the time and there is certainly no indication of it being controversial in the linked NZ Herald article. In fact, I query the need to even mention it in this article. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 04:40, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Feel free to remove it.-gadfium 05:10, 25 January 2024 (UTC)