Wikipedia:WikiCon Aotearoa/Auckland 2024

WikiCon Auckland 2024 was held in Auckland on the weekend of 23–24 March 2024.

The conference was organised by a sub committee of Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand. Check out that page for more information about our affiliate.

Report and retro

The organisers are writing a report reflecting on the successes and areas of improvement for next time. This will be linked to shortly.

Aims

The aims of the WikiCon Auckland 2024 were to:

encourage new editors to join the Wikiverse
develop the skills of editors of Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikisource and Wikimedia Commons
encourage the development of a regular meetup for interested editors located in Auckland.
continue to support Auckland Museum in their wikimedia activities.
expand knowledge about Wikimedia Foundation and its platforms (Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons etc) and the editing skills required into underrepresented communities – women, Māori, Pasifika
encourage attendees to join and become members of Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand and inform editors about funding opportunities for members, up coming activities, and strategy
have some fun and get to know one another better!

Auckland CBD viewed from the summit of Mount Eden, including the boardwalk, by James Shih. CC BY SA 4.0

Registration and venue

This is the link to register for the event at our ticket provider Humanitix

Please note there is a $NZ10 booking fee for the event. The organising group will be applying for funding to cover the catering and other costs and keep the conference affordable. The cost of the Conference dinner is not included in registration.

Presentations and workshops will be held in two classrooms at the Auckland University of Technology, WG801, Sir Paul Reeves WG Building, 2 Governor Fitzroy Place, Auckland CBD, Auckland 1010.

Conference Dashboard and Online chat channel

Conference Dashboard: Those editors attending are welcome to join the Dashboard for the event so edits undertaken during the conference can be tracked.

Conference chat platform: A Telegram group has been set up so Wikipedians can chat and share information. The Telegram Group name is WANZ WikiCon. Group can be found at https://www.t.me/WANZwikicon.

Programme

The feedback from WikiCon Auckland 2021 showed that attendees were happy with the balance between presentations and editing practice and training so this approach formed the basis of the programme.

Friday, 22 March 2024 Preconference Dinner – cost of dinner not included in event registration

Attendees met for an informal dinner.

When: 7pm – 9.30pm
Where: The Good Luck Coconut, 39 Jellicoe Street, Wynyard Quarter, North Wharf, Auckland CBD
Table name: Wikipedia

There is a booking for 10. If you are intending to join us please add your user name below by Monday 18 March 2024 so we can inform the restaurant of final numbers.

Attending

Einebillion (talk)
DrThneed (talk) 21:35, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Schwede 66
Avocadobabygirl (talk)
Paora (talk)
Catsandthings (talk)
Peter0027 (talk)
Hs17127 (talk)

Saturday, 23 March 2024

we are underway!

8.30am Arrival and set up in rooms

9.00 am Mihi Whakatau and welcome by Watene Nepe, AUT and Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand representatives including Health & Safety briefing (30 min). The waiata we will be singing is Te Aroha which can be listened to and learned using this link.
9.30 am Morning tea – catering provided and introductions / ice breaker (30 min)
10.00am Auckland Museum Summer Students "How we started editing Wikipedia and what we learnt? (30 min) Presenters: Hs17127, Summ23, Winnieswikiworld, Worldsgreatestmum

Presentation

10.30am An Introduction to Wikisource (45 min) Beeswaxcandle
11.15am An Introduction to Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons (45 min) Ambrosia10 and Avocadobabygirl

Presentation

12.30pm Lunch – catering provided (60 min)
1.30pm Concurrent Break out editing / info sharing sessions for refresher training, help answer questions, and review how to practically do the workflows (2hrs )

Beeswaxcandle leading a Wikisource for Newbies training session
DrThneed presenting an Open Refine workshop for beginners. Suitable for those that are already familiar with Wikidata. Data will be provided! You'll learn some basic cleaning steps for data (in this case a list of award winners), and how to match it Wikidata, build a schema and upload your edits to Wikidata. Please ensure you have downloaded OpenRefine and installed it on your computer. The Open Refine software can be downloaded from here https://openrefine.org/

3.00pm Afternoon tea – catering provided (30 min)
3.30pm Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand (30 min) Presenter: Einebillion

Includes

Group discussion about what those attending the WikiCon want from WANZ and how WANZ can help.

Presentation. Slides presentation

4.00pm close for the day and discussion on car pooling / sharing transport to the dinner.

Conference dinner – cost of dinner not included in event registration

7.00pm:

Venue: The Brit Pub and Eatery

Where: Britomart, 122 Quay Street, Auckland CBD

Menu: A range of hearty fare at reasonable prices

Notes: We have a booking for 20 people, please let us know if you would like to join us for dinner

List of those attending:

Einebillion (talk)
Giantflightlessbirds (talk)
DrThneed
Schwede 66
Avocadobabygirl (talk)
Stitchbird2 (talk)
Paora (talk)
Catsandthings (talk)
Peter0027 (talk)
Ambrosia10 (talk) +1 (lovely hubby is coming along too)
Marshelec (talk) 21:41, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sunday, 24 March 2024

Schwede66 presenting on Wikipedia's homepage while the homepage featured a video he was in during the weekend

From 8.30am Getting set up, tea and coffee (30 min)
9.00am Concurrent Break out editing / info sharing sessions for refresher training, help answer questions, and review how to practically do the workflows (1 hr 30 min )

General editing or Wikisource editing
Open Refine workshop for adding images to Wikimedia Commons (1.5hr) – Presenter DrThneed

A hands on session learning how to create a project using filepaths, scrape metadata for images, create Wikitext and structured data for Commons, upload images and SDC to Commons. If time permits we will learn how to extend data by checking which depicted people have Wikidata items with no images, and Wikipedia Pages to which images could be added. Images from the Hocken Collections will be used.

Please ensure you have downloaded OpenRefine and installed it on your computer. The Open Refine software can be downloaded from here https://openrefine.org/ Image files to work with will be provided.

Training course - https://learn.wiki/courses/course-v1:Wikimedia-Foundation+WMF_GLAM001+2023/about

Slides

Really handy site with lots of OpenRefine expression how-to https://github.com/OpenRefine/OpenRefine/wiki/Recipes

10.30am Morning tea – provided (30 minutes)
11.00am Presentation: How to be a Wikipedian At Large or Wikipedian In Residence. Presenter: Giantflightlessbirds (30 min) Slides
11.55pm Lightning Talk: The National Parks Project. Presenter: User:Marshelec (15 min) Slides

12.15pm Lunch – provided (60 min)

1.15pm Wikimedia Commons – An introduction to copyright. Presenter: Einebillion (45 min)

Presentation

2.00pm New Zealand content on Wikipedia's home page. (30 min) Presenter: Schwede66 (30 min) presentation
2.30pm Lightning Talk: The New Zealand Thesis Project (15 min) Presenter: DrThneed
2.45pm Concurrent Break out editing / info sharing sessions for refresher training, help answer questions, and review how to practically do the workflows (45 min )

Einebillion How to load your images into Wikimedia Commons - the basics for newbies

Experienced editors talking about workflows, tools, tips sharing session

3.30pm Afternoon Tea (30 min) and Participant Survey so User Group can report back to funders on progress. Survey Monkey survey link
4.00pm Thank yous, and WikiCon Auckland 2024 closes

Accommodation options

These are only some of the accommodation options available and have not been updated since 2021. The organising committee have not approached any of these options for discounted rates.


Accommodation Name	Cost	Distance from Venue	Accommodation website	Notes
YMCA Hostel	$55 per night, Private single room with shared facilities	30min walk, 10min drive	https://www.ymcaaccommodation.org.nz/	Close to AUT, cheap & cheerful, needs photos in Wiki Commons
Ibis Budget Hotel	$73–80 per night, studio room or twin bed room	35min walk or 14min drive	https://ibis-budget-auckland-central.aucklandcityhotels.net/en/	Close to AUT, needs photos in Wiki Commons
Copthorne Hotel	$111–130 per night, double bed hotel room	20-25min walk	https://copthorne-hotel-auckland-city.aucklandcityhotels.net/en/	Close to AUT, standard hotel rates
Quest Carlaw Park	$169–189 per night Apartment accommodation, one or two bedroom apartments	15-20min walk	https://www.questapartments.co.nz/properties/north-island/parnell/quest-carlaw-park/overview	Close to AUT, gym, car parking and free Wifi available

Transport options

Auckland Airport to town

Catch the "Air" bus at stop B to go to Puhinui railway station, and change to rail towards Waitematā railway station (Britomart) from there

Public transport: take the Airport bus (AIR) to Puhinui railway station, then take a north-bound train to Waitematā railway station (a.k.a. Britomart), using either the Southern Line or Eastern Line. An AT HOP card is required to use buses in Auckland (cash no longer accepted).
Pre-book transportation with Supershuttle (approximately NZ$30 one way).

Session topic idea generation

If you have a presentation you would like considered for the organised presentations session please note it here with your user name. e.g.

Training session on using OpenRefine with Wikidata/WikiCommons (content guided by what people want to learn) DrThneed (talk) In the programme

The location is very close to the Auckland Central Library, which is where the Sir George Grey Special Collections are housed. The library offers guided tours, but I don't know if these are available on the weekend. Website is here with "Tours" about halfway down. The Heritage Collections Reading Room is also available for appointments Saturday 10am–5pm, if attendees wanted to take advantage of the proximity. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 02:34, 26 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

COVID19

If you feel unwell during or within 5 days after this event with flu like symptoms please do a COVID test and, if it is positive, isolate for at least 5 days and follow the Unite Against COVID19 instructions. Please also inform the event organisers by emailing us so we can inform attendees.

The organisers will be maintaining a mailing list of attendees for the purposes of notification of COVID. Tests and masks will be available at the event.

Scholarships

The organising team wanted to make it possible for anyone to attend this conference so Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand (WANZ) provided scholarships to help cover transport, accommodation, and living expenses if appliacnts normally worked weekends and/or child care. To apply for a scholarship, applicants could email us with a short statement explaining how a scholarship would help them be able to attend WikiCon Auckland 2024, and what they most hope to share or learn there. Please apply by midday Friday 8 March 2024.

If participants didn't want to apply for a scholarship but there was something stopping them from attending they could let organisers know via the talk page and the organisers would do their best to support attendance.

Supporters and sponsors

Wikimedia Foundation

Outcomes

New articles

Improved articles

WikiSource transcriptions

Bowen, Sir George F. (1872), Overland journey of the governor of New Zealand: notes of the journey of Sir George F. Bowen G.C.M.G., in April 1872 from Wellington to Auckland, across the centre of the North Island of New Zealand with an appendix, containing letters from Māori chiefs to the agent-general, London: G. Street, OCLC 1050249428, Wikidata Q125100435