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    New Zealand time and date: 17:25 31 May 2023 NZDT (refresh)
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    Women in Architecture walking tour & edit-a-thon Auckland 20 May 2023[edit]

    Registrations now open for a Women in Architecture editathon 20 May. Women + Architecture have organised a walking tour for the morning to take photos and an editing session at Auckland Museum. Join both or just one part. Register for catering purposes! https://www.architecturewomen.org.nz/events/other/a-w-nz-wikiproject-walking-tour-edit-a-thon Pakoire (talk) 01:40, 8 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

    McPuddy Animation[edit]

    Hi - I am drafting an article on the New Zealand animation studio Mukpuddy Animation and would be grateful of any assistance with references or information about them to improve the draft before I submit it for publication. NealeWellington (talk) 01:04, 10 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

    Replied on the Talk page Draft talk:Mukpuddy Animation. Marshelec (talk) 04:30, 10 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

    Deprecated language in honours lists[edit]

    There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Orders, decorations, and medals#Deprecated language in citations for UK honours about whether citations should be updated to today's language, eg changing the 1980 "For service to the disabled." to "For service to disabled people." Members of this Wikiproject may have a view: please comment there. PamD 07:02, 11 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

    Wellington Wiki Meetup Saturday 13 May 10am[edit]

    Reminder! There is a physical meetup for Wellington Wiki folk tomorrow Saturday 13th May at 10am NZ time at the He Matapihi Molesworth Library at National Library, corner Molesworth & Aitken Streets. See the agenda for more information. Ambrosia10 (talk) 23:49, 11 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

    Noticeboard and wikiproject clean up[edit]

    In archiving stuff from the first third of the year this morning, I can't help but notice that the archive list is pretty long now. I wanted to gauge people's views on whether it'd be worth cleaning up a bit. My initial thought was whether we add the archive list to the archive template already on the side (or add a second one to keep the distinction between the talk page and noticeboard archives), but there might be more things we want to consider as well:

    • there are a lot of old notices up the top around media references or talk page changes - do we still need to keep these?
    • the wider wikiproject pages are in various states as well. I've tried to update some of them where I can but I think they probably need a bit more of a concerted effort at some point.

    We could maybe also look at an overall facelift, maybe to something akin to what WP:CANADA has? That would be a bit more effort but could be worth looking into if there's interest. What do people think? Turnagra (talk) 20:34, 12 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

    2023 Ockham winners[edit]

    Here's a list of the 2023 Ockham NZ Book Awards winners, if anyone's interested in making some new pages:

    --Prosperosity (talk) 11:52, 17 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

    Thanks @Prosperosity! I've started working on a draft for Noelle McCarthy (surprised she didn't have a page already). Cheers, Chocmilk03 (talk) 03:50, 19 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

    Women in Architecture Editathon - informal Wellington gathering[edit]

    Several Wellington Meetup editors will be meeting in person from around 9am until the library closes at 1pm at the He Matapihi Molesworth Library at National Library, corner Molesworth and Aitken Streets, Wellington to participate in the Saturday 20th May 2023 Women in Architecture Editathon. See Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand/New Zealand Women in Architecture WikiProject for more information on the project and information on the Auckland and Dunedin events. Other editors are very welcome to join us if you are in town. Ambrosia10 (talk) 00:54, 19 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

    Treaty of Waitangi claims, settlements and agreed histories[edit]

    After a Wikipedia New Zealand Facebook discussion late last year, I emailed the Knowledge Equity Fund about a potential large NZ project I thought might be eligible for funding on the basis of the fund's focus: "We decided to focus on racial equity because it is a pervasive problem that is inextricably linked to the work of knowledge equity. Many of the barriers that prevent people from accessing and contributing to free knowledge are rooted in systems of racial oppression. Due to colonization and slavery, knowledge from Black, Indigenous and communities of colour around the world have been systematically excluded and erased from the historical canon".

    Although I also read the fund provided "Compensation for well-defined roles that do not replace volunteer activities" so I asked if it was worth me applying for funding for 100–200 days of editing over a two year period.

    I didn't hear back from any of the three wikimedia.org fund addresses I emailed (including the two regional grant committee 'Contact us' emails here) and while I'm not interested in applying now, I still think the project is an important one.

    Since 1975, indigenous Māori iwi and hapū and successive NZ governments have been working through about 200 claims of breaches of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. Prior to 1975, New Zealand post-colonisation historical records were mostly written from the point of view of the colonisers, and Māori oral histories were largely silenced. One amazing 'by-product' of the 100 or so Treaty settlements from these claims has been the formal, written 'Historical Accounts' that the Crown and Māori have agreed to, and have been published as Deed of Settlements by the Crown. Only about half of these settlements are currently listed in the Wikipedia article: Treaty of Waitangi claims and settlements.

    And very little of the agreed history appears to be contained in the individual iwi or hapū Wikipedia articles.

    The project I have in mind is to work through every settlement and write the agreed post-colonisation histories and settlement outcomes (where they haven’t already been) into Wikipedia, at the same time sourcing pre-colonisation histories and notable recent news, again where that hasn't already been done.

    Here’s a randomly chosen example of an iwi article: Ngāti Apa.

    And its Deed of Settlement.

    The other settlements can be found here.

    Who's keen? E James Bowman (talk) 03:37, 27 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

    The problem with that approach is that these agreed histories within treaty settlements between the Crown and Maori, written into the Deeds of Settlement, are all primary sources and should not be used to create a Wikipedia article. If you can find any early secondary sources that would be useful, but they would be so old they too would be more like primary sources that should be confirmed by recent secondary sources. However, I agree they could be useful: they open up leads of inquire that might not have been there before. As well as that there is often a blurred distinction between what is primary and what is secondary with those sorts of documents - each should be judged on its own merits and a lot will depend on the wording used when using them as sources in any given article. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 05:31, 27 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    The treaty settlements are primary sources for the details of the settlement. However, I disagree that the "historical accounts" are primary sources for the history of colonial experience. They are based on interviews, archival research ( = primary sources), and existing scholarship, which they synthesise that into a narrative (= a secondary source) that was subjected to review. They enjoy a reputation in New Zealand historical scholarship as examples of really top-notch research.
    E James Bowman's proposal is a fantastic one and necessary, since the articles on individual iwi are, at the moment, short and undercited. The points about knowledge equity are important ones. It's also a huge project; it might make sense to restrict it to a single iwi or set of iwi to start with.
    I think it would also be important to find ways to integrate these points into NZ geography articles. Furius (talk) 11:38, 27 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    I suggest opening a discussion at RSN about the historical accounts; I think it is a complicated question that needs a full discussion. BilledMammal (Furius) 11:47, 27 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    I said the distinction between primary and secondary was often blurred, which Furius has confirmed, in more specific detail. I still think these sources have to be used with care. The tribunal was created with an agenda (as defined by its act): not that that is necessarily bad, but it adds a greater onus on us to check the detail of any given source used. The Treaty of Waitangi Act say (5.2) "In exercising any of its functions under this section the Tribunal shall have regard to the 2 texts of the Treaty set out in Schedule 1 and, for the purposes of this Act, shall have exclusive authority to determine the meaning and effect of the Treaty as embodied in the 2 texts and to decide issues raised by the differences between them." In other words, what the treaty means and the effect it has had is what the tribunal says it means and what the tribunal says is the effect it has had. For the purpose of settlements that is fine but it raised serious questions about using the tribunal as an independent source for historic events, especially as members are appointed at the discretion of the minister. I agree with BilledMammal a wider discussion is would be useful. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 22:38, 27 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    That's not quite the case - the historical accounts are collaborative works between different researchers. The researchers' names aren't named in the final documents, but the accounts are based on a compromise between what Waitangi Tribunal researchers and what can be established by the iwi/hapū, through a mix of historical documents, oral traditions, pūrākau, whakapapa, etc. It's not the tribunal appointees who are creating historic accounts, but Waitangi Tribunal historians, members of iwi/hapū, and historians employed by iwi/hapū. The tribunal also has a vested interest to make sure that these are as accurate as possible (or at least as provable), so that the claims are settled and that there aren't major issues later on with other groups who have different claims. --Prosperosity (talk) 04:46, 28 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

    If anybody is thinking of setting up a project, with funding sought from the Wikimedia Foundation or related entities, I suggest that the editor should as one of the first steps check in with the Wikimedia User Group of Aotearoa New Zealand. That page is seriously out of date but the committee (and an email address for the secretary) are listed under the heading "2022/23 Top Priority: Incorporation". Schwede66 23:25, 27 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

    I agree with @Furius that details about the settlement in each Deed of Settlement are reliable primary sources, and should be treated as such on Wikipedia, and that the Historical Accounts are reliable secondary sources.
    @Schwede66 FYI, I asked a committee member directly about this project idea on their Facebook post about the fund mentioned above, but they didn't respond, so I 'hit up' the Regional Grant Committee, as suggested in the same FB discussion. At least two other committee members were involved in that discussion. E James Bowman (talk) 00:30, 28 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    Hi - I love this idea too and will be part of any project ideas. I agree with Prosperosity's assessment of the history information in the settlements and associated reports. Always up for more discussion too. I know the WANZ committee (that I am part of) have moved forward in leaps and bounds over the past few weeks and months E James Bowman, so it may be the advise to seek external funding was good at the time? I look forward to where this may go and am keen to be involved. Pakoire (talk) 05:05, 28 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    This sounds like a great idea - making sure that we have some good sources and facts for all iwi/hapū articles sounds worthwhile. I'd recommend trying to reach out groups as you make pages, explaining what an improved article would be like, what limitations we have at Wikipedia, and seeing if anyone wanted to learn how to edit for themselves (e.g. creating pages on historically important tūpuna, adding historical information to general pages, making pages on the Reo Māori Wikipedia, etc. --Prosperosity (talk) 04:46, 28 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    User:E James Bowman, if you can, could you find an example of what you want to be done and how. I suppose that means finding one claim that has been settled and picking out the parts that describe what actually happened. That would help in any discussion because without something concrete to discuss we will struggle to reach any verifiable consensus beyond bland platitudes. An example of the need for precision is your comment above: have been working through about 200 claims of breaches of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. The tribunal works through breaches of the principals of the treaty, not the treaty itself. Look on the tribunal's website if anyone wants to, page 9. [1]. For the avoidance of any doubt, I think the idea has merit and I am all for looking into the proposal in more depth; it's just that I don't think it is as straightforward as it first sounds. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 08:04, 28 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    I don't think the differences between the Treaty, te Tiriti, and the principles thereof (which is an entirely different kettle of fish, and a hell of a rabbit hole to go down) has any real bearing on the accuracy or suitability of the historical accounts as sources though. We should be fine to use those historical accounts and ensure our coverage of the settlements themselves is up to scratch, at the very least. Turnagra (talk) 09:23, 28 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    User:Roger 8 Roger. See the 2nd & 3rd paragraphs of Ngāti Pāoa#Early history for a small example I did in 2019 (I've just now updated the citation to the Deed of Settlement). Nurg (talk) 11:03, 28 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

    I completely agree that this content needs to be in wikipedia, but I'm not necessarily sure putting it on the iwi pages is the right way to handle this. I'm inclined to look more towards articles such as Waikato Raupatu Claims Settlement Act 1995 as models. There are reasons for this: (a) the progress of passing an act of parliament generates substantial independent secondary sources (b) acts of parliament are internationally understood and immediately comphrensible to a much broader audience (and we're trying to align with international standards where possible) (c) many of the big settlements are cross-iwi (i.e. Treaty of Waitangi (Fisheries Claims) Settlement Act 1992, Central North Island Forests Land Collective Settlement Act 2008, etc) (d) separating the contemporary and historical can prevent the more serious historical coverage from being polluted by the recentism-cruft of the most recent news coverage that can slip into articles. Stuartyeates (talk) 09:35, 29 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

    Fair point. Surely, we need some mixture of both: stand alone articles on notable settlements (probably all of them?), plus references to them on iwi pages and local geographical pages, so that readers actually find the more detailed pages.
    It is a common wiki problem that the articles on narrower topics get improved, while the articles on broader concepts get stuck. At the moment, most of the iwi articles are in the latter category. Furius (talk) 12:59, 29 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    Nurg's link to an actual settlement deed is helpful. I am hesitant in saying these accounts should be treated as much more than informed blogs though. They are published, by the Crown, and that should at least establish notability for most of the detail they contain. However, most government published sources everywhere are fine for established uncontested facts, like census results, but their usefulness becomes murky when they start giving opinions. I prefer treating such official opinion based statements as self-published sources, making them primary. This undoubted expert on the topic expresses a view on the quality of the tribunal's statements here [2] and there are plenty of other concerns raised elsewhere. I think if the tribunal's deeds or reports are used in a history section it should be made clear it is the tribunal's opinion that...XYZ. This is especially important of statements of fact, from early pre-1840 times that can only be based on oral tradition. I like the idea of giving these sources greater weight in articles about the settlements themselves that in mainstream history articles where I think we should strive to use undoubted quality reliable secondary sources. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 20:11, 29 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    It's a very established and mainstream opinion that there was little understanding of what sovereignty actually was, to the degree that the te reo version had to effectively create a word (Kāwanatanga, or Governor-ness). It's a complicated situation, and going down the kāwanatanga/tino rangatiratanga rabbit hole isn't particularly useful for what these resources are useful for: describing cultural contexts, histories, names, dates, etc.
    These reports have a much higher degree of scrutiny than most history texts, but they're still works on history, which is an act of interpretation. Just because someone has a dissenting opinion about some aspects of a work (which is true for almost any history work I can think of, to be honest), doesn't mean that the text becomes primary. --Prosperosity (talk) 20:55, 29 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

    Emeritus professors[edit]

    There was mention a couple of times at our online meetup today about emeritus professors, who may be notable for Wp purposes. I made a Listeria page here for all emeritus professors at NZ institutions, without WP pages, showing awards and images where they have them. (Listeria works off Wikidata, so there will likely be many more emeritus professors than we know about on this page. If you want to add someone to the list, the instructions on what to add to their Wikidata item are at the top of the Listeria page. But any problems let me know, always happy to help!). DrThneed (talk) 07:27, 28 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

    Hi User:DrThneed, sorry I can't help you with this for obvious reasons. Be aware that there are some disciplines where there are unlikely to be the sources. Particularly problematic is law. The subjects that come to mind aren't in wikidata (yet), but I can add some if you like. Stuartyeates (talk) 09:17, 29 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    Thanks Stuart. Some emeritus profs (and ordinary profs) are very hard to find anything about and are a bit of a lost cause. Depends a bit on the institution, I find, as well as the subject area, and whether they have other awards etc. However it's really nice to have as many as we know about in Wikidata, so that when there's a flurry of sources because they got an honour or died or something, we aren't starting from scratch! DrThneed (talk) 09:25, 29 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

    Mana[edit]

    About a month ago, it was decided that mana should be a disambiguation page. To do that, the article on the concept of mana had to be moved. That's all fine, I think. Somehow (it's really not clear from the move discussion why this occurred), the concept has ended up at Mana (Oceanian mythology). This strikes me as about as inappropriate as Karma (Indian mythology). A better disambiguator is needed, but I'm not sure what it should be; I've started a discussion on this at Talk:Mana (Oceanian mythology), but only got one reply; it would be great if we could get wider discussion going there. Furius (talk) 10:54, 28 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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