A Wikiblitz is a type of Edit-a-thon where volunteer Wikipedia editors come together to tackle one particular task: improving a single article, fixing a whole category of pages, or uploading a whole photo collection. They partner with local experts who may not be Wikipedia editors but have knowledge, relevant publications, and photographs they're happy to donate.
Barrytown is a tiny settlement north of Greymouth on the West Coast, nestled on the Barrytown Flats between forested hills and the wild Tasman Sea. The Flats have been the proposed site of controversial ilmenite mining for decades, and in the hills behind the settlement is the only breeding colony of the Westland petrel. Barrytown has a rich Māori and settler history, but is almost non-existent on Wikipedia. Our goal is to change that.
Friday and Saturday 3–4 June 2022: Mike visited Barrytown and took photos of Conservation Volunteers, Barrytown buldings, the cemetery, and nearby tracks.
Sunday 5 June 2022, 11:30–12:00 NZDT: catchup of Wikipedians Online:Whereby online meeting room link Wikipedians who have been contributing to the Barrytown Wikiblitz are invited to meet before the Aotearoa Wiki Meeting and discuss next steps.
The Edit-a-thon is free and open to all. There will be two main sorts of attendee:
Experienced Wikipedia editors to handle the actual page creation, expansion, and improvement.
Anyone with expertise and experience, who can supply published references or scrapbooks (Wikipedia is a summary of already-published sources). Information can be shared via a public Dropbox.
The focus of the event will be on writing better content for the page and backing it up with good references. We will work collaboratively, trying to improve articles as much as we can over the course of the day – researchers, experts, and writers can draft text while Wikipedians publish it, add references, and upload photos.
When the West Coast shifted to a Red traffic light status on 24 January, the event was made online only. We've been working with locals to obtain photo donations, news stories and clippings, and any other resources. As the Omicron wave has receded, we will run a follow-up site visit (though not a full edit-a-thon) and online meetup.
Photos you've taken that could illustrate articles.
Sources that could be cited in Wikipedia: books, newspaper stories, magazine articles, and official publications. Wikipedia is entirely made of summaries of reliable published sources.
If you want to add photos to Commons so they can be used in Wikipedia, they'll need to be free of any copyright (pre-1945, in NZ) or released under a Creative Commons license that lets anyone use them (if you're not familiar with Creative Commons, see Useful Links below). To apply a Creative Commons licence you need to be the copyright owner: usually, this means you took the photo (not that you own the photo or you're in the photo). If you've taken photos and are happy to donate them, great! Mike (mike.dickison@westlib.co.nz) can help with the Creative Commons licensing. If you know of anyone who has good photos, approach them and ask them if they'd like their work to be seen and used by people all over the world (credited, of course).
Park, Geoff (1995). Ngā Uruora: The Groves of Life - Ecology & History in a New Zealand Landscape. Wellington: Victoria University Press. ISBN 9780864732910. (Excerpt in Dropbox)
It seems likely that with some preparation we could get one or more of these articles to Good Article status; Westland petrel could well get to Featured Article, as there's plenty published on the species.
Westland petrel article - some significant improvements made on the day, with lots more sources to follow up and include. Extensive further improvements made in the following days
Photos of Settlers Hall, All Nations Hotel, and school added to Commons and Wikidata
Cemetery and all headstones photographed and in Commons
Other related Wikipedia pages updated:
Conservation Volunteers New Zealand (still needs lots of work to remove warnings - citations in particular, plus expanding and including details of significant conservation projects)
Many thanks to the people of Barrytown for offering information and support. This Wikiblitz is supported by the Westland District Library, the West Coast Technology Education Trust and the New Zealand Lottery Grants Board.