Wikipedia:Meetup/Auckland/Landcare 1

What's it about?

This Wikipedia editing workshop is aimed at new editors, and is open to University of Auckland biology students, Landcare Research staff, and members of the public interested in working alongside researchers to improve Wikipedia.

When and where

Thurs 20 September 2018, 1:00–5:00 pm NZST
Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research, 231 Morrin Road, St Johns, Auckland
Tōtara Room, by the main reception area
There's a small amount of visitor parking behind the Landcare building, but there's usually street parking outside.

Timetable

13.00: Meet and greet, setup, account creation if needed
13.15–14:00: Intro: creating and edit species articles on Wikipedia.
14.00–17.00: Wikipedia editing. Our goal is to improve the pages of New Zealand insect or fungal species, target low-quality Critter of the Week articles, and incorporate the newly-uploaded Des Helmore illustrations in Commons into Wikipedia.

Attending

The Edit-a-thon is free and open to all.

People attending

In person

Giantflightlessbirds (organiser)
Fusarium1
Darren Ward
Robert Hoare
(student)

Remotely

Ambrosia10

What to bring

Laptop and power cord. Landcare has guest wifi; ask the organiser for a login when you turn up.
Any books, journals, magazine or newspaper articles relevant to pages you're interested in.
Photos you've taken that could illustrate species articles; you'll learn how to donate these to the Commons so other Wikipedia articles can use them.

Preparation

If you're coming, try to create a Wikipedia account beforehand: don't wait until the day to do it! Here's a form you can use. Creating an account makes editing much easier (here's more info on why you should). You'll need to pick a "handle" for your username; you could use your real name, but it's nice to have the option to be a bit anonymous if you want. Here's some advice on picking a username.
Read up on Wikipedia: there are lots of tutorials, like the Wikipedia Adventure, and useful guides, like the Editing Wikipedia brochure.
Have a think about any species you'd like to work on; do a little research first so you're prepared. You don't have to be an expert; anyone who can do library research and write clearly can contribute to Wikipedia. Good references for Wikipedia articles are news stories, textbooks, or magazine articles. Look for secondary sources like field guides and popular books that discuss that species, not just scientific papers.
We'll also need photos, and those need to be free of any copyright or released under a Creative Commons license that lets anyone use them. If you're not familiar with Creative Commons, see Useful Links below. If you've taken species photos and are happy to donate them, great! Bring them along. 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 (with them credited, of course).

Guides to editing

How to create a species stub article in Wikipedia: notes for this editathon
Editing Wikipedia Species Articles guide (aimed at students, but still useful)
How to edit pages using the Visual Editor: for when you click Edit
Information about Creative Commons, Wikimedia Commons, and crowdsourced photos, harrychapman.nz
Suggested layout of beetle articles; Suggested layout of lepidoptera articles: helpful for all insect articles.

Outcomes

Articles now illustrated with Des Helmore illustrations:

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research for hosting the Wikipedian at Large and supporting this workshop.