Talk:New Zealand/Archive 6

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

← Archive 5 |

Archive 6

| Archive 7 →

what's with the New Zealand article being marked for speedy deletion?

I've been coming back & forth the past few weeks to read about New Zealand (I'm considering living there someday)... and I've found the article to be extremely useful... why on earth have the administrators marked it as nonsense? That bewilders me... Wikipedia needs to do some re-structuring & re-staffing, in my opinion. I commend all of your efforts towards making it a better article. Keep up the good work. --147.26.237.114 05:17, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

That was just a vandal.-gadfium 06:22, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

not a word about sheep

i can't believe we actually have an article about new zealand that doesn't mention sheep. this is surely very important to the economy... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.135.164.200 (talk) 14:44:23, August 19, 2007 (UTC)

New Zealand has diversified its economy a lot over the last 20+ years, and the primary sector is now less than 5% of the economy. While it appears that there is still a perception in some places that New Zealanders mostly have a farming background, or at least a connection to the land, the culture portrayed in the works of Barry Crump and Murray Ball (Footrot Flats) is not the reality for most of us.-gadfium 19:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Digressing -- will the primary sector be as prominent in future New Zealand? Have just finished reading New Zealand Unleashed by Steven Carden. Highly recommended. Moriori 21:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It's still strange. It's like if the article about Texas didn't mention cattle. Very few Texans are engaged in ranching, but it's still an important and iconic activity. The complete non-mention of sheep is an overcorrection. The way to deal with the "New Zealand equals sheep" stereotype is to state the facts, not pretend there's no sheep there. -- Cyrius|✎ 12:18, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Umm, if it's a stereotype then by definition it's not a fact. Something along the lines of "Sheep farming and related primary products - such as wool and lamb meat - used to be prominent and iconic products." Would be factual --Lholden 12:32, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that sheep have a place and pride in our country, and after all, there is more sheep, than humans in New Zealand. LIzzie B Proud All Blacks Supporter

Just for you who commented about the lack of mention of sheep on the page i have created a section just about the sheep and agricultral sheep sector of NZ, and will be updating again soon. feel free to improve :) ((♠Murchy♠) 09:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC))

Coordinates

I took out the coordinates at the top of the page - which were actually those of Wellington. These are given later in the article anyway. Also, similar shaped countries like Japan don't give the coordinates of the country, and nor do United States or Australia. Kahuroa 19:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Forum?

Hi, I just started a forum The New Zealand Forum. Am I allowed to put this on the New Zealand page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.20.3.117 (talk) 00:56, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Hello, welcome, and I'll direct you to Wikipedia's External links guideline, under Links to be avoided: "Links to social networking sites (such as MySpace), discussion forums or USENET.", and "Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a Featured article." Fan sites, or Forums are not a valid External link generally. Sorry, ^Ariel♥Gold 01:01, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

languages

hello, maori isant an offical language of New Zealand, the offlical language is english. So why is maori under the offlical languages of New Zealand? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.239.15.148 (talk) 06:08, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

As it states in the infobox: English is a de facto official language; the other two have de jure official status. Hope that helps clear up how that works! ^Ariel♥Gold 06:30, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is actually helpful since legally there isn't a distinction between English, Maori and New Zealand Sign Lanugaue. To describe English as de facto' implies that it isn't 'de jure', which it is. It also implies that Maori and NZSL aren't used in any offical capacity, which they are. Creating this distinction is re-writing the definition of an offical language. As the percentages speak to usage (which is what the de facto/jure distincition is pointing to), shouldn't this footnote be removed completely? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jamesnz (talk • contribs) 12:05, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

How on earth does saying Maori and NZSL are de jure official languages imply they aren't used in any official capacity? 'De jure' means 'by law', ie they are officially official. And if that doesn't imply they are used officially, I don't know what does. I was also under the impression that there are actual laws saying Maori and NZSL are official langauges, but there is nothing equivalent for English; it just gets used for most things because nearly everyone in NZ speaks it. But I could be wrong about English. --Helenalex 17:51, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

English, Maori & NZSL all are official, according to http://www.beehive.govt.nz/ViewDocument.aspx?DocumentID=25408. English is not "de facto" official, it actually is socially and legally. 125.238.51.250 06:51, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I have seen numerous online sources indicating that English is an official language in NZ - including some official government web pages such as this one. However, I have only found supporting sources for de jure official language status for the Maori language (see [1]) and for NZ Sign Language(see [2]).I have not been able tofind any indication that English is "legally" an official language in NZ in the sense that there is a legislative act in force declaring its official status. If you know of such an act, please identify that act and supply a supporting source. -- Boracay Bill 23:03, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Minor alterations made. As per the link above [3] English was originally the ONLY official language of New Zealand. 2006 NZ Sign Language was accepted and 1987 Maori. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Colonial from the Middle Island (talk • contribs) 15:37, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I have reverted this edit, since no one has yet produced anything proving that English has other than de facto official status. The claim that English is the 'original' official language I find a bit bizarre. If we are going to claim that de facto counts as official, then surely Maori is the original official language, given it preceded English here by several hundred years? --Helenalex (talk) 22:58, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Math in language numbers

How can 98% of their people speak English, 4.6% speak Maori, and .6% speak some other language? If it's a range just give the range instead of making our whole project look stupid here. Marcus Taylor 02:52, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Some very talented people can speak more than one language.-gadfium 03:55, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Hahahaha very funny. Nice try. A large number of Europeans speak English as a second language and it's not listed as their language. There's obviously an error here. That's a real nice guess though. Marcus Taylor 14:11, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I phrased it humorously, but my intent was serious. For people who can speak any language (ie excluding those too young to speak), 98% can speak English. That doesn't mean that English is their first language. 4.6% can speak Maori. Presumably almost all those also speak English. The other language is New Zealand sign language, and although that's an official language not many people use it. There appear to be 2% of people who don't speak English but who speak languages not on this list of official languages of the country.-gadfium 19:42, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Marcus, did you read the source document? Here's the link again: [4]. If you can see an error there, I'm sure Statistics NZ would be interested to know about it. The figures show NZ is mainly monolingual, with each resident speaking 1.2 or 1.3 languages on average (depending on whether unusable responses and those who spoke no language are included in the base). -- Avenue 05:06, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Helen's photo

The current photograph of Helen Clark has been altered using photo editing tools. Compare: http://www.britannica.com/eb/art/print?id=90471&articleTypeId=0 an http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/11/06women_Helen-Clark_EXX3.html.

We should probably put a more realistic one in place. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.239.102.232 (talk) 07:30, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Who cares if Helen Clark looks a little touched-up, I think its better if someone can look better in aphoto if it depicts them in a much more glamourous way, i say, leave it as is. (Murchy 09:42, 19 September 2007 (UTC))

I would support replacing it, if there is something suitable available. I've got nothing against flattering photos, but when they look nothing like the subject, it crosses a line. --Helenalex 17:56, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Jeez guyz, whats with all the Helen Clark prejudice. Don't we want to project a good image for new zealand, look at the photo, it is only electronically touched up, its not as if she went hollywood on herself and got implants on anything with 2mm or more of skin or liposuction on every squishy outcropping on her body. I think the new photo should remain, i think if you had 2 pictures of yourself 1 normal and 1 retouched i highly doubt that ANYONE would choose the average version! ((♠Murchy♠) 09:39, 21 September 2007 (UTC))

I think that would depend on what the photo was being used for. As an encyclopaedia, we should go for accuracy. --Helenalex 21:51, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Murchy, have you got a more natural alternative? I see that some of your pix feature Helen - any you could crop her out of? Kahuroa 22:13, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Is there a -less- official one we can acquire? Not that we need a completely 'neutral' photo, but I know that the current photo was used for the Labour campaign (and thus has been touched up to look better). I quite like the current photo, but would one that shows Helen with some other members of parliament be helpful? Heck, with the Beehive in the background? Zombequin (talk) 06:04, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

How about the one at Helen Clark? Kaiwhakahaere (talk) 06:11, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

GA Review

The article is progressing towards GA status, but I can't say that it meets the current Good Article criteria quite yet. I'd probably rate it as a high B-class article at the present time.

There are still significant gaps in reference citations; including etymology, most of the history section, government & politics, geography, biodiversity, culture & sports. The economy & demographics sections seem to be reasonably well referenced, though the part about agriculture has no sources. I would also recommend removing the subsection header for agriculture, and instead concentrate on writing a good, concise section on the economy as a whole, integrating all of the major parts of the economy into 3-4 paragraphs.

Reference citations should also be formatted properly in accordance with WP:CITE. Specifically, references containing links to sites on the web should contain more than just an external link. Include author, title, publisher, date of publication, and date of last retrieval, so that if the link ever disappears (404 not found), someone can still use the reference to do further research in the article, or verify information.

I would recommend a slight reordering in the order of sections; moving geography & economy up in the list to before the government/politics section, as these sections contain information that is usually sought after first by readers. I would also rename 'politics' to 'government', and eliminate the subsection header for 'government' there. While it's good to talk about the politics, the main topic of the section appears to be government (as it should be), and politics is generally just one part of government as well.

A couple of pretty important information is still missing, including a section on education (primary, secondary, and higher education), transportation & infrastructure (roads, highways, water & air transportation), and media (newspapers, television, radio). It might also be a good idea to include some information on some of the major cultural attractions & landmarks in the culture section; though care should be taken to make sure that it is not written with "touristy" or "PR" language, and it should also not just be a list of popular tourist sites with wikilinks.

Most of the images have copyright tags, but there is one image in the geography section that is not displaying at all.

The template in the 'see also' section should be moved to the bottom of the article with the other similarly constructed templates. These should almost never go into the main sections of the article, as they are generally bulky, and look very awkward unless they're at the bottom.

Other pages that editors might want to take a look at include the manual of style, WP:LEAD, and WP:EL.

Hope this helps improve the article. Please renominate once the issues are resolved. Cheers! Dr. Cash 18:03, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

wiki new zealand policing act

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4215797a10.html wiki new zealand. --Emesee 06:25, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

This is covered in the New Zealand Police article.-gadfium 08:00, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I oppose the merger of Metrication in New Zealand into this article. That article may be a stub, but the information in it is more detailed than is required in an article covering the country in general, and it is part of a series on metrication by country.-gadfium 18:01, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree, I oppose too. Probably justifies own article and merge proposal is ugly on top of major article- SimonLyall 19:35, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I also agree. -Ollie Carr, New Zealand.

I oppose the merger, It think it would seem out of place in the main article.Malathos 17:43, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the proposal.-gadfium 18:06, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

coat of arms

Should not the coat of armsdeicted not have the national motto 'Onward' on the scroll, rather than the name 'New Zealand'?Peter harlen 12:37, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

New Zealand no longer has a national motto. See [5] and [6].-gadfium 18:49, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

As I read the items you cite, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage says than NZ has no national motto, while the governmentally-hosted Encyclopedia of New Zealand says that the national motto is "Onwards". I see that the encyclopedia is prominently headed "An Encyclopedia of New Zealand 1966" — one wonders whether this implies that the information found therein is 41 years out of date. -- Boracay Bill 23:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

My reading of the 1966 Encyclopaedia is that the description of the coat of arms introduced in 1911 had paragraphs about arms, crest and motto. It then goes on to explain that in 1956 the motto was changed to "New Zealand". It is likely that the motto has been dropped entirely since, or that "New Zealand" is not considered a motto. I included the link to the 1966 Encyclopaedia to show how long ago the "Onwards" motto was dropped.-gadfium 00:58, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

As silly as this sounds, yes, the main component of the Te Ara encylopedia is in fact 41 years out of date. The encyclopedia in total is the whole web site, but aside from a number of specific areas that are individually covered, the main section is the 1966 edition, as described here: "This information was published in 1966 in An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock. It has not been corrected and will not be updated. Up-to-date information can be found elsewhere in Te Ara." [7] kabl00ey 22:58, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Non-statistical rankings

Some of the international rankings - those not based on statistics - were removed by this edit today. I'm not aware of any discussion about whether they should be here or not. There was a discussion in May 2006 but that was about how to present them.

Do any other countries have them? Republic of Ireland, Libya and Portugal do, and there are very likely others. Most countries don't have any international rankings at all on the main country page.

I like having these figures in the article. New Zealand tends to do well on them - much better than on the purely statistical rankings. What do other people think - should we restore them?-gadfium 07:55, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree Gadfium they should be in there - they provide plenty of useful information on the standard of living in New Zealand and do contribute to the article. The majority were referenced and therefore could be backed up. If it is not suitable to have them at the end of the article as a list perhaps they could be incorporated into the article in some way? What does everyone think?Homesick kiwi 15:23, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

In the absence of further feedback, I'll restore them.-gadfium 18:58, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

The infobox

Is wrong we don't have full independance, the Queen being our head of state is proof enough! And all our laws being signed off by her, or at least by her representative the Governor general. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.153.105.43 (talk) 09:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

New Zealand's independence has occurred over time, not as a single act. There are still elements where there is formal lack of independence, as you point out, but there is a difference between independence and being a republic. The article explains that there are various dates at which New Zealand could be considered to be independent, and suggests you see Independence of New Zealand for more detail.-gadfium 22:30, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Median household income

Income data for Australia has been converted to US dollars using Purchasing Power Parity (obtained from the OECD).[8] This is done because the real purchasing power of the Australian and New Zealand currencies is actually lower than the market exchange rate. For example Australia's median household income at the current market exchange rate is US$48,000 (1.11), but is only US$38,000 using purchasing power parity (1.39).

It is also a common misunderstanding to assume that GDP/C and median household income are closely related. For more information about the relationship between the economy and median household income see link

I hope this is helpfulBadenoch 04:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, thanks for explaining. Perhaps you could add a brief note to the table? ^ross ^nixon 05:00, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmm...how do you explain your figures against [9] where both tables show Australia around 30% above NZ? ^ross ^nixon 05:07, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Ross please read the comment about GDP/C already given (see above) and follow the link. The answer to your question is complicated but if you read the link thoroughly this should resolve your question. Regards Badenoch 05:20, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmm...I'm still suspicious. I note that 2.7 people per NZ household would put our $ up by 4% relative to Australia, but there must be other factors I have missed. I will reread the link, but also see if others have comments. ^ross ^nixon 05:35, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Ross you seem to be still troubled by GDP/C, believing that you can use it to make predictions about income in different economies. Perhaps a thought experiment may help you: Consider an imaginary Kingdom of Rossland where the GDP/C is $35,000 after 6 years the economy grows to GDP/C = $38,000 (inflation adjusted). How much has the median household income changed by? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Badenoch (talk • contribs) 05:48, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The answer to the thought experiment was that median household income decreased by 2%. The imaginary kingdom of Rossland was actually the United States over the last 6 years (2000-2006)[10]. The economy grew, but median household income fell. If it is not possible use GDP/C to predict household income changes within the same economy, then how can GDP/C be used to make predictions about two entirely different economies? Does this answer your question?Badenoch 06:11, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Please note the statistics regarding household income are not accurate and should be removed. According to the CIA New Zealand has both a higher gini coefficient (higher level of income innequality) and $7000 lower GDP per person than Australia. It is therefore not possible that New Zealand could have a higher median household income than Australia. Further the fact that these misleading statistics rather than conventional GDP per person statistics have been selected for a table under economy indicates that the entry for New Zealand is being used more like an advertisment for the country rather than an objective article.

Under the economy article it is also ridiculous to say that New Zealand and Australia were not affected by the 2000's recession, they were, of course they were if their trading partners were. They were affected to a lesser extent than the United States.

Firstly I think Australia is a great country and am pleased that their household incomes are improving. I am a person with a loyalty to both countries (I have family in both countries). Statistically there is no significant difference in household income between Australia and New Zealand. Both have rich areas and poor areas, but the overall income differences in between the two countries are presently minor (see median household income in Australia and New Zealand).

Not including median household income data just because you want to present a biased image that Australia is superior in every way is not fair. It is completely unbalanced. You are free to hate New Zealand, but wikipedia is supposed to reflect a balanced view.

Please don't confuse GDP/C and median household income. It is impossible to reliably predict median household incomes from GDP/C data.Badenoch 20:29, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree entirely with Badenoch's assessment. I think the Gini Coefficient is a highly telling statistic though, and if not mentioned on the main page it I think it merits both inclusion and explanation. Perhaps it would be better suited for the Economy of New Zealand page though. kabl00ey 22:58, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

The statistics cited from the CIA seem more realistic than the income statistics on the page. I have lived in Australia an, generally, things are less expensive than in new zealand. Rent is much cheaper in most of Australia, which is not included in a PPP measure. The incomes, and purchasing power, are definitely higher in australia, (this table is the first time ive seen statistics claim otherwise) and it is much easier to live there. Whoever dide that table seems to want to advertise new zealand, instead of portray the truth, as the statistics are selective at best, australians are definitely not US1000 worse off than New Zealanders. Instead of distorting the truth to make NZ look good (which has to be done to make NZ loook better than Australia at least) the article should acknowledge the downside of this country, instead of adopting the biased insular attitude of many NZers in favour of NZ. The information in that table is the exact opposite iof the impression most common in the media, and also of my personal experience. It lacks citations still and shoud therefore be removed. Also the CIA has an interest in providing accurate information that whoever put up the income ranking doesn't. the $7000 difference doesn't get wiped in PPP because they have low taxes at the low end therefore Aussies have over$7000 additional NET income on average than NZ202.74.200.124 (talk) 22:19, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I removed the median income table. It can still be accessed via the link. The problem with it is that the PPP of a median income does not reflect PPP of all incomes, which I belief PPP-adjusted GDP does better. Therefore, to maintain NPOV, not just my view(based on living in both countries, and on the majority of statistics, or your view based on this one statistic, the problem with which I will explain shortly), they can both be accessed by a link, and not be on the page itself, instead of your one only. Australia's minimum wages are higher, therefore the spread below the median is lower and purchasing power at lower level where it makes the most difference and is more valid is better in Australia. Symonas79 (talk) 23:00, 27 December 2007 (UTC)--Symonas79 (talk) 23:00, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

New Zealand Defence Force

I know this is the wrong discussion forum but as the New Zealand Defence Force page seems seldom visited I thought it would be appropriate to raise it here. Is there anyone out there with sufficent time and knowledge to make the New Zealand Defence Force page more like the Australian Defence Force page in both quality and quantity of content? - I would be very surprised if there was insufficent information to make it so! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Homesick kiwi (talk • contribs) 15:49, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

The correct forum, after the article talk page, is Wikipedia:New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board.-gadfium 18:50, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Branding

I'd like to add a bit on branding and international identity, specifically referring the to "Clean, green" image, anti-nuclear stance, economic liberalism, and a perception of adventure tourism, natural beauty and safety. Where would that most likely fit in? kabl00ey 20:27, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Add a "Tourism" section under "Economy".-gadfium 04:47, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I'll give it a go. It's not strictly tourism but I'm sure it can get hammered into the right shape and place. Thanks. kabl00ey 11:23, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Middle Island NOT South Island

I recently discovered the fact that the South Island is historically considered the Middle Island. I think this change should be mentioned somewhere. I did in fact make an addition but it was considered the wrong spot so where should it go?

I'd suggest either the Geography section or the Etymology section. I'm not sure which, but its use on the South Island page suggests to me Etymology. Make sure you reference it if you can. kabl00ey 13:11, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh just a minor addition something I noticed in the Treaty of Waitangi article. The treaty only relates to most of the North Island. The "South Island" never signed. Should that be mentioned or simply left to readers to discover? I had always understand it to be a national document NOT a local one.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.190.196.91 (talk) 12:42, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Not sure about that: "Ngai Tahu understandably reject the notion that Te Wai Pounamu was "discovered" and that the Crown's claim to sovereignty over the island can legitimately rest upon such a ground. On the contrary, Ngai Tahu place great reliance on the fact that a number of their leading chiefs readily signed the Treaty of Waitangi." Waitangi Tribunal report Good on you for raising it in Talk pages though: if you think something's controversial or debatable it's best to guage opinion (and hopefully informed opinion too!). kabl00ey 13:11, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Part of the confusion may be that only northern NI tribes signed the treaty at Waitangi. The treaty was then taken around the country, with other tribes signing it at different ports of call. These signatories definitely included Ngai Tahu leaders. Grutness...wha? 23:29, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Censoring information

Please stop trying to censor or remove information about median household income. We understand that you want to say that Australia is superior because of it's higher GDP/C. You don't need to be so insecure. New Zealand's GDP/C is given three times in the article. We love Australia but this article is about New Zealand. This trans-Tasman rivalry is over the top. Badenoch 03:55, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Where do you get the idea that there is some anit-New Zealand or anti-Australia motive regarding removing that information? It simply just doesn't belong in the over-view of a country article. This is not an advertisement for potential migrants to New Zealand with which they can base their decision whether or not to emigrate to on. It is supposed to be an unbiased and factual article and what is included now is satisfactory. If people want to know the difference in statistical method between the two then they can go to either the Gross domestic product or Median household income pages. Detailed explanations of statistical method are not needed here neither is justification of their use. I also sincerely doubt there is a conspiracy of Australian users or pro Australia New Zealand users that are attempting to sabotage the New Zealand article by increasing GDP per capita comparisons and excluding median household income comparisons which is essentially what you are implying.Homesick kiwi 11:52, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Homesick Kiwi. You may notice that the latest sabotage was from an American, however normally the American's are not really a problem.Badenoch (talk) 05:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Let me point out that there appear to be problems with the household income table. It incorrectly stated that the income information for all three countries was median household income. However, this is incorrect. The source for the New Zealand data clearly states that the numbers reflect the mean, not the median. Comparing one country's mean with another's median is misleading.

The reference was for the median not the mean. Please read references carefully Badenoch (talk) 03:48, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Also, the mathematical calculations used to get some of the information in the table constitute original research. For example, the New Zealand data seems to take income information for a single quarter and extrapolate it out to an entire year. This can be inaccurate if income is seasonal, or if it gradually increases throughout the year. As already stated, the person who conducted the original research improperly mixed mean and median income numbers. Furthermore, the source for the PPP conversion isn't mentioned anywhere. For all we know, the PPP conversion could be based entirely on The Economist's Big Mac Index. Alternatively, the PPP or currency conversions could be based on an incorrect time period. Wikipedians should find a single source in which professional economists have compared all three countries, instead of trying to do the calculations themselves. --JHP (talk) 06:38, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

The income data for New Zealand and USA were mid-year surveys. The Australian data was a September census and therefore is slightly higher than the others. Income data for country state has been converted to US dollars using Purchasing Power Parity (obtained from the OECD).[11]. This is done because the real purchasing power of the Australian and New Zealand currencies is actually lower than the market exchange rate. For example New Zealand's median household income at the current market exchange rate is US$44,000 (1.33), but is only US$40,000 using purchasing power parity (1.47). Badenoch (talk) 03:48, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I would just like to make it clear that I did not make that second comment; that has been signed fraudulently which possibly limits the merits of this discussionHomesick kiwi (talk) 12:12, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I've reverted the reformatting which attributed comments incorrectly. Since no one has commented in this discussion since the mistake was made, apart from your post pointing out the misattribution, the discussion is not compromised.-gadfium 18:24, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Apparent out of control, unsupported information

I see that this edit changed the infobox GDP_PPP_per_capita figure from $26,470 to $28,470. No outside source supporting the change was cited. There is a superscripted wikilink referencing a note which says: "⁸ Word Bank GDP per capita data." The cited source for the data says that New Zealand is 34th, with a GDP-PPP of $27,220 (not $26,470, and not $28,470). I see that the article also specifies GDP_PPP_per_capita_rank = 28th, displaying "(28th)", with a wikilink to List of countries by GDP (PPP). Forgetting for a moment that WP:V says: "Articles and posts on Wikipedia should never be used as third-party sources.", let's look at that article and note that it lists New Zealand as 28th, but with a GDP_PPP of $25,874 (not $27,220, not $26,470, and not $28,470).

Similarly, the infobox lists GDP_nominal = $103.873, referencing a note which says: "⁷2006 GDP data converted to PPP using World Bank Data;Gross Domestic Product: March 2007 quarter - Statistics New Zealand" (actually, unlike note 8, note 7 goes through footnote 2 in the References section instead of linking directly), and the resulting external link goes to a page which says: "The Statistics New Zealand website has been restructured. We could not find the page you were looking for." A ranking of 58th is specified, along with a link to List of countries by GDP (PPP). That page does indeed rank NZ 58th, but with a GDP_PPP of $105,819, not $103.873 (the WP:V prohibition against relying on wikipedia articles should apply here too).

There may be other problems as well, I didn't check closely. -- Boracay Bill 04:50, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Other edits made about the same time by the same IP were clearly vandalism, including an edit to this article, so I reverted this edit although I was not sure whether it had some validity.-gadfium 08:26, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I've made some fixup edits to the infobox

Official Languages:

Replaced English percentage of 98% with 91.2%, supported by data cited in footnote 11
Replaced Maori percentage of 4.2% with 0.24%, supported by data cited in footnote 11

GDP (PPP)

Tagged mention of footnote 7 as a dead link, since it links to a dead link.
changed GDP_PPP_per_capita = $26,470 to $27,220, using the figure from the cited supporting source.
changed GDP from $108.799 to $110,296, per new source in footnote 7.

footnotes:

no change
marked with the number 2 rather than an asterisk, corrected NZSL
marked with the number 3 rather than an asterisk
Changed cite of Independence of New Zealand to cite CIA Factbook (WP:V deprecates citing WP as a supporting source)
no change.
Got rid of "[1]" link.
no change.
Moved out of <References/>, since no other infobox footnotes are in there. Replaced old link, which was dead, with a new live link from the same source as footnote 8.

I haven't changed them (yet?), but I think that the rankings should be deleted since they effectively cite wikipedia articles as supporting sources, wand this is deprecated by WP:V because wikipedia is not a {{WP:RS|reliable source]]. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 03:56, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Wait up. You can't divide the number of people who speak English by the total number of responses, as some people speak several languages. You may have noticed that there were more responses than the total population, and there are some people (mainly those who are very young) who speak no language.

We could add the original source from the Wikipedia rankings page to each of the rankings on this page to solve the problem you mention. I regard this as a very low priority, but feel to go ahead and add them if you feel strongly about it.-gadfium 04:54, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I've restored your GDP figures and changes to footnote numbering. It's difficult to see exactly what you've changed as diffs don't handle tables gracefully, but I don't see the change to the GDP_PPP you mention above. Some of the footnotes are not sources; there's no reason not to point to another Wikipedia article, in this case Independence of New Zealand, to explain that there is no simple unambiguous date of independence for the country.-gadfium 05:23, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I've edited the infobox again, considering your remarks and comparing its current version with my last-changed version.

Languages - OK, use the Total people figure from the footnote 11 source instead of the Responses figure: English=3,673,623 / 4,027,947 =~ 91.2% (not 98%), Maori=9,702 / =~ 0.24% (not 4.2%). If I've got that wrong, it's because I couldn't see how the figures presented were supported by the cited supporting source, and either I've missed something obvious (always a possibility) or the support for the figures presented needs to be better explained.
Footnote 6 - I see that you've restored the "[1]" link. Please note the guidance about that in WP:CITE#Footnote_referencing, "When citing a website within the REF tags, do not use brackets only around the URL. For instance, <ref>[www.google.com]</ref> will result in the footnote being displayed as [1]. Thus, a numbered footnote's description is another number. Instead, cite the URL with a name, <ref>[www.google.com Google]</ref> to display the website page title in the reference list."

-- Boracay Bill (talk) 06:51, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you've got the language percentages wrong. As the footnote in the infobox states, the percentages did not include "unusable responses and those who spoke no language (e.g. too young to talk)", which accounts for 279,759 people. Subtracting these gives a total of 3,748,188 usable responses from those old enough to talk, and dividing 3,673,623 by this gives 98% of residents speaking English. Where did you get the figure of 9,702 Maori speakers from? The figure Stats NZ give is 157,110, which is 4.2% of the total above. -- Avenue (talk) 07:40, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah. Thanks for straightening me out. The 9,702 figure for Maori speakers did seem suprisingly low to me, but it's what I found by searching for "Maori" and arriving at the 118th item ("Cook Islands Maori") in the list referenced by footnote 11. I didn't notice that the 115th item in the list is "Mäori" (with an umlaut), and my un-umlauted search didn't find that. Sorry for the disruption, but I do think that the article got improved a bit in the process. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 05:56, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

New Zealand Independence

Why was New Zealand considered fully independent on 1947? That was only when the Statute of Westminster was adopted. New Zealand was not fully independent until 1986, when the New Zealand Constitution severed what was left of British rule. I'm most certain that the Statute of Westminster is not the date of New Zealand full independence. Australia's and Canada's articles do not consider the Statute of Westminster as the date of Independence, rather their signing of the constitutions (Australia ratified the Statute in 1939, Canada in 1931. Australia's constitution was signed in 1986, Canada's constitution was signed in 1982). CuffX 01:14, 09 December 2007 (UTC)

The infobox makes it pretty clear that NZ has no one date of independence, and lists 1986 as a possible date. What else do you want? --Helenalex (talk) 23:06, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Governement Section

I have attempted to "reorganize" and "polish" the Government section per the to do list above. Thoughts? -Rrius (talk) 07:57, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Can "Government section need reorganisation, polishing" be crossed off the to do list? -Rrius (talk) 22:36, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I think so. It's certainly much improved. -- Avenue (talk) 01:42, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Problems with the Demographics section

This page popped up on my watchlist because of a change in this section. When I checked the numbers against the ref currently numbered as 37, I found that the numbers in the article were very different from the numbers in the cited supporting source, so I changed them to agree.

Moving down, I see that the link currently numbered 38 is broken. I found a cite supporting the 14.6% figure here, but I haven't changed the cite.

I see that the link currently numbered 39 is broken. I see that adding "-revised" into the URL produces a hit here, but the content of that page doesn't seem related to the article content where the cite is ref'd.

The cite numbered 40 hits an Excel spreadsheet, but it's not immediately apparent to me how well the content there supports the article.

The cite numbered 41 hits a general "Quick Stats" publication which looks like it supports the article re Religion where it is ref'd, and looks like it probably supports points made elsewhere in the article where it is not ref'd.

This stuff needs to be fixed, but I'm not familiar enough with either NZ or the NZ Census website to do this properly. Could someone please take a look at it? -- Boracay Bill (talk) 06:40, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

The figures you changed were already correct - they came from table 2 of ref 37, and it appears you were looking at table 1. I added a mention of table 2 to the footnote to reduce the likelihood of someone making the same mistake again.

Ref 38 was withdrawn by the stats department and replaced with a revised version. I've fixed the ref; the actual details are in the pdf file linked to from the ref page.

I haven't time to look at your other points tonight.-gadfium 08:14, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

The percentage born overseas excludes those who didn't give adequate responses to that Census question. I've now cited a source that gives the actual percentages, to keep it simple. They gave figures for the UK+Ireland, not just the UK, so I've changed that statistic accordingly.

I've moved the religion citations to later in the paragraph, to indicate that they apply to more than just the first figure.-- Avenue (talk) 13:23, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Infobox footnotes

The infobox footnote labels were apparently trashed in this edit at 19:15, August 23, 2007. Could someone who cares more than I do about the health of this article please fix this? FWICS, footnote 2 just needs to be relabeled, but footnote 3 needs some more figuring-out. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 12:16, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Labels fixed. I've also rewritten footnote 3 to cover the de facto/de jure distinction, while also linking to the legislation. -- Avenue (talk) 14:04, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Official name

Is the official name of New Zealand just "New Zealand"? You'd think it would be like in the case of Canada or Australia "The Commonwealth of New Zealand". --The monkeyhate (talk) 16:58, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

New Zealand's provinces are long gone, so commonwealth in the Australian sense wouldn't fit. I understand Canada is just named Canada too - see Name of Canada#Use of Canada and Dominion of Canada. -- Avenue (talk) 17:23, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Once upon a time......

the (now) Etymology section in this article SAID "It was later named "Nieuw Zeeland" after the area in Batavia where they had been based, which in turn was named after their province of Zeeland" which is true. Can someone please put it back —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.153.68.182 (talk) 02:57, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a reference? --Helenalex (talk) 08:55, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

This article seems to contradict the above, and supports the current version of our article. -- Avenue (talk) 10:13, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Population growth

Shouldn't this been mentioned somewhere? I've been trying with little response to get it added to the infobox of countries, but it should still be mentioned in the text regardless. It states the Labour government's goal re: immigration, but doesn't have any infomation on actual growth and how much of that is due to immigration. Richard001 (talk) 08:20, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

It might be worth incorporating some of the information covered here: Myth: New Zealand's population is only growing because of migration. -- Avenue (talk) 11:55, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I've added a graph that illustrates NZ's historic population growth, and shows Statistics NZ's various future projections. -- Avenue (talk) 01:30, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I find it amusing that we're referencing that Stats NZ page on population growth, which itself quotes Wikipedia... Okay, not on the same thing, but you would think the organisation which tracks things like that would be able to find a definition of 'sub-replacement fertility' somewhere other than Wiki. --Helenalex (talk) 10:01, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Article.

Have i done the correct thing in reverting a possible vandalism done via another user [12] i wasn't sure if it was vandalism but after reviewing it the user does seem to have vandalised the article. Dust Rider Talk 14:18, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you did exactly the right thing. Thanks.-gadfium 19:14, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Continent

we need to add what coninent it is part of, i cant tell if it is part of the continet of austrailia or asia.--Sonicobbsessed (talk) 02:36, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Its not part of any continent, in the traditional sense. See Zealandia (continent) and Oceania for more controversial answers.-gadfium 03:26, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Thean howcome its not listed in the contenets of the earth thing at the bottom of continet articles(modern part)? and howcome its not in that one preeschool song "The & Continents"??? im confused.--Sonicobbsessed (talk) 00:52, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

If you're talking about Template:Continents of the world, then Oceania is listed on the line of groupings that are not traditionally called continents by English-speakers, and Zealandia is listed as a submerged continent. I'm not familiar with your pre-school song, but again, New Zealand is not part of any of the traditional continents.

If you don't speak English well, or you are very young, you may find the Simple English Wikipedia is easier to understand.-gadfium 04:38, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

International rankings

Should the "International rankings" section be removed? I don't see it in the guide on Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries and havn't seen it on any FA class country articles. Maybe is should be merged into the other sections, or split off to form List of New Zealand's international rankings? - Shudde ^talk 00:53, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

See an earlier discussion at #Non-statistical rankings. I have no problem with it being split off into a separate article.-gadfium 01:26, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

If there is no opposition I will split it off, and add a link to it in the 'see also' section. - Shudde ^talk 23:30, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Secondary Flag

I feel there is enough support in New Zealand to put their secondary flag by their official flag —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.96.180.112 (talk) 03:02, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

What secondary flag? I'm aware of numerous proposals to change the flag, none with any official standing or overwhelming support. The place to discuss this is Talk:Flag of New Zealand.-gadfium 04:56, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Date of formation of New Zealand?

The editors of the New Zealand article have settled on 1907 as being the foundation of the state (I note with concern though that this date lacks any external referencing, per official Wikipedia policy WP:VERIFY).

But this article - List of countries by formation dates - claims that the 'Date of statehood' of New Zealand was actually 1840 (again, completely unreferenced). Both articles cannot be correct, so which is it? Please come to the party armed with some proper external refs, per official Wikipedia policy WP:VERIFY. --Mais oui! (talk) 12:29, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

This depends on your definition of state. New Zealand was a colony from 1840, and became a Dominion, but wasn't considered an independent Dominion until 1907. However it didn't become a fully independent country until 1947 due to the ratification of the Statute of Westminster. Don't get super stressed about the WP:VERIFY thing, because the idea of statehood varies depending on what definition you use. It's something that should be discussed and clarified though. - Shudde ^talk 01:05, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

This article does explain that there is no single date, and refers you to Independence of New Zealand. Much of that article is in summary style for articles on the various important dates. WP:Summary style does not require sources so long as it accurately reflects the content of the more detailed articles, so WP:V is not an issue in this article and not as large an issue as may first appear in the Independence article.-gadfium 05:19, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Climate

-remove the longest name in the world from the climate section.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.90.101.149 (talk) 08:25, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree, that bit of trivia doesn't seem to belong in that section, or even in the article. (It'd be fine in our list of New Zealand place names and their meanings, though.) Anyone object to its removal? -- Avenue (talk) 09:18, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I also agree.-gadfium 19:04, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I've moved it to the other article. -- Avenue (talk) 09:16, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Categories: Talk archives