Wikipedia:New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board

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Time and Date: 22:13 14 June 2008 NZST
Wikipedia Time: 09:39 June 14 UTC
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[edit] Archives

[edit] New Zealand Collaboration of the Fortnight

 The current New Zealand Collaboration of the Fortnight is None at present.
Every fortnight a different New Zealand-related topic, stub or non-existent article is picked.
Please read the nomination text and improve the article any way you can.


[edit] Discussions

RWNBs

GENERAL

BY REGION (A-Z)

 v • d • e 


[edit] All Blacks versus France at rugby union Featured Article candidate

I have nominated All Blacks versus France at rugby union for WP:FA Featured Article status following improvements made after the peer review from last year. Please add your comments to the nomination page here. Thanks. - Shudde talk 10:28, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Help needed with identification of north Canterbury pic

Hi all - user:Leyo has just asked for help with checking whether an anon's edit to a WikiCommons picture of a north Canterbury river is correct. Unfirtunately, i don't know that part of the country well, but hopefully one of you will... Any help greatly appreciated. Grutness...wha? 00:57, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

A little earlier, an anon modified the description of the image in Hanmer Springs similarly, and I couldn't verify whether the change was correct but suggested in good faith that they modify the commons image to match.-gadfium 01:39, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, Google Maps (bridge in center) does not show the names of rivers. Does anyone have a map including names of rivers or know about an interactive one? --Leyo 09:07, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
The image shows the Waiau River flowing under the Waiau Ferry bridge.[1][2] Location shown on the lower right corner of this map. --Melburnian (talk) 13:18, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Whoops, I hadn't realised that I wasn't logged in to commons when I made those changes. Having asked how to do it on commons helpdesk, I will soon be renaming the images (by downloading them and re-uploading with all info, then setting duplicate template). An AA map of the region does identify the rivers, and if you search Google maps for Hanmer River, New Zealand, it puts the marker up in the headwaters of the tributary which joins above the bridge. dramatic (talk) 00:47, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi Dramatic. I have already re-uploaded the images under the correct names (Waiau Ferry Bridge.jpg, Waiau River upstream of Waiau Ferry Bridge.jpg). --Leyo 15:01, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Driver's licence in New Zealand

I think the article title Driver's licence in New Zealand is awkward and inaccurate and have proposed alternatives at Talk:Driver's licence in New Zealand. Opinions are welcome. dramatic (talk) 03:37, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New Zealand art

I've started New Zealand art, but it needs expansion from people who know more about it, especially recent stuff. --Helenalex (talk) 04:34, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New Zealand films

Just thought that the community would like to know that WikiProject Films has a established a New Zealand cinema task force. Interested editors are encouraged to join onboard! Thanks, Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 07:11, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Māori ball games

I see the new stub Tapawai, which has more tags than content. There are a very few hits on Google, which suggest that the game does exist but only nowadays as a children's playground game. It doesn't appear to be related to Ki-o-rahi? Can anyone flesh out the article? If not perhaps it should be prodded as being too minimal to be useful.-gadfium 18:43, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Huntly, New Zealand

*Sigh*. What is our policy if someone adds tons of rugby player names and swamps a community article? I'd delete the whole thing (the rugby section) seeing that it isn't referenced and very marginal, but then I'm not keen on rugby, and the rest of the article isn't sourced much better... so what do others think?Ingolfson (talk) 09:18, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

How about a guideline that no NZ article (that isn't a list of names already) should have too many redlined names or even too many names. Perhaps something like "Never more than 5 redlinks, Every linked name over 5 reduces previous redlink limit by one, never more than 25 names total" or something. Could be used agaist some of the schools and other localities - SimonLyall (talk) 11:51, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
That might prove problematic for major centres (though not for places of Huntly's size) - in thoise cases, a separate "List of people frox X" article might be split from the main article - as was suggested a few months ago for the Dunedin article, which has a voluminous list. Grutness...wha? 00:06, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
In the past I have adopted policy of "no red links unless there really really ought to be an article" for such lists, but I've softened a little over the years. If these are all people who have represented New Zealand, then they are generally considered sufficiently notable. Why don't you greet the user who added the names and explain your concern about swamping, asking them to reduce the list to only the most notable, and suggest that they write articles for some of the redlinks. Perhaps ask an experienced editor who is keen on rugby (eg a contributor to the New Zealand Warriors article) to give them a hand. Of course, this is a lot more work than "rv, unsourced".-gadfium 19:15, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
No Gadfium, if I would simply revert it, I would have done so already. Having thought about it, it isn't really that damaging to the article. Ingolfson (talk) 21:24, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] I haven't got enough time, so.........

Has anyone enough time to create two bios of kiwis who I think deserve a mention in Wikipedia. (1) Brigadier Ronald Quilliam, one of 11 prosecutors at the Tokyo War Crimes trial in 1945, and (2) Harvey Northcroft, who among many other distinguished activities, was one of the 11 judges at that trial. Kaiwhakahaere (talk) 21:04, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Delete or rename?

The following seem to be "unfortunate experiments" to coin a phrase, as they are listed under the Categories given: Hugo999 (talk) 21:42, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I've disabled the categories, and left a note of the users' talk pages advising them of my actions. You're welcome to do this yourself if you find further examples.-gadfium 05:48, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
oops - sorry - that page was created by an admin retrieving a deleted article for me to work on - the categories never occurred to me. dramatic (talk) 06:19, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New Zealand

I have a long term goal of getting the article New Zealand to Featured status, and am hoping I can have some help. Specifically the article needs to be more thoroughly referenced to succeed in an FAC. I was wondering if any editors could help reference the article, even if only a small section. I have managed to get the demographics and sports section's done, but would really appreciate some help with the politics and economy sections. In summary any help, in any way, would be greatly appreciated. - Shudde talk 05:50, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Referenced some stuff in the Culture sections. Cheers Ingolfson (talk) 06:22, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New Zealand English

I would just like to say great job on those who have made the New Zealand English page what it is.

Just one point though, there is a lot of focus I feel on the differences between Australian and New Zealand English, especially when it comes to the table of Vocabulary Differences. I think that it draws attention to there being more similarities between the two accents. This is supposed to be on New Zealand English not the similarities between Australian English. Which I feel if you ask most New Zealanders and Australians they would agree that the accents are in fact very different and are not comparable to each other.

What does everyone else think on this matter? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jschoombie (talk • contribs) 05:02, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

It could be shorter than it is - the vocabulary differences section doesn't seem necessary - but I don't think it's a big deal. And although most NZers and Aussies think the accents are really different, the rest of the world doesn't, and they are actually similar in quite a few ways. --Helenalex (talk) 01:05, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
just a random comment - recently when I was driving south from Melbourne listening to local radio, it drove home to me how the similar the accents really are - it was only the odd word every few sentences that reminded me that I wasn't listening to an Auckland station. Kahuroa (talk) 22:22, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright question

Hi all, I am using THIS document from the National Library guys and gals as my main guide to NZ copyright (i.e. what I may rip to Commons and what not ;-)

Issue I have now is: What if the copyright holder is neither the Crown nor an individual, but instead a corporation? Or the original creator is unknown, and a corporation (i.e. newspaper) has it in its archives? Assume date is known. Is it 50 years, or am I just hoping too much? Ingolfson (talk) 10:34, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not a lawyer, but for photos, I think the creator would usually be an individual even if a corporation originally owned the copyright (e.g. if it hired the photographer). US copyright law for works published elsewhere also seems to be relevant - see the last post in Which copyright law applies?, along with Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States. By date, do you mean publication date? I think that works by an unknown author/creator, first published in NZ in 1945 or earlier, would generally be okay. (This is unless they were also "manufactured" in the US, and complied with all US copyright formalities, including registration and renewal there, which seems unlikely. Another exception is if they were published in the US within 30 days of first being published in NZ.) The definition of an unknown author hinges on what can be established by "reasonable inquiry". -- Avenue (talk) 14:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Since the National Library offers to assist in determining copyright, why don't you email and ask them about a particular work, and also make it clear you are interested in the general case of when works come out of copyright when a corporation held the initial rights.-gadfium 21:46, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Why don't I... ? Because the image is on their website, and me being in the right or not is not going to matter much to their feelings about me copying it to Commons! ;-) May ask the general question, though. Ingolfson (talk) 07:14, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
PS: I feel free to list any image as author unknown without further research if the NatLib identifies it as such itself. I am a bit more dubious about a collection of newspaper pictures where the photographers are not listed, but nether the photos identified as of an unnown source. Ingolfson (talk) 07:14, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Media coverage of edits from the Beehive

The NZ Herald ran a story today about people making edits from IP addresses registered to Parliament: Blogger targets 'political' editing of Wikipedia. Some of these edits seem innocent enough, just a case of editing from work, but others might suggest a possible conflict of interest (such as those to the Bill English article). I'll try to give these some scrutiny; please weigh in if you have any concerns. -- Avenue (talk) 09:44, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Crusaders on main page

Crusaders (rugby) (about the Christchurch based Super 14 team) is scheduled to appear on the main page tomorrow. Would New Zealand contributors please keep a close eye on the page for vandalism and try and prevent the page turning into a complete mess by the end of the day? I'm sure that won't happen but no harm in being vigilant. I had a lot of help from New Zealand editors at the articles FAC so it's good to see it on the main page. Cheers. - Shudde talk 02:08, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 2008 Olympics page

There is a new page New Zealand at the 2008 Summer Olympics. Could someone edit the template box so that 2008 is included in the pages accessible from the box (it does not have direct editing access) Hugo999 (talk) 02:30, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I've added the link in the infobox. Cheers. – Liveste (talk • edits) 02:56, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Rats! Beaten to it by "that much"!! :) DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 03:01, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Have added team members selected so far. DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 03:18, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Help needed finding info

Hi, I've been working on All Blacks versus France at rugby union since it failed it's first FAC. Roger Davies is going to do a copy-edit and has request some information. I need to know where the Kiwis rugby team of the 2NZEF played against France in the Second World War. If someone has access to the book Khaki All Blacks, whether at their local library or wherever that would really help. It will certainly have this information but i don't have access to it. So if anyone can do that please let me know, I'd really appreciate it. - Shudde talk 03:13, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

According to page 139, the 2NZEF played France on two occassions in early 1946: firstly on 10 March at Colombes Stadium, Paris; secondly on 24 March at Wallon Stadium, Toulouse. 2NZEF won both times. Cheers. – Liveste (talk • edits) 04:15, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks a lot! One question, what's the ISBN of that book? - Shudde talk 05:01, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
ISBN 1-86971-021-5. – Liveste (talk • edits) 05:06, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Cheers. Thanks for the super fast reply, really appreciate it. - Shudde talk 05:23, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New Zealand suburbs template

Hello all - I have created a new Template:Infobox New Zealand suburbs. Started out as an Auckland project, but I changed it so it can be easily used on various cities all over NZ. Has a lot of (optional) fields beyond what the previous Auckland tables used. I am also still tweaking it a little, but I think its pretty good. Things still to do (likely tomorrow):

  • Add support for wards (even if all they seem to be used in is elections)
  • Try to find a way to pipe links (so that Devonport, New Zealand can be piped to Devonport within the infobox
  • Try to find a way to allow brackets around non-suburb 'surrounded by's - for this and the previous change I may end up having to undo the auto-wikilinking for these fields. Changes done.

So far, I have only used the template on a very few test cases (Auckland CBD, Onehunga, New Zealand for example). Once the above is fixed, I will over the coming days update all the other Auckland suburbs and then maybe other cities in NZ as well. Any comments, suggestions, before I start to do so? Cheers Ingolfson (talk) 14:48, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

At first glance it looks good - it'll well replace the "temporary" infobox I added to suburb articles over two years ago! Grutness...wha? 20:34, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I have also now fixed the above things. Ingolfson (talk) 21:41, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Could the template be made narrower? I hate pages where wide content on the right reduces the lead to one word per line. dramatic (talk) 09:10, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Umm, one word? Surely you are exaggerating? If I narrowed it, content wrapping into more than one line would be common for some fields, making the template look a bit cluttered in my opinion. Also, the template is currently 300px, with the old table being around 295px, so its not exactly a massive change. New Zealand railway stations template is also the same width as the new suburb template. As you can see, I'm hesitant to change the width... Ingolfson (talk) 10:15, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I kid you not. I have inserted linebreaks exactly as they occur for me.

Onehunga
is a suburb
of Auckland
City, New
Zealand,
and also
the
location of
the Port of
Onehunga,
the city's
small port
on the
Manukau
Harbour. It
(and so on until Maungakiekie doesn't fit so there is a long gap before the text can continue with that beneath the infobox.

Note that my browser is cset to open pages at a width which gives optimum sentence lengths on most websites. I can drag the frame wider, but it is a nuisance to have to do so. My font size is enlarged slighly in my WP user stylesheet, but I won't be alone in that. dramatic (talk) 10:56, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Uhm, dramatic, I still feel that since the page displays readably at a window sized only ~ 640 px wide (just checked - and most computers have much higher resolutions today), and due to the fact that many, many other templates on Wikipedia are similar width (such as the mountain template, which is even wider) the problem is more on your side - maybe reduce text size or set a larger window size? Again, I note the existing suburb tables at 295px width. I may check how a 280px width would work for the template, but please give me a day or two. BTW: How do K2 and Onehunga Branch display for you? Ingolfson (talk) 11:13, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Also, how does say Shire of Chiltern look? (That's an Australian one using a similarish template). Orderinchaos 13:13, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
All the examples people asked me to compare are narrower than the NZ suburbs template on Onehunga:

(all measurements taken with Iconico Screen Calipers) If the left and right margins of the photographs were eliminated - so the side of the photo aligns with the blue header bars - it would be much better. Note that not all templates exhibit the difference between browsers. Since this discussion is getting long, should we move it to the template's talk page? (I don't know how to transfer it properly). dramatic (talk) 08:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Then either your browser or the template syntax has a problem, because the template clearly displays as 300px wide on my IE (V6, admittedly, but still). I was never intending to have it at more than 300px width. Therefore, I doubt that a simple "width" change on the template side will change anything (though in fact, that's a good thing in a way, because it means that we may be able to solve this eventually without me having to shrink the template in my view...) Ingolfson (talk) 08:54, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Oh, and did a simple copy-pasta over to the template talk. Ingolfson (talk) 08:57, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
FYI, I changed the template width from 27em to 310px (em-based sizing only really works when the entire layout is em-sized) and everybody now seems happy. dramatic (talk) 19:27, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] CfD closing

Hi, just noticed the CfD hadn't closed for Cities in New Zealand... not completely sure if I have read the consensus right so would appreciate comments before I close it. Orderinchaos 08:11, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Excellent - now completed. Orderinchaos 08:53, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Coat of Arms copyright

I just called for Image:COA of Niue.png to be deleted again (second request) from Commons, as it seems to me that at best its a fair use case and thus needs to be on Wikipedia. Similar issue with Cook Islands. Am I mising something, are the COAs really PD? At the very least, the image description is faulty. Ingolfson (talk) 08:16, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Election year

A timely reminder that articles on political candidates who have never been in Parliament should be nominated for deletion in accordance with WP:BIO#politicians. The only exceptions are if the subject is verifiably notable enough to have warranted an article even had they not been standing for Parliament, and party leaders. To balance this, we also need to monitor the articles of incumbent MP's to ensure they are not used for shameless promotion and politicking. dramatic (talk) 10:52, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Aramoana massacre

Does anyone have one of the three or four books about Aramoana on their bookshelf? The article has gotten itself into a huge muddle over the duration of the incident and the time of David Gray's death. See Talk:Aramoana_massacre#Article_inaccuracies. dramatic (talk) 00:14, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Before I go any further, I want to make sure that........

I happened on Ngan v R and shuddered at the legalese style used in the article. Not encyclopedic at all. Very informative, but bordering on a text dump IMMHO. So I started to edit it, but only got the two opening pars done when the thought crossed my mind that someone/somewhere might have agreed to present these articles in this fashion, and I was wasting my time. Anyone know? I changed the opening pars from

Kevin Jack Ngan v The Queen [2007] NZSC 105 is a decision of the Supreme Court of New Zealand, it was handed down on the 13th of December 2007.[1] It considered the admissability of evidence of a crime that was discovered incidentally to an inventory search of a car accident. The court considered the scope and application of s 21 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, the right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure.
Elias CJ, Blanchard, Tipping, McGrath and Anderson JJ. The judgement was unaminous with the reasons of Elias CJ, Blanchard and Anderson JJ given by Blanchard J.[2] Tipping J gave his own concurring judgement,[3] Mcgrath J agreed with the result but employed a different line of reasoning.[4]

to

Kevin Jack Ngan v The Queen is a decision of the Supreme Court of New Zealand, which was handed down on December 13, 2007.[5] The decision held that evidence of a crime discovered incidental to an inventory search of a car involved in an accident was admissible in court. The court considered the scope and application of Section 21 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, regarding the right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure.
Sitting on the bench were Chief Justice Sian Elias, and Justices Peter Blanchard, Andrew Tipping, John McGrath and Noel Anderson. The judgement was unanimous with the reasons of Justices Elias, Blanchard and Anderson given by Justice Blanchard.[6] Justice Tipping gave his own concurring judgement,[7] and Justice Mcgrath agreed with the result but employed a different line of reasoning.[8]

OK. Should I carry on? Kaiwhakahaere (talk) 23:55, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Tks. Have moved it accordingly. Kaiwhakahaere (talk) 01:44, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I have just tagged the article with {{primarysources}}. There are two reasons that Wikipedia requires secondary sources rather than primary sources - the first is that any reference under the control of the article subject may be biased about itself - which is clearly not an issue with a document created by a court. The second is that notability is only demonstrated when other people talk or write about the subject. In this case, significant (i.e. editorial or full article) commentary on the decision of the decision in a legal magazine would seem appropriate. dramatic (talk) 02:39, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Free trade agreement

I think this is an issue which might make the main page, but we need an article on it. There's a draft article at User:Taifarious1/Works In Progress, which could be updated and improved in a hurry, but we need Taifarious to move it to main space. Taifarious hasn't edited for a couple of days, so shall we start an article just on the FTA in the meantime?-gadfium 06:25, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I say be bold and move it into mainspace. It doesn't have any inline citations yet but that can be fixed. - Shudde talk 06:36, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. A historical international event, and little ol NZ leads the way. Should make the main page. Kaiwhakahaere (talk) 06:56, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and made the move to Sino-New Zealand relations. - Shudde talk 06:59, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
The free trade agreement is significant enough to have its own aritcle, I created one here: China-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement--Sir Anon (talk) 10:56, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Netball

I've started the ball rolling (should that be made the centre pass?) on creating a Wikiproject for Netball. If you would particiapte in this, please indicate your support at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#Netball dramatic (talk) 00:33, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Australia-New Zealand relations

The article Australia-New Zealand relations is currently proposed as a possible future Australian Collaboration of the Fortnight. If any New Zealand editors would like to help, you are welcome to add your name to the list at Wikipedia:Australian_Collaboration_of_the_Fortnight#Australia-New_Zealand_relations, or just help with the article anyway, as has already started since it was nominated. --Scott Davis Talk 02:26, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Australia-New Zealand relations is now the Australian collaboration for the next fortnight. We might appreciate some New Zealand eyes on the topic to ensure it stays balanced. --Scott Davis Talk 13:48, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Further reading lists

I'd appreciate feedback on the value of these lists, which have been added to various politician's articles recently. Please discuss at Talk:Helen Clark#Further reading.-gadfium 06:15, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Janet Frame

Has anyone read Janet Frame's autobiographies or Michael King's biography? The article's currently in a bit of a muddle involving the late-author's niece. See: Talk: Janet Frame [3]. --RobbieBurns (talk) 23:20, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Population density maps

Having ended up with population density maps for the various Regions while making a New Zealand-wide map, I decided I might as well upload them and add them to the appropriate Region articles. However, they don't really fit all that well, I feel — is there some more suitable way to use them than just tacking them to whatever section looks most demographics-related? (We don't have a standard template for Region articles, from the look of things.) -- Vardion (talk) 05:16, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the population density maps are fantastic. Thanks for creating them.-gadfium 08:17, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Yep, they're great. And they are friendly for other-language wikipedias to use as well. Nice one. Kahuroa (talk) 08:24, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I have no problems with positioning, but it would help greatly if they had some sort of legent or key. Perhaps a bar with the colours and graduated with the numbers. dramatic (talk) 10:38, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
There's a key on Image:NewZealandPopulationDensity.png, which should be copied to the other maps.-gadfium 20:05, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree, they could use that little modification. Also, could you upload larger versions, some of the areas are hard to make out, such as on the Auckland Region map. Keep up the good work! Ingolfson (talk) 05:52, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] History of Canterbury, New Zealand

This article needs serious attention, and possibly a name change to "early history". Viriditas (talk) 12:41, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I was going to say it does need some later history to be added, but on looking at the size of the article, it would become far too large if later history was covered in the same detail. I suggest you add a note to the talk page of the article suggesting a rename, and if you get no objections in a few days, then go ahead, and adjust the Canterbury, New Zealand#History section accordingly. If you have expertise or inclination, then perhaps create at least a stub article to cover history after 1876, so we have a series of three articles (with Canterbury Province) to cover the entire history.
Do you believe the article needs "serious attention" only because it doesn't cover more recent history, or do you believe the current text or layout is seriously flawed? I see a cleanup-section tag, but no explanation of why that section needs cleanup, and the only comment on the talk page is in praise of the current article while noting it needs to be extended to later history.-gadfium 20:21, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Some things I noticed: the article lacks a lead section, is full of haphazard naming conventions (is it Pigeon Pay, Pigeon Bay, or Pigeon bay?) and footnote style is mixed, coming before and after punctuation, including an outdated notes format. Then there is the size: At 59 kilobytes it's an incredible amount of information for a novice reader to take in without direction. A little hand-holding can be effective here, hence the need for a good lead that lets the reader get their feet wet. Sections like "The French at Akaroa" could be reduced to summary style and spun off into its own article, possibly with or in addition to the "Early Exploration and Pastoral Settlement". That's just to start. Viriditas (talk) 01:08, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree, it's too big. It should be split into pre-European and early European (not sure how late the latter should extend). There are large swathes of narrative (from either published books or academic works) which seem excessive for an encyclopedia. There are a lot of missing in-text citations and I'm not convinved of the veracity/currency of the sources (e.g. "In 1627, the Ngāi Tahu by that time" 1627! How exactly was that date established??). There are a lot of redlinks, they should be removed unless an appropriate page can be found/started. I've corrected the iwi names to follow wiki convention. The same should be done for other Māori names. Oh well, much to do then! :) DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 08:11, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
FWIW, the History of Otago article is also heavily weighted towards early history (with nothing post 1848), whereas the History of Dunedin one is more balanced (largely because we have the advantage of having had one of Dunedin's top historians working on it). I think it may be a general thing that needs cleanup in several NZ articles.Time for another collaboration of the fortnight? (BTW, sorry about your team's relegation, DCiNZ) Grutness...wha? 01:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merging pages

I'm a NZ member of the Milhist project, where they have a lot of talent with page/board changes etc. Would it be useful to merge this page with the WP:NZ talkpage, with all archives being maintained? I think some of the people over there could do that quite easily, if it was thought a good idea. Buckshot06 (talk) 04:04, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Peer review request

I've requested a peer review for the page List of schools in Northland, New Zealand. I'm interested in the page becoming a Featured list. Comments are welcome at Wikipedia:Peer review/List of schools in Northland, New Zealand/archive1.-gadfium 08:40, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] An Invitation from the Philippine Wikipedia Community

Hello folks,

The Philippine Wikipedia Community will be holding its 1st Meet-up in Cebu City (the fourth one in the Philippines) on June 23-24, 2008. This coincides with the first Philippine Open Source Summit, also to be held in Cebu. The Philippine Wikipedia Community is an Implementing Partner of the Open Source Summit. We invite you to join us in this event. If you are in the IT or IT-enabled services industry, this would be a great opportunity to meet people from the 4th best outsourcing city in the world. This is also a good excuse to visit our beautiful beaches :)

If you're interested in joining the Wikipedia meet-up, please join our discussion. You can register for the Open Source Summit here. If you would like some assistance with local accomodations, you may email User:Bentong Isles.

The Philippine Wikipedia Community
WP:PINOY

[edit] Wa$ted! TV show

Got some feedback on this article. They suggest that the title perhaps be changed to all caps and some links be created (it's almost an orphan right now). If anyone is interested. - SimonLyall (talk) 12:15, 19 May 2008 (UTC)