Talk:Nelson, New Zealand

Super beaches and NPOV
IP addresses keep adding the word "super" to describe the beaches. While agreeable, this statement violates the NPOV. I can't fix it anymore today, as that would violate the 3RR. Someone, please help keep this article neutral! --Gray Porpoise 01:18, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * If there are sources that describe Nelson's beaches as "Super" and no sources that state they are not "super" then a NPOV mandates that we say Nelson's beaches are "super" too in the article. WP is not concerned with arbitrating truth or opinions - merely summarising in a balanced way all referenced points of view. W. Frank ✉ 22:45, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Nelson's Māori name, Whakatū
I've reverted the non-consensual excision of Nelson's Māori name, Whakatū, from the lede. Maori is one of NZ's 3 official languages and, if I live long enough, I will propose to one of my children that they propose a special resolution of the City Council to ratify this name on 5 June 2007 - although what Nelson's bypass was named may give you a clue as to whether this name is "official" or not: Whakatu Drive. And yes, I am biased considering that my children are at least genetically 41% Maori ... Gaimhreadhan (kiwiexile at DMOZ)  • 15:17, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * PS: Is your friend ever going to collect his dog kennel, Hayden?
 * I've changed the Infobox following (preliminary?) discussion at New_Zealand_Wikipedians%27_notice_board I hope you're feeling a bit better now, G. W. Frank ✉ 21:46, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm very much looking forward to seeing my family and Gadfium; I've left the keys to the Transit on your mantelpiece. Thanks for steering the Maori naming discussion in a more temperate way than I probably could have managed... Gaimhreadhan [[Image:Map of Ireland's capitals.png|15px]](kiwiexile at DMOZ) • 12:10, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Population Growth
I have removed the unreferenced statement about the Nelson urban area having the largest population growth in the country. According to Statistics New Zealand, Nelson experienced 4.2% growth between 2001 and 2006. The national average was 8.4%. dramatic 08:28, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
 * There is a distinction between the statistics for the City of Nelson unitary authority area and "The Nelson urban agglomeration (including the fast-growing adjacent town of Richmond)". I will try and find a reputable source for the text you excised that it: "has a population of approximately 60,000 - and has recently had a population growth rate exceeding any other population centre in New Zealand."W. Frank ✉ 10:29, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Weather averages for Nelson, New Zealand inaccurate
Quite a few of the temperatures in the table are inaccurate, for example the yearly average minimum of 47 in Fahrenheit and 7 in Celsius. 47 Fahrenheit is 8.33 Celsius.

The biggest error is for September, in Fahrenheit, the average minimum is given as a rather cold 32 Fahrenheit but in Celsius, it is given as a much milder 5 degrees. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)


 * I suppose that comes from using an American source. I'll go and check the source again W. Frank talk ✉ 22:37, 22 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I've double checked and you're correct. Sorry I made the error when I was transposing them. I've added a Notes section now so you can double check the source I used if you would be so kind? W. Frank talk ✉ 22:52, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Table of Contents (TOC) position
People access WP using a variety of screen resolutions and operating systems. I believe that all NZ geographic articles now have the Infobox.

The lede paragraphs are always intended to be just a short introduction to (and encapsulation of) the rest of our article.

For the mast majority of readers, it will be a better use of their screen space to have the lede in a "newspaper column" with the TOC to the left and the infobox to the right. This format achieves the minimum "white space" and waste of screen resources and leads to the minimum amount of scrolling needed to read to the end of the article. It is also aesthetically more pleasing.

Those few users that dislike this format can always "toggle off" the TOC display.

Does anyone disagree and, if so, why please? W. Frank talk ✉ 13:20, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Flag of the City of Nelson (failed)
I oppose such a merge. The flag is a specialised topic which is probably not of interest to most people looking at the article on the city, but as one of the few city councils to adopt its own flag, it has an inherent notability. A separate article seems justified. A brief paragraph on the flag could be added to the Nelson article since at present it is linked only from the infobox.- gadfium 05:53, 14 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Generally support retention of separate article. Wikipedia is not paper, and otherwise as per Gadfium. Ingolfson (talk) 23:53, 20 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Seeing that there was no other comment except mine and Gadfium's oppose, I am now removing the merge proposal. Ingolfson (talk) 23:53, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Jedi census phenomenon and Nelson
According to the 2006 NZ Census, the nelson region has by far the highest number of "jedi" followers per capita. See http://www.jedichurch.org/uploads/4448/files/NZStats2006.pdf and http://www.jedichurch.org/webapps/site/4448/5930/news/news-more.html?newsid=204814. Does that deserve a mention in this article? I'm too clumsy at wikipedia to put one in myself. (No, I'm not a follower, I just happened to stumble on this information). 60.242.34.19 (talk) 06:26, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

The Colonist newspaper
The Colonist newspaper was published in Sydney, from 1835 to 1840, is this the same paper as the The Colonist once published in Nelson, and mentioned in the article? wcrosbie (talk), Melbourne, Australia 08:06, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 * No, that's a different newspaper. For further information write to the The Archivist, Nelson City Council, Trafalgar Street since theirarchives are currently closed to the public for earthquake strengthening. --2.124.220.128 (talk) 14:25, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Or look at The Colonist (New Zealand newspaper).  Schwede 66  03:30, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Music
How about mention of the Nelson School of Music ?
 * It's a wiki. If you've got a reliable source (online or offline), write that part and include the source in between some reference tags:  Schwede 66  17:20, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Recent IP edits
IP did a spot of wikifiddling, adding nonsense to Irredentism and misleading maps on Nelson Province. Added a list of notable "Nelsonians" to this article, checking the list its not that bad but a couple have only a tangential connection to Nelson. I didn't delete the whole lot, only those with a tangential connection. The IP is edit warring them back. About to warn for 3RR but not going to indulge their edit war. Would appreciate other wikipedia editors checking this and reverting if they concur with my assessment. WCM email 00:39, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Did Rutherford live in Nelson full-time while he attended College there, or was he boarding? If the latter, then I would argue that the Brightwater boy shouldn't be in the list.  Schwede 66  01:16, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I'd agree, the criteria for compiling this seems to be fairly tenuous in some cases. WCM email 01:20, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Centre of New Zealand
Recently I made quite significant changes to the section about the so-called Centre of New Zealand walk, monument, etc.

I also pointed out (but didn't give precise coordinates, or a citation) that an accurately calculated centroid of area puts the geographic centre of NZ (including all islands) in the Big Bush Conservation Area which lies about 10 km north of St Arnaud.

I calculated various geographic centres myself back in 2002. See this link for positions and more details:

https://forums.geocaching.com/GC/index.php?/topic/38916-centre-of-the-mainland/&do=findComment&comment=464562

I've also repeated these calculations more recently, also using different datasets (also higher resolution, available from LINZ), and also using different methods (i.e. using centroid function in QGIS). All of these results are consistent, and the differences are relatively small (as expected). Thus I am very confident of what I have written, but have not yet published the most recently calculated positions anywhere public.

In early 2019 I contacted the Nelson City Council (NCC), LINZ, and GNS and some others, in an attempt to learn exactly what the NCC used as basis for various things they have said on their site about the "Centre of New Zealand". Eventually NCC sent me a draft of an early version of what they had on their website which referenced a 27 June 1962 article in the Nelson Evening Mail. After passing that extra detail to GNS (who have many of the original DSIR records), their staff located a clipping of the original article in their library which I have since made available publicly at:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1giLDfmjydEA8HMARufmWodgdSZ1zbI9D/view

It is clear (to me at least) that the results calculated by Dr Reilly in 1962 (and also, interestingly, on NZ's first computer!) were not very precise - he estimated the error margins to be about 5 minutes of arc (i.e. more than 9 km in the north/south direction) and my own more recent recalculations using much higher resolution data show that even that was too low. Despite the error margins given for the 1962 calculations, NCC and many others simply quote the position calculated as if it was "exact".

It is not all that difficult to recalculate the results using publicly available data if you have the appropriate expertise using a GIS package, and/or some coding ability. I'm happy to explain in more detail if anybody is interested, but will also try to publish the details in due course. The method I used in 2002 was essentially the same as what Dr Reilly in 1962 did but used DEM (Digital Elevation Model) data where the resolution was 500m squares instead of the very coarse 7.5 minute of arc rectangular blocks that he used. More recently I've used data that was 80m squares, and also the latest shapefiles made available by LINZ.

SeeNoEvil (talk) 02:23, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Good work. But you better get that published as right now, it’s original research (that WP isn’t fond of).  Schwede 66  18:37, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that advice Schwede66. I've been looking at what exactly "original research" is, versus "routine calculations" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research#Routine_calculations), and thinking about what I should publish and exactly how. Although I can understand how many might think this kind of calculation is beyond a "routine calculation" it's not that I've invented anything really new - more like just did the calculations again using more accurate and complete data (which is also made available publicly by LINZ, etc.) Any suggestions would be welcome. My vague plan at this stage was to to post something to my blog in a way that would also allow someone else to relatively easily reproduce the calculations I did, and so be able to confirm the results. This would involve sharing some of the code I wrote, and detailing various steps required if using QGIS (for example). SeeNoEvil (talk) 03:06, 28 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Nice piece of work!
 * But do you really mean "...the geographic centre of NZ (including all islands)..." and including all the nine island groups, located in the subtropics and subantarctic, which are part of New Zealand but lie outside of the New Zealand continental shelf or just the "main" three islands (and their offshore islets) included in the original designations of New Ulster, New Munster and New Leinster ?
 * ie have you included the "Area Outside Territorial Authority" together with the Chatham and Solander islands? Surely if you include such outliers as the Bounty and Antipodes islands, the geographical centre (as opposed to the gravitational centre of the land masses of the realm) of New Zealand lies far to the south and east in the great southern ocean? --BushelCandle (talk) 15:06, 27 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Hi BushelCandle. The 1962 newspaper article about the positions calcuated by Ian Reilly says that he didn't include the outlying islands (such as the Chathams) but did include the coastal islands. My own earlier (2002) calculations used a dataset that also only included the three main islands plus smaller coastal islands. In more recent times (earlier in 2019) I've redone the processing using other more recent data sets that also did not include the outlying islands but were 'higher resolution", getting positions that were typically a few hundred metres away from the 2002 results. That kind of difference is consistent with what I would expect from the higher resolution data used. However earlier this year I also learned how to use QGIS (in the process of trying to reproduce what GNS did when they calculated geographic centres for the NZ Extended Continental Shelf, which unearthed another "interesting story") and then calculated the centre of all NZ land (including the outlying islands) using both the NZCS2000 and the NZTM2000 projections using that, using a LINZ sourced shapefile including all. Including those additional outlying islands moves the geographic centre (i.e. centroid of area) a few kilometres south and east as compared to the result obtained when excluding them. Using those different projections again produces slightly different final positions, roughly half a kilometre apart. Excluding the outlying islands produces a result near the northern boundary of of the Big Bush Conservation Area, and including those outlying islands produces a point just inside the same area but further south and quite near the eastern boundary.


 * See the map showing the "entire realm of New Zealand" here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_outlying_islands


 * The centroid of area is essentially determining the balance point as if it was a two dimensional map balancing on a pin, and with disjoint sections of land (islands!) we also have to imagine the ocean is excluded yet the separate islands are still somehow held in the correct relative positions! Most of the outlying islands are quite small so their effect on the final position is not as great as you may think.


 * SeeNoEvil (talk) 22:37, 27 August 2019 (UTC)


 * This whole conversation is about Original Research no question about it. None of this can get into Wikipedia without it being published indepedently in reliable sources.  I also think the concept of the "centre of NZ" is being taken way to seriously for everyones own good.  This conversation has already gone over the line of not being appropriate for a Wikipedia talk page. Andrewgprout (talk) 04:05, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * That's what I guessed. If you are excluding both land masses under water and the water that surrounds them, then you are not calculating the geographical centre but rather the gravitational centre (or centre of mass) of New Zealand's dry land. --BushelCandle (talk) 16:13, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I realise you prefer to use "gravitational centre" and I don't have any particular issue with that terminology in the general case, but reject your assertion that I am "not calculating the geographical centre". To avoid annoying others here, continued at User_Talk:BushelCandle. SeeNoEvil (talk) 23:07, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Strangely, I've only found this article tonight: 24 April 2019 Dominion Post article "Centre of NZ Debate Fires Up". Is this sufficient to satisfy the "citation needed" tag in the sentence "Recalculating the result with more modern and accurate data shows the geographic centre of New Zealand is approximately 60 km southwest of Nelson, in the Big Bush Conservation Area north of Saint Arnaud, New Zealand"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by SeeNoEvil (talk • contribs) 11:23, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Interesting article - did you co-operate with Clive Gifford? --BushelCandle (talk) 08:32, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Interesting question - does one cooperate with himself? The reason I asked here about the possible use of that article as a citation was exactly because it refers to me, and so I wanted to hear what others thought. I contacted the journalist back in April and he told me later he was going to do a follow-up article but when I searched a few days after that I saw nothing and so assumed he had changed his mind. I only stumbled over it earlier this month. SeeNoEvil (talk) 00:14, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you for clarifying that you are indeed Clive Gifford (I didn't want to be accused of outing you since doxing people is severely frowned on here). Personally I think the citation is fine - especially as you have now declared your connection. --BushelCandle (talk) 10:16, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

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