User:Giantflightlessbirds

I'm Mike Dickison (, Adzebill on BlueSky and Mastodon). I'm a zoologist by training, interested in the evolution of extinct flightless birds such as moa and the conservation of endangered New Zealand insects. I had a previous career as a graphic designer, but have been working in and around museums since 1990.

I've been an active Wikipedian since 2014, beginning with Whanganui Wiki Wednesday while Curator of Natural History at Whanganui Regional Museum. I began providing Wikipedia backup for the Critter of the Week radio show in 2015, and now coordinate a team of volunteers. I spent 2018–2019 as the NZ Wikipedian at Large funded by a WMF Project Grant (during which I invented the models Wikipedian at Large and Wikiblitz) and in 2020, 2022, and 2023 was West Coast Wikipedian at Large. From November 2020 to June 2022 I was Digital Discovery Librarian at the Westland District Library in Hokitika, New Zealand. I received a Paul Reynolds ("No Numpties") Scholarship to spend September 2022 in Europe researching the use of OpenRefine in GLAM institutions. As of 2024 I'm Aotearoa Wikipedian at Large based in Christchurch on a grant from Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand.

I'm also a freelance Wikipedia and open-knowledge consultant, helping organisations engage with Wikimedia projects and supporting volunteer activities. In my spare time I sketch (my drawings in Commons), go on nature hikes with iNaturalist, and do some amateur entomology.



Wikipedian in Residence
From mid 2018 to mid 2019 I was New Zealand Wikipedian at Large, supported by a one-year project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation. My job was to travel New Zealand to help heritage and research organisations engage with Wikimedia projects as a Wikipedian in Residence, and support the New Zealand editing community through meetups and workshops. If you want to know more, there's a project page with monthly reports, media coverage, and a list of all the events.

In Nov–Dec 2019 I was Wikipedian in Residence at Lincoln University, working on increasing the visibility of the Entomology Department and uploading archival photos to Commons (see project page for details). Jan–July 2020 I worked in the Research & Enterprise office of Massey University, Palmerston North, and amongst other projects ran staff Wikipedia and Wikidata training and an edit-a-thon (see project page).

I was a consulting Wikimedian for the Dodd-Walls Centre for Photonic and Quantum Technologies, helping them improve various physics articles and add photos of their researchers to Commons (see the project page), and January through August 2021 I was Wikipedian in Residence for New Zealand Opera—again, more information on that project page.

With the support of Development West Coast I was the West Coast Wikipedian at Large, travelling the length of the Coast and coordinating a remote volunteer team, and working with local historians and heritage collections. The first stint was six weeks full-time Sep–Oct 2020, then ten weeks half-time Jun–Aug 2022, and six more weeks full-time Sep–Oct 2023. This project won Silver (Best Use of Digital and Social Media) and Gold (Most Innovative Campaign) at the PR Institute of NZ's 2024 awards.

In January 2023 I did a Wikipedian in Residence project with the Zoology Department of the University of Otago; in June 2023 I started a Wikipedia/Wikidata/Commons collaboration with the Healthier Lives National Science Challenge, and in January 2024 with Ageing Well National Science Challenge.

In 2024 I'm a Wikipedian at Large again, based in Christchurch, New Zealand. This will involve working with multiple GLAM institutions, training up new volunteer editors, and running public events and Wikimedia volunteer meetups. I've been working with the University of Canterbury accompanying biology students on a field trip to Cass, modeling an art exhibition with the Christchurch Art Gallery, and digitising books from the Christchurch Libraries collection.

Critter of the Week
Since 2015 I've helped with RNZ's Critter of the Week, a weekly radio broadcast by Nicola Toki and Jesse Mulligan on native species both endangered and neglected. A group of "wikinerds" improve or create the article for each species discussed: Jesse and I chatted about it in this interview back in 2016, and I wrote about it for Forest & Bird in 2023. Good examples of improved articles are the Open Bay Islands leech, New Zealand giraffe weevil, and Mercury Islands tusked weta. Critter of the Week has a Wikipedia project page with a complete list of all critters to date, and links to each broadcast. Cartoonist Giselle Clarkson has released some of her art under an open licence for the project. Feel free to help! Volunteers receive a weekly email with information on the upcoming critter,and a To Do list, as well as online training; you can sign up here.

West Coast Wikisource
A project that grew out of my work with Westland District Library from 2020 to 2022 was the digitisation of out-of-copyright books relating to the West Coast's literature and history. Volunteers transcribed and proofread the books in Wikisource as part of the West Coast Task Force. They were then exported as EPUBs and uploaded by the library manager to OverDrive, so they became borrowable library e-books using the app Libby—the first example I know of where Wikisource texts became borrowable library books. After I finished at Westland District Library in 2022 the project was supported with a grant from the Mātātuhi Foundation which allowed me to work with a librarian to scan books, coordinate copyright licensing, and recruit a team of volunteers. I'm continuing this work with other library collections.

National Digital Forum
The National Digital Forum is an annual meetup at Te Papa of the digital galleries, libraries, archives, and museum (GLAM) sector. I've taken part in Wikipedia day (2014), the Palmerston North Barcamp session and Wikipedia panel discussion (video) (2015). I presented an Eight Important Wikifacts workshop (2016), and spoke on "What I learned about Massive Branded Projects from editing Wikipedia" (2016) and "A Wikipedian at Large" (2018). In 2019 I ran the first Wikidata workshop at NDF. I presented on seven years of collaboration between the GLAM sector and the Wikimedia movement in 2022 (links).

Workshops and edit-a-thons
I organised the Whanganui 2015 River Week Edit-a-thon, 2016 #NZspecies at Te Papa, 2017 Women in Science at the Royal Society in Wellington, and the 2017 New Zealand Insect Cards Edit-a-thon in Auckland. See the Wikipedian at Large list for the dozens of events I ran over 2018–2019; it makes me dizzy just to read it. After that I organised the Bauer Media 2019 workshop, was conference Wikipedian for TetZooCon 2019 in London, and ran edit-a-thons on Māori women artists and Australasian endangered plants in 2019. In 2020 I helped with the socially-distanced Playmarket edit-a-thon, and in 2021 the worldwide 24-hour Women in Red edit-a-thon (here's a radio interview). Most of my Wikipedian in Residence projects involve online Wikimedia training and virtual edit-a-thons. I also ran an Introduction to Wikimedia Commons at Wikimania 2023 in Singapore.

Competitions
I was the New Zealand coordinator for the Wiki Science Competition 2021.

Miscellaneous
I helped User:Schwede66 resolve the long-running debate over the use of macrons on place names in New Zealand English articles, and created Task force tohutō to organise volunteer efforts; the "macron war" was the subject of a Stuff podcast in 2022 (see below). I created the West Coast task force as part of my role at Westland District Library. My "Wikifying GLAM" essay turned into a proposed, which formed the basis of their current Wiki workplan. In 2022 I developed a four-part Wikipedia and Wikidata training programme (slides, exercises, and scripts) for Wikimedia Australia. I was awarded a 2023 Wikimedia Australia Wikidata Fellowship to work on a New Zealand Public Domain project. I'm writing a book on Wikimedia strategies for GLAM instutions (see the 2023 I gave to Te Papa and the State Library of New South Wales).

Presentations

 * Joint conference presentation Wikipedia for Freshwater Scientists, 25 November 2015 with User:StellaMcQ
 * 2017 SCANZ conference on "Wikipedia as an Outreach Tool" (slides)
 * talk at 2018 NZ Entomological Society conference on "Wikipedia as an Entomology Outreach Tool"
 * Critter of the Week at ESEAP Wikimedia 2018 in Bali (slides)
 * The NZ Wikipedian at Large project at Wikimania Stockholm 2019
 * "What Wikipedia means for Libraries", LIANZA webinar, 22 July 2020 (my standard "what is Wikipedia?" talk, given over a dozen times)
 * "Getting involved with #1lib1ref." LIANZA Aoraki Weekend School, 15–16 May 2021.
 * Webinar for LIANZA on #1lib1ref, May 2021 (video)
 * My work at Westland District Library, LIANZA conference, 11 November 2021 (video)
 * Presentation on "Working with Commons", ESEAP 2022 Sydney, 20 November 2022 (handout)
 * "Nine Wikisteps" webinar, 9 March 2023 (recording and handout)
 * "Wikisource for Libraries" at Wikimania Singapore, 20 August 2023

Publications

 * Dickison, Mike. (9 Dec 2017). "The kauri dieback muddle shows officials ignore Wikipedia at their peril" The Spinoff.
 * Dickison, Mike. (May 2020). An Auckland Museum Wikimedia Strategy. Auckland, N.Z.:Auckland War Memorial Museum • CC BY 4.0
 * Dickison, Mike & Bruce White. (9 July 2020). "Yes, street art is on public display – but that doesn’t mean we should share it without credit." The Conversation.
 * Dickison, Mike. (February 2021). "Where credit's due: how to credit a photograph properly." Library Life 483: 43–45
 * Dickison, Mike. (Winter 2023). "Let's talk about critters and Wikinerds." Forest & Bird.

Some media coverage

 * RadioNZ interview 23 Jan 2016, talking to Kim Hill about Wikipedia's 15th birthday
 * Easther, Elisabeth. (Sept 2018). "Mr Wiki: Mike Dickison is New Zealand’s first Wikipedian-at-Large". North and South, p.18
 * Macdonald, Nikki. (20 Oct 2018). "National Portrait: Mike Dickison, conservationist and Wikipedian". Dominion Post, p.C3
 * Graham-McLay, Charlotte. (17 Nov 2018). "From Encyclopedic Collector to ‘Wikipedian-at-Large’ in New Zealand". New York Times, A6
 * Hancock, Farah. (10 July 2019). "The travelling Wikipedia salesperson." Newsroom.
 * Te, Mandy (16 Jan 2020). "Wikipedia pages to change as Christchurch takes second place." Stuff.
 * Adams, Josie (16 July 2020). "How volunteers created Wikipedia’s world-beating Covid-19 coverage." The Spinoff.
 * Dudding, Adam and Bingham, Eugene (18 Dec 2022). "Secret agents, midnight battles and robots: Inside Wikipedia's great macron war". (Podcast). Stuff.
 * Nicholls, Jenny. (14 Jan 2023). "Tangled copyright law denying public access to works they've a right to see." Stuff.
 * Nicholls, Jenny. (14 Jan 2023). "Tangled copyright law denying public access to works they've a right to see." Stuff.

Accounts
I maintain a second account, User:DemoFlightlessbirds, as a training account to demonstrate initial settings to new users and the creation of Talk and User pages. This account makes no substantial edits and does not participate in any voting, discussion, or commentary.

Pages created
• Kawana flour mill

• Koriniti

• Parikino

• Kaiwhaiki

• Upokongaro

• Hadopyrgus

• James Gordon Irving

• Desis

• Foveaux shag

• Otago shag

• Charles Fleming Award for Environmental Achievement

• Lake Papaitonga

• Durie Hill Elevator

• Mercury Islands tusked weta

• Cobble skink

• Harrisoniella hopkinsi

• Clitarchus tepaki

• Tepakiphasma ngatikuri

• Uropetala chiltoni

• Pimelea actea

• New Zealand mole cricket

• Ophiocordyceps robertsii

• Cleora scriptaria

• Rhantus plantaris

• Bembidion tillyardi

• Holacanthella

• Kauri dieback

• Corybas carsei

• Ahi Pepe MothNet

• Asaphodes frivola

• Leptinella filiformis

• Lyperobius huttoni

• Mynes woodfordi

• Ray Shannon

• Ranunculus viridis

• Trilby Yates

• Pahi, New Zealand

• Holcaspis brevicula

• Kaimaumau wetland

• Wellington City Archives

• Ashleigh Young

• Giselle Clarkson

• Guy Body

• Dunedin Museum of Natural Mystery

• Bruce Mahalski

• Baltic Sea Science Center

• Vytautas Tomaševičius

• Myosotis antarctica

• Lincoln University Art Collection

• Anoteropsis cantuaria

• Creophilus rekohuensis

• Amychus manawatawhi

• Coptomma marrisi

• Lincoln University Entomology Research Collection

• Little Wanganui

• Skype a Scientist

• Waitangi dildo incident

• Heather Hendrickson

• Epinephelus rivulatus

• Libby Liggins

• Robert McLachlan

• Dodd-Walls Centre

• Carkeek Observatory

• Stephen Carkeek

• Oli Wilson

• Imperial Productions (New Zealand)

• Miro Erkintalo

• Longwood, Featherston

• Kiwialges haastii

• Denniston Plateau

• Westland District Library

• Pakihi

• West Coast Wildlife Centre

• Lake Gault

• Alison Hale

• Wellington City Opera

• Brent Trolle

• Phillip Rhodes (opera singer)

• Natasha Wilson

• Benson Wilson

• Madison Nonoa

• Hōhepa

• Pounamu Pathway

• Sue Grey (lawyer)

• Floods in Greymouth

• Spinifex Gum

• Lou Sanson

• Barrytown Flats

• Hokitika skink

• Westport skink

• Lake Ellery

• Pleasant Flat

• Haast to Paringa Cattle Track

• Ixodes anatis

• The Queen's Head (Amsterdam)

• Chelsea Connor

• John Crawford (potter)

• Forsteropsalis photophaga

• Austrosimulium australense

• Patrick Brownsey

• Hardy Browning

• Caroline McQuarrie

• Dusty Rhodes (artist)

• Psylla frodobagginsi

• Cristina Cleghorn

• Lake Hanlon

• Umere

• Cass Field Station

• Aciphylla subflabellata

• Veronica brachysiphon

• John Reynolds

• Sidymella angularis

• Coelostomidia zealandica

• Frank Weitzel

Did you know?

 * Muehlenbeckia astonii (7 May 2018)
 * Leptinella filiformis (1 Jun 2018)
 * Trilby Yates (24 Oct 2018)
 * Des Helmore (6 Dec 2018)
 * Holcaspis brevicula (11 Dec 2018)
 * Oemona hirta (14 Mar 2019)
 * Puke Ariki (31 Jul 2019)
 * Vytautas Tomaševičius (28 Dec 2019)
 * Lincoln University Art Collection (12 Jan 2020)
 * The Noises (18 Sep 2021)
 * Lake Brunner (4 Aug 2022)
 * Hardy Browning (19 Aug 2023)

Review credits: Anti male-guardianship campaign,  Israa al-Ghomgham ,  Nucella ostrina ,  Cephalotes atratus ,  Delaware County Institute of Science , Ebenezer Teichelmann,  Jacquelyn Reingold ,  John U. Monro ,

Notes to myself
————
 * Boilerplate
 * Useful links
 * Awards and thank-you's to give out
 * Stuff to work on
 * Project Ngārara
 * Wikipedia for Scientists
 * Ockhams
 * Bees and bug hotels