User:Robin Patterson/WP Maori English-language welcome

Haere mai, welcome to what might be called the English-language "Community Portal" of Wikipedia mi:Māori! This is intended to be an encyclopaedia (mi:mātāpunenga) in which practically every article is written entirely in the Māori language (mi:te reo Māori) - except to such extent as other languages have been used for borrowings in the good old English tradition.

The wikipedia may contain articles on just about every conceivable subject; for example, it already has articles for Gibraltar and cities in Poland, Finland, and Spain as well as the Ten Commandments, a minor English poet, some native tribes of Taiwan, and Group 11 of the table of elements (the "noble metals"). However, a good proportion of articles will be of interest primarily to mi:New Zealanders, current and former residents of mi:Aotearoa.

We hope you can enjoy learning something from these pages and helping to improve them.



(Note: This website uses Unicode to display Māori. Older browsers may have trouble with it.   For details, please see Māori Language Commission — macron issues & help.'')

Where to start
If, like most registered members of this Wikipedia, you are more comfortable speaking English than Māori, this is a good page for you to start on. If you have Māori-speaking friends, please encourage them to view the "home" page (mi:Hau Kāinga) then to write or translate some articles suggested by the lists of subjects there.

For an idea of how some of the better developed pages might be, look at some good lists/tables and articles; for example:

The red links or question marks that you will see on most pages usually stand for articles that deserve to be written but that nobody has started on. If you or your Māori-speaking friends could click on a link you know something about and write a couple of Māori sentences, then "Save page" (preferably after a look using "Show preview"), that would be a good start and might inspire others to join in. Also, you can go to the corresponding page on the English Wikipedia, and translate it into Māori.

To "fix" the red links on as many pages as possible, find one of the "Most Wanted Articles" and create an article that is currently a "dead-end" link on more than one page.

Improvements wanted
All of the  articles already written (nearly all partly or wholly in mi:te reo Māori) need improvement (additions and/or corrections). See, for example, a list of the shortest articles. ANYONE can help. Most of the first 400 articles were started by people who know very little Māori and are hoping to see all of the articles improved by better qualified people.

How to edit - whakatika tuhinga
See mi:Help:editing.

Styles
You can start right in (and someone else will be able to improve it if necessary), but you may first have a look at the page that deals with the mi:tikanga of editing — the style guide.

Experimenting
If you want to experiment with editing, play in the "sandpit" for a while until familiar with the basics.

Other points
Useful pages for people willing to translate articles from English:
 * mi:Wikipedia:Wikipedia English Language articles about Māori subjects
 * mi:Wikipedia:Rārangi arowhai (checklist) — names of "world scope" articles we should have earlier rather than later

Navigation or sidebar links that have Māori names: use your mouse to hover over them: that usually reveals, in the URL in the status bar below, an English word of explanation. (But you can probably set your "Preferences" to another language if you are registered.)

Registering costs nothing except a few moments of your time; and it carries some advantages:
 * you get credit (in the "History", which can be viewed even if the article is later changed) for anything you write
 * you can (perhaps surprisingly) be more anonymous because your I.P. number is not shown
 * you can keep personal "quick links" and "to do" lists on your User-page and get to it with one click from any other page
 * you can very quickly add your name (or pseudonym) and the date to the end of "Talk" (discussion-page) paragraphs by typing four tildes (~)
 * you may go to mi:Wikipedia:Babel to find how easy it is to display boxes on your User-page that show which language[s] you understand

Each article and each User-page has a corresponding talk/discussion page. Use any language you like there (and contributions there should be signed). For general discussion of overall ideas, concepts, and criticisms, see mi:Wikipedia:Körero (which has its own sidebar link on most pages).

Track progress on the statistics page or see what the viewers are selecting at http://www2.knams.wikimedia.org/logwood/logwood.php?site=mi.wikipedia.org.

' Enjoy!! (and please contribute something) '

Note that starting a line with a blank produces an unexpected display, which has its uses but is seldom ideal in ordinary text, like:

this example.

Familiar with the English Wikipedia?
Much of the foregoing will be familiar to you. And we use the original "stub" template and an "Eng" template that adds a message inviting other readers to translate anything on the page that is in English. We have (in common with a number of Wikipedias) categories coded as "[[category:...". If you are even half competent with images, please grab some from Commons or elsewhere to illustrate some of our [[:mi:Tāone nunui o Aotearoa|town]] pages and others. See some of the recently added images at mi:Special:Newimages.