User talk:Giantflightlessbirds/Archive 1

Nice to meet you
Nice to meet you at NetHui last week! Feel free to contact me if you need any help.- gadfium 00:53, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

A pleasure to meet you too. As per your suggestion, I'm sketching out a GLAM subproject for WikiProject NZ. Organising community wikipedia meetups here in Whanganui too. Looks like there'll be some workshops before the National Digital Forum this year for folks who want to start editing. Mike &#124; Giantflightlessbirds 01:48, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

A kitten for you!
A kitten for you for organising http://wikiwednesday.net/2014/08/04/first-meeting/. I have a worklist at WikiProject_New_Zealand/Requested_articles/New_Zealand_academic_biographies that I'm currenrly working my way through, feel free to nominate people.

Stuartyeates (talk) 09:37, 6 August 2014 (UTC) 

Thank you! Yes, we'll be making a list of articles and stubs to work on, and will fire any academics your way. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 17:54, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

WP:PERM Request
After reviewing your request for the account creator right, I have enabled the flag on your account. Keep in mind these things: If you no longer require the right, let me know, or ask any other administrator. Drop a note if you run into troubles or have any questions about appropriate/inappropriate use of the account creator right. Happy editing! — xaosflux  Talk 13:27, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
 * The account creator right removes the limit on the maximum number of new accounts that can be created in a 24-hour period.
 * The account creator right is not a status symbol. If it remains unused, it is likely to be removed. Abuse of the account creator right will result in its removal by an administrator.

Please note, your access has been granted with the following stipulations:
 * 1) Expires 2014-11-30
 * 2) May not override blacklist
 * 3) May not override anti-spoofing
 * 4) May not be used for anything besides creating legitimate accounts.

Good luck with your event! — xaosflux  Talk 13:27, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Wiki Wednesday suggestions
I hope you don't mind suggestions for articles your group might like to work on. Wanganui Girls' College was recently created by the College's assistant principal and could do with some attention. Also Wanganui City College should have a page. Wanganui High School would benefit from a picture.- gadfium 23:16, 17 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Great suggestions, thank you! Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 22:02, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

The "River Queen" movie has a 10 year anniversary this year. Many people in Whanganui worked on the film. There is no mention of Whanganui on the River Queen page and there is plenty of information that could go on the Whanganui pages.Riverviewhouse (talk) 01:55, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

I have done six months work of Wikipedia editing and now I am having a break from WikiWednesday. (I will be following up some loose ends.)Riverviewhouse (talk) 01:55, 12 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for all your help! I'll let you know when we schedule an edit-a-thon. It would be great to have your helping show people the ropes. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 00:12, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

My interests in Wikipedia vary from yours at the point where a decision is made about "how Whanganui's story will be told". Checked and edited before it makes the page or afterward. My hunch from spending time in Whanganui is that the people from the Whanganui River are past wanting their story written for them and in need of fixing after. There is room in today's community to attempt to collaborate first. Riverviewhouse (talk) 01:51, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Hello.
Hi, I just want to say what an excellent editor you are. I live in Palmerston North so I probably can't have anything to do with your Whanganui Wiki Wednesday. I love the Idea though man! Regards. Sirpottingmix (talk) 05:52, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, mate. That's very kind. I want to run a weekend Edit-a-thon in Palmy some time, and it would be great to have someone with some editing experience to help the newbies. I'll let you know when something is sorted; would be good to have you along. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 07:59, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Spiders/genus taxobox example
Re your good faith edit at WikiProject Spiders/genus taxobox example, the way the automated taxobox system works is this. If you use Speciesbox for the species A b, it looks for the taxonomy of the genus, i.e. it looks for "Template:Taxonomy/A". If you use Automatic taxobox for the genus A, again it looks for the taxonomy of the genus, i.e. it looks for "Template:Taxonomy/A". That template will link A to its family, so there must also be a template at "Template/Taxonomy/Family_of_A", and so on upwards. Look at Template:Taxonomy/Araneus, for example – if you click on a "Taxonomy" link in the table at the right it takes you to the taxonomy template.

Ranks below genus are always different because the Linnaean system uses binomials and trinomials, unlike higher ranks. So while the automated taxobox for a genus, family, suborder, order, etc. looks for a taxobox template at the same rank, the automated taxobox for a species or subspecies never needs to look lower than genus. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:58, 18 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Ah, thank you. I'm slowly wrapping my head around how automatic taxoboxes work. That'll teach me to edit instructions before I'm comepletely sure what I'm doing! Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 18:29, 18 January 2016 (UTC)


 * "Nothing ventured, nothing learnt" applies here, I think – at least that's my excuse for the many mistakes I've learnt from! Peter coxhead (talk) 23:19, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Desis
Nice work at Desis (spider)! We badly need more spider editors.

One small point: because taxonomy is in the end subjective, when an article includes a list of species I regard it as important to say where it came from. So I include something like:


 * , the World Spider Catalog accepted the following genera:

See, e.g., Euphrictus. If different sources have different lists, then you can discuss this with references, although the World Spider Catalog usually seems definitive and is regularly updated. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:29, 18 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm not a spider taxonomist so will be relying heavily on the World Spider Catalogue. The template help for spiders is pretty good, though I've been surprised how many genus and species level articles are using manual taxoboxes. Also some of the esoterica of the ID numbers each taxon has in the WSC, and the idiosyncratic way some authority names are abbreviated, has made it slow going to a non-spider person. But it will get easier I'm sure. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 18:33, 18 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I've only recently turned to editing spider articles; mostly I've worked on plants. WP:SPIDERS was mostly active before the automated taxobox system was invented, and hasn't been very active recently, which is why taxoboxes have been mostly manual.
 * One great advantage of authority names for plants is that there's a standard system; zoological author abbreviations are indeed a problem, especially when common surnames are involved. The list at WikiProject_Spiders/List of Arachnologists needs expanding. Peter coxhead (talk) 23:27, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Ah, a list of arachnologists! Very handy. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 00:47, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Some baklava for you!

 * Much appreciated! Both times I've talked to Kim Hill I've been somewhat nervous beforehand. Virtual baklava might be the remedy. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 08:56, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!
I'm listening to your interview on Radio New Zealand. You come across very well. Well done!- gadfium 04:53, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
 * link for any talk page stalkers.- gadfium 04:54, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks guys! I'm glad I could at least answer all of Kim Hill's questions. Good that the media are taking Wikipedia seriously these days. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 08:36, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I enjoyed your radio interview - well done. I did my own radio interview in Melbourne, but not as in depth. I particularly agreed with your points on out-of-date database websites. T.Shafee(Evo&#65120;Evo)talk 00:16, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Palmy Edit-a-thon
Hey, just checking in to ask about Sunday? Did it go ahead? Was it a success? Sorry I couldn't go, I am currently a school student. Cheers Sirpottingmix (talk) 02:51, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately they had to postpone it; only two people enrolled. There's talk of trying again later this year, but no firm date. I'm sure if we get some (or any) publicity, the enrolments will be better. I'll let you know when it's rescheduled. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 03:03, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Good articles
Hi, I just read your talk page, and since I've mainly been working on recently extinct birds, I was wondering whether you have considering improving some articles about extinct NZ birds to good article or featured status? I've improved most articles about well-known extinct Mascarene birds, should be possible to have a nice collection of quality NZ bird articles too... I should be able to assist if you ever take a stab. FunkMonk (talk) 05:31, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'd like to sort out the Moa pages and subpages some time. Extinct birds are tricky because photos are hard to find, but I can get access to some subfossil bone collections and shoot photos for the Commons. Most of my editing is around the Critter of the Week series at the moment, and the Department of Conservation are helpfully tracking down CC-BY photos for me from their archive. There are certainly extinct NZ birds, like Bushwren and Auckland merganser, that could be vastly improved. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 09:13, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Sounds good, we recently got a huge amount of videos and photos of extinct and endangered bird skins, including many from NZ, that are housed at Naturalis: FunkMonk (talk) 09:37, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Whanganui talk page
I have written 3 paragraphs here. Riverviewhouse (talk) 01:18, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, I know, It's on my watchlist. If you have questions about edits to a page, why not address the whole editing community on its Talk page, especially as you tend not to agree with the recommendations I make. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 10:39, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Edit-a-thon in Wellington, May 29
Will think about the Edit-a-thon tho ugh not a flora @ fauna expert Hugo999 (talk) 01:50, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi. Just wanted to say I'm glad to see the Edit-a-thon happening. My list are merely suggestions. Would like to do what I can to help get the word out there etc and whatever can be done remotely. Linnah (talk) 13:01, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Suggestions welcomed! I will be approaching research institutions directly (VUW, NIWA, DOC). We also have printable fliers that could go up in libraries and noticeboards. But this week I'm hoping we can get some newspaper and radio coverage which will really help. Cheers, Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 22:32, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Posted about it /r/Wellington in Reddit. https://redd.it/4km70w There's a question there already. Are you a redditor? If not let me know how you wish that comment answered. Thanks Linnah (talk) 05:54, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't Reddit so post away. The problem with using the NZOR is that, according to one of the administrators, it ran out of funding a few years ago, and some parts of it are hopelessly out of date (it lists 4 different species of Dinornis for example). Also they were spelling Wikipedia "Wikepedia" on their About page for months after I pointed it out, so I'm not sure it's being updated regularly, Apparently they have gotten more money from MPI so will be getting sorted again, but until then I wouldn't automatically use it to create new species pages on Wikipedia. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 22:07, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll post your reply. Btw someone just suggested checking http://www.naturehack.nz/ Event was run by Callaghan Innovation and Landcare. Perhaps People from either of those organisations can help put out the word about your edit-a-thon. How many signups have you had?Linnah (talk) 00:27, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Eight on the project page, seven registered. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 04:03, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Send me a message next time you have an edit-a-thon, I might be interested in attending.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  12:24, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Sure thing. I left a message on the Talk page of every active Wikipedian who identified themselves as based in Wellington, as well as the NZ WP noticeboard, social media, press releases etc. But hard to catch everyone. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 18:43, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
 * It's because I'm not based in wellington most of the time. keen for next time anyway, cheers.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  05:26, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi there - glad the event went well, I decided to stay at home with the dreaded lurgy instead :-( Jon (talk) 03:01, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
 * No worries, we'll catch up some other time. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 03:16, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Critter of the Week 24 March link
Hi Just looking at the critter of the week section of your page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Giantflightlessbirds#Critter_of_the_week Noticed the 24 March 2016 RNZ link is currently wrong. it should be http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/201794545/critter-of-the-week-with-nicola-toki Linnah (talk) 05:01, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Have fixed. Thanks for fixing links on some other Critter pages too. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 09:08, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Can I assume that those wikipedia pages that don't have the critter of the week linked is just missed out or are some of them left out for a good reason? I noticed most of your links are added to the "external Links" section of the page, which a few of the pages above don't have. The other reason for not adding them (that occured to me) is perhaps they link isn't significant enough to add a new section called external links. Episodes not linked: Weta killing worm on 6/11/15, Koura on 20/11/15, Robust Grasshopper on 27/11/15, Stygobitic invertebrates on 11/12/15, Parapara tree on 18/12/15, NZ batfly and gravel maggot. They appear to be the early editions. Your thoughts? Linnah (talk) 07:01, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
 * This are pages I just haven't gotten to yet. If you're keen and have the time, you're welcome to add "External links" sections and links to the radio shows in the standard format. That's be really helpful, ta. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 03:55, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

New Zealand lesser short-tailed bat
Sorry, I should have explained in the edit summary; I removed the category because it was a duplicate. The article is also categorised as Category:Mystacinidae, which is part of Category:Bats of New Zealand, which is part of the category in question Category:Mammals of New Zealand. Mattlore (talk) 06:12, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm terribly sorry; you're quite right. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 06:24, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

8-legged babies
Thanks for the "Thanks". Means even more coming from someone in my Second Favourite Country (home is always #1). Saw your workplace once, when a new friend took us to see Queen's Park, but must admit we didn't stop to walk through the museum. Best part about NZ, over and above the amazing landscape? The unbelievable hospitality - was invited into stranger's homes, in multiple cities/towns/villages. Kids, Moms, Dads, Grandpas, Grandmas - none of them ever phoned home to see if it was okay with rest of family that someone was joining for mealtime - would just invite us! Happened when I was young (first trip) and happened when I was old (second trip). No need to respond (I know this is not a proper Wikipedia "talk"), but just wanted to thank you for being a Kiwi. Jmg38 (talk) 20:45, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Hey, that's great! Not thanks I get every day. Glad you enjoyed New Zealand, and do keep helping out with NZ natural history pages; they need a lot of work. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 20:48, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Otago shag/Foveaux shag
So I saw you created the above 2 articles, and decided to restore Stewart shag as a bridge until more tax authorities rule on the split. I think the right thing to do is to keep all three names. We standardize on the IOC for tax on species pages only, so species pages, genus pages, etc. will use the IOC..... Since the Ornithological Society of New Zealand has yet to change their web site, as has Clements, which the List of birds of New Zealand standardizes on, I think we're OK with the set up......Let me know what you think..... (talk) 21:00, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I afraid I disagree with restoring Stewart shag. (Incidentally, it's never referred to as Stewart shag, only Stewart Island shag, so that really should be the article name). Firstly, we now have two contradictory pages covering the same species (P. chalconotus). Best practice in this case would normally be pick just one and if some authorities disagreed we'd make a note on it, rather than maintain an entire parallel article. Secondly, there's no disagreement with the split – even IOC agrees. NZ Birds Online was last updated in 2013, and the Checklist in 2010, before the relevant publications came out. Yes, the PDFs on the Birds New Zealand website are out of date, but they're always out of date. I assume updating them with the new species will be done after the next meeting in June. The split is well founded, based on good peer-reviewed publications, and I think it's better to go ahead and reflect this in Wikipedia. If there's a future large-scale publication that revises the genus and synonymises them, we can always change them back, but since the whole genus was only just revised I think that's unlikely. What DOES need to be done is a revision of the entire structure of the Wikipedia cormorant pages to reflect the Kennedy and Spencer (2104) revision of the group, which would put both those species into Leucocarbo where they belong. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 21:56, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

More photos for Austral snipe
I saw your comment on the critter of the week about the snipes and laughed... I've been wanting to add photos to that since I started it ten years ago and was amazed to find a photo today on the Campbell snipe page. I've been thinking of fixing the article up to GA standard and then asking Colin Miskelly if he had any he was prepared to share - if anyone has images it would be him. Sabine's Sunbird  talk  09:35, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
 * We could certainly ask Colin for pics, and even perhaps check NZ Birds Online contributors to see if any of them are willing to donate photos to the cause. It can take a bit of emailing (if you can even find an email address for them) but may be worth it. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 10:06, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

ACTRIAL
Something you might not be aware of, there is an upcoming change to article creation that is going to begin in the next month or so, though the date is not set yet (see here: Autoconfirmed_article_creation_trial). This change will result in accounts younger than 4 days and with less than 10 mainspace edits being unable to create new articles (they can still edit as normal and can create drafts or work in the sandbox though). I thought I would let you know about this, as you often work with new users. The main change is that very new users will have to ask for their articles to be promoted by another user that is autoconfirmed (4 days and 10 edits) or else use the system at Articles for Creation and won't be able to do it themselves.

The change itself is intended to reduce the number of very poor new articles submitted to Wikipedia and reduce the load on New Page Patrol. The change is a trial, and is intended to last 6 months or so, and then be reverted for a time of 1-3 months to observe the changes to the system and examine the positive/negative effects of the change. —  InsertCleverPhraseHere  05:56, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Ah. This is news to me. This has implications for the NZ Insect Cards edit-a-thon we're running on September 3rd, which will involve some new articles. But it shouldn't be a problem; with your heads-up I'll be able to create stubs at least and get new editors to work expanding them, which is probably a better job for new editors anyway. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 10:45, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes I saw that you were planning another edit-a-thon, and I suspect that ACTRIAL might be active by September 3rd, though it also might also start a little while after that. Starting up some stubs is a good plan, and for articles you want to create on the day, just get users to put them onto a list for other slightly more experienced editors to review and move to mainspace for them (this will get editors used to working together as well, which is useful). —  InsertCleverPhraseHere (or here)  10:56, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Upcoming changes and edit-a-thons
This RFC is of particular importance to upcoming editathons and you may want to take a look. I'll be reading it later and commenting. Sabine's Sunbird  talk  21:08, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Ha, I see someone else let you know too! Sabine's Sunbird  talk  21:08, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

NZ Wikipedian at Large.
Hey, thanks for the message on my talk page about this. I would have replied earlier, however I am currently in school and well, it's gotten the better of me haha. Yeah I would be keen in assisting however I can. Although as you may take a quick look at my contributions I focus generally in sports.. although related to New Zealand, I don't see too many others fall into that category but I guess that shouldn't matter? I would like to put forward that I would be unable to attend any edit-a-thon's unless you so kindly came back to Palmerston North again. From reading all that I'm very keen to support you moving forward with this. Thanks for all your work. Sirpottingmix (talk) 06:39, 22 February 2018 (UTC)


 * I like that idea! I'll add myself to your participants list. Sirpottingmix (talk) 07:06, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Hemideina
Hi. Both of the widespread Hemideina have been collected in or around Sydney, NSW. If you carefully read the lists of synonyms in the OSF Catalog, in both species one of the junior synonyms was described from specimen(s) originating in NSW. On top of that, I have a Hemideina specimen from our Museum sitting here in front of me collected in Sydney in 1931, and I know for a fact that it is not mislabelled; that faculty member spent all his years abroad in Oz, and never once set foot in NZ. Give me a minute, and I can provide the citations for the descriptions. Dyanega (talk) 16:54, 5 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Hemideina fusifera Walker, 1869 [= H. crassidens]; Australia, New South Wales, Richmond River.
 * Hemideina attenuata Walker, 1869 [= H. thoracica]; Australia, New South Wales. (this is, I think, the name for the specimen we have from Sydney, a male; we have a male thoracica specimen from Te Koraha that is essentially identical)


 * also Hemideina ligata (Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1888) [= H. crassidens]; Australia, Norfolk Is., Lord Howe I.


 * Unless the authors you cite have specifically refuted these records and/or synonymies, they do appear entirely legitimate, so the claims of strict endemism cannot be supported. Dyanega (talk) 17:10, 5 March 2018 (UTC)


 * That's fascinating: in all my years reading about wētā I've never heard of records from Australia. I wonder if those Australian records are 19th C invasives, as there was already a trans-Tasman shipping trade by the 1840s. I'm going to pass those records on to two different Hemideina authorities I know to see if they can shed any light on the matter, or point to any publication that refutes those synonymies. I assume there's something, since there's widespread consensus in the current literature that Hemideina is a NZ endemic (see this Google Scholar search). Thanks for taking the trouble to look the references up for me: I'll see what I can find out. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 05:07, 6 March 2018 (UTC)


 * You suggest an interesting historical question; namely, is it possible that in the 1800's and early 1900's, there were people bringing wetas from NZ to Oz and releasing them (by accident or design) and they never became established? Were I inclined to pursue this, the first place I would turn is to whichever institution presently houses the largest collection of old insect specimens from NSW. Their findings would help discriminate the various scenarios: (1) if they have no Oz wetas at all in their collection, and lots of other large orthopterans, then it supports the idea that specimens were being mislabeled as to provenance (2) if they have no RECENT Oz wetas at all in their collection, but have very OLD ones, that supports failed introduction(s) (3) if they have recent Oz wetas, then that settles the issue right there. Lacking evidence to the contrary, I am personally acting on the assumption that the existing specimen records are accurate, as are the people at the OSF - but knowing about the presence/absence of other Oz specimens could challenge that assumption. Dyanega (talk) 21:32, 8 March 2018 (UTC)


 * As another follow-up, I should clarify that I have done research into Dr. Flanders' travels in 1931, and we have extensive archival notes regarding localities he visited in NSW and Queensland that year (quite a number of them), but not one record suggesting he ever traveled to NZ. He was being sponsored, at what was - for that era - great expense, and to some fanfare (there are Australian newspaper clippings telling stories of the American entomologist who had come to help save the local citrus industry), and there would have been no reason for the Australian citrus companies footing his bill to pay him for a gratuitous side-trip to NZ, where there were no major citrus plantations at that time. He was an extremely competent and meticulous scientist, and I cannot accept the premise that he could collect a weta and fail to properly recall where he collected it. About the only scenario one can envision where such a mistake could be made is if he was offered the insect for sale in a local market, where the vendor misinformed him of its origin. Not impossible, but it seems rather improbable. That being said, what *is* odd is that the label gives only the year and not the month, and this is the one thing about it that seems suspicious; if this was indeed sold to him as a pet, and he kept it alive for some time before preserving it as a specimen, that would be consistent with NOT specifying a date of collection. Counteracting this, of course, are the specimens used by Walker and von Wattenwyl for their descriptions, which require a minimum of 4 mislabeled specimens, which also seems rather improbable. Dyanega (talk) 22:07, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

ACTRIAL RfC
Hi Mike, you said that you wanted me to let you know when the discussion began about making ACTRIAL permanent. The discussion can be found at Autoconfirmed_article_creation_trial/Request_for_comment_on_permanent_implementation.

Note that if it passes (which it seems likely to), there will be another RfC with regards to setting up an 'Event coordinators' usergroup with the ability to manually confirm new editors. See User:TonyBallioni/Event_coordinator and the associated talk page. I would like to know what you think of that proposal as you would be an ideal candidate for the to-be-proposed user right. —  Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)  02:24, 20 March 2018 (UTC)


 * This is interesting; there do seem to be some work-arounds for event coordinators, but the idea of an "event coordinator" status is good. I'm hoping though that I can move away from absolute beginners creating articles in Wikipedia workshops; I'd rather some of us created stubs beforehand and brand-new editors started with article improvement. Will leave a comment. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 06:50, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
 * In this case I would recommend that you have a crack at WP:DYK. Some of the articles written or exapnded at the recent editathon in Auckland may be eligible for the 7 days after they were created (to be eligible for DYK, an article must have been either created or expanded 5 times in the last 7 days, or else recently promoted to 'Good Article'). I would recommend having a go at nominating some of the new/expanded articles at DYK, so you can get a handle on how the process works. Targeting stubs for expansion and then promotion via DYK would be a very fun editathon project for new users I think. I've done a bit of DYK work myself and I also know some DYK reviewers who would probably be happy to help; we could probably even get a DYK set put together that is created entirely from articles from the editathon, so that they all go up on the main page together (you could then contact everyone at a later date when they all went up on the main page with a screenshot or something). An idea at least, and I'd be willing to help out in person if an editathon was organised in Wellington (weekend or evening ideally). Cheers, —  Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)  21:54, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a great idea.I'll take a look at the Auckland list. I just realised the Critter of the Week articles are often contenders as well. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 23:39, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * The other criteria is sufficient length, though the criteria is pretty small at a minimum of 1,500 characters of prose (ignoring infoboxes, categories, references, lists, and tables etc.). —  Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)  23:51, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Event Coordinator Proposal
The ACTRIAL RfC has closed with with a result that it has become permanent. As I mentioned before, there is a follow up RfC on an event coordinator proposal that you said you wanted to know about. You can find it here: Requests_for_comment/Event_coordinator_proposal. —  Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)  17:08, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Brilliant, thanks. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 20:16, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Corybas carsei
Hello Giantflightlessbirds,

Working through the species of Corybas I came across your excellent article on Corybas carsei. I hope you will not mind if I make some small changes to the layout. (eg. I think "Description" should come before "Taxonomy" as per WP:Plants/Template)

At the bottom of the NZPCN page on this species there is a note about C. fordhamii, meaning that C. carsei may not be a New Zealand endemic. I know that the article "Orchidelirium" claims that it is (and very rare). I will include the note about C. fordhamii in the article. Junk it if I have missed something in the refs. Gderrin (talk) 07:42, 4 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Looks good to me. I haven't read anything about the genetics of C. carsei clarifying whether or not it's a synonym of the Australian species, though I guess someone will sort that out one day. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 21:14, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

DYK for Muehlenbeckia astonii
Gatoclass (talk) 00:01, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

eseap
your presentation and presence at the conference is so much appreciated - must keep in contact - there are so many things to still talk about! JarrahTree 10:59, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, absolutely! I'm writing up my conference report at the moment. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 10:20, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

Event Coordinator
Please note that there is a new User Right which may be useful to you in your outreach activities. Please see Event coordinator. —  Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)  02:10, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, pointed me to it. It'll be very useful for getting around some of the new-editor restrictions in events. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 02:12, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
 * In addition to giving the ability to create/move in the article space, manually confirming new editors at events prevents those annoying CAPTCHAS coming up every time an editor adds a reference (or any other web link) which is in my opinion even more of a reason to have this ability. —  Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)  02:23, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Congratulations !!
Well done - excellent support for your project - JarrahTree 06:30, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

NZ Wine editathon
Congratulations on the Wikipmedia grant, looking forward to working with you and helping out with events later this year.

As for the wine writing editathon that we tentatively planned out for later this year, and I are still keen. We will let you know when works for us when we get some more info back about when she will be back in New Zealand (we should know in the next few weeks). Cheers, —  Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)  00:14, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Wiki Loves Wine is absolutely a goer for some time this summer, when I'm based in Wellington. All the supporters and volunteers are about to get a Talk message thanking everyone. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 02:13, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Leptinella filiformis
Hello! Your submission of Leptinella filiformis at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Boud (talk) 21:13, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

You need to review another DYK nomination - this is what was supposed to go in the Review field. I'll make a DYK nomination myself within a few minutes or so, which will also need a volunteer to review... In any case, if you've already reviewed a DYK nomination, or once you have done so, you should add that at the DYK discussion under your nomination. Boud (talk) 21:13, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * According to WP:DYKR, because I've made fewer than five nominations (this is my second) I'm not required to do a QPQ review. But I'll check out and review yours if I get a chance, happy to help. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 21:59, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I think I still get a bit confused by the expression "DYK credits" in the instructions/guidelines; I tend to interpret "credit" as referring to the work done in reviewing other nominations, but the intended meaning is credit for creating/updating/improving an article and getting it through DYK. Anyway, if you feel you can review Template_talk:Did_you_know, feel welcome to do so. :) I did actually wonder if the main photo you uploaded to Commons should go through OTRS, but with a 77-day backlog for English-language requests, I think that assuming good faith that you've got the permission from the author is sufficient for the DYK. Though I guess you probably should follow the OTRS procedure, even knowing that it'll be months before an OTRS volunteer confirms the licence status. Or if Heenan has an overtly identified Wikipedia/Commons account, then s/he could state approval directly and avoid the need for OTRS. We do want to avoid adding to the WMF projects' potential legal vulnerability... Boud (talk) 22:23, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Review done. I think your interpretation of "credit" is the correct one: "Check the nominator has reviewed another DYK nomination under the QPQ agreement (WP:DYKSG#H4). However, people who have made fewer than five DYK nominations are not required to do another review."
 * I agree it would be a good idea to approach Peter Heenan for OTRS signoff. He's listed as the photographer here, and the CC-BY status is given here, but it would be good to make the connection explicit. I'll put together a request. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 22:41, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Massey students editing Wikipedia
Hi Mike, I am one of the Massey University postgrad students working with Mary Morgan-Richards, I will be doing a Wikipedia assignment looking at a species of weta (Hemiandrus pallitarsis). I am still trying to get my head around editing on Wikipedia, but I looked at the link that you sent and that has helped. Thank you, Millie. (Millieahlstrom (talk) 23:50, 28 May 2018 (UTC)).
 * Hi Millie! Great to hear from you. BTW I used the New Section button at the top to create this new topic, and I made the species you mentioned into a wikilink: both are good Wikipedia style. Happy to help out of you get stuck; leave a message on this Talk page, or drop me an email. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 23:55, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

DYK for Leptinella filiformis
Alex Shih (talk) 05:33, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you
Congratulations on your new position as NZ Wikipedian at Large and thank you for your help. My problem was sorted. --TomCa (talk) 09:47, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

DYK for Lyperobius huttoni
Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:01, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Use NZE redirect
I've made en-NZ as a shortcut to Use New Zealand English :-).

p.s. Interesting to note that in 2006(!) on the Talk page for Taupō, people were saying things like "Athrough, it won't hurt to have both [i.e. both Māori and 'General White New Zealand English' pronunciations], with a footnote, saying something like 'This was the pronounciation used by Non Maori, but is not correct...'"!

— Hugh (talk) 01:43, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Wētā assistance - Thank you
Kia ora, thank you for the assistance with fixing the links there. I did a find and replace and was trying to be mindful about not breaking historical references or URLs, but I obviously missed a few. Really appreciate revisiting this and fixing on my behalf. Cheers :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Expazz (talk • contribs) 23:38, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * No problem at all; it got a lot of the references fleshed out and corrected in the process, which needed to happen anyway. As I'm sure you know, the whole macron issue is under debate right now, and I hope several of us can draft a policy proposal before too long, so everyone can weigh in. In the meantime, I think it's important to be judicious and not start any edit wars, which might just entrench both sides further and make them dig their heels in – sorry, that sounds terribly conservative! If the consensus settles in favour of macrons, which personally I think is likely, there'll be lots of work to do on pages in NZ English. Ka kite, —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 23:47, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

DYK suggestion
Hi Giantflightlessbirds, if you feel like reviewing a DYK nomination and building up your credits :), then here's one you might wish to do. Cheers, Boud (talk) 16:24, 28 August 2018 (UTC).

W-A-L in Dunedin
Sorry to miss your Dunedin talk tonight (I'd managed to double-book myself) :/ Hope you enjoyed your time in the city and that the talk went well! Grutness... wha?   06:37, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
 * It was a good talk, 35 folks. And you actually came up as an example of a local editor when we were looking at the Dunedin article… There's a lunchtime meetup Friday at the Museum Cafe if you're interested. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 09:29, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

List of pages created
I see that you curate a list of all the articles you have created on your homepage. Just in case you didn't know, https://xtools.wmflabs.org/pages/en.wikipedia.org/Giantflightlessbirds exists. Stuartyeates (talk) 21:29, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Stuart; I actually didn't know about this. Lots of useful tools! —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 23:38, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Kerikeri visit
Hello Mike GFB. I noted the nice bit on Facebook about you visiting Kerikeri next Friday. I'd like to pop along in the morning sometime to say hello, and basically observe. I'll make myself known to you, but I don't really want people to know I am a long term editor and administrator on Wiki. That OK with you? Moriori (talk) 02:17, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
 * It'd be great to meet you for a chat if you have time during the day; NB it's Thursday though, not Friday. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 04:26, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Hi from an old editor
I've been around since the early days (September 2001). It'd be cool to have a chat about the early days if you're interested. Lisiate (talk) 20:28, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Very interested! Let's meet up for a coffee. I'm giantflightlessbirds@gmail.com. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 20:30, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Trilby Yates
Hello! Your submission of Trilby Yates at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Yoninah (talk) 00:46, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Problem solved; thank you for letting me know the article was an orphan. It's tricky when adding articles to an almost empty area like NZ fashion history to create that structure of supporting links. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 01:49, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

DYK for Trilby Yates
Alex Shih (talk) 00:01, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

West Coast?
Hello Mike, could you squeeze in a wikipedia day on the West Coast for a public workshop? Perhaps May or June? Fingers crossed!

Many thanks, User:IngerNZ
 * I'll try! I'll be down in the South Island from April next year. –Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 09:29, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

after bali
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Melbourne_morning_10th_November_2018_session_WMAU.jpg the next one JarrahTree 00:27, 10 November 2018 (UTC)


 * thanks for the modifications - it is out there!!! JarrahTree 13:33, 11 November 2018 (UTC)


 * it would be very useful to have your 'ok' on changing the name of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_New_Zealand/Requested_articles/Critter_of_the_Week to remove the 'requested articles' so that it is just a sub page... JarrahTree 00:45, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Fine by me! I'd appreciate it if you could check for anything linking directly to it (probably just my own user page). Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 00:50, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Thats important to hear from you on that, as I understand your problem about aspects being non encyclopediac from on wiki and off wiki conversation points - I wont be doing it in short term, as I want to check some other things as well first. JarrahTree 00:55, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

DYK for Des Helmore
Alex Shih (talk) 00:03, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Event coordinator granted
After reviewing your request for the " eventcoordinator " permission, I have enabled the flag on your account. Keep in mind these things: If you no longer require the right, let me know, or ask any other administrator. Drop a note on my talk page if you run into troubles or have any questions about appropriate/inappropriate use of the event coordinator right. Happy editing! — xaosflux  Talk 02:47, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
 * The event coordinator right removes the limit on the maximum number of new accounts that can be created in a 24-hour period.
 * The event coordinator right allows you to temporarily add the " confirmed " permission to newly created accounts. You should not grant this for more than 10 days.
 * The event coordinator right is not a status symbol. If it remains unused, it is likely to be removed. Abuse of the event coordinator right will result in its removal by an administrator.
 * Please note, if you were previously a member of the "account creator" group, your flag may have been converted to this new group.

DYK for Holcaspis brevicula
Mifter (talk) 12:02, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Autopatrolled granted
Hi Giantflightlessbirds, I just wanted to let you know that I have [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=rights&page=User%3AGiantflightlessbirds added] the "autopatrolled" permission to your account, as you have created numerous, valid articles. This feature will have no effect on your editing, and is simply intended to reduce the workload on new page patrollers. For more information on the autopatrolled right, see Autopatrolled. Feel free to leave me a message if you have any questions. Happy editing! –&#8239;Joe (talk) 20:49, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

sigh
the inescapable has happened with the critter of the week category. As it (the deletion of the category) has some weight, there might be some re-grouping of the information related to the programme and the issues related, down the line. Translated = ho hum. Will catch you later on the organisation of the material, probably offline. Have a good weekend. Perth (where I am) is about to get its hottest day of the season today, so much for southern hemisphere warming... cheers JarrahTree 23:13, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I'll be working on CotW again in the new year, so we can have a look at it then. Maybe some of the categorisation and organisation could be done with Wikidata. Happy holidays to you! Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 00:34, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
 * very good idea, have a safe and enjoyable festive season!! JarrahTree 00:40, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Heritage New Zealand
Hello Mike, greetings of the season. Given that you are currently active in Wellington, I wonder whether you could pay Heritage New Zealand a visit. I've made a couple of attempts over the years for them to think about using a free license for the text of their register entries. I don't think that I've ever managed to talk to a person who has some sway. Sitting down with someone and looking them in the eyes might be a better strategy than emailing them. I'd be most grateful if you could find the time to give them a nudge. I'd say that their Category I entries have inherent notability and it would be primo if we could semi-automate the creation of articles for those.

What do you think?  Schwede 66  06:48, 27 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Sounds like an excellent plan. I was intending to meet with head office after talking to HNZ people in Northland, so that's another reason. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 11:08, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

"moa" vs. "moas"?
"moa" is certainly correct if you're referring to a group of individuals. But is it also correct if you're referring to a group of species of moa - is in the edit that you just reverted? The reason I bring this up is that there is some precedent in English for adding "s" to a word that's normally both singular and plural, if you're talking about more than one species - e.g., "fishes". (OTOH, you never see "sheeps" - so maybe "moa" falls into that category...) Ross Finlayson (talk) 08:16, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Moa are now always so-called, singular and plural, individuals and species, in the literature these days. Just to pick a random paper from my Zotero library which talks about all nine species of moa: . —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 08:54, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Depends what you mean by "now always", but here is a 1992 paper in PNAS which uses "moas": https://www.pnas.org/content/89/18/8741 ThorpeStephen (talk) 03:12, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
 * As I said, "these days". Quite a bit's changed in 27 years, Stephen. People used to write "Maoris" back then too. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 10:39, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Some of us still do! It would sound weird to say "I saw three Maori walking down the street!" Trivial stuff though ... ThorpeStephen (talk) 04:18, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
 * It may sound weird to you, but not to me. Nor to my mates (I just did a straw poll round the table). And the (law, education, Govt, media) style guides agree. –Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 04:34, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Thank you and Toby Morris
I really enjoyed learning how to edit Wikipedia at the NZ Comics edit-a-thon thanks. As promised, I've drafted a new page for Toby Morris. It's in my sandbox - would you mind having a look? Thorndonite (talk) 12:18, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I've tidied this up and moved it to mainspace; now at Toby Morris (cartoonist). Well done!  Schwede 66  18:34, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Tom. This looks great, . Good job for your first article! Now we need to see if we can get a self-portrait and sample of art from Toby… —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 19:38, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
 * - thank you! Possibly I should have mentioned that I'd also created a Wikidata item for Toby yesterday? At Q61014741. Should I try to merge that with your one? And - thanks again. Given Toby's wife is a photographer, I wonder if we should ask him if she'd be willing to donate a picture of him to the Commons for this purpose. Or is that not allowed? There's an email address on his website. Thorndonite (talk) 21:51, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I've merged the Wikidata entries (easy enough to do). Asking his wife for a photo is just fine. The hassle is to get it to Commons. It's easiest if she publishes it on her Flickr account (if she's got one) with one of the two suitable licenses and we then help ourselves to it.  Schwede 66  23:32, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
 * thanks. I'll send Toby a message to ask about pictures and mention that. What is the easiest way for Toby to provide a sample of his artwork? —Thorndonite (talk) 23:58, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Best is for him to create a Commons account and upload it himself. If he wants to send a sample to me, I can upload it and send him an OTRS request – basically an online "approval form" for him to fill in. These have to be processed by volunteers and there's a huge backlog, so him doing it himself is ideal, but it's too big an ask for some folks. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 00:46, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

whatever
Thanks for that JarrahTree 21:29, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Invitation to online Wikimedian in Residence meetup
I think this is at your 6am.

There is a meta:Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network online meetup tomorrow Wednesday 13 February 2019 at noon EST (New York) described at meta:Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network/minutes 2019 02. You said that you wanted to connect and I want to keep you invited. Perhaps at some point the rest of us can do some compromise for your schedule, because we would like to include you. Thanks.  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  13:20, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Sometimes the timing is awkward, but 6am tomorrow is fine, and thank you for keeping me in the invitation list. –Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 23:30, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Come and talk to us at Catalyst?
Hi Mike, would you be interested in coming to talk to us at Catalyst where I work, about your work as NZWaL, working with institutions around open data, citizen science, collaboration and so on? Catalyst is all about the open source, and we have govt and GLAM clients; personally also I'd really like to get some more folks involved with Wikipedia. We have lunchtime "Pizza talks" every second Thursday of the month, if you happen to be free around lunchtime on March 14? I'm also wondering if we could organise a workshop, if there's enough interest, covering contributing to WP, uploading to commons, and so on. Any thoughts? Cheers, Jon (talk) 11:14, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I'd love to run something, but I'm out of town on the 14th. Drop me an email and we can sort something out. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 07:02, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi Mike - sorry, our Pizza Thursdays are on the first Thursdays of the month. Have emailed you as suggested - cheers! Jon (talk) 23:18, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Useful paper
This will be helpful with your current subject A study of their foraging and diet. Sabine's Sunbird  talk  05:56, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Have added it. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 07:01, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Prep work for Bioblitz
I've started pulling together a page of bird stubs of New Zealand and then some free journal articles about the species in question. Hopefully at the library they will have copies of HANZAB at hand too, but if you like I can send you the HBW entries for the species by email so you can share. I'll migrate the list and links to the project page when I'm done. Sabine's Sunbird  talk  07:58, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Oemona hirta
&mdash; Amakuru (talk) 00:01, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Article on shooting in The Signpost?
I saw your project at GLAM/New Zealand Wikipedian at Large/Chch mosque shootings in which you solicit photos related to the Christchurch mosque shootings. You and your fellow New Zealanders have my condolences. Please excuse the formality of what I have to say from this point forward, and also excuse my focus on encouraging media production and ethical discourse in Wikimedia projects.

I live in the United States where shootings are frequent. I see Wikipedia articles on shootings in the United States, and have watched their development and the discussion around them on their talk pages. I am not able to articulate exactly what is different, but I have the idea that somehow the participation of people in New Zealand has made the Wikimedia content development around this New Zealand shooting progress differently than how it happens in articles covering comparable events in the United States.

In your photo collection project you have already demonstrated your interest in having people in New Zealand contribute media. To what extent would you be interested in writing an article, even a brief one, summarizing the Wikimedia community response to this incident? I am imagining that you could showcase this photo collection project as a model for anyone else to replicate, and perhaps also you could point to the English Wikipedia talk page for the topic and invite anyone to participate in the controversies there. I hardly know anything about the distinct culture of New Zealand, but I was thinking that this topic is worth elevating for being different from the more typical United States case and also because I hope this is an unusual opportunity to get the unique New Zealand public opinion as a case study into modeling how Wikipedia covers shootings.

I do not want to draw you into an untimely commitment, so please do not feel pressured by my request. The shooting happened on the 15th, now is the 21st, and the March issue of The Signpost goes out on the 29th. Five sentences is probably the minimum commitment. This probably is a topic best reported by someone in New Zealand. How do you feel about drafting something?

Please excuse me if I have been insensitive about any part of this tragedy. Disasters happen routinely and Wikipedia covers many of them. WikiProject Disaster management is an inactive project and when these things happen I wish we had a better portfolio to recommend how involved people can use Wikipedia for media publication access which they find useful as a response.  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  20:23, 21 March 2019 (UTC)


 * That sounds like a useful thing to do, Mike. I greatly admire how you build Wiki community in a variety of ways. If you want to take up this invitation I'd be more than happy to lend a hand in whatever way you see fit.  Schwede 66  20:29, 21 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the kind offer, Lane. Yes, I think it would be good to get something in The Signpost, both about how the Wikipedia article has grown and some of the discussions behind the scenes, and about our attempts to collect Commons images. Tom, I could definitely use your help in putting something together. Shall we write something brief this weekend and use a couple of the main images as examples? —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 02:57, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Sure.  Schwede 66  04:38, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, I didn't quite get to it in the weekend, but I've drafted something at GLAM/New_Zealand_Wikipedian_at_Large/Signpost_article_on_mosque_shootings. I can dig out some photos and make a gallery, and link to a GLAMorgan analysis and the project page. Feel free to have a crack at improving it. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 03:00, 27 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Published at Wikipedia's response to the New Zealand mosque shootings. Thanks.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  17:00, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Manual user confirmations
Hello Giantflightlessbirds, when processing manual user confirmations under Event_coordinator - please keep in mind that you must use an expiration date of 10 days or less. I've fixed the last few you set as indefinite. Best regards, — xaosflux  Talk 21:04, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Oh of course, sorry.; the users have already stacked up the required numbers of edits, and will be confirmed automatically in a few days, so a longer term makes no sense. I'll use 10 days in future. Thanks for fixing that. –Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 21:14, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Nice one Mike
How rewarding it must be to be part of this magnificent and significant find. Congratulations. Photos in Wiki sometime perhaps? Moriori (talk) 21:45, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Otago Museum say they're happy to release photos and video to Commons, so I'll work on that with them. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 21:53, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
 * That sounds super-exciting. I had seen the story but skipped over your name.  Schwede 66  10:32, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Featured picture candidates/Jacinda Ardern by Kirk Hargreaves

 * FYI. :) Copy/pasted from my talk page. &mdash; Rhododendrites  talk \\ 12:57, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Nina Jones DOB
Re Nina Jones, have added a birth notice ref, but date was from Registrar-General's historic BDMs online. Her birth was shown as 1871/41981 indicating a birth (as claimed) in 1871, though it could have been a December 1870 birth registered in 1881, or in a few cases a birth several years earlier registered late. The RG Historic Records website has BDMs under the (claimed) date of the event, and the exact date can be found by gradually restricting the search range to say 6 months then 3 month then a month etc. NB: from about 1972 the death entries gave the (claimed) date of birth rather than the age at death. Hugo999 (talk) 22:21, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
 * This is very useful to know! Thanks for taking the time to explain. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 23:53, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Great work
I see your term as NZ Wikipedian at large has finished. What a great job you have done! Many thanks.- gadfium 05:22, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I'll second that. And if anybody from the Wikimedia Foundation would ever want an impression from a Wikipedian, you can send them my way and I'll tell them how fantastic a job you've done. This will have long-lasting effects as you've managed to recruit many volunteers who are now keen contributors.  Schwede 66  10:29, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
 * You guys are very kind. Thank you. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 14:43, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Another nod of approval from me - good work GFB! Grutness... wha?   13:33, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Whanganui Basin
Hi, I've made a small start on an article for Whanganui Basin and the relevant fossil sites. Tried to adapt format used for related pages. Will try and add more each week. Thank you! IcknieldRidgeway (talk) 22:51, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Looks good! I think there's scope for a Fossil Sites of New Zealand category, a subset of, which would include Curio Bay, Foulden Maar, etc. And have a similar template to the Petrified Forests one on Curio Bay. But for the moment, you could start with Nukumaru etc. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 02:33, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * It looks like the official name for it is still Wanganui Basin (for the time being at least), so I've moved it there - I've also added location details. By the way, the category you suggested already exists as, which is the standard WP naming.( you might be interested in that, too!) Grutness...  wha?   03:37, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Briliant, thanks for adding the category to those sites. It's a big hassle trying to figure out what category to use in Wikipedia (and Commons). —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 03:43, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you both for the help so far. Will keep updating it regularly. IcknieldRidgeway (talk) 17:58, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Puke Ariki
Gatoclass (talk) 00:02, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Connecting!
Hi Mike - I'm here at Wikimania and am interested in talking with you about natural history specimen in Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons for some upcoming Smithsonian projects. I'm giving a talk tomorrow at 3pm on some gender work which touches on women in STEM, one of our common interests. Let me know how to get in touch! Effie --Digitaleffie (talk) 10:27, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi Effie! I'll see you at your session. You can use the Twitter or email on my user page if you need to get in touch. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 19:01, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Notable?
Nic Rawlence doesn't look notable to me but I don't have time to look into it. Science communicator - that sounds a bit like you. You may know him. Any thoughts on the matter?  Schwede 66  03:58, 27 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Jeez, that was fast: it looks like it's been speedily deleted. What a shame: Nic is a working scientist, one of the world's foremost experts on ancient DNA (he would blush to hear that, but he's certainly a moa expert and has lots of published papers, and a good public profile.) He's also a science writer with regular articles in SciBlogs and NZ Geographic, and was an important media commentator during the recent Te Papa redundancies. KC was taking Commons pics of scientists at the Penguin Conference and made the article; I asked her and Nic to come up with some more references that were specifically profiles of him rather than discussions of his work to provide more material to summarise. Looks like we'll have to start again! —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 14:59, 1 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Shall I userfy the article for you?  Schwede 66  15:05, 1 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Could you? I've alerted the others to have another crack at it. — Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 15:10, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Draft:Nic Rawlence; sorry was editing on my phone and then forgot all about it when I got back to my laptop. It hadn't been deleted after all; it had been moved to draft space.  Schwede 66  19:03, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Ah, excellent. –Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 20:07, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

congrats
good to see you mentioned in the Washington Post - Australian Financial Review AFR Weekend - good work !!! JarrahTree 00:57, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

New Wikimedian in Residence table
A new wikimedian in residence table should soon be implemented based on data from Wikimedian_in_residence (draft table). If there are any WiRs you know that are missing, please add them. In the meantime, see the map! T.Shafee(Evo &#38; Evo)talk 00:46, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons structured data for source files of cropped images
Thanks for all your help today. Just had a thought about adding structured data to crops, ie children, of original Commons media. Any Wikidata items added to the structured data tabs for cropped images as "depicts" ought to be automatically inherited by the original, by definition. Does, can or should this happen? Quilt Phase (talk) 02:32, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I realise qualifiers eg "prominent" should not necessarily be inherited Quilt Phase (talk) 02:50, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure "depicts" are copied back to the original file when a crop is done. The Crop Tool is just a quick and dirty tool for speeding up the downloading-cropping-uploading workflow. I don't think it creates any real link back to the original file, just some text on the pages of each recording what happened. So it's hard to see how changes to the structured data about the file – a process completely independent to any crops, template info, and the like – could be copied backwards to another unrelated file. That would be a good feature to request from the Structured Data on Commons team. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 08:04, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Carmichaelia astonii
Carmichaelia astonii has been started to use your photo from Otari-Wilton's bush. I have had no luck with Aston. It seems unlikely to be Aston – Helen Isobel Aston (1934-). I am hoping you can fix this (and more of course). Cheers & thanks. MargaretRDonald (talk) 22:16, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorted: it was Bernard Cracroft Aston. Wikidata and article fixed. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 00:36, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

trust you have had a good christmas
and all the best for the new year - and well done for all the things that you have done in the last 2 years !!! JarrahTree 02:59, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks mate; all the best to you too. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 06:16, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Vytautas Tomaševičius
Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:01, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Lincoln University Art Collection
&mdash; Amakuru (talk) 00:02, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Resources for presenting to academics
Kia ora, hope 2020 has started well for you! The librarians at Ara Institute of Canterbury have asked me and another Wikipedian to run a session for them and/or for academic staff on WP. I'm not sure where to start - maybe with how academics can contribute to WP? How they can use it in their teaching? Would love to hear your ideas - and maybe there are already some resources created that I could pick up and use in the workshops? We're having an initial discussion and planning session in about a week's time. Thanks very much! MurielMary (talk) 10:10, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Kia ora Mike, I've got a similar request. I want to give a brief presentation at our Stuff meetup and would appreciate if you could email me an overview presentation (or send me a link if it's Google Slides) as a template to start with. Much appreciated.  Schwede 66  21:18, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi folks; sorry to take a while to get back to you. The problem is my slides were all in Keynote, which doesn't like sharing, so I've now recreated them in Google Slides and shared an editable version with you both. Go for it; I've saved a private version for myself. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 00:45, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

New Zealand red admiral
Thanks. I had it a little wrong the first time, then found a slightly better template to use when the disambiguation page target does not have "(disambiguation)" as part of its title. BTW, I now see that you served a year as NZ Wikipedian at Large since our 2016 interaction. That's pretty damn cool! Hope you're doing well during this coronavirus pandemic. No need to respond – just keep social distancing (I love that it is a NZ diagram shown at that Wiki article) and carry-on editing. Jmg38 (talk) 00:07, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Good job finding that template; I hadn't seen that one before. Yes, I had a year on the road, then some time at Lincoln University. And now putting together a few possible Wikipedia projects with other organisations. Good fun! New Zealand is in a pretty serious lockdown, and we're hoping it will scale back in a couple of weeks. Until then, I'm encouraging people stuck at home to help improve Wikipedia. Take care. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 08:28, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Kauri dieback
Just a heads-up that I'll be doing a paragraph-by-paragraph review of the kauri dieback article over the next few days. Using this version: as a reference to help spot POV changes. Also fixing and de-duplicating references. --Onco p53 (talk) 04:52, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Fabulous, thanks so much. I've been meaning to do something with it for ages. It would also be great to get some of the newer research and information on policy/conservation in there. But the main thing will be cleaning up the attempts to impose a particular view on the article. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 05:00, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Representing "At Risk - Relict" in the speciesbox
I am trying to describe Sporadanthus ferrugineus as being "at risk- relict" but cannot work out the appropriate code to put in the speciesbox. Hoping you can help... MargaretRDonald (talk) 23:19, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
 * You use "REL"; I know, it should be Rel, but that's how the person who tweaked the template code put it. All the NZTCS codes are based on the filename of the image: Status NZTCS REL.svg —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 22:25, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Moa
Hi Mike, I saw on your twitter that the Moa bone trade is finally going to be banned, and I would like to congratulate you after your extensive campaigning on the issue, it was a long time coming. I know that your main interest these days is insects, but would you be interested in helping to improve the Moa article and the 9 species? I was thinking it would be nice to get the Moa article to WP:GA status. Some of the species articles are pretty bare stubs at the moment, and I thought it would be worth merging some of them to the genus level, like South Island giant moa and North Island giant moa into Dinornis, but I would like to know your opinion first. Kind Regards. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:29, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I think it's work keeping and expanding the two species articles, as they have plenty of different photos and resonstructions: the Dinornis article should I think mostly talk about the previous species names and how the sexual dimorphism was discovered. There is plenty to say about every moa species and they all have separate Wikidata items. The two key references will be The Lost World of the Moa and Extinct Birds of New Zealand, neither of which is online and both are a little out of date; NZ Birds Online is a pretty good resource for more up-to-date information. There are quite a few new good skeleton photos from Auckland Museum now. They key thing would be persuading Te Papa to release Paul Martinson's paintings in Extinct Birds of NZ under an open licence: currently they're CC BY-NC. I'll have some more time later this month and can spend some time on moa articles and we can do a rewrite of the whole lot; and I'll approach my museum contacts about releasing photos. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 21:44, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

WHO vs Wikipedia
hi Giantflightlessbirds - since you've been interviewed recently about the quality of Wikipedia, you might be interested in this objective comparison between Wikipedia data and the next best set of data - for the daily national SARS-CoV-2 counts. Boud (talk) 17:18, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Fascinating, thanks! —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 18:38, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

West Coast
There's many more West Coasts than just the US one - this is a global environment not an NZ-specific one. Imagine you came across a Wellington WAL, but it turned out they were roaming around SW England rather than the NZ city. And just as a general principle per Categorization, categories should avoid ambiguous names and should follow article names, so the category at least should really be moved to. Also categories should always be categorised in turn... Le Deluge (talk) 23:04, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
 * As I already pointed out, "New Zealand Wikipedian at Large" was the name of a 2018-2019 WMF-funded project grant. This is a two month residency named "West Coast Wikipedian at Large" funded by a New Zealand development agency. They're unrelated, but your suggestion makes it look like they are. The category should follow the project name. I'd rather not use a category at all than use one that's not the name of the actual project, as then it's no use for people trying to find the various events. There is currently no ambiguity, because there's no other "West Coast Wikipedian at Large" it could be confused with. See West Coast Railways, West Coast Expressway, West Coast Fever, West Coast Trail, West Coast Video, Category:West Coast Eagles players, and Category:West Coast rugby league team players, none of which need a qualifier pointing out which West Coast they're on because there's no other entity they could be confused with. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 01:24, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

your postcards
are marvellous ! I have seen them at friends talk pages - they really are inspiring, can you include me in any further? They really remind me of why the westcoast of tasmania needs more work as well !! well done ! JarrahTree 09:50, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
 * If I may chip in, JarrahTree. Sign up here and do a bit of editing; lots of suggestions under the various tabs.  Schwede 66  17:29, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Category or article?
I think that Category:Pakihi – which currently incorrectly has no parent category – would be better as an article, which both describes it and lists characteristic plants. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:44, 10 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Way ahead of you. Eventually there'll be a structure like Category:Fynbos, I hope. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 06:56, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

I vote that ...

 * Seconded.- gadfium 04:35, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Thirded with bells on. DrThneed (talk) 04:46, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I also support this barnstar! Well put! MurielMary (talk) 10:13, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

positivity
I have never seen an editor who has exuded such enthusiastic and positive contribution to biota and context to any region in Australasia in my 15 years + of editing as your efforts. It goes beyond accolades and although your original presentation in Bali all those months ago might be blurry in my memory and some detail lost, your efforts deserve much more than what words can trasnmit - as well as your humour and good will. Good on you, I am so glad I heard that first time in Bali, it gives me faith there is room for positivity in what sometimes becomes a difficult place. Thank you so much. JarrahTree 10:19, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
 * That's really kind of you; thank you. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 10:23, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
 * you are the one to be thanked! the oz, nz and adjacent blobs in the ocean will never be the same thanks to your efforts. Why you have even had to put up with me off wiki at times, sure there is a medal and bar for that alone ! JarrahTree 10:50, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Stewart/Otago shag
Hi Giantflightlessbirds: I wasn't sure if you've had an eye on the Stewart/Otago shag merge you suggested earlier this year. There has been some discussion you might want to reply to. The overall consensus is definitely to merge, but a question has been asked that you might best be able to answer. MeegsC (talk) 08:49, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay! Have a look at Stewart Island shag and see what you think. Feel free to change anything that doesn't seem right. I've redirected Stewart shag to this page as well. MeegsC (talk) 12:34, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Looks good. I'd be cautious about claiming that taxonomists disagree about its status without a reliable source claiming the split was ill-founded, and I haven't seen . There are lots of reasons why IUCN – not a taxonomic authority – might not have updated its database yet, and we don't know why. So for now I'll just say it's referred to as Stewart shag in some sources. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 21:40, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Congrats
Ha! I just "met" you this week, and now I read all about you in the Signpost! Nice work on the New Zealand front. Best of luck in keeping things going! If you ever want to collaborate on a NZ bird article, let me know. I'm a Yank in the UK, but I have a big library covering all things natural. MeegsC (talk) 15:20, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much, will do. We'll be doing a lot of work on NZ species that have been featured on Critter of the Week this coming year, just getting the project page reorganised at the moment, so you're welcome to join Team Critter and help with some of the dire NZ bird articles. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 22:22, 1 December 2020 (UTC)