Wikipedia:GLAM/BioBlitzWBG

This page documents Wikimedia participation in the BioBlitz held at the Wellington Botanic Garden, 5–6 April 2019. It is intended as an aid for Wikimedia volunteers wanting to help in such events, by highlighting the different tasks we undertook and workflows we developed.

The BioBlitz focused on the public using the app iNaturalist to document species in the Wellington Botanic Garden area, using the the iNaturalist project Wellington Botanic Garden BioBlitz 2019. It ran from 3 pm Friday to 3 pm Saturday; although in theory a 24 hour event, Wikimedians were present until 9 pm Friday and restarted 7 am Saturday. The event used iNaturalist to log observations, and had 48 identifiers who made 484 observations of 227 species.

Wikimedians in residence

 * Mike Dickison,
 * Siobhan Leachman,

Planning

 * Planning was done in a Google doc by Siobhan Leachman and Alison Stringer; licensed CC0
 * The main takeaway when using the iNaturalist app is to encourage users to change the default licence from CC BY-NC to one of the more open suite of Creative Commons licenses such as CC0, CC BY 4.0 or CC BY SA 4.0. If the users of the iNaturalist app do change their default to a more open license, the photographs & data they have created can be reused in Wikimedia projects. This was one of the main challenges of the Wellington Botanic Garden BioBlitz from a Wikimedia standpoint. We had participants who either didn't or weren't prepared to change their default license or instead changed the license to fully copyright their images and/or observation data. This didn't just hinder the reuse of those images and data but also ensured extra time was needed to check whether we could legitimately reuse content generated during the BioBlitz.

Wikidata

 * Created an item for the event,, which seems to be the first BioBlitz in Wikidata
 * Created Wikidata items for participating scientists, such as, , and , and linked them to their publications using Author Disambiguator
 * Added images to Wikidata items: for example, , and


 * Created items for observed species missing from Wikidata, such as
 * Added the property to observed species. There is much potential for getting knowledgeable observers to sit down with Wikimedians and help add property statements to species items in Wikidata.

Wikimedia Commons

 * Uploaded appropriately open licensed research grade observation photos from iNaturalist. Example: Cyathea medullaris by Leon Perrie.jpg
 * Description format:
 * Created Category:Wellington Botanic Garden BioBlitz 2019 (a subcategory of both BioBlitz and Wellington Botanic Garden)
 * For the most prolific photographers (these tended to be the scientists involved in the BioBlitz) we created a category (Category:Leon Perrie), a subcategory (category:Photos by Leon Perrie), and a creator template (Creator:Leon_Perrie). We only did this if the prolific photographer had or should have a Wikidata item as a result of notability in other areas of their work.
 * We also assign categories for the species (Category:Cyathea medullaris) and uploader (Category:Uploads by New Zealand Wikipedian at Large)
 * Finally, we documented the BioBlitz event itself: people working at microscopes, the work areas, public going on collecting trips, signs, collections of specimens, and opening/closing ceremonies. Discussed with the event social media coordinator the ability to reuse these images placed in Wikicommons.
 * It is worth working with organisers to ensure a) photographers documenting the event know a Wikipedian can help them upload their photos to Commons under an open licence and b) that graphics and signage can also be released under an open license, otherwise zealous Commons editors might flag photos that include them as copyright violations.

Wikipedia

 * Checked Wikipedia for any poor coverage of commonly-observed species. Improved the article for Pyrrosia eleagnifolia, one of the most-observed species in the BioBlitz, from stub to start quality and added a BioBlitz photo.
 * Added  and   templates to Wikipedia botany articles, which linked images taken during the BioBlitz and uploaded into Commons to their appropriate Wikipedia articles.

iNaturalist

 * We linked photos in Commons to the corresponding iNaturalist observation URL, not the photo URL (observations can have multiple photos); e.g. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/22005960
 * We also took part in the BioBlitz itself by creating iNaturalist observations during the event – when we had time!

This was an interesting exercise for both of us; we quickly realised there was no way we could keep up with uploading the flood of observation photos to Commons, so focussed on priority species and improving the people and species directly related to the BioBlitz. There is real potential for a larger team of volunteers working systematically on Commons and Wikidata, and encouraging observers to take photos for Wikipedia articles that lacked them.