Wikipedia:GLAM/WestCoastWPAL/Final Report

From 5 September to 26 October 2020 I (Mike Dickison, User:Giantflightlessbirds) was the West Coast Wikipedian at Large. In September I was based in Hokitika, Greymouth, and Westport and in October in Ōkārito, Franz Josef, Fox Glacier, Reefton, and Arthur's Pass, aiming to do the following:


 * 1) Work with heritage organisations such as museums and libraries to organise uploads of public-domain photos into Wikimedia Commons.
 * 2) Improve articles on iconic West Coast features, places, and people using the resources of non-profits, tourism agencies, and individual tourism operators.
 * 3) Run a public Wikipedia event in each location, where people could learn the basics of editing Wikipedia and donating photos to Commons.
 * 4) Run training for gallery, library, museum, and archives (GLAM) staff in each location – introducing them to Wikipedia, Commons, and Wikidata, and helping each develop a Wikimedia strategy for their collections.
 * 5) Give presentations to tourism organisations and operators in each area on improving Wikivoyage, making print media coverage available to Wikipedians, and donating high-quality photos to Commons.

Top contributors
Seventeen volunteers signed up to assist with the project. Most were working remotely, from Australia, Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin, and Christchurch, and reported their achievements each day. Book prizes (donated by Development West Coast and Friends of Waiuta) were given out for the most and best contributions in different areas. The prizewinners were:


 * for article creation and large amounts of work behind the scenes, including photo categorisation and article cleanup
 * for numerous articles on West Coast churches, and supplying photos in the nick of time
 * for all her articles on West Coast women, libraries, and historic buildings
 * for helping redress the gender gap
 * for generating to-do checklists and maps in Wikidata
 * for adding much-needed Māori content

Photo uploads
Acting as a Wikipedian in Residence I uploaded several photo collections on behalf of copyright holders, with their full consent; the benefits and consequences of an irrevocable open licence were explained to them. Contact them with any further enquiries about copyright status and licensing.

New Wikipedia articles
The following lists are based on self-reporting by volunteers, so will not be 100% complete, but give a good idea of the range of topics covered.• Clock Tower Chambers

• Wallsend, New Zealand

• Brunner Borough

• Hokitika Museum

• Hokitika Clock Tower (appeared in DYK and made Good Article)

• History House Museum

• Coaltown Museum

• Development West Coast

• Left Bank Art Gallery

• Blacks Point Museum

• Karamea Centennial Museum

• Hokitika Customhouse

• Kotuku Model Bungalow

• Katie Milne

• Blackball Museum of Working Class History

• Granity Public Library

• Grey Valley

• Cape Foulwind Lighthouse

• Government Buildings, Hokitika

• Yvonne Rust

• All Saints' Church, Hokitika

• Denniston Plateau

• St Andrew's United Church

• St Canice's Church, Westport

• Donovan's Store

• Renton Hardware building

• Westland Pioneers' Memorial

• St James Church, Franz Josef

• Hannah's building, Greymouth

• Karamea War Memorial Library

• Runanga Miners' Hall

• Westland District Library

• Arthur Griffin (architect)

• Roy Lovell-Smith

• Richard Strachan De Renzy Harman

• Maida Bryant

• Dorothy Fletcher

• Rimu

• Mayor of Westport, New Zealand

• Fayne Robinson

• Pakihi

• West Coast Wildlife Centre

• Sue Thomson Casey Memorial Library

• H. E. Holland Memorial Library

• Grey District Library

• Fox Glacier Hotel

• Hokitika Savings Bank building

• Lake Gault

• Bess Hudson

• Reefton Distilling Co.

• Statue of Richard Seddon, Hokitika

Improved Wikipedia articles
• St Mary's Catholic Church, Hokitika

• Joseph Petrie

• Cronadun

• Crushington

• Ikamatua

• Inangahua Junction

• Lyell

• Reefton

• James Holmes (politician)

• Greymouth

• Hokitika

• Westport

• Inagahua Junction

• Lyell

• Afghans

• Lone Pine (tree)

• Lake Mahinapua

• Arahura River

• Hokitika Gorge

• Fox Glacier

• Ōpārara Basin arches

• Barrytown

• Bill Pearson

• John Scott

• West Coast region heritage buildings (German Wikipedia)

• Greymouth heritage buildings (German Wikipedia)

• Hokitika heritage buildings (German Wikipedia)

• Reefton heritage buildings (German Wikipedia)

• Westport heritage buildings (German Wikipedia)

• Westport News

• Ōkārito Lagoon

• Ōkārito

• Bruce Bay

• Guy Menzies

• Chesterfield skink

• Kaniere

• Joseph Petrie

• Charles Heaphy

• Reefton Power Station

• Greymouth Airport

• John Bevan

• St Mary's Catholic Church, Hokitika

• George York (priest)

• Lake Kaniere

• Jackson Bay / Okahu

• Bruce Bay

• Mayor of Hokitika

• State Highway 6

• Franz Josef Glacier

• Westland County

• Mayor of Buller

• NZ's Big Things

• Pounamu

• Lake Matheson

• Fox Glacier (town)

• Greymouth Star

• Agnes Addison

• Whataroa

• Ngahere

• Jacobs River, New Zealand

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User:Canley also did some Wikidata work to help organise our efforts:
 * A working page to track Wikidata cleanup/import project for Protected Areas in New Zealand
 * Wikidata map query of items in the West Coast Region on the New Zealand Heritage List
 * Map of West Coast heritage sites with no image, query as a list sorted by town/locality.
 * West Coast scenic reserves
 * Checked and adjusted coordinates of all geolocated items on Wikidata within 10km of Hokitika

Commons categories sorted out
• Westport

• Taylorville Bridge

• All NZ Heritage buildings on the West Coast

• Afghan biscuit

• Victoria Forest Park

• Cronadun, New Zealand

• John Charlton (New Zealand)

• Greymouth

• History House

• Buildings in Westport, New Zealand

• West Coast Region

• Populated places in West Coast Region

• Jamie Cleine

• Ship Creek

• Hokitika

• St James Church, Franz Josef

• Mayors of Hokitika

• Hungerford Mausoleum

• West Coast Wildlife Centre

• Mayors of Westland, New Zealand

• Ōkārito

• Ardea alba modesta of New Zealand

• Mayors of Greymouth

• Fair Use image of the Lake Matheson and St James 1946 Peace Stamps

• Lake Matheson Walk

• Arthur's Pass

Commons uploads
There are over 1000 photos in the category Uploads by West Coast Wikipedian at Large, added in the course of the project. Here are a selection:

Workshops and talks

 * All-day Wikipedia training sessions for locals, including some coverage of Commons, Wikivoyage, and WikiShootMe, in Hokitika, Greymouth, and Westport . The Greymouth meeting was so popular it spawned two follow-up meetups. The goal was to recruit volunteer editors on the Coast who can keep doing this sort of work.
 * Presentations to Westport Rotary and the Buller Camera Club, Heritage Hokitika, heritage enthusiasts in Arthur's Pass, and a drop-in-and-chat session for Ōkārito residents in Donovan's Store.
 * Presentations to tourism operators in Franz Josef, Hokitika, Greymouth, and Westport. In these I explained what Wikipedia can and can't do (it's an encyclopaedia, not a marketing website), and outlined a range of practical options, such as open licences for photography, keeping an accurately-sourced print media archive, and working with Wikipedia groups.
 * Presentations to heritage institutions in Hokitika, Westport, and Greymouth (twice), going over copyright and licensing, strategies for opening up image collections, and the possibilities of posting out-of-copyright texts to Wikisource for volunteers to transcribe. I spent a day working with Hokitika Museum to talk about a Wikipedia strategy, resulting in a WikiProject Hokitika Museum Google doc.
 * I also tweeted a little WikiShootMe! tutorial to encourage people to upload pics of their neighbourhood, and documented the workflow I follow when photographing a new place or thing and creating a Commons category and Wikidata item.

Media coverage

 * Jesse Mulligan interview (4 September 2020). "The West Coast is next on the Wikipedian's mission". RNZ Afternoons (audio, 8′07″).
 * McBride, Paul (11 September 2020). "Wikipedia workshops on West Coast". Greymouth Star. p2
 * Carroll, Joanne (12 September 2020). "NZ tourism's Wikipedia problem: Fox Glacier page dominated by deaths, rural NZ non-existent". Stuff.
 * Seven Sharp interview (16 September 2020). " Why does Wikipedia paint such a bad picture of New Zealand’s top towns?". (TV, 4′03″). Best line: "Surely there's more to East Cape than the bridge upgrade of 2017."
 * Johnstone, Charlotte (18 September 2020). "How sprucing up your town's Wikipedia page can boost tourism." The Telegraph.
 * Joseph, Raquel (22 September 2020). "Wikipedian at Large in Westport." Westport News. p3
 * Anh, Truc (26 September 2020). "Biên vài dòng Wiki, du lịch thu tiền tỉ." Tuổi Trẻ Cuối Tuần. (In Vietnamese.) Quotes "…Mike Dickison, một người tâm huyết với du lịch New Zealand." (translation: “... Mike Dickison, a person dedicated to New Zealand tourism.”)
 * Sherman, Janna (30 September 2020). "Wikipedia focuses on West Coast articles". Hokitika Guardian. p1–2
 * Ledsom, Alex (3 October 2020). "Improving Wikipedia Pages Can Wildly Increase Revenue For Cities". Forbes.
 * "Town clock featured on Wikipedia home page" (16 October 2020). Hokitika Guardian. p3
 * Mills, Laura (11 November 2020). "50 new Coast pages added to Wikipedia." Otago Daily Times.
 * Mills, Laura (11 November 2020). "50 new Coast pages added to Wikipedia." Otago Daily Times.

Acknowledgements
The West Coast Wikipedian at Large project was largely funded by Development West Coast, with additional support or accommodation by Westland District Library, Grey District Library, and Glacier Country Tourism. I'd also like to thank the hard work by volunteers all over New Zealand and Australia, and the generosity of photographers like Jase Blair and Stewart Nimmo agreeing to release their work under an open licence.

—Mike Dickison (User:Giantflightlessbirds), 17 November 2020