Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New Zealand/Task force tohutō

A few thoughts after tackling Whakatāne and Ōpōtiki

 * I have tended to update all mentions to use macrons irrespective of the date they were talking about, unless they were talking about named entities. But this issue was a bit confusing for me!
 * I picked this area because I have spent a bit of time there, but Whakatāne is mentioned in over 600 pages, and Ōpōtiki in over 200 so a bit of automation might be needed if I am going to get through it - should have thought of that before I dived in!
 * There are other related pages and categories that need moving / renaming as well (e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Opotiki_District)
 * Opotiki College confused me, the school now uses macrons throughout its website https://www.opotikicol.school.nz/, but it seems that the official name is without macrons, see https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/find-school/school/profile?school=148 . How does the policy extend to non-geographic entities?

Ready.eddy (talk) 05:23, 19 April 2020 (UTC)


 * I'm thinking that updating all mentions and noting that until (2019 or whenever) the name was spelled without a macron
 * Yes, sometimes there are a lot of pages to cover!
 * Maybe make a note of related entities, and if possible link to the NZGB decision that altered the name (this one for Ōpōtiki District for example)
 * For things that aren't part of the NZGB list, we need to go back to WP:COMMONNAME, which says that the prevailing name in the reliable independent sources is the one to use. But an institution's name for itself on its own website should surely be a good guide; that's what we used when the schools in Whanganui started adding "h" to their names. We don't know how up-to-date the Education Counts database is, for example. The problem is of course much thornier for non-institutional things like tūī and wētā, where we have to look at usage in magazines, newspapers, government websites and so forth. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 21:50, 19 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Yes, there will be cases where institutions could or should be renamed. If it's controversial, it's best to put up a move request. That's reasonably simple to do but if you've never done this before, it pays to draft a move proposal in draft space somewhere (or even here) and then ask for input from others.  Schwede 66  02:22, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Info from the NZGB on the macron process
I thought people might be interested in what Wendy Shaw, the secretary of the New Zealand Geographic Board, had to say to us recently about the process of standardising official names. We pointed out some inconsistencies like "Waitakere/Waitākere".

"Your observations are correct; there are inconsistencies between long-time ‘recorded and official Māori place names’ that have yet to be processed for consistency with more recent official Māori names that now have macrons as part of their correct orthography. This might have resulted from:


 * Treaty settlement names which focussed only on their traditional names and not the associated names
 * Past official Māori place names not applying orthographic conventions as set by the Māori Language Commission in the 1990s
 * Proposals received for just one name and the NZGB deciding to focus on that name possibly because of its controversy

The NZGB has a strategic goal to standardise the orthography of the majority of Māori place names over the next five years, and it is working on this in two ways: Region by Region and focussing on commonly used and significant Māori place names. Both of these processes use the fast track process in the NZGB Act to approve unofficial recorded names as official (the criteria is that no objections are likely and no other alternative name is known for the feature/place). Where the fast track test cannot be met, the standardised orthography with macrons can still be applied in the Gazetteer but the Māori place names remain unofficial. We expect that at the end of this project there will remain many recorded unofficial Māori place names that will need to be considered case by case by the NZGB. Some of these may fall out of the process because we do not have a confirmed story or meaning for the Māori word and therefore cannot determine its correct orthography.

For any Māori place names that your volunteers identify as needing standardisation/consistency, please let us know and we’ll consider them as part of our processing. In the meantime you could use the standardised orthography for associated unofficial recorded Māori place names, if you are certain they are the same word with the same meaning."

The NZGB have also offered to take part in a virtual meeting with this task force team to talk about their work and see how they can help. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 21:31, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Related: adding macrons to plants, animals etc
Although this isn't part of the mission of this task force, plant and animal names are increasingly being written with macrons in NZ English. Moving these articles can be controversial, so it's important to put forward a request, the way User:Stuartyeates has with Katipo. Be sure to supply multiple recent reliable sources that use the macron. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 01:18, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Talk:Katipo

Progress reports
I thought it could be a good idea to talk about progress. According to our task spreadsheet, I've just moved the last geographic place that needed a macron. So that's 67 articles moved. Just for completeness, there are a further 63 articles that have yet to be written, and 6 articles where the name is not official (i.e. those should not be moved).  Schwede 66  03:11, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

If you are looking for a task to do
Unsurprisingly, there's been a bit of macron vandalism. This has also happened on Wikidata. We have a volunteer who has come up with a nifty way for monitoring such vandalism so that we can respond to it. For this to work, we need Wikidata item numbers (the Qxxxx items). In our spreadsheet, the sheet for "Populated places" has a complete list of items. The second sheet, called "Other places", is very incomplete for items. I also suspect that many of those features won't have a Wikidata entry at all. Would be good to get the features defined in Wikidata before our mate gets a bot going on this.  Schwede 66  04:47, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I am filling out the Wikidata column gradually as I go through the Gazetteer mix-n-match, and am putting all the items on my Wikidata watchlist so I can keep an eye on these there (and have been reverting the surprisingly frequent/almost daily macron vandalism, always from anonymous IPs in New Zealand, Melbourne and California). --Canley (talk) 03:33, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Antarctic places
Some of the places on the list are mountains or other geographic features in Antarctica which NZGB has officially named with macrons, for example Mount Hawea (Mount Hāwea – 56601) and Mount Pukaki (Mount Pūkākī – 56603), both of which were named after RNZN frigates which didn't have macrons in their names. The enwiki articles have usually been created from PD content from another Antarctic gazetteer such as the USGS. Given the non-territorial status of Antarctica and thinking maybe New Zealand English does not necessarily apply, I am hesitant to move these, but am thinking of adding a statement saying what NZGB considers the official name. Any thoughts or suggestions? --Canley (talk) 03:28, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Canley, the Ross Dependency is a dependency of NZ. Why would NZ not have jurisdiction to name a place there whatever it wants to? I'm not sure what you mean by 'non-territorial status'.Roger 8 Roger (talk) 10:54, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

New name determinations
A bunch of geographic names in the Christchurch area were determined by NZGB (2020-ln2410, 2020-ln2411) and came into effect yesterday (8 July 2020), some have macrons so I am adding them to the workplan spreadsheet.

There is one populated place:
 * Rapaki (now Te Rāpaki-o-Te Rakiwhakaputa)

The rest are other features:
 * Coopers Knob (now Ōmawete / Coopers Knob)
 * Cass Peak (now Ōrongomai / Cass Peak)
 * Witch Hill (now Te Upoko-o-Kurī / Witch Hill)

--Canley (talk) 05:17, 9 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Some amendments have been made to previously gazetted determinations to add macrons to the name (2020-ln3114) on 16 July 2020. The Gazetteer has not been updated yet but presumably will be soon.


 * Populated places with articles on English Wikipedia are:
 * Apiti (now Āpiti)
 * Te Pohue (now Te Pōhue)
 * Waipatiki Beach (now Waipātiki Beach)
 * Waitakere, Auckland (now Waitākere)
 * --Canley (talk) 04:08, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I just updated Taitā railway station to match the suburb's name, which was very satisfying. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 04:41, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Additionally there are 48 populated place names now made official with macrons in 2020-ln3118:


 * Ākitio
 * Āpiti
 * Ātiamuri
 * East Tākaka
 * East Tāmaki
 * East Tāmaki Heights
 * Eketāhuna
 * Kahikatea Pā
 * Lake Ōmāpere
 * Lower Kawhātau
 * Māhia
 * Māhia Beach
 * Mangatāwhiri
 * Mangōnui
 * Mōtū
 * Nūhaka


 * Ōhaupō
 * Ōhingaiti
 * Ōhiwa
 * Ōhura
 * Ōkato
 * Ōmāpere
 * Ōmokoroa
 * Ōmokoroa Beach
 * Ōtāne
 * Ōwhango
 * Pāhaoa
 * Rātana
 * Rūnanga Pā
 * Tākaka
 * Tākou Bay
 * Tāmaki


 * Tāngarākau
 * Tīraumea
 * Tongapōrutu
 * Upper Ātiamuri
 * Upper Kawhātau
 * Upper Tākaka
 * Waihāhā
 * Waimā
 * Waimā Valley
 * Wairau Pā
 * Wairoa Pā
 * Waitārere
 * Waitōtara
 * Whangamōmona
 * Whangapē
 * Wharekōpae

--Canley (talk) 04:43, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Rsfinlayson
Our friend Rsfinlayson, long since blocked for sockpuppetry, uses a random IP address for continued macron removal. Latest activity is at Lake Papaitonga. Has anybody got any good ideas what we can do about that? On a related note, the Australasian swamphen article needs a copy-edit to clarify that pūkeko isn't just some random te reo spelling.  Schwede 66  01:12, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Reaching out to Reo Māori
We've had a discussion on Facebook about audio files as a pronounciation help. I've reached out to Reo Māori and wrote the following:

Kia ora koutou,

I'm writing to you with my Wikipedia hat on. Us Kiwi Wikipedians are very mindful of how te reo Māori is embedded into New Zealand English. To be fair, it's been a bit of a struggle to have that accepted by the international Wikipedia community and there was also a massive push back by some New Zealand editors. Wikipedia is full of rules and regulations, but we've managed to have macrons accepted as being part of New Zealand English. That was a massive discussion (hop over to the talk page of Naming conventions (New Zealand) if you have a lot of spare time on your hands) and got quite a bit of media attention.

So now that proper spelling (including the use of macrons) is sorted, the question arose how we could assist readers of Wikipedia with learning how to pronounce te reo Māori words properly. Very few New Zealand Wikipedia pages have a sound included; Oamaru is one of those.

The question is – would you be interested in working with us towards a volunteer programme where people record audio files that can then be used on Wikipedia? One of the quirks of Wikipedia is that such files need to have a free licence that allows reuse by anyone for any purpose (including commercial use). This means that we could only use existing sound files if they already have such a free licence. It might be easiest to devise a programme where we tell people how to record and upload their files so that they can then be used.

What do you think?

I look forward to their response.  Schwede 66  19:56, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board has an RFC
Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has an RFC for value. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the [|discussion page]. Thank you. Poketama (talk) 16:30, 31 May 2022 (UTC)


 * I have shared this as I believe this WikiProject may have insight into this matter across the sea. Poketama (talk) 16:30, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Macron vandalism
Here's a table of "interesting" macron vandalism. The vandalism has the following commonalities:
 * The edit summary is always "English spellings"
 * There is only ever one edit from the IP address
 * It changes the pipe only to an unmacroned version
 * The most interesting component is that the vandalism comes from random IP addresses from anywhere in the world.

It appears that IP masking is being used (sorry, I couldn't find a WP article that explains what that is). I've come across this particular type of vandalism a lot and unfortunately, there does not appear to be a way of searching WP's article histories for edit summaries (they don't get indexed). If anybody has good ideas what to do about it, please say so. Please add to the table below if you come across further instances.  Schwede 66  04:43, 24 June 2022 (UTC)


 * I believe that a large portion of these people who use the "English spellings" comment are good faith and are clueless about the macrons being correct. Being an English Wikipedia, these people who are not familiar with New Zealand may think that it is a genuine mistake. Panamitsu (talk) 22:40, 14 August 2023 (UTC)


 * @User:Schwede66, are you saying there are only a few people doing these reverts you label as vandalism, but they are hiding behind multiple IP addresses to make it look like there are many more editors doing this reverting? I don't know how that is done and I haven't noticed many of these reverts you mention, but then again I haven't been looking for them. @Panamitsu Clueless is correct. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 10:03, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Look up IP address spoofing, something that I know as IP hopping.  Schwede 66  10:15, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Comment
By way of a general comment to the New Zealand project, not directed at anyone in particular - there is something rather sad in taking a step back and looking at the VAST amount of time spent by so many people on relatively unimportant work on New Zealand topics. There is a huge amount that can be done to create and improve articles with the addition of quality sourced and well written information, but that often appears to take second place to macronising words and creating lists of numbers and so on. We all doodle at times and play around with punctuation errors and so forth but surely there is more constructive work to be done? I know there are plenty of educated people in this project who have specialist knowledge in certain fields. This article here struck me as such an example of hobby-horse editing that is adding relatively little to improving the NZ information in this encyclopedia. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 10:38, 15 August 2023 (UTC)