Wikipedia is the place people go to get information, and anyone Googling New Zealand artists will see a Wikipedia link in the first few results. Unfortunately, the Wikipedia coverage of our artists is slim or non-existent compared to overseas. Images of art are hard to find, and many artists, especially women and Māori, are invisible. Why? Wikipedia articles are all written and curated by volunteers, and there are only about 250 regular editors in this country; simply not enough to cover everything that needs work. The good news: we can change this. It's not hard. We just need people who care about art to learn how to edit Wikipedia and commit to improving it.
DrMike Dickison is currently New Zealand Wikipedian at Large, on a one-year grant from the Wikimedia Foundation to help people and institutions better engage with Wikipedia. He is giving a talk and running a Wikipedia editing workshop for the Christchurch arts community to help increase the visibility of NZ artists. These free events are hosted by the Christchurch Art Gallery. You don't need to be a Wikipedia editor or an expert on NZ art: anyone can help with editing, researching, proofreading, and adding photos.
Talk: How do we get New Zealand artists into Wikipedia?[edit]
Tuesday 14 May 2019, 5:00–6:00 pm
Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū
Free; no booking required.
This is an informal evening talk covering practical steps the arts community can take to make New Zealand art more visible to the world. It will cover:
How artists can satisfy Wikipedia's notability criteria, so new articles don't get deleted.
Adding photos of artists to Wikimedia Commons – articles need photos!
Encouraging artists to release some images of their work under an open license – most artist pages have no pictures of any actual art!
Which publications qualify as reliable references in Wikipedia, and what arts writers and researchers can do to help.
Edit-a-thon: Let's get NZ art into Wikipedia![edit]
Anedit-a-thon is an event where volunteers tackle a part of Wikipedia that needs improvement. Complete beginners are welcome; training and troubleshooting is provided. All you need to bring is a laptop! After Tuesday's presentation, allowing enough time for attendees to compile materials and photographs, Mike will run a daytime edit-a-thon at the Art Gallery with the aim of getting as many contemporary New Zealand artists and galleries online as possible.
Education room, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, Montreal St
Wikipedians from anywhere in the world are of course welcome to join in remotely. Please feel free to hashtag edits with #NZartists and add yourselves to the participants list below.
12.00: Meet and greet Introductions, name lanyards, and account creation if needed.
12.15: Wikipedia tutorial We'll learn how Wikipedia works and how to improve, create, and reference articles. Experienced editors present will be buddied up with newcomers.
13.00: Editing Our goal is to improve Wikipedia's coverage of NZ artists. You can improve existing articles, add to Wikidata, or create stub articles for people missing from Wikipedia.
17.00: Finishing up Make sure you fill out an evaluation form and add your contributions to the list below.
Laptop. Laptops are definitely easier to edit on than iPads. There may be a computer you can use if you don't have a laptop, but BYO if you can.
Any snacks or drink you want. Covered drinks only; no smelly or greasy food please!
Any resources such as books, journals, magazine or newspaper articles relevant to the artists you're interested in. You will have been told the sort of thing to track down at Monday's talk; you can also use the Library's resources.
Photos you've taken, especially of art that could illustrate articles; you'll learn how to donate these to Wikimedia Commons so other Wikipedia articles can use them.
If you're coming, try to create a Wikipedia accountbeforehand: don't wait until the day to do it! Here's a form you can use if you like. Creating an account makes editing much easier (here's more info on why you should). You'll need to pick a "handle" for your username; you could use your real name, but it's nice to have the option to be a bit anonymous if you want. Here's some advice on picking a username.
The more you prepare, the more you'll be able to get done. You may want to read up on avoiding common mistakes, but Wikipedia has a "don't bite the newbies" policy, and we'll be there to troubleshoot.
Have a think about topics you'd like to work on; do a little research first so you're prepared. You don't have to be an expert; anyone who can do library research and write clearly can help improve Wikipedia. The best candidates for Wikipedia articles are people who are "notable". In Wikipedia terms, "notable" usually means they're been covered in a number of reliable independent sources, such as news, books, authoritative websites, or magazine interviews. If you're proposing to add someone to Wikipedia it's important to make sure they're "notable"; talk to us if you're not sure – we can help.
If you want to bring photos along and add them to Wikipedia, they need to be free of any copyright or released under a Creative Commons license that lets anyone use them. (What's Creative Commons?) If not, you must be the creator/copyright holder – ask us if you're not certain what's allowed, and we'll help. We will ask you who holds the copyright for all your photos, so make sure you know! If you've have photos of art you've created and are happy to donate these images under an open licence, great! Bring them along.
Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women_in_Red/Missing_articles_by_nationality/New_Zealand - this list includes NZ women artists. Not all are notable though; they need to be looked at on a case-by-case basis before deciding whether to create articles for them (that will mean 3–4 good sources: worth checking.) Note that the Art Gallery will provide a stack of reference books and print publications, ideal for citing in a new article.
Added "award received" "Frances Hodgkins Fellowship" to all recipient artists and created items for those artists not in Wikidata - Ambrosia10 (talk) 01:00, 19 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Adding artists mentioned in the Christchurch Art Gallery magazine Bulletin as having works in the gallery collection but were not in Wikidata - Ambrosia10 (talk) 01:28, 19 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
