A Wikiblitz is a type of Edit-a-thon where volunteer Wikipedia editors tackle one particular task together: improving a single article, fixing a whole category of pages, or uploading a whole photo collection. Complete beginners are welcome; training and troubleshooting is provided. This Wikiblitz will focus on improving the pages of New Zealand insect or fungal species, targeting low-quality Critter of the Week articles, and incorporating the newly-uploaded Des Helmore illustrations in Commons into Wikipedia. All 1094 illustrations are here; Des Helmore could do with a Wikipedia article too.

• Tuesday 25 September 2018, 6:00 – 9:30 pm NZST
• Galbraith's Alehouse, 2 Mt Eden Road, Grafton, Auckland
• Galbraith's have set aside a room for us, and there's great food and delicious beer on tap.

Editors who can't make it to Auckland are of course welcome to join in remotely. Email Mike at mikegiantflightlessbirds.com if you would like to Skype in and meet participants.

The Wikiblitz is free and open to all. You don't need to be an experienced Wikipedia editor to take part. Wikipedians will be present to help newcomers make edits.

• Laptop and power cord. Both venues will have free wifi.
• Photos you've taken that could illustrate articles; you'll learn how to donate these to the Commons so other Wikipedia articles can use them.
• Resources that could be cited in Wikipedia: journal articles, news stories, magazine articles, and official publications. Some resources might be available online, and some won't: it doesn't matter.

1. If you're coming, try to create a Wikipedia account beforehand: 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.
2. Read up on Wikipedia: there are lots of tutorials, like the Wikipedia Adventure, and useful guides, like the Editing Wikipedia brochure.
3. If you add photos to Commons so they can be used Wikipedia, they'll need to be free of any copyright or released under a Creative Commons license that lets anyone use them. If you're not familiar with Creative Commons, see Useful Links below. If you've taken photos and are happy to donate them, great! Bring them along. If you know of anyone who has good photos, approach them and ask them if they'd like their work to be seen and used by people all over the world (with them credited, of course).

• This workshop will be following "friendly space" guidelines; check them out. Harassment and disruption won't be tolerated, online or offline.
• How to edit pages using the Visual Editor: for when you click Edit
• A nice explanation of Creative Commons, Wikimedia Commons, and crowdsourced photos by Harry Chapman
• How to create a species stub article in Wikipedia: handy notes for biology Wikipedians
• Editing Wikipedia Species Articles guide (aimed at students, but still useful)
• Suggested layout of beetle articles; Suggested layout of lepidoptera articles: helpful for all insect articles.

* Began to work through the list of suggestions and corrections by User:ThorpeStephen

Images added to the following articles:

Many thanks to Darren Ward and Landcare Research for releasing Des Helmore images for public use. This event is indirectly supported by the Wikimedia Foundation through the NZ Wikipedian at Large Project Grant.