Edit with VisualEditor

A Wikiblitz is a type of edit-a-thon where volunteer Wikipedia editors come together to tackle one particular task: improving a single article, fixing a whole category of pages, or uploading a whole photo collection. They work with local experts who may not be Wikipedia editors but have knowledge, relevant publications, and photographs they're happy to donate.

The first wikiblitz was held in Auckland, New Zealand, in August 2018 at Galbraith's Alehouse to improve the article on kauri dieback. The participants were a mixture of local Wikipedia volunteers and kauri dieback researchers, one of whom described and named the pathogen. The article was significantly expanded, and had 25 references and half a dozen photos added.

New Zealand has hundreds of species of endemic reptiles, our "forgotten fauna". Most were only discovered in the last 20 years, and many are still to be named and described. The West Coast of the South Island has several species unique to it, some on the edge of extinction. Information about them is scattered across books scientific papers, and DOC reports – our goal is to put it in one place, with informative, well-written, well-illustrated Wikipedia articles. Mike Dickison (User:Giantflightlessbirds) is working for Development West Coast June–August 2022 as the West Coast Wikipedian at Large to improve the coverage of the Coast in Wikipedia, including its native fauna.

• 
  Alborn skink (Oligisoma albornense)
• 
  West Coast green gecko (Naultinus tuberculatus)
• 
  Kapitia skink (Oligosoma salmo)

• Session 1: Sunday 31 July 2022, 09:30–16:30 NZDT (Time in your time zone)
• Session 2: Sunday 21 August 2022, 09:30–16:30 NZDT (Time in your time zone)
• Online: Whereby online meeting room link (changed to Rove). Whereby is a videoconferencing tool like Zoom that does not require a login or software; you just go to the web link to chat.

• 09:30 — Introductions. We can divide up the work and people can get started. Mike will keep the meeting room open all day in case anyone has questions or needs help.
• 12:00 — Lunchtime; everyone reconvenes online. Any problems? People can work together in breakout rooms to solve them. NB: there is a national Aotearoa Wikimedians online meeting on Sunday 21st from 12:00 to 2:00, so Mike and Siobhan will be attending that; we can reconvene at 11:50 on the 21st to touch base.
• 16:30 — Wrap-up meeting online. Log all that we've achieved, make plans for future work.

The wikiblitz is free and open to all. There will be two main sorts of attendee:

1. Experienced Wikipedia editors to handle the actual page creation, expansion, and improvement.
2. Anyone with expertise and experience, who can supply published references (Wikipedia is a summary of already-published sources) or photos. Information can be shared via the public Dropbox below.

The focus of the event will be on writing better content and backing it up with good references. We will work collaboratively, trying to improve articles as much as we can over the course of the day – researchers, experts, and writers can draft text while Wikipedians publish it, add references, and upload photos.

Just edit this section to add your name or username here if you're planning on taking part. Contact Mike at mikerove.wiki if you have questions or needs some tuition to get up to speed with Wikipedia or donating photos.

• Mike Dickison / Giantflightlessbirds
• Heidi Meudt / Stitchbird2

• van Winkel, Dylan; Baling, Marleen; Hitchmough, Rod (2018). Reptiles and Amphibians of New Zealand (1st ed.). Auckland: Auckland University Press. ISBN 978-1-86940-937-1. OL 40449345M. Wikidata Q76013985. (Note: since this book was published in 2018 several species in it have been formally described and named. Always check the most recent literature.)
• Sabine Melzer; Rod A Hitchmough; Trent Bell; David G Chapple; Geoff B Patterson (26 June 2019). "Lost and Found: Taxonomic revision of the speckled skink (Oligosoma infrapunctatum; Reptilia; Scincidae) species complex from New Zealand reveals a potential cryptic extinction, resurrection of two species, and description of three new species". Zootaxa. 4623 (3): 441–484. doi:10.11646/ZOOTAXA.4623.3.2. ISSN 1175-5334. PMID 31716246. Wikidata Q69500090.
• NZ Herpetological Society Reptile Index

We need two sorts of resources on the day:

• Photos you've taken that could illustrate articles.
• Sources that could be cited in Wikipedia: books, newspaper stories, magazine articles, and official publications. Wikipedia is entirely made of summaries of reliable published sources.

If you want to add photos to Commons so they can be used in Wikipedia, they'll need to be free of any copyright (pre-1945, in NZ) or released under a Creative Commons license that lets anyone use them (if you're not familiar with Creative Commons, see Useful Links below). To apply a Creative Commons licence you need to be the copyright owner: usually, this means you took the photo (not that you own the photo or you're in the photo). If you've taken photos and are happy to donate them, great! Mike can help with the Creative Commons licensing. 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 (credited, of course).

• Public Dropbox of reptile photos and publications. These publications are made available for research and private study and will be deleted after the event.

• This Wikiblitz will be following "friendly space" guidelines; check them out. All attendees are expected to understand and abide by the Draft Universal Code of Conduct for the Wikimedia Movement.
• The main English Wikipedia Help page is here. It has links on how to edit a page, contributing to Wikipedia, an introductory tutorial, and "getting started".

• Mike: ask Auckland Zoo to clear cobble skink photos
• Mike: go through DOC website and look for photos (CC-BY)
• ?: go through iNaturalist and identify free-to-use photos, correspond with observers about releasing photos
• ?: go through Flickr and search for photos. Begin correspondence with prolific reptile photographers about changing licence on their photos Key people: Tony Jewell, Carey Knox
• ?: Search for Stuff and Herald news stories about each species and add ref links to table
• Ambrosia10 to work on the 2021 NZ Threat Classification Report for Reptiles, adding as reference to Wikipedia and information in Wikidata.

This Wikiblitz is supported by the West Coast Technology Education Trust and the New Zealand Lottery Grants Board.