In preparing for WikiWomenCamp, the organisers are seeking assistance in documenting women's involvement around the world with Wikimedia projects. This will serve as a benchmark, will allow the movement to know about its success and determine where it has room to grow. We plan on sharing with people more of this type of information in the lead up the Camp.
The text of this was originally found at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiWomenCamp/FAQ#New_Zealand and is licensed using CC-BY-3.0. If you can help improve it, please drop by, Be Bold, and make it better!
Sincerely, Laura Hale
Perspectives on Wikimedia Women in New Zealand
There is no New Zealand Wikimedia chapter. New Zealand has several female Wikimedians who do everything from new page patrol to content-building. A few of them have been involved in editing Wikimedia projects for several years.
New Zealand editors on the English Wikipedia often communicate through a national noticeboard, their national WikiProject and, much less frequently, at meetups. Auckland has hosted six meetups. At the first in June 2006, three of eight participants were women. At the second meetup, two of the eight participants were women; at the third in August 2007, two of twelve were women. At the fourth in October 2008, none of the five people attending were women. At the fifth in May 2010, two of the eight participants were women, as were two of the six people who attended in April 2011. (See w:Wikipedia:Meetup/Aucklandhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Auckland .)
New Zealand editors are less visible on other projects, and in many cases the few Kiwis are male. On the Simple English Wikipedia, the only active New Zealander is a female administrator; articles related to topics of national interest are rarely kept up to date by regular editors, often relying on drive-by edits from en.wikipedia editors. On the English Wikibooks, the book on New Zealand history is a featured book. However, much of the NZ-related content is contributed by anonymous editors or editors from other projects who write a book but do not become an active part of the community. On the English Wikinews, there have been active New Zealand editors at various points in the project's history. There is also a Māori Wikipedia, which has a low level of participation but is a stable project. English Wikipedia has few visible, highly active female Kiwi contributors. One of them updates articles related to women's sport, especially netball http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/netball, in New Zealand. She also helps maintain Australian netball articles. Another is involved as a wiki gnome, helping to clean up articles and assisting new users with getting articles passed through articles for creationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation .
The only New Zealander to get a participation grant from Wikimedia Australiahttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Australia to attend RecentChangesCamp 2012 is female. She will be the first Kiwi to attend RecentChangesCamp in Australia, the third time it has been held in the country.
In 2011, there was a small push by Australians and one or two Kiwis to try to establish a national chapter in the country. Two of the people who were approached as potential leaders included women, one of whom was the head of Creative Commons New Zealand. Content wise, there are seventeen featured articles in Wikiproject New Zealandhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:FA-Class_New_Zealand_articles. Only one, an article about Queen Victoriahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Victoria is about a woman. There are four featured listshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:FL-Class_New_Zealand_articles, none of which feature women. Good articles are somewhat better: four of forty-one articleshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:GA-Class_New_Zealand_articles feature women: Elizabeth II http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_II, Jenny Morris http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Morris_(musician), Love in Motion (Anika Moa album)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_in_Motion_(Anika_Moa_album) and Joanne Gair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanne_Gair. In comparison, there are twelve articles that feature men.