[Gendergap] Perspectives on Wikimedia Women in New Zealand

[Laura Hale]

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/Auckland<http://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
creation<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation>
.

The only New Zealander to get a participation grant from Wikimedia
Australia<http://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
Zealand<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:FA-Class_New_Zealand_articles>.
Only one, an article about Queen
Victoria<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Victoria> is
about a woman. There are four featured
lists<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:FL-Class_New_Zealand_articles>,
none of which feature women. Good articles are somewhat better: four of
forty-one articles<http://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.
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