Wikipedia:GLAM/Ashburton
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This is the project page for a Wikipedia collaboration between Ashburton District Council and Wikipedian at Large Mike Dickison (User:Giantflightlessbirds) focussed on Ashburton, New Zealand and surrounding area, beginning December 2024.
- Ashburton District Council (2025-01-24). "Refreshing the district's online profile". www.ashburtondc.govt.nz. Retrieved 2025-01-26.
- Moffett, Julie. (2025-02-14). "Ashburton Wikipedia overhaul". Ashburton Guardian. Retrieved 2025-02-15.
Events
- Sunday 16 March 2025 • Ashburton Art Gallery and Museum • 2 Baring Square East, Ashburton • 2:00–3:00 pm
Attended by 20-odd community members, many of whom took notes and asked good questions. Excellent conversations about local history afterwards.
Public Talk: Why Wikipedia Matters, Especially Now
Wikipedia, now over 20 years old, has been described both as one of the greatest human achievements and the last good thing remaining on the Internet. How did a volunteer-written encyclopaedia, widely ridiculed when it was first launched, become such a crucial part of the world’s store of knowledge? We’ll explore how Wikipedia works, what happens behind the scenes, and what 250,000 amateur Wikipedians do to keep it alive and accurate. We'll also look at the threat posed by AI-generated text, which has rapidly polluted the world’s information ecosystem but so far has yet to make inroads into Wikipedia, and why the world’s richest man hates an online encyclopaedia so much.
Christchurch-based Dr Mike Dickison, a former museum curator and digital librarian, is the grant-funded 2025 Aotearoa Wikipedian at Large focussed on Banks Peninsula. He has been working with Ashburton District Council to improve the coverage of the Ashburton area.
Sunday 23 November 2025 • How to get your photos into Wikipedia workshop and photo walk • Ashburton Art Gallery and Museum • 10:00 am to 4:00 pm with a lunch breakUnfortunately despite the best efforts of the Art Gallary and Museum we only had one person enriol, so had to cancel.- 10:00–12:00: How Wikimedia Commons works, setting up an account, uploading and categorising photos under an open licence
- 12:00–1:00: Lunch: photo walk to Ashburton Domain
- 1:00–4:00: Photography assignments, and uploading at the Heritage Centre
- You will need: A camera or phone, and a laptop to download photos onto and upload to WikiCommons with.
- Cost: Free, but you will need to register in advance so you can set yourself up with a WikiCommons account (Register)
Articles to create
Ashburton Art Gallery and Heritage Centre, with photo galleries and coverage of collection highlights (created 30 Jan 2025). This replaced Ashburton Art Gallery and Ashburton Museum articles. Both institutions moved into the new Ashburton Art Gallery and Heritage Centre in February 2015 and merged three years ago. See Ashburton District Council info on the museum and the Museum blog.
| Wikidata | Wikipedia | Quality | Wikimedia Commons | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ashburton Lakes (Q132863075) | Ashburton Lakes ✓ |  |
Category:Ashburton Lakes | New article created 28 May 2025, moving draft over an existing redirect. Currently needs expansion in geography - more about the glacial origins, and a substantial increase in the content about biodiversity. Sources yet to cite include: 3. 2. Wikidata item includes the various lakes. |
| Lake Camp (Q76208071)✓ | Lake Camp |  |
Category:Lake Camp | New article created 25 May 2025. Uploaded 7 photos 24/2/25. |
| Lake Emma (Q85173445) ✓ | Lake Emma | |
Category:Lake Emma (New Zealand) ✓ | New article created 28 May 2025; already an article in German. Added an image to it, fixed Wikidata (especially dual names). Uploaded 10 images 24/2/25 |
| Lake Emily (Q94453947)✓ | Lake Emily | |
Category:Lake Emily | New article created 28 May 2025. Image category already existed in Commons. Ideally this should be disambiguated to allow for other instances. Only one photo at present. |
| Lake Roundabout (Q85173468) ✓ | Lake Roundabout |  |
Category:Lake Roundabout ✓ | New article created 29 May 2025. No source to back up area of lake, so I have left this out. Existing Article in German. Added 9 images to Commons 24/2/25. |
| Māori Lakes (Q113514966) ✓ | Māori Lakes | |
Category:Maori Lakes ✓ | New article created 1 June 2025. Added 8 images (14 total) 24/2/25. |
| Spider Lakes (Q132863091) | Spider Lakes | — | Category:Spider Lakes ✓ | Added 5 images 24/2/25. |
| Mystery Lake (Q66048953) | Mystery Lake | — | Category:Mystery Lake (Canterbury, New Zealand) | |
| Manuka Lake (Q125704142) | Manuka Lake | — | — | Wikidata needs work |
| Seagull Lake (Q85173508) | Seagull Lake | — | — | Wikidata needs work |
| Lambies Lagoon (Q113506783) | Lambies Lagoon | — | Category:Lambies Lagoon | |
| Lake Trinity (Q85173477) | Lake Trinity | — | — | Wikidata needs work |
| Lake Donne (Q85173444) | Lake Donne | — | Category:Lake Donne ✓ | 7 photos uploaded 2/3/25 |
| Lake Denny (Q85173443) | Lake Denny | — | — | Wikidata needs work |
| Harris Scientific Reserve (Q134691677)✓ | Harris Scientific Reserve ✓ |  |
Category:Harris Scientific Reserve ✓ | 21 photos uploaded and article created 2/6/25. |
| Ashburton Clock Tower (Q131763186) | Ashburton Clock Tower | |
Category:Ashburton Clock Tower | Article created 3 June 25. 6 photos prev uploaded. Still needs details of the tower and the clock, if sources can be found. |
| Sharplin Falls (Q34758479) | Sharplin Falls ✓ | |
Category:Sharplin Falls ✓ | Article created 8 June 2025. Uploaded 13 photos. |
| Bowyers Stream (Q32138293) | Bowyers Stream ✓ | |
Category:Bowyers Stream | Article created 9 June 2025 |
| Ashburton Aviation Museum (Q105082741) | Ashburton Aviation Museum ✓ | |
Category:Ashburton Aviation Museum ✓ | Article created 11 June 2025. Uploaded 20 photos provided by Flickr users. |
| Tinwald Domain (Q134878426) | Tinwald Domain ✓ | |
Category:Tinwald Domain | Article created 13 June 2025. More photos needed, plus history section of article needs filling out |
Articles to improve
Relevant model articles would be Rangitata Diversion Race () and Methven, New Zealand ().
| Wikidata | Wikipedia | Quality | Wikimedia Commons | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lake Heron (Q6476154) | Lake Heron ✓ | |
Category: Lake Heron, New Zealand (23) | Significantly expanded (26 May to 1 June), and included content about declining water quality |
| Lake Clearwater (Q6475407) | Lake Clearwater ✓ | |
Category:Lake Clearwater (New Zealand) – some great photos like this. ✓ | Significantly expanded the article, (25 May to 1 June). Created separate sub-categories in Commons for images at dawn and at sunset, to reduce the clutter in the main category. |
| Lake Hood (Q6476203) | Lake Hood | |
Category:Lake_Hood_(New_Zealand) (2, both terrible) | Needs more info and some good photos. |
| Wikidata | Wikipedia | Quality | Wikimedia Commons | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ashburton (Q724923) | Ashburton, New Zealand | |
Category:Ashburton, New Zealand | In 19 languages. See Talk page for suggestions. Can be improved to a GA. Needs extensive coverage of points of interest and improved photos. Tightened up the prose in the History section, and removed unnecessary sub-headings from some sections, for better flow. (28 May to 7 June). Improved linkage to Ashburton Domain article. |
| Mid Canterbury (Q55623068) | Mid Canterbury | |
— | Cites no sources, wikidata a mess. See Ashburton Talk Page for divisions of Canterbury. To C class. 1 |
| Ashburton District (Q15784197) | Ashburton District | |
Category:Ashburton District needs a cleanup | To C class. |
| Ashburton Central (Q102072227) | Ashburton Central | |
No specific category, just use Ashburton? | Initial expansions (1 June to 3 June 2025) mostly using content copied from the main Ashburton, New Zealand article. To C class. Add historic buildings and history. 1, 2 Ditto with Allenton. |
| Tinwald (Q7808554) | Tinwald | |
No category: create one. | Plenty of separate history: see book in Publications. |
| Ashburton River / Hakatere (Q4804674) | Ashburton River / Hakatere | |
Category:Ashburton River/Hakatere (2, with 6 and 3 of N and S branches but only one of bridge) | Add information about the history of the bridge, and upcoming second bridge. e.g. 1 |
| Ashburton Domain (Q4804667) | Ashburton Domain ✓ | |
Category:Ashburton Domain ✓ | Major expansion (28 May to 10 June 2025), changing emphasis away from just cricket. Some gaps in the history still need filling. |
| Ashburton Guardian (Q4804670) | Ashburton Guardian | |
— | Needs Wikidata work and photos, and refs like Ian Grant's Lasting Impressions and Pressing On and Scholefield's Newspapers in NZ. Digital subscription. 1 2 |
| Mount Sunday (Q31683747) | Mount Sunday ✓ | |
Category:Mount Sunday ( |
|
| David Elliot (Q5233345) | David Elliot (illustrator) | |
No category, 4 images in Commons (see DWRF 2021 Writing for Children), not great. | Needs a photo of Elliot, more sources including profiles of him, and release of some sample images under an open licence so we can add a gallery to the page. |
| Methven (Q1925567) | Methven ✓ | |
Category:Methven, New Zealand | Significantly revised multiple sections (7 June 2025), removing excessive sub-headings and lists. Looks a lot better now. Created a new list article List of sports clubs and other organisations in Methven, New Zealand, to enable removal of an unsourced and dull list from the main article. |
| Mount Hutt (Q692322) | Mount Hutt ✓ | |
Category:Mount Hutt | Expanded (7 June 2025), adding section about the history of establishment of the ski field |
| Lake Clearwater (Q15241308) | Lake Clearwater (village) ✓ | |
Category:Lake Clearwater (village) | Significantly expanded content about the village. (29-30 May). Demographics section has been moved from this article to recently created Ashburton Lakes |
| William Walter Smith (Q8019974) | William Smith (conservationist) ✓ | |
This article about the curator of the Ashburton Domain (1894-1904) was previously a short stub, but was greatly expanded by Wainuiomartian from 4-15 June 2025 |
Other articles to improve
- Bobbie Barwell created at the Art Gallery's suggestion, a selection of her images uoloaded from the collections, and a gallery added to the article. One photo also added to the £5 note section of Lake Pukaki.
If volunteer editors are interested, see other articles in Ashburton District, or related to the Ashburton River.
Did You Know…
- To feature: Ashburton, New Zealand
Contact
- Email Mike at mike
rove.wiki - Leave a message on his Wikipedia talk page
- Join the Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand user group
This page's template is Template:AshburtonWPALhead