A postcard from Wikicon Wellington 2026
I attended Wikicon Wellington 2026, which was held at the West Plaza Hotel, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, on 2-3 May, with the benefit of travel funding from Wikimedia Australia.
Pre-conference activities
The day before the conference, there were two tours for participants.
Wellington Central Library: The first of the newly reopened Wellington Central Library and its impressive new facilities, including a 3D printing lab and the study room with an impressive view of the old Dominion newspaper building. We also saw the new automatic sorting system in the basement for returned books and the earthquake strengthening measures in the basement to make the building one of the safest in the city.
National Library Wellington: From the city library, we went to the National Library, where we saw the Declaration of Independence exhibition. The exhibition is educating generations of New Zealanders on less known facets of NZ history. While most New Zealanders are familiar with the signing of Treaty of Waitangi and the NZ wars (and lawyers are familiar with the early jurisprudence on the treaty that declared the English version to be the definitive version and Māori to have ceded sovereignty), the exhibition revealed the background to the familiar United Tribes flag, that Māori had declare NZ an independent country, that there were 9 sheets of the treaty and only one sheet was in English signed by 3 iwi, the majority of sheets were signed in Māori, the Māori version was translated in only one night by a non-linguist, and the treaty was taken to no iwis on the West coast of the South Island.
We also entered a special curved-shaped, darkly lit room that had the feeling of entering somewhere sacred. There, we saw the nine sheets but also the great petition by women at the end of the 19th century for the right to vote. We were told about the awesome task of obtaining signatures, how the petition was introduced into Parliament by former Premier John Hall and passed with a majority of just two, making New Zealand the first country in the world to give women the vote. We also heard that some women who signed the petition, like Chinese women, didn’t get the right to vote for many decades afterward.
Day 1
The conference opened with a welcome and whakawhanaungatanga, where we introduced each other and got to know other participants.
The first session was given by our own Elliott Bledsoe and Belinda Spry, who gave background to the draft Wikimedia Australia ICIP and IDSov Guide, which has been commissioned by Wikimedia Australia, and the process involved to date for development and consultation. This was followed by an explanation of similar work being carried out in New Zealand, the concerns and interest of New Zealand’s first people, and the group’s efforts to engage with Māori.
Some of my favourite sessions of the day included:
- Mike Dickinson’s breakout session about zines. He explained the history of zines and their revival. He showed us how to make our own simple zines using a single sheet of paper. Mike was particularly interested in how zines might be used to make Wikimedia content accessible offline and bring new people into the Wikimedia universe.
- Axel Downard-Wilke session on becoming an admin. Axel explained the two main ways to become an administrator and the pros and cons of each, and how to navigate the two processes. Axel shared a slide that showed that there is unfortunately, a steady rate of decline in administrators – that we are losing administrators faster than we are taking on new ones.
Day 2
On Day 2:
- Heidi Meudt told us about her introduction to editing and various ways to do outreach to introduce more people to Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikisource, Wikiquote etc.
- Tamsin Braisher told us about all of the innovative ways that she is using to interest people in editing in her role as a Wikipedian in Residence at Otago University.
- Pam McKirdy and Marshall Clark told us about all the work that they have been doing recently to improve Wikipedia content about Wellington, including the Mount Victoria cannon, which was brought to NZ to help people to keep time by firing a shot every day at noon. They introduced us to the site where the City Council shares interesting content in the city’s collection that is in the public domain.
- The last session I attended was the Women in Red session, which was well attended in particular by a lot of new editors, hopefully inspired to stick around and tackle the gender gap on Wikipedia.
Wikicon Aotearoa was a great experience. It was interesting to be treated as ‘one of the Australians’. As with all the WikiCons, I learned a lot and came home energised with new knowledge and a laundry list of ideas. It was also great to put more usernames to faces and to connect with editors with similar interests.
Event Organisation
The conference was well organised, the chocolate mud cake was divine, the activities were great, although I think most people wished we’d had more time at the central library.
Conclusion
Wikicon Wellington 2026 was a fantastic experience, and I was glad I could attend. I’m grateful for the opportunity and the travel funding that made it possible. I thoroughly enjoyed connecting with others and learning what the NZ community was working on.