West Coast WikiCon: Volunteers to gather for Wikipedia conference

West Coast WikiCon kicks off this weekend. Photo / 123RF

Ever wondered who's working behind the scenes to keep New Zealand information on Wikipedia accurate and up to date?

You'll find 20 of them in Hokitika this weekend for New Zealand's first ever Wikipedia conference.

West Coast WikiCon will explore the skills and tools of a hobby that works to build knowledge for the world's leading online encyclopedia.

Longtime Wikipedia volunteer Dr Mike Dickison has trained people for years to edit the site.

He has also travelled the length of the country, working with museums, libraries and art galleries, as they learn to engage with the collaborative source.

Dickison said Wikipedia is written by around a quarter of a million active volunteers worldwide.

"This is a spare time activity for them. Instead of watching Netflix, they go and try and improve Wikipedia articles."

"Wikipedians" tend to focus on their interests - for Dickison this includes New Zealand Natural History, Moa and the West Coast.

Wikipedians are always working behind the scenes to keep things accurate and up to date. Photo / 123RF

The Hokitika resident said in 2021 the site is no longer the unreliable and untrustworthy source it once was.

"With 20 years of development and hundreds of thousands of volunteers working on it, you actually do get a reliable document even if anyone can edit it ... there's a big volunteer force that do proof reading and check for vandalism."

The site is even regularly updated to fall inline with current events.

"Wikipedia can actually be amazingly timely and respond really well to rapid news outbreaks," Dickison said.

"Its coverage of Covid has been really good, they've had lots of medical professionals contributing to those articles."

But if people think they deserve their own Wikipedia page, chances are it will disappear pretty quick.

Dickison said for a person to become a permanent page, they'll need to have their information backed by a range of credible sources.

"For the hundreds of articles that are created everyday, a good percentage are almost immediately flagged for deletion."