Putting Banks Peninsula on the Wiki map
Wikipedian-at-large Mike Dickison wants to raise Banks Peninsula’s profile in the online encyclopedia. Photo: Kees Chalmers
Mike Dickison has always had a soft spot for Banks Peninsula.Mike Dickison has always had a soft spot for Banks Peninsula.
Now the world’s first Wikipedian-at-large is determined to make the peninsula accessible to the world - and he has been granted $50,000 to do it.
The central city resident was set to host his first public edit-a-thon yesterday at Tūranga to arm people and organisations with the tools to improve their coverage in the online encyclopedia.
“It’s an area of cultural significance, a geographically and biologically unique environment, and it attracts thousands of tourists every year.
“Despite this, Banks Peninsula is poorly covered on Wikipedia, the 11th most-visited website in the world and the first port of call for anyone seeking information, whether human or AI.”
Dickison cited the Lyttelton Museum, which was demolished after the February 22, 2011, earthquake, but still exists virtually with its historic photo collection.
“When I see organisations like that I feel there’s so much they could do by making use of the platform that Wikipedia offers them. That’s the mission for me to help empower small organisations that maybe don’t get the funding that big museums do,” said Dickison.
His relationship with Wikipedia started in 2015 when he was working as a museum curator in Whanganui.
Mike Dickison in Cass. Photo: Hannah Gay,
www.wikimedia.nz/wikipedian-at-large-sets-sights-on-banks-peninsula
With no real budget to publicise the collections, he turned to the encyclopedia for help.With no real budget to publicise the collections, he turned to the encyclopedia for help.
“I realised I could put information and photographs into Wikipedia that would increase the visibility of all the stuff we were doing.”
He started running public workshops to improve the quality of the articles and started running events to teach people how to edit the encyclopedia content. Dickison was hooked.
“I realised I was enjoying this more than I was enjoying being a museum curator.”
But in 2018, Dickison’s Wikipedian-at-large job did not even exist.
So he pitched the idea for the position to the Wikimedia Foundation in the United States and received a $50,000 grant.
“The goal is to mentor other people to learn how to do this sort of job so that it can be spread around and given out to different people each year.
“It’s a huge improvement over how things were five years ago.”
For more information about the edit-a-thons email
or visit
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/AoWPAL_2025