Signposts - a blog about Te Ara the Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Lord Howe Island skink – probably unaware that it has just switched genus

Getting it right is a major expectation of Te Ara. But sometimes it’s not us, but our committed users, who put us right. Their emails can take us on fascinating journeys in the pursuit of truth. Recently we had three interesting examples.

The week began when Geoff Patterson wrote in to say that his colleague Dr David Chapple had determined in a recently published research paper that there was only one skink genus (Oligosoma), not two as we claimed in our lizards entry. So I sent this off to the author, Kerry-Jayne Wilson, who read the paper and agreed. Going to change the entry, I found it a little more difficult than I had imagined. The entry stated that of the two skink genera, one was endemic to New Zealand but the other had relatives only on Lord Howe and Norfolk islands (and we had a nice image of the Lord Howe cousin). So I was left wondering whether the Lord Howe Islander was also part of this expanded skink genus, or not. So back to Kerry-Jayne, who confirmed that it was indeed.

A couple of days later a representative of Ngāti Kuia wrote in to say that in the dolphins entry we had incorrectly named the dolphin which accompanied Hinepoupou on her legendary 80-kilometre swim from Kapiti to Rangitoto (D’Urville Island). He pointed out that Hinepoupou was from Ngāti Kuia and they believed the dolphin was called Kaikaiawaro, while we had it as Kahurangi. This time I wrote to John and Hillary Mitchell, who wrote the entry on Te Tau Ihu (the tribes at the north of the South Island). The Mitchells confirmed that Ngāti Kuia’s accepted name for the dolphin was Kaikaiawaro, but that kaumātua of other iwi in the area agreed the name was Kahurangi. So we changed the entry to acknowledge both traditions. Interestingly, it was not only the dolphins entry which needed changing. The open water swimming entry also had the story of Hinepoupou and Kahurangi/Kaikaiawaro (so we updated that too).

The third letter came in from Stephen King, whom I quickly recognised as the famous person who sat on top of the tōtara tree in Pureora Forest in 1978 as a protest against clear-felling. Stephen, now the forest ecologist at Waipoua Forest, asked us to change the reference to toatoa from being common in northern forests to being rare in Northland. He said that at Waipoua the species was found only on one ridge, and he was concerned that people collected bark from the trees for dye. It was important to get the facts right to dissuade people from unnecessary collection. Again, I referred the comment to the original author, in this case Maggy Wassilieff, who noted that she confined the use of the term ‘rare’ to those species that appeared on the published list of ‘Threatened and uncommon plants in New Zealand’. But she accepted that it was indeed not often found in Northland, so we made an appropriate change.

It’s great that our users want to see us get these things right. It shows they care and it is a huge help to us. The job does not stop - just one day after a new law came in banning the use of cell phones while driving, I received an email telling us that we say New Zealand is one of the few developed countries that has not banned cell phones when driving. So, the corrections, and keeping Te Ara up-to-date, continue.

Book cover of New Zealanders and the sea (click to see a larger image)

Just in time for New Zealand Book Month (and early Christmas shopping), Te Ara’s new book, New Zealanders and the sea, has hit the shops.

New Zealand’s 18,000-kilometre coastline is the seventh-longest of any country, and nowhere is more than 130 kilometres from the coast – so it’s not surprising that most New Zealanders have a strong relationship with the sea. The ancestors of Māori, and of most Pākehā, arrived here by sea; exports and imports are still largely dependent on sea ports.

New Zealanders and the sea looks at the ways we have engaged with the sea, using it for transport and for economic gain, as a source of food – and, of course, as a place for recreation and holidays. Based on entries from Te Ara’s Earth, Sea and Sky theme, New Zealanders and the sea takes in everything from castaways to the fishing industry to marine conservation to Tangaroa, Māori god of the sea.

There are stories of flocks of sheep driven along the beach or transported by sea; of the isolated lives of lighthouse keepers and their families; of Māori methods of fishing and storing the catch; of the appropriate attire to wear to the beach, and how that’s changed over time; of Nola and Berry Edwards and their shell-encrusted car.

And – like Te Ara – New Zealanders and the sea is beautifully illustrated, with remarkable images of whaling, of rescued castaways, lighthouses, waka and 1960s surfers – as well as these likely lads sitting outside their caravan with a few cold ones.

New Zealanders and the sea is available at all good bookstores, RRP $69.99 (ISBN 978-1-86953-681-7).

The waka, suspended above its tank (photo by Fin Bird)

The word got around at morning tea time: there was a waka (canoe) in our building. It had arrived earlier that morning, and was being welcomed with karakia (prayers).

In small groups, we were allowed to venture down and see it, so we set off down the stairs and through a maze of chilly corridors. And there it was, suspended above a tank and being carefully tended by conservator Dilys Johns.

Actually, it’s only part of a waka – the prow. It was found in the Hutt River, near Woburn, in 2006, and has been kept wet in a container ever since. Who made it, which iwi (tribe) they were from, or when they made it are all unknown. But it is thought to date from before Europeans came to New Zealand, so is at least 200 years old.

Apparently it was never completed, but I noticed that the inside of the waka had been worked to a very smooth surface. The outside was rougher, but that may have been due to sitting in the mud at the bottom of the river for so long.

It was this mud that Dilys – with the help of various interested and very keen Ministry for Culture and Heritage staff over the course of the day – was working at removing; gently scraping with ice-cream sticks, then hosing the surface. Once the mud is removed it will be submerged in a chemical – polyethylene glycol, or PEG. If it was just left to dry out, it would crack because it has been wet for so long. PEG will replace the water in the wood, so it can keep its shape and eventually be dried out.

This is the same conservation method that was used on the English warship the Mary Rose and the Swedish warship the Vasa. Like those ships, this waka prow may eventually end up as a museum piece. But, before then, it has to do two years of time soaking in its tank, and then around two years slow drying.

The arrival of the waka was the culmination of several months work by the ministry’s Heritage Operations unit, who had to put their thinking caps on to find a home that was big enough to house the enormous tank the waka is submerged in. Security and climate were also considerations – the room needs to be a constant temperature and preferably cool and dry.

You can find out more about this waka in this article in the Dominion Post, or in this piece on Māori Television’s news show Te Kāea (you’ll find it 9 minutes and 50 seconds in).

Recently Te Ara made the biggest change since it launched. However, on the surface little has changed. This is part of a series of posts that will try to explain why it’s exciting for us and why we hope it’s exciting for you. We’ve broken the story into three parts: Te Ara past, present and future.

Te Ara present

In part one I talked about why Te Ara moved to the Drupal content management system (CMS). While we were messing around ‘out back’, we took the time to make some changes to the front. Ross listed them in his post but let’s take a closer look at what has changed.

Browse Te Ara
In the past the navigation around the Te Ara relied on people understanding the site’s structure:

Home » theme » sub-theme » story

Later we added this column browser to allow users to browse through our stories.

However, because of the technical limitations mentioned in part one, we could only easily add it to the home page. The old CMS also meant the listings had to be added by hand, rather than dynamically. Moving to Drupal enabled us to link the browser to the CMS and add it to every page on the site.

At the top of each story page is a button to ‘Browse Te Ara’ which, once clicked, will reveal the browser. This is now our primary navigation, and we can’t wait to see how people use it, the categories they browse, and their feedback.

Search
To see how we’ve improved our search, compare these two sets of results for ‘kiwi’:

You wouldn’t expect the story titled Australians being listed before the story devoted to kiwi would you? (And, when comparing the image and media search results, I noticed the old search listed the cheddarmaster before the brown kiwi!?) The results on the right are far more relevant, and they’re generated by Sphinx, Te Ara’s new search engine. This has been a long overdue improvement, and the much better search results continue to amaze those of us that use it everyday.

The Short Story
Every story in Te Ara also comes in a simpler, refined, easy read that we call the Short Story. The Short Story has changed in two ways. First, the button is now in the same position no matter what page you’re on.

Second, the old button opened the Short Story in a pop-up, which had its drawbacks. So we now use a technique called Lightbox to display the short story. This blog also uses Lightbox to display larger images. In fact, here’s an example of both.

New location of biographies

Biographies
Previously, story pages had a tab that listed relevant biographies from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (DNZB). We’ve now moved the links to relevant biographies to the bottom of the story page, above the footer. Currently, we display a thumbnail picture, name and what the DNZB people call ‘years of activity’ (usually their birth and death dates), but we’re hoping to add more information later … more about that in part three.

Tabs (above) vs Back to Story (below)

Tabs
The biggest change to the in-story navigation was the removal of the tabs. They seemed like a good idea, but whenever we watched people use the site, hardly anyone used the tabs and most didn’t even know they were there. Once we moved the biographies inside the story, the only purpose to the tabs was to switch between the images and the story. We decided a ‘Back to Story’ button, similar to Trade Me’s ‘Back to listing’ button, would be clearer, and more useful. Also, by freeing up the space, we could keep the short story button location consistent. However, out of all the changes, removing the tabs seems to be the most contentious amongst our users. What do you think? Do you prefer the tabs or the back to story button?

Other bits and bobs
Those are the biggest changes, but you may notice little tweaks like new icons and our new media series layout. Hopefully you haven’t seen our new 404 page, which unfortunately became quite popular while we were working the kinks out of our URL redirection thingamabob.

As I mentioned in the first part of this series, what matters is that a huge barrier has now disappeared and Te Ara can start evolving. But, other than the modifications we’ve already made during the migration, what is going to change? Where is Te Ara heading? I’ll let you know, what I can, in part three.

Subscribe to Signposts to make sure you don’t miss Part three – Te Ara future, a look at what’s next.

Recently Te Ara made the biggest change since it launched. However, on the surface little has changed. This is part of a series of posts that will try to explain why it’s exciting for us and why we hope it’s exciting for you. We’ve broken the story into three parts: Te Ara past, present and future.

Te Ara past

Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand landed on the internet in February 2005. It contained 106 stories and 3,000 images. Over the past four years we’ve added over 300 stories and over 9,000 images, but few new web features. Why did we focus on richer content and not on the surrounding website?

I came to work at Te Ara a year after the launch, and heard the stories of late nights attempting to get the content ready for launch. But the Te Ara I got to know was the new Te Ara, a well-oiled, encyclopedic machine. Everything at this point was about Earth, Sea and Sky, a theme that included 117 more stories. The team worked feverishly on writing, checking, editing, researching images, clearing copyright, optimising images and designing maps, graphs and diagrams for the somewhat bare encyclopedia. Away from the busy production line, the team excitedly discussed new features and changes that they’d like on the site. However, few ideas could slip past the barrier that quickly blocked that exciting future.

The existing content management system (CMS) made changes to the site expensive, overly complicated, time-consuming and dependant on external developers. Compromises were made when adding new features so they were independent of the CMS. Important changes like improving our search engine became too hard. However, this blog, our Flickr group, @Te_Ara on Twitter, and the ability for users to submit their own stories were created almost overnight because they were managed outside the CMS.

So, when it was time to upgrade to the latest version of the existing CMS (at great expense), we leapt at the opportunity and began searching for a new one. I won’t bore you with process; it involves scoping, proofs of concepts, RFPs and lots of other phrases and acronyms. The short story is, we found Drupal. It’s nice, friendly, and free (i.e. open-source). Unfortunately our old CMS had one last trick up its sleeve: it was going to hold onto all the content as tight as possible and we didn’t have the key. (Sorry editors, if you let me write a blog post, I’m going to mix me some metaphors.)

A long, complicated project to migrate Te Ara’s 2 million elements came to an end several months ago. It was more complicated than anyone expected, and involved long stints of testing and the creation of a new authoring system. Also ,we took the opportunity to make a few changes … more about that in part two.

On 25 August 2009, the new Drupal-driven site started delivering web pages to you, the user. Then it stopped for a few hours. Then we got it going again. But that’s not important. What matters is that a huge barrier has now disappeared and Te Ara can start evolving.

Subscribe to Signposts to make sure you don’t miss Part two – Te Ara present, a look at the new features.