Wikipedia:Tāhuhu kōrero o tēnei mātāpunenga

History of this encyclopedia

Now that there has been over a year of active contribution (ie more than one edit per week) to this Wikipedia, some readers may be interested in a bit of history. Hence the page name "Tāhuhu kōrero o tēnei mātāpunenga" (translated in the heading above).

This may even help people who are involved in newer Wikipedias.

First eleven "slow" weeks

The first 11 weeks (from 25 Noema 2003 until 7 Pepuere 2004) saw just four edits. They are covered in some detail at User talk:Brion VIBBER. The result was a Main_Page with lots of links to other languages and a cheery invitation to create articles on a few named topics, plus an "article" (well, actually a normally-framed Wikipedia page with but a single line of rather mysterious characters) on one of those topics.

February 2004

The start of the "busy" period was 16 Pepuere 2004, when User:212.100.178.141 made a minor change to an interwiki link. That user then apparently just observed for the next month, but his or her edit was quickly eclipsed the next day by the user who later signed in as User:A Pakeha. That name is commonly applied to any New Zealander who is not of Māori ancestry. But having that name does not prevent someone learning enough of the language to make a lasting contribution to a te Reo Māori mātāpunenga (encyclopedia). Despite his or her "HUGE problem - I do not speak, or read, Maori", he or she knew enough about some important Māori words to set the scene for others to follow and easily improve.

User:A Pakeha contributed anonymously with different IP numbers on three consecutive days:

User:210.54.77.184 17 February 2004 - Contributions

• 19:34, 17 Feb 2004 (hist) (diff) Māori (Te reo pākehā)
• 20:21, 17 Feb 2004 (hist) (diff) Hau Käinga (Some Maori words that have english wikipedia articles.)
• 20:36, 17 Feb 2004 (hist) (diff) Pākehā (link to English Wikipedia - Pākehā)
• 20:46, 17 Feb 2004 (hist) (diff) Wikipedia:Help (Pākehā)
• 20:51, 17 Feb 2004 (hist) (diff) Wikipedia:How does one edit a page (Pākehā)
• 21:01, 17 Feb 2004 (hist) (diff) te Reo Māori (Pākehā)
• 21:02, 17 Feb 2004 (hist) (diff) te Reo Māori (formatting)
• 21:07, 17 Feb 2004 (hist) (diff) Māori (Pākehā)
• 21:09, 17 Feb 2004 (hist) (diff) Te reo maori (#REDIRECT Te reo māori)
• 21:34, 17 Feb 2004 (hist) (diff) Whakapapa (Pākehā)
• 21:54, 17 Feb 2004 (hist) (diff) Iwi (Pākehā)
• 21:58, 17 Feb 2004 (hist) (New) Maori (#REDIRECT Māori)
• 22:24, 17 Feb 2004 (hist) (diff) Hau Käinga (number of article added)
• 23:03, 17 Feb 2004 (hist) (New) Pakeha (#REDIRECT Pākehā)
• 23:07, 17 Feb 2004 (hist) (diff) Pākehā (Pākehā notice)

User:210.86.40.208 18 February 2004 - Contributions

User:210.86.34.172 19 February 2004 - Contributions