> Housing Minister Chris Bishop has told real estate agents that the government wants to "flood the market" with opportunities for housing development. > > It has agreed to a range of changes that would free up land for housing, and, the government hopes, make housing more affordable.

My rough summary of proposal:

• Most cities will be required to have zoned enough land for 30 years of housing demand all the time
• These cities won't be allowed to determine urban/rural boundaries
• Must intensify, especially around major public transport routes. If they decide not to for character reasons, then equivalent capacity must be opened up in another area
• cafes, dairies, etc (mixed use) must be allowed in residential areas
• appartments not allowed to have minimum floor area or requirement for balcony set by council
• councils already intensifying under a previous agreement (MDRS) will keep this, but if they change it then they have to move to using new rules

Let me know if I've got something wrong!

> The government has announced mandatory reading, writing and maths tests for primary schools. > > From next year, schools will be required to test the ability of five year olds to link sounds and letters at 20 and 40 weeks of schooling. > > From years 3-8, schools would have to test children's reading, writing and maths twice a year using either e-asTTle or Progressive Assessment Tests (PATs).

Thanks to everyone who took the time to complete the 2024 Lemmy.nz Census survey!

I asked for volunteers to proof read but got no offers so let me know if anything needs fixing. Especially let me know if terminology I have used is incorrect, I know some words hold a lot of weight to some people.

All fully completed surveys are included in this summary, if someone didn't submit, their partial responses are not included. No questions were mandatory so if someone didn't answer the question, it's not included in the results unless specified.

Overall, we got 69 responses, which is pretty good I think. On average (mean), it took 5 minutes 40 seconds to complete. The median was 4 minutes 39 seconds. The longest was just over 30 minutes, and the shortest was a little under 2 minutes.

You can see here the number of submissions each day in blue, and the running total in red. There was a spike when first posted, and a further spike when I posted a reminder post. The final submission was when I reopened the survey for a day on request as someone hadn't managed to complete the survey and wanted to.

!line graph showing number of submissions over time

Let's get into the actual responses. I've been told I should stick to bar charts because "pie charts are for marketing and pizza", but I think it's nice to represent some of these as proportions. However, where I've used a pie chart I've also included a bar chart in spoiler tags. I know in the past some apps have had trouble with spoiler tags, so if you have issues maybe read this on desktop. It's a lengthy read anyway!

Where are we?

Where do you live?

In a result that will shock no one, the vast majority of responses came from people living in NZ.

!pie graph showing country of respondents

Bar graph

!bar graph showing country of respondents

Within NZ, Wellington is over represented but otherwise we seem to be spread out rather evenly by the population of each area. To my knowledge, /r/wellington is the only subreddit that had a post about Lemmy with any traction, so I presume this is the reason for the higher proportion of Wellingtonians.

!graph of region of NZ of NZ respondents

How big is your community?

Most of us live in urban or suburban areas, with some write in options. Nationally, around 15% of us live rurally, but for survey respondents this was around 7%.

!Pie graph of community (urban,suburban, rural)

Bar graph

!Bar graph of community (urban,suburban, rural)

In your opinion, what is the quality of your internet connection?

Most of us think our internet quality is great, with almost 81% stating the quality of their internet connection is Excellent.

!Pie graph of quality of internet connection

Bar graph

!Bar graph of quality of internet connection

This makes sense, since most of us have fibre.

!Pie graph of type of internet

Bar graph

!Bar graph of type of internet

Within those with fibre, we are pretty evenly split on being under 300Mbps and over 1000Mbps. I foolishly forgot to add an option in the middle, but one person responded 600Mbps in their "Other" option.

!Pie graph of type of fibre

Bar graph

!Bar graph of type of fibre

Who are we?

What is your ethnicity?

We are a pretty white bunch. Way less ethnic diversity than I was expecting. The 2023 NZ census showed around 44% of people identify with Māori, Asian, or Pacific enthnicities, so we are remarkably different from the general population. Three people indicated they preferred the term "Pākehā" to "NZ European", though these are grouped together.

!Pie graph of ethnicity

Bar graph

!Bar graph of ethnicity

What age range do you fall into?

We have a reasonably older age than perhaps reddit does, but this is largely in line with Lemmy.ca and probably Lemmy as a whole.

!Bar graph of age

What is your gender identity?

We are mostly men here, with this spread being broadly in line with Lemmy.ca's results, so this may be representative of Lemmy. We do have a higher proportion of women and a lower proportion of people who are non-binary, but this is probably due to normal variance with the low sample size.

!Pie graph of gender

Bar graph

!Bar graph of gender

Are you someone with trans experience (meaning your gender identity does not align with your sex assigned at birth)?

Two users identified as trans, and these users both identified as non-binary in the previous question. One user selected Other and indicated they have a gender identity for society, not for themselves.

!Pie graph of those with trans experience

Bar graph

!Bar graph of those with trans experience

How do you identify?

Almost 85% of us identified as straight, or 91% if you include those identifying as "straightish". This value is much lower than the general population. StatsNZ reports (based on a survey, not a census) that 4.1% of NZ belong to what StatsNZ referred to as the "sexual minorities population", compared to 9-15% of respondents (depending on how you categorise "straightish").

!Sexual identity pie graph

Bar graph

!Sexual identity bar graph

What is your disability status?

To start, here is a graph of all respondents vs those that indicate a disability. Note that we did not have a way to differentiate between someone without a disability and someone who didn't want to answer the question. 8 people specifically said they don't have a condition or disability.

!Pie graph of those with disability vs those with no answer

Bar graph

!Bar graph of those with disability vs those with no answer

For those that indicated a condition, we see quite a range. For this question, there was a free text field and answers don't nicely group, so in the interest of having a graph I have tried to nudge them into categories. Mostly, this means if someone wrote "Probably" or "Maybe", I've assumed they have this condition. Hopefully I haven't miscategorised anyone, but remember to take this with a grain of salt.

Also, conditions are listed separately. If someone listed three conditions, they will show as three items in this graph.

!Pie graph of the type of condition

Bar graph

!Bar graph of the type of condition

Are you currently studying?

Around 10% of us are studying at the moment.

!Pie graph of if currently studying

Bar graph

!Bar graph of if currently studying

What is your highest level of education achieved?

Almost 75% of us have a post-secondary school qualification! I thought I might find some cool relationship between the people who indicated ADHD and the people who had completed "Some university". Despite 10 of the 13 who completed "Some university" indicating they were not currently studying, only one of these people indicated ADHD (and in fact, this was the only person in the group indicating any disability or condition).

!Pie graph of education level achieved

Bar graph

!Bar graph of education level achieved

What's your employment status?

89% of us are in paid work, which is higher than Lemmy.ca's results, but this could be due to having a lot fewer respondents so a single person's answer can change the outcome by a fair bit.

!Pie chart of employment status

Bar graph

!Bar chart of employment status

If employed, what field of work do you work in?

This question was a free text field. I have tried to group them into similar categories. This was hard, especially since there's not a detailed job description for each, so take this with a grain of salt. Without these groups, there were many different answers with just one respondent with that answer. But rest assured we have everything from mechanics and plumbers, tourism operators and hospitality workers, researchers, archivists, engineers, manufacturers and those that do film visual effects. And this is all on top of the 57% of us that work in Information and Communication Technology (IT and communication). 23% of respondents listed just "IT", and a further 23% stated "Software Developer", "Software Engineer", or "Web developer".

!Bar chart of employment field

Bar graph

!Pie chart of employment field

Lemmy and us

Which instances do you have an account on?

Unsurprisingly, the largest group was lemmy.nz, followed by the larger Lemmy instances. Note that this was multiselect, so a user may be listed in more than one place.

!Bar graph of which instances people have accounts on

What other Fediverse services do you use?

Lots of Mastodon users. Many use Matrix as well, which is unsurprising since Matrix chats are quite common with Lemmy, and Lemmy even allows a Matrix account to be linked to a Lemmy account to add a button to message a user on Matrix. And on top of that, we have a Matrix chat which would also encourage people to use Matrix.

!Bar graph of other Fediverse services people use

On average, how much time do you spend on Lemmy each day (whether on Lemmy.nz or other instances)

Most people are here less than 2 hours a day, which is similar to Lemmy.ca's results.

!Bar graph of how much time people spend on Lemmy

How do you access Lemmy most often?

Most of us use mobile more often than desktop to access Lemmy. There was one "Other" selection stating "iPad".

!Pie graph of device type used to access Lemmy

Bar graph

!Bar graph of device type used to access Lemmy

On mobile, which OS do you use?

Over 80% of mobile users are using Android. We had users state GrapheneOS and CalyxOS (one each), I have included these in Android. We also had one user write "Both", which I have added.

!Pie graph of mobile OS used

Bar graph

!Bar graph of mobile OS used

On mobile, which app(s) do you use?

The most popular app was Voyager, followed by just using the website in a mobile browser. This was actually quite different from Lemmy.ca, who had Sync as their most popular, followed by Jerboa and then Voyager.

!Bar graph of the apps people use on mobile

On desktop, which interfaces do you use?

On desktop, people tended to only use the default Lemmy UI. This may partly be because it's not particularly obvious that our other frontends exist.

!Pie graph of most common ways to access Lemmy on desktop

Bar graph

!Bar graph of most common ways to access Lemmy on desktop

If you primarily access lemmy.nz through a different Lemmy/Kbin/Mastodon/etc instance, please list it below

For those not directly accessing through Lemmy.nz, Lemmy.world was the only instance with multiple people using it as their primary way of accessing Lemmy.nz.

!Graph of primary instance

Final questions

What's your favourite desert?

I'm an idiot and, after reading the Lemmy.ca answer about The Sahara, accidentally wrote Desert instead of Dessert.

For favourite Desert, we have three votes for the Antarctic/Antarctica, two for Sahara, and one each for Gobi, Central North Island, and Arrakis.

!Graph of favourite desert

For favourite Dessert, I have grouped and graphed the results, though I am sure to have offended someone with my groupings. The top answer was ice cream, followed by cheese cake, which mirrors Lemmy.ca's results. One person decided "Ice-cream cheescake mix" was their favourite, which is not counted in either category and is instead listed separately.

!Graph of favourite dessert

Of those that answered with a dessert, here is the full list:

• Apple crumble x 2
• Blackberry and apple crumble
• Cheesecake x 2
• Cheesecake!
• Cheesecake, Strawberry
• Chocolate
• Chocolate chip cookies
• Cookies and cream ice cream
• Creme brulee
• Custard
• Don't eat sugar
• Halo halo
• Home made pav with fresh strawberries
• Ice cream x 3
• Ice-cream cheescake mix
• Kapiti Ice Cream
• Much Moore's Double Choc Fudge Ice-cream
• Peacan pie
• Revenge
• Strawberry rhubarb pie
• Tarta de queso
• Tiramisu
• Tub of jelly tip ice cream
• Vegan Cheese Cake

Do you use the Matrix chat?

Almost half of people didn't know we have a Lemmy.nz Matrix chat room. Now you do! You can find instructions for joining here. If you're having trouble, reply in the post and we can offer help.

!Pie graph of those what use matrix chat room

Bar graph

!Bar graph of those what use matrix chat room

Are there any communities you would like to see created on Lemmy.nz?

There were a handful of suggestions here, but no two people suggested the same thing. Firstly, we have a post here that outlines some NZ communities across Lemmy. It hasn't been updated in some time, so feel free to reply with any that you know of to be added.

Some people replied with things they don't want, but I have filtered this out as people can block communities they don't want to see.

• /r/diynz
• A dedicated outdoors community
• Hurdy gurdy discourse
• More regional NZ content
• NZ mechanics, stained glass, or growing weed.
• Something cheesy/cringe where we mock ourselves, kuhy-wee accent and maybe even small town monuments, etc. Almost nostalgia bit with shit posting and rivalry... Still got a way to go, but I reckon the ideas got legs. Bring back top town!
• thetron - Hamilton

In my view, I'd think most of these would be better posted to the !newzealand community, which has the bigger userbase. Some exceptions:

• Growing weed - there's [email protected]
• Outdoors - there's [email protected]
• Mocking outselves - this might be better in [email protected]

I'm also not sure we have the population to support a Hamilton community. Originally the idea was anyone in the top half of the North Island could use [email protected], anyone in the bottom half could use [email protected], and then we had [email protected]. We intended to split communities as they got too big, which I don't think has happened, especially since we have a comment about wanting more regional content.

I also think people should feel comfortable posting things to the [email protected] community if they don't fit in another community, even if it's not relevant to all of NZ. Others may have a different view, but I would be wary of fragmenting the users across too many communities.

What are your thoughts on the Lemmy.nz post and comment language options?

The options here were:

• I don't use this feature and don't have an opinion.
• We should stick to these three languages, as it makes it easier to find the language I want
• We shouldn't limit the languages, all should be available.
• We should use a small list of languages, but I would like us to add ___.

I have shortened them in the graphs so they fit.

!Pie graph of language preferences

Bar graph

!Bar graph of language preferences

We had some comments as well.

One user mentioned Māori would never be used, I'd counter argue that it's weirder for an NZ instance to actively not allow it than it is to have it as an option.

Someone mentioned they didn't know it was an option. On the website, there is a dropdown box under the box where you write your post or comment. If you use an app this could be in a different place. There are plans to have Lemmy auto-fill this in future.

One comment saying NZ Sign Language isn't an option, and we should support it as it's an official national language. Unfortunately Lemmy doesn't support sign languages at this time, so we will have to try to think of another way users can communicate non-audibly. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears.

One comment asking for Cantonese, and another saying we should add pacific languages. I don't have any reason not to do this so will look at adding these.

One person said voting should help decide as people would upvote content they can read - unfortunately you can't see content for languages you haven't selected, and currently Lemmy.nz doesn't let you select languages outside the two current options. We would have to open up to all languages to allow this, which makes it harder to select one you are looking for as the list is huge. This was one reason for asking this question, to see if there were any other languages people wanted to read but couldn't.

Do you have any other feedback about lemmy.nz, this survey, or anything else?

I've grouped the feedback into generic answers. "I don't know what's happening" encompasses answers from (paraphrased) "I'm new and not sure what to think of Lemmy" through to "I've been here a year and still don't understand how it all works".

!Graph of feedback groups. A bit over a half "Thanks Dave", a bit over a quarter "Lemmy.nz is awesome" and a fifth "I don't know what's happening

Bar graph

!Graph of feedback groups. A bit over a half "Thanks Dave", a bit over a quarter "Lemmy.nz is awesome" and a fifth "I don't know what's happening"

Are you happy for your responses to be released in a public data set?

We had 52 respondents happy to have their responses released publicly, and a further user marked as "Other" that was happy to have their data included with some parts redacted.

Please let me know if you are interested in doing some analysis on these results. I wanted to preemptively collect consent but I'll only release the data if someone is actually interested in doing some analysis.

!Pie graph of those happy for data to be released publically

Bar graph

!Bar graph of those happy for data to be released publically

Final comments

Thanks to everyone for filling in the survey, and bearing with me as I wrote up the results. I had thought I'd get to do more analysis on subgroups, but you get quite small groups when you do that and so it's hard to draw conclusions from. If anyone has ideas for further analysis, leave a comment!

> Cabinet Minister Judith Collins wants the government to expand the use of artificial intelligence (AI), starting with the health and education sectors where it could be used to assess mammogram results and provide AI tutors for children.

> "It doesn't do the work for them. It says some things like 'go back, rethink that one, look at that number,' those sorts of things. What an exciting way to do your homework if you're a child."

> Deploying AI in education and health would be seen as high risk uses under new legislation passed by the European Union regulating AI. > > Using AI in those settings in EU countries must include high levels of transparency, accuracy and human oversight.

> But New Zealand has no specific AI regulation and Collins is keen to get productivity gains from extending its use across government, including using it to process Official Information Act requests.

> An OIA request by RNZ for a government Cabinet paper on AI was turned down (by a human) on the grounds that the policy is under live consideration.

Last weeks thread here

Welcome to this week’s casual kōrero thread!

This post will be pinned in this community so you can always find it, and will stay for about a week until replaced by the next one.

It’s for talking about anything that might not justify a full post. For example:

• Something interesting that happened to you
• Something humourous that happened to you
• Something frustrating that happened to you
• A quick question
• A request for recommendations
• Pictures of your pet
• A picture of a cloud that kind of looks like an elephant
• Anything else, there are no rules (except the rule)

So how’s it going?

> In a world of Afterpay, tap and go and online shopping, cash is - surprisingly - still king. > > Many said they still carry notes and coins in their wallets, and the amount of cash in circulation has almost doubled in the past 10 years.

> One person spoken to by RNZ said they carried cash they received in tips from working in a restaurant, while another said her mum often gave her cash. > > But a third said it felt "flippant" to carry cash: "I don't really like to keep it because then I tend to spend it and I'm trying to control my spending." > > Some said carrying notes and coins was essential in a natural disaster. > > "I do love to have cash because I kind of feel secure," one man told First Up.

> Two Ministry of Justice workers are in hot water for describing a researcher as a "bitch" in an online conversation. > > Academic and author Barbara Sumner made a number of Official Information Act requests as part of her PhD research into the systems around adoption. Then, in October last year, she asked for all correspondence mentioning her by name. > > "Because I had felt all along that there was a resistance to everything I sent in and you know, just the sort of snottiness, I guess, of some of the responses that came in that request. I wanted to understand how they were treating me throughout the process." > > One page of the response stood out among more than 100 others. A November 2022 Teams conversation between two staffers, whose names were redacted, complained about Sumner's latest request. > > They described it as "a waste of time" and said it "should have been refused on the ground of substantial collation" or that the ministry should "charge her for it and get a contractor". > > "our ministerial services team sucks cuz they wouldnt let us refuse, and helen didnt push back hard [sic]," one worker wrote. > > "but also shes a bitch for wanting everything. does she think govt just has unlimited resources for this type of crap lol. > > "like theres no public interest in our emails back and forward."

Welcome to the latest version of Lemmy!

Version 0.19.5 is a minor release with some bug fixes for 0.19.4. We were never running 0.19.4 so the bug fixes are less important than that new features in 0.19.4.

Release notes for 0.19.4 are here.

Release notes for 0.19.5 are here.

The upgrade took a bit longer than expected, perhaps 40 minutes of downtime. Partly this is because of an issue with postgres memory that happened before I started the actual upgrade.

Probably the two biggest new features for users are the ability to hide posts, and the ability to see any images you've uploaded (since lemmy started tracking).

There is also a new setting to change how upvotes are displayed, and we have a new option to have communities that don't federate. Maybe this community is a good target for that? Let me know your thoughts.

Let me know if you have any questions or see any strangeness!

Lemmy 0.19.5 has been released with some bug fixes, and we haven't upgraded to 0.19.4 yet, so I'm planning on doing the upgrade (to 0.19.5) this weekend.

Relase notes here: 0.19.4 / 0.19.5

No specific time, but in my test run it was less than 10 mins. This assumes that nothing goes wrong 🙂

I'll do it over the weekend when we normally have lower traffic.

As always, I'll post updates in the Matrix chat.

If anyone knows of any reason why we should hold off on the update, that would be good to know too!

> Evacuations are under way in parts of Tai Rāwhiti, with police going door to door, as heavy rains and wind continue to lash the district.

Last weeks thread here

Welcome to this week’s casual kōrero thread!

This post will be pinned in this community so you can always find it, and will stay for about a week until replaced by the next one.

It’s for talking about anything that might not justify a full post. For example:

• Something interesting that happened to you
• Something humourous that happened to you
• Something frustrating that happened to you
• A quick question
• A request for recommendations
• Pictures of your pet
• A picture of a cloud that kind of looks like an elephant
• Anything else, there are no rules (except the rule)

So how’s it going?

> Three bodies believed to be those of the missing fishers have been found on the shore at Māhia this morning. > > Police said formal identification was under way but the bodies were believed to be of the fishers who were reported missing on Monday.

> A man who scammed people out of nearly $300,000 by pretending to be a police officer has been arrested. > > On Monday the 25-year-old man, a UK national, was chased by police through Auckland central on foot. > > The scam involved a call to a landline by someone pretending to be a police officer and providing a fake badge number. > > There were 18 Aucklanders, aged between 56 and 90, with the majority over 80, allegedly duped out of money. > > "The scam will always involve this so-called officer asking for financial information or asking you to withdraw cash to be collected as part of an investigation into banks," Detective Senior Sergeant Craig Bolton said.

> A 57-year-old man has been arrested after pretending to be injured on the East Tāmaki overbridge on Auckland's Southern Motorway. > > Emergency services were called to reports of a man who appeared injured at about 7.46am on Monday. > > Police arrived to find the man "who was pretending to be injured as part of what we can only describe as reckless behaviour in an attempt to gain publicity", Inspector Danny Meade said.

> Traffic was unusually heavy during peak-hour as a result.

> Copper wire thieves are wearing hi-vis vests to look like legitimate lines workers in Christchurch, as repeated vandalism costs city businesses thousands.

> Police have charged seven people with stealing copper wire from power lines near schools, preschools and residential streets.

>The thefts began last year in the suburban red zone but have since spread to areas where the electricity is live.

> He said thieves had left live powerlines hanging and cost the business thousands of dollars in fees.

> Companies have the right to monitor employees to ensure productivity but they must also protect the employee's privacy, an Auckland University Business School lecturer says. > > Last week US banking giant Wells Fargo sacked more than a dozen people for allegedly faking keyboard activity, pretending they were working at home when they were not. > > The bank has not said how it picked up on the problem. > > But a survey last year of 1000 US-based companies showed 96 percent of them were using some kind of monitoring to check up on employees working from home. > > All of this raises questions around ethics and productivity.

> Flames were seen coming out the back of a Boeing 737 that departed from Queenstown on Monday evening, before landing safely in Invercargill. > > Virgin Australia flight VA148 departed Queenstown Airport at 5.59pm, bound for Melbourne with 67 passengers and six crew on board, before turning around and heading south. > > "It experienced an issue just after take-off and has been diverted to Invercargill Airport," Queenstown Airport said in a statement earlier. > > The plane - a 737-800 registered VH-YIV - landed safely in Invercargill shortly before 7pm. > > The airline later said it was a "possible bird strike on take-off". > > "The aircraft has been met by emergency services at Invercargill Airport," Virgin Australia chief operations officer Stuart Aggs said. "The safety of our guests and crew is our highest priority." > > The airline later on Monday night said it was not aware of any injuries.

cross-posted from: https://toast.ooo/post/3740832

> turns out I did my math wrong, so it’s a little less than 30 days > > # July 12th, 2024 @ midnight EDT > > https://canvas.fediverse.events > > ✨ this year’s event also supports the entire fediverse not just Lemmy! > > (you have to be able to make/receive text posts, like mastodon, lemmy, pixelfed, etc) > (peertube accounts will not work) > > you can get update announcements on other fedi platforms with @[email protected] link > > chat about Canvas on Matrix or Discord (they’re bridged)

Last weeks thread here

Welcome to this week’s casual kōrero thread!

This post will be pinned in this community so you can always find it, and will stay for about a week until replaced by the next one.

It’s for talking about anything that might not justify a full post. For example:

• Something interesting that happened to you
• Something humourous that happened to you
• Something frustrating that happened to you
• A quick question
• A request for recommendations
• Pictures of your pet
• A picture of a cloud that kind of looks like an elephant
• Anything else, there are no rules (except the rule)

So how’s it going?

> The infrastructure minister wants more private sector financing, such as public-private partnerships (PPPs), to pay for major projects. > > In a speech to Local government New Zealand on Thursday night, Chris Bishop said he wanted government grant funding to become a last resort for councils.

> "Infrastructure has to be paid for and at the moment, it's largely paid for by the Crown - which is taxpayers - or it's paid for by ratepayers. And what we're saying is that user-pays has a role to play here as well. Things like water metres, things like congestion pricing in our major cities and things like toll roads.