User:Vanished user adhmfdfmykrdyr/Sport work on WMF/2

Wikipedia does not allow for original research, depending on other people to cover a topic to demonstrate notability and the research for what we cite. This means there are some constrainents when trying to cover a topic like sports for Wikipedia in person, and trying to get press credentials to get additional access to improve Wikipedia coverage. If you're willing to work for it though, there are plenty of opportunities.

When deciding to cover a live event like sport, plan in advance. What articles on English Wikipedia do you want to work on related to the event? What pictures are you trying to get? Are you going to write something for Wikinews? Are you going to work on a related article on Wikisource or Wiktionary?

Once you've identified the content you want to create or improve, establish some goals related to this content before you attend the event or try to get press credentials. These goals could include getting a featured picture, improving articles to nominate for DYK or Good Article, getting the article published on Wikinews, getting a featured movie on Commons. The goals should be realistic and based on what you have successfully done before: if you are talking to an organisation about getting media access, you can point to your previous successes. Do not promise what you cannot deliver.

Another task you need to do is see if you need permission and any restrictions there are related to the event. In Australia, there is freedom of panorama and it applies to sporting events. This means, I can usually attend a sporting event and take pictures to my heart's content. Some places ask you do not use flash. Some places require you register with them before they allow you into the venue before you are allowed in with a camera. If you want to set up something special, you may need to pre-plan and work with them to accommodate your needs.

In talking to organisations you're seeking press credentials from, it helps to explain how giving you access can help them with their goals. At the same time, you need to be clear that you need to comply with Wikimedia policies. You can explain that high quality pictures can improve the feel of the article, and discuss with them the copyright issues as to why you need to take the pictures instead of them giving you pictures to use under a fair use rationale. If you have experience with Did You Know, you can explain this to them but always be extremely careful to say there is no guarantee that this will happen. If you're covering a less popular Olympic related sport, you can show them other articles you have improved and suggest that media occasionally plagiarises Wikipedia so having a high quality article makes it easier for journalists to quickly access high quality information about the competitor, team or league. Explain article page views and how traditional media disappears but Wikipedia articles do not. Always be careful when talking to organisations to be extremely clear the article must be written in a neutral point of view, be fully sourced and may not always make them look good. This way, they can see the benefits and understand that there are certain expectations for what you can do that they may not like.

As you're planning to covering a live event, it is worthwhile to reach out to others for assistance. See if your local Wikimedia Chapter has funding to help defray travel costs or equipment costs related to the event. Consider hosting a meetup around the event to get more people to help cover the event. If you do not have a photographer, see if you can locate some one who can take pictures for you. If you have not written for Wikinews before, see if you can find a local reporter to help. If you have written for Wikinews, see if you can find some one who will volunteer to review your article in advance. Ask participants on a Wikiproject to help you edit articles before and after the event. These things will help bring additional people in to improve the volume and quality of content you can create around an event.

Below are some examples of work I have been involved with to give an idea of how issues related to covering a live event.

Australia women's national water polo team
The Australia women's national water polo team are going to the 2012 Summer Olympics. in the lead up to the Games, they played a test series in Canberra. I learned about the series by reading the local newspaper. About a week before the event, I was visiting the Australian Institute of Sport and met some one connected with the team who was aware of my earlier work with the Australian Paralympic. I asked if I could get permission to take photographs of the individual members of the team for use on English Wikipedia because they make the make the articles look a lot better. The person suggested I e-mail some one inside their organisation. I did, and that person suggested I speak with them before the first match. I did, and was then pointed at another person. After talking to several people, I was able to arrange a time before a test match where I would be able to take pictures of the team. The team would be told why pictures would be taken and they would wear their official AIS polo shirts. I would have approximately 5 to 10 minutes for this. After confirming this date, I found a photographer with a high quality camera to come in and take these pictures. They were assisted by some grant funding from Wikimedia Australia to cover this.

After I realised I had permission to take these pictures, I got help from another Wikipedia contributor and we created articles about every single player with a goal of making sure the players could all pass Wikipedia's General Notability Guidelines. We aimed to take all the articles to Wikipedia's Did You Know.

Going into the photography session, we did not have much time or freedom for how to take pictures. The easiest way to do it was take pictures against a blue wall in the pool area. We had a list of player names. I wrote down the order we took the player pictures in and the photographer, a Commons contributor from Wagga, took the pictures. We said one or two things to the players to be clear we knew something about them because the local press has a reputation for not being prepared. We also learned from the players that had articles, they knew about articles and were generally not impressed.

Following the session, we also took pictures and video of that test match and took pictures from other games, paying $2 to get admission. We wrote a Wikinews article summarizing the test series. We finished improving the articles and nominated them for DYK. We also improved a few articles to get them ready for Good Article nominations. All articles appeared as DYK and three articles have since been assessed as Good.

When the vast majority of the work was done, we published all the national team water polo articles as a book using PediaPress and gave a copy of the book to the water polo people in appreciation for the access they gave us. People connected to the organisation have subsequently sent us team updates and we have published another article about the team on Wikinews. A copy of the book has been ordered for the collection at the National Sport Information Centre.


 * Outcomes


 * Team pictures

Canberra Capitals
The Canberra Capitals happened to be playing in Canberra on the weekend that RecentChangesCamp Canberra was being held. As a fan, I wanted to attend. Two Commons photographers were at the camp and neither had really done sports before. We invited them and two others along. (We had six tickets, paying about $20 a ticket.) They took pictures. Our photographers had rather nice cameras. They were able to freely wander the stands and take pictures with out anyone stopping them or questioning what they were doing. They stood really close to the court and were rarely in their seats. We were going to write a Wikinews article about the game but things got in the way. Instead, we ended up creating or improving articles about all members of the Canberra Capitals 2011/2012 team. We then took all these articles to DYK. This was later mentioned to the Capitals, and they tweeted about this work at one point. As a fan, I also found it useful later in the season because I could check Wikipedia during the game to be reminded of their player's history.

Australia women's national softball team
Having successfully done water polo, I decided to try to do softball after reading about them playing a test series against Japan in the lead up to the World Championships later this year. First, I reached out to a contact I have at the AIS who did not know anyone. I then tried e-mailing the Softball Australia people. I did not get a response back. I asked some one in the Canberra sport community for how to contact some one and they suggested give it time. I'm not keen on that particular type of advice so I decided to visit the Hawker International Softball Centre to try to get in touch with Softball ACT with the hopes they would be able to help me. The first time I did this, the facility was not open but I did confirm the event was going to be held. I showed up during normal office hours and got a hold of the CEO of Softball ACT who was very helpful. I got pointed in the right direction, and again went through trying to get in touch with the right person to try to get pictures of team members.

In the end, permission was given to shadow the official team photographers during their photoshoot. I again arranged a photographer from Commons to help with this. When we got there on the day of the shoot, our permission to shadow had not been conveyed to the photographers so we politely explained exactly what we wanted to do, promised to not block or steal their shots, and promised to keep out of their way as they have about eight hours of work to accomplish in only two hours. The photographers were fantasticalyl nice and we got pictures of all the players.

For this test series, I also set up a meetup for one of the games because admission was free. While attending other matches in the series, I interviewed several people and wrote Wikinews articles based on these conversations and observations. When one of the Wikinews articles had a minor factual problem, the softball people let us know and it was quickly fixed.

At the end of the day, we took every article about members of the squad to DYK, wrote a number of Wikipedia articles about the series and others in attendance and had a meetup. A copy of the articles was put into a book for publishing on PediaPress and it was given to the CEO of Softball ACT in appreciation for his assistance.


 * Team pictures

Australia women's national basketball team
The Australia women's national basketball team had planned several training camps in Canberra well in advance of the Olympics. The team is one of my favourite and on my list of teams I'd like to see coverage improved for. It is a sport I played as a youngster, a sport I have nominally covered at my university radio station as an undergraduate, and a sport I understand the rules for. I've seen several national team players playing for and against the Canberra Capitals.

My goal was to get media access to a training camp. To do this, I e-mailed three people I knew who had contacts inside Australian sport who might be able to give me access and asked for it, while showing them the other Wikimedia related work I had done. Permission was given through one of these channels after the person cleared it with the coach. I walked through various other channels and got additional assistance in getting the time to show up.

After initial permission was given, I contacted some one inside Wikimedia Australia to get assistance in acquiring a photographer to help me cover the camp and to develop measurable objectives related to covering the event. We also found other funding assistance to help bring in a photographer, who were told they would be expected to submit at least one article for publication to Wikinews. We ended up finding two people who could help us with this. As we had two weeks lead time, we made hotel reservations for our two out of town photographers.

We confirmed with Basketball Australia the time we needed to show up to the media event. This was great as it was the first time I had explicit media related coverage set up before an event started. We took a number of pictures, held an IRC workshop during the camp to assist people in learning to write for Wikinews, and and published two Wikinews articles


 * Outcomes
 * English Wikipedia Did You Know
 * Lauren Jackson - 8,096 views
 * Natalie Hurst - 4,768 views
 * Samantha Richards - 4,490 views
 * Rachael Flanagan - 1,702 views
 * Rohanee Cox - 1,656 views
 * Kristen Veal - 1,609 views
 * Hanna Zavecz - 1,243 views
 * Belinda Snell - 1,206 views
 * Kristi Harrower - 1,200 views
 * Suzy Batkovic - 840 views
 * Abby Bishop - 817 views
 * Laura Summerton - 790 views
 * Cayla Francis - 785 views
 * Tess Madgen - 714 views
 * Elyse Penaluna - 675 views
 * Alicia Poto - 641 views
 * Jennifer Screen - 539 views
 * Kathleen MacLeod - 493 views


 * English Wikipedia articles created
 * Tess Madgen
 * Samantha Richards
 * Hanna Zavecz
 * Alicia Poto
 * Rachael Flanagan
 * Elyse Penaluna
 * Cayla Francis
 * Kristen Veal


 * Wikinews Original Reporting
 * Australian media focuses on Olympic prospects against US for women's basketball - 655 views on peak day
 * Raw Opals spend week preparing for London Games - 480 views on peak day

Other coverage for Wikimedia sites
Beyond covering things for Wikipedia, I have been involved with two other projects. The first was archery, where I covered the national championships. Going in, the goal was to take pictures of the Australian Olympic archers, to create/improve the articles about the Australian competitors and take them to DYK. (At the same time, I was working on Australia men's national field hockey team. All articles were subsequently taken to DYK but no pictures and no news coverage.  Real life interfered and it was too much work to chase them down.)  At the last minute, an emergency came up which prevented this from happening but Wikinews articles were written, Commons pictures were taken and articles drafts were started in my user space. This should be helpful in the future should the Australians we talked to medal at the Olympics and some one has an interest in creating the articles. I also cannot say enough nice things about the Archery Australia person I talked to and the local archery club in Australia. Admission to the event was free, and I was given press access. All I had to do was pay for my own parking.

Elisa Barnard - 1,763 views Alice Ingley - 1,569 views Deonne Bridger - 1,385 views
 * Outcomes
 * English Wikipedia Did You Know

Alice Ingley
 * English Wikipedia articles created

Australian archer Odette Snazelle in Canberra for nationals - 342 views on peak day Australian archer Alice Ingley readies for potential Olympic spot - 337 views on peak day
 * Wikinews exclusive interview

Australian field archers vie for spot at World Championships - 520 views on peak day
 * Wikinews original reporting


 * Commons contributions used on other projects

Conclusion
When trying to cover sport and other live events, remember the following:


 * 1) Identify the content you want to improve in advance.
 * 2) Set realistic goals for what you can do related to covering the event.
 * 3) Be persistent.  You are there to help people.  There are often ways to cover an event if you do not take no for an answer.
 * 4) Ask for help in preparing articles, to take photographs, to write news articles.

It is possible to get press access as a Wikipedia contributor and use it to improve Wikipedia and related content. Wikimedia Australia is helping us with this goal, as they have gained recognition as a media organisation by the International Paralympic Committee, and with the support of the Australian Paralympic Committee, be sending to Wikimedians to London to cover the 2012 Summer Paralympics for Wikipedia and related projects.