Wikipedia:Meetup/Melbourne/May 2015

Australian Wikipedians, Australian Paralympic Committee (APC) staff and friends are holding a Meetup at the National Tennis Centre, Melbourne Park, on the weekend of 2/3 May 2015.

The History of the Paralympic movement in Australia is a project to create, update and maintain Wikipedia articles about Australia at the Paralympics, including the history of the Paralympic movement in Australia, Australian Paralympic teams, athletes, significant events, and the classification systems for Paralympic sport.

The project involves a network of Wikipedia editors and other contributors in Australia and around the world. More than 900 articles have been created since the project began in 2011.

• Why? To introduce new editors and meet up with existing editors. Review and update articles about the 2000 Sydney Paralympics.
• Who? Experienced editors will be present to teach and mentor new editors. Guest presenters Wikimedia Australia committee member and educator Pru Mitchell and President Steven Zhang
• When? 11:15 AM to 1:00 PM and 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM Saturday 2 May 2015 and 9:00 AM to 12:00 NOON Sunday 3 May 2015. (National Sports Museum tour from 10-11:00AM before the Saturday session starts - see below for details.)
• Where? National Tennis Centre, Melbourne Park, Olympic Boulevard/Batman Avenue, Melbourne, Victoria.

Venue

Meeting room 1/2, Level 3 at the National Tennis Centre, Melbourne Park, Olympic Boulevard/Batman Avenue, Melbourne, Victoria. Take the lift or the stairs to the top level. Someone from Tennis World will be there to direct you. (If lost, call Tony Naar on 0418 684 108 for help.)

Catering: FREE morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea, as well as tea and coffee provided. (Be sure to sign up in the Participants section below so we know to expect you!)

Bonus tour

We have an exciting addition to add to the workshop schedule - A FREE tour of the National Sports Museum on Saturday 2 May from 10.00-11.00AM. Please meet as a group at MCG Gate 3 (The Olympic Stand entry) at 10.00AM to be part of the tour. The NSM has Australia's best sporting history display, including a Paralympic display and this is your chance to see it for free with a museum guide. Why not join us?

Activities

Articles

• Australia at the 2012 Summer Paralympics
• Janet Tyler (nurse)
• Donna Burns

Activity

See also the Outcomes section for future project priorities.

• Project with University of Canberra student volunteers
  • Greg shared his set of presentation slides specific to HOP-AU project - useful for training editors.

Discussion topics during this meetup included

• Issues with use of primary sources and oral history/interviews
  • What publication avenues are there for paralympian biographies and oral histories?
• Partnernship with women's sports bodies to improve articles on Australian sportswomen
  • Australian Womensport and Recreation Association

• List of candidate articles for Paralympic Games articles to be improved
• Planning for Trove and Libraries Australia work related to MOU with APC
• Sources of reference material - from Greg's slides
  • IPC Database – Paralympic results
  • IPC Athlete Profiles – IPC organised sports only
  • APC Athlete Profiles – current Paralympians – doesn’t include up and coming athletes or past Paralympians
  • APC Annual Reports and Media Guides
  • Australian National Sports Organisations – Basketball, Athletics
  • Newspaper articles – National Library of Australia's Trove - copyright rule – historical
  • Library Databases – Australia & New Reference Library & Factiva available through UC Library
  • Google Search – newspaper articles, sports organisations news, athlete websites
  • Books and Journals
  • Wikimedia Commons - free images – APC has contributed images

• Australian Sports organisations articles - student project?
• Report of impact, statistics related to the HOP-AU project to be collated into one place
• Plan presentations for WikiConf Australia, Sat 3 & Sun 4 October at State Library of Queensland with Tech day on Mon 5 October 2015
  • History of Paralympic Australia project
  • Consider HOP-AU workshop linked to conference, with UQ students
• Proposed assessment alternative for UQ digital history students Semester 2 in conjunction with editing training/workshop

Participants

• Tony Naar
• Greg Blood
• Gary Osmond
• Sportygeek
• Brittany Cole
• Murray Phillips
• Pru Mitchell
• Hawkeye7
• Pat Ollerenshaw
• Shona McKeen

Outcomes

Sessions were conducted for novice editors. As a result, a new article was created about Donna Burns and a number of articles updated with images and new information.

There was considerable discussion on the priorities for the project and strategies for increasing the numbers of active contributors and the reach of the project.

Here is a summary of the discussions:

THE YEAR AHEAD FOR THE WIKIPEDIA PARALYMPIC HISTORY PROJECT

What do we want to achieve for the Wikipedia Paralympic history project in the coming 12 months?

1 Goals

1.1 Increase the active volunteer workforce – uni student program plus general volunteers.

1.2 Develop a more active and interactive relationship with APC Communications and Marketing areas for mutual benefits.

1.3 Increase the project’s profile within the broader Australian community – media activities and interviews and other ways.

2 Proposed priorities

2.1 University of Canberra student project:

• Updates of articles after 2015 major events;
• Rio athletes (new);
• Coaches (Andrew Dawes, Brendan Keogh, etc.);
• Sydney 2000 athletes.

2.2 UQ students – including involvement in WMAU workshop in October (see below).

2.3 (Re) classifications of articles – stubs, ‘starts’, etc.

2.4 Articles about organisations – AUSRAPID, Qld Sporting Wheelies, etc.

2.5 Rio preparation – linking the APC athlete profile information with Wikipedia articles.

2.6 Wikimedia Commons photos – need sufficient photos for all articles.

2.7 Increase availability of materials online:

• Publicly available articles (in particular the APC’s own materials); and
• Copyright articles.
• Potential role for Clearinghouse for Sport archives to enable access to material for Wikipedia project editors.

2.8 Enhance and use categories to systematise articles and images. Consider creating a glossary of categories for reference by editors.

2.9 Wikimedia Australia workshop, WikiConference Australia 2015:

• Paralympic project role - Rio focus?
• UQ student involvement.
• APC role - Kieran Courtney (data analyst).

2.10 Develop a priority list of articles for creation and updating.

2.11 Link the project to schools/communities/families/local councils/other organisations. Many of these bodies have an interest in this specific area or individual athletes.

2.12 Aim 1,500+ characters per article for genuine consideration of the article.

2.13 Approach the International Paralympic Committee for support for the project and to develop an ongoing relationship. General Games articles, classification articles and broader international articles are all of direct relevance.

An issue

The coordinator of this project, Tony Naar, has been made redundant by the APC. However, project coordination is an important element. There needs to be ongoing coordination and – in addition – a primary point of contact within the APC.