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Grants:TPS/Raystorm/2013 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships La Molina/Report

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Event name:
2013 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships La Molina

Description of your participation:

We attended the 2013 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships at La Molina, Spain, thanks to media accreditation provided by the International Paralympic Committee after encouragement by the Comité Paralímpico Español (Spanish Paralympic Committee, CPE).

The daily schedule for the event was generally with the first run starting around 9:30am for events with two runs and 11:00am for events with one run. Preparing for each day, prior to the start of competition, we went to the press room located about a 15 minute walk from the hotel and a 10 minute walk from the event venue. While there, we collected the start list for the event, and discussed what news perspective we wanted to take and the skiers we needed pictures of. We also discussed what was happening with the press coordinator for the event. Then we attended the actual skiing, where we took pictures of skiers, talked to people around us, recorded some audio, took notes on what was happening, participated in activities in the press area at the end of the course, live tweeted what was happening and/or interviewed people. If there was a break in races, we headed back to the press room and got the results list for the first race. Following the race, we headed back to the press area where we uploaded pictures. On two separate days, one of us attended the awards ceremony. If there was a large volume of pictures taken, one of us went to the press room early to start processing pictures. We were generally in the press room area for two to four hours following each day of competition where we worked on Wikinews articles, improving relevant Wikipedia content or uploading pictures. On the 28th, we hosted a meetup in Barcelona (since weather in La Molina and access was terrible), and livetweeted it for remote interested people.

While in La Molina, there were several important conversations held for a period of five or more minutes specifically discussing the Winter Paralympic sport efforts on Wikimedia projects. They include:

  • 19-Feb conversation with a New Zealand Paralympic Committee coach where we talked about the interview with Adam Hall in Colorado and how the coach had read some of the Australian reporting from London Paralympics.
  • 20-Feb conversation with IPC President Sir Philip Craven where we briefly mentioned project and how articles are reliable.
  • 21-Feb conversation with CPE Chef-de-mission where we talked about work done in Australia and desire to replicate it in Spain.
  • 21-Feb conversation with a USA Paralympic skier where we talked about interviewing people in Colorado and how Wikimedians interviewing people is great experience for everyone to gain more relevant experience in area of expertise.
  • 25-Feb conversation with Irene Villa following the interview where we discussed Wikipedia, the value of using Wikipedia and Wikinews to promote disability and women’s sport.
  • 26-Feb conversation with a French photographer about the work done in London, copyright issues on Commons, and the value of Wikipedia classification articles in understanding Paralympic sport.
  • 28-Feb received email from CPE, which said "you have done a great job with our athletes during the IPC AS Worlds in la Molina", and looked forward to future collaboration.

What lessons were learned that could help others in similar events?

  • Weather was a factor: the cold heavily impacts the ability to do live Wikinews reporting and take pictures for Commons. You cannot take out a laptop and have wifi access where you can remotely update articles for Wikinews. You need to pay more attention to lens usage with a camera. Socializing and conducting on the spot interviews in the cold is more difficult. Additional specialized clothing needs to be acquired, packed in luggage and worn in the cold temperatures. The clothing then needs to be addressed when going inside to report.
  • Having a mediator to assist in communicating with event organizers and event participants eases the reporting process.
  • Communications is key. In order for a project like this to succeed on Wikinews and Wikinoticias where a large volume of material that requires review will be submitted in a short period of time, the organizers need to consult the local project to make sure they can dedicate the resources to support it. If the community is not consulted, it is possible the material will become stale and not be considered newsworthy.
  • When doing live sport coverage where you will likely interview people, advance prep work is key. This is best done by creating Wikipedia content as a form of research for interviews.
  • For people who have never contributed to Wikinews who are using the reporting aspect to justify event attendance, it is very important that they demonstrate article writing competency prior to attending the event. Failure to do so may result in submitted work not being passed quickly enough.
  • When attending a major sporting event, people need to be prepared to talk to everyone they meet about who they are, what they are doing at the event, what work they have already created, why Wikinews/Wikipedia/Commons are reliable sources and why supporting Wikimedians in their reporting can assist the event organizers and its participants.
  • Be very aware of the schedule for the event so you do not miss opportunities to share media on Commons for use on Wikipedia and Wikinews, and so the opportunity to cover a topic from a different and original news perspective is not missed on Wikinews.
  • Having Wikimedia swag on is a great opportunity to engage people in conversation as they are often curious as to why you are wearing it. It assists in bolstering Wikimedia's reputation, personal reputation of the people involved and is a conversation starter. If possible, giving out Wikipedia buttons assists in building good will.

What impact did your participation have on the Wikimedia Mission goals of Increased Reach, Increased Quality, Increased Credibility, Increased and Diversified Participation? Thanks to being able to participate in this event, we were able to increase the quality of content as follows:

  • 20 English Wikinews articles published about the 2013 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships.
  • 3 Spanish Wikinews articles published.[1][2][3]
  • Articles created or updated on English and Spanish Wikipedia about every notable Spanish competitor at the 2013 IPC Alpine World Championships.
  • 16 English Wikipedia articles created about Spanish Paralympic sport and Spanish disability skiers.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]
  • 10 Spanish Wikipedia articles created about the Paralympic movement in general, para-alpine skiing and Spanish disability skiers.
  • 10 English Wikipedia DYKs between 16 and 28 February.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]
  • Several articles about Para-alpine skiing classification on English Wikipedia elevated to Good Articles.
Video of Jon Santacana
Interview with Irene Villa
Markus Salcher holding his ski
  • 477 pieces of media were uploaded to Commons related to the IPC Alpine World Championships. This includes at least five audio files and ten video files. It includes pictures or video of 101 different para-alpine skiers from at least 15 different countries. It is highly probable that many of the skiers photographed will be competing at the 2014 Sochi Paralympics. This creates a ready to use selection of freely licenced media that will not be easily available at the Games themselves.[30][31]
  • Pictures of 24 skiers taken at La Molina were used on 11 different language Wikipedias including English, Spanish, Basque, Catalan, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish and Swedish. The skiers represented come from several different countries including Austria, Canada, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, Slovakia and the United States. The average skier photographed at the event has 5.8 pictures of them on Commons.

Wikipedia image usage from La Molina event

CODE Skier English Spanish Basque Catalan French German Italian Japanese Norwegian Polish Swedish
AUT Claudia Lösch Claudia Lösch Claudia Lösch
CAN Chris Williamson en:Chris Williamson (alpine skier)
ESP Arnau Ferrer en:Arnau Ferrer
ESP Gabriel Gorce en:Gabriel Gorce es:Gabriel Gorce
ESP Jon Santacana en:Jon Santacana Maiztegui es:Jon Santacana Jon Santacana La Molina Yon Santacana
ESP Miguel Galindo Miguel Galindo Garces Miguel Galindo Garcés
ESP Úrsula Pueyo ‎ Úrsula Pueyo ‎ Úrsula Pueyo ‎
FRA Nicolas Berejny Nicolas Berejny Nicolas Berejny
FRA Solène Jambaqué Solène Jambaqué Solène Jambaqué
FRA Vincent Gauthier-Manuel Vincent Gauthier-Manuel Vincent Gauthier-Manuel
FRA Yohann Taberlet Yohann Taberlet
GBR Kelly Gallagher Kelly Gallagher (alpine skier)
GER Andrea Rothfuß Andrea Rothfuß Andrea Rothfuss
ITA Melania Corradini Melania Corradini
JPN Akira Kano Akira Kano 「狩野亮」を編集中
JPN Taiki Morii Taiki Morii ja:森井大輝
JPN Takeshi Suzuki en:Takeshi Suzuki (alpine skier) ja:鈴木猛史
NZL Adam Hall en:Adam Hall (alpine skier)
SUI Thomas Pfyl Thomas Pfyl
SVK Henrieta Farkašová Henrieta Farkašová Henrieta Farkašová
SVK Jakub Krako Jakub Krako Jakub Krako Jakub Krako
SVK Natália Šubrtová Natália Šubrtová
USA Alana Nichols Alana Nichols
USA Allison Jones Allison Jones
USA Danelle Umstead Danelle Umstead
  • Two interviews conducted for English Wikinews, including one with a high profile Spanish personality (Irene Villa) who participates in the sport.
  • IPC Alpine engaging reporters on Twitter.
  • Experience gained on English and Spanish Wikinews for doing bilingual interviews by a member of the Spanish speaking community.
  • Multiple conversations held with various people about Wikimedia volunteer efforts to improve Winter Paralympic content. This included people inside the IPC, the CPE, media, skiers and locals in La Molina.
  • Produced more Wikinews and Wikipedia content, and shared more pictures than traditional media, which excludes Olympic specific news sites and NPCs.
  • Wikinews coverage of some skiers was the only media coverage they received during and for their participation in the competition. Examples include Ralph Green and Christopher Devlin-Young of the United States, Mitchell Gourley of Australia, Corey Peters of New Zealand, and Laura Valeanu of Romania.
  • Videos of several skiers were included on relevant classification article on English Wikipedia in order to better illustrate what these classifications mean in practice. These can be found on en:LW2 (classification), en:LW6/8, en:LW9, en:LW11, en:LW12, en:B2 (classification), and en:B3 (classification).

Detail of expenditures:
Documentation sent to Participation Support.

Amount underspent/left-over (please specify currency):

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