Wikinews:Water cooler/policy/archives/2014/June

Terms of use change

As you're probably aware due to the giant global notice, the Wikimedia Foundation has added another section to the wmf:Terms of Use for Wikimedia projects. It is now a violation of the terms of use if you edit a Wikimedia project in exchange for money, goods or services, without disclosure. You can read the FAQ, blog post and the diff for more information. English Wikinews has the ability to strengthen or reduce those terms by creating a new policy, discussing it, and adding it to meta. Personally, I don't think this change affects anyone on Wikinews (or any non-Wikipedia site, really), so we'd be safe to keep it as-is. Thoughts? Microchip08 (talk) 21:32, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Hm. Perhaps. I've a suspicion people of dubious faith are using accusations of "paid editing" to drive people of good faith out of the wikimedian community, so we may want to consider what we might do to protect ourselves. Given that Wikinewsies are already targeted by people of dubious faith. --Pi zero (talk) 21:53, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

• To the best of my knowledge, we're far more-alert on conflict-of-interest than any other project. However, as Pi zero notes, I doubt that would deter Wikinews' detractors from throwing shit around for more than a second. You just need to look at Adam Cuerden's completely over-the-top reaction on the Glasgow 420 article BRS and I wrote to see how low some will stoop. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:21, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Sporting Events Sources

Having recently attended the 2014 Women's World Wheelchair Basketball Championship, I thought that there might be some interest in how these things work behind the scenes. This was a medium-sized sporting event, so it had all the aspects of a large one, just on a smaller scale. From the organization chart you can see how the number of people working on it tops 100 when each of the line items represents a team of people.

The Broadcast team is worthy of special note. There were three full-time commentators, who called every game, Rob Snoek, Tim Frick and Marni Abbott-Peter. There was also Adrienne South, who was on-court reporter. She conducted interviews after every match and was the face of the event, just as Rob, Tim and Marni were its voice. She must have changed clothes five times a day, and her hair always looked like it she had just stepped out of the salon. There was also an official photographer. Pictures were uploaded to Flickr, which say "all rights reserved" but actually they were CC-NC. Blanket permission was given to use them, but that restriction meant they can only be used on Wikinews.

One Canadian athlete is very proud of the fact that she is the youngest person from Donkin, Nova Scotia, with a biography on the Wikipedia. The article now has a photograph of her as well. (She also now has a world championship gold medal.)

The officials sat at a long desk alongside the court, between the areas where the two competing teams would sit. They had special consoles with buttons with basketball-related terms on them that they used to keep score and compile the statistics. They also had a laser printer that could provide the teams and the media with a quick print at a break. These were in what is now a familiar for (at least to me), with the players and their basketball stats. When they officially end the game, the results are automatically uploaded to the FIBA website. This is the primary source of game results.

Print outs were made available in trays at the Media Centre, which was located elsewhere in the Mattamy Athletic Centre building. In fact, on the same floor as the court and the athlete changing rooms. The public had no access to this area. The event facilities were excellent. There were practice courts and a fine gymnasium on the second floor, below the event arena (an ice hockey pitch converted to a basketball court with the addition of a false wooden floor). The public were on the fourth floor. The only drawback was that there was only one pair of elevators, so the athletes caused traffic jams on the third floor.

After the game the media group would write it up in the Media Centre, which was like a conference room seating about 20, with the game showing on one wall. Because the first game was at 0800 and the last went until 2200, the Media team worked very long hours. The mainstream television media would drop in occasionally, and there were a few journalists, including a couple from Germany. After midnight the media would have a quick game on the court in the sponsor's wheelchairs. Hawkeye7 (talk) 10:29, 29 June 2014 (UTC)