Attachment B
Project contributors
To date, the Paralympic history project has been very successful in harnessing the contributions of a large
number of people and providing the opportunity for them to contribute according to their interests and
areas of expertise.
This attachment illustrates the breadth of the input to the project from more than 30 people, most of who
continue to be involved in some way.
Not all contributors edit Wikipedia.
Facilitators
In the early stages of the project
Leigh Blackall and Professor Keith Lyons from the University of Canberra
were instrumental in developing the project concept and initial strategies and making the introductions to
representatives of Wikimedia Australia which were crucial in establishing the project.
Leigh Blackall has been involved in Wikimedia for a very long time, but with low level of contributions outside
of his own professional activity. H
e was a key organiser of RecentChangesCamp Canberra which WMAU
supported. He envisaged Wikimedia having a role to play in the Paralympic history project, and wrote the
tender for the written history component of the project.
He was instrumental in gaining the support of
WMAU. During this time, Leigh ran Wikipedia workshops in Australia, with libraries and education institutions.
Leigh set up the project blog and the Google Group which is the main communication tool for the project.
Existing editors
The project has been fortunate to attract extensive input from a group of experienced editors. Some of
them have made extensive time and financial commitments to the project. They have also played a
significant role in assisting and mentoring new editors.
*
Laura Hale had minor Wikimedia roles in the past, and was also a key organiser of
RecentChangesCamp Canberra, but i
t was the Paralympic history project that pulled Laura into the
Wikipedia world, and under this project she was engaged as Australia's first 'Wikimedian in Residence'. It
had rocky times, and didn't fit the mold of other Wikimedian in Residence, but
she is a content creation
machine, and this was a critical component of the project. The 'Wikimedian in Residence' mould has
since been broken a few times with the Open Science and Consumer Reports WIRs.
Laura Hale has been a 1000+ edit per month contributor for over 24 months. Laura was sent to the
London Paralympics through the Wikimedians to the Games project. She continues to contribute to
Paralympic topics, and has taken some of the project concepts to Spain and Ukraine.
*
John Vandenberg is now heavily devoted to the HOPAU project, both in his time and has spent over $10,000 of his own money on this project since 2011.
*
Ross Mallett is now
heavily devoted to the HOPAU project, both in his time and has spent over $10,000 of his own money on this project since 2012. Ross Mallett was sent to the London Paralympics through
the Wikimedians to the Games project. He attends Paralympic events in Australia and internationally and has created a number of articles about Paralympic sport in countries in the Asia Pacific region.
*
Graham Pearce has contributed significantly to the HOPAU project, doing radio interviews, copyediting and polishing hundreds of articles, constantly monitoring the content for changes, and working closely with subjects to help them contribute to Wikipedia through him, and
usually these contributions are adding quality rather than quantity - getting the small details right.
*
Toby Hudson has photographed events and edited a number of articles, including the Wikipedia page "Disability in Australia" created in September 2013, which is 2,555 words of prose.
*
Steven Zhang expanded “Amanda Fraser” and guided it onto the front page of English Wikipedia as a “Did You Know?”. Steven put a lot of time into the wording of this article, and was thanked by Tony
Naar and the subject‟s family for delicate handling of a touchy subject.
*
Robert Myers (Bidgee) has attended many Paralympic events, contributing photos to the project and editing articles relating to the events.
New editors
The project has attracted a number of new editors from within the Paralympic movement and others who
had previously not had an active role in Paralympic sport. As with the existing editors, for some of these new
editors, the project has been a vehicle for their engagement with Paralympic sport.
Paralympians editing Wikipedia
*
Elizabeth Edmondson was a Paralympic gold medallist at the 1964 and 1968 Paralympic Games. She attended the first project‟s workshop in Perth and has continued to edit and contribute to the project in
other ways since that time.
*
Melissa Carlton is a Tasmanian swimmer who attended the first Brisbane workshop and became an active editor, with a specific interest in Tasmanian athletes, coaches and officials.
* User:
Sportygeek is a current female Paralympian who commenced editing Wikipedia in January 2013 and has amassed 1,056 edits in her first year of editing, mostly improving Paralympic topics, and has
created several new articles.
Other new editors
*
Tara McPhail was told about the HOPAU project by occasional editor Chris Gould (who was introduced to the project through her role at the National Sports Information Centre), who was a neighbour. Tara thought it would be a good project to volunteer for and attended the classification workshop in Canberra. Inspired by the topical area, and challenged by the laissez-faire nature of wikis, Tara threw herself into the tasks at hand in the HOPAU project, including creating flyers, transcribing audio, uploading photos, etc. Tara was a highly active editor for almost 12 months, has participated in meetups, spoken about the project at the national librarians‟ conference, and continues to edit occasionally.
*
Greg Blood had retired from the National Sports Information Centre at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) and was interested in using Wikipedia to assist in gathering material to write a book about the history of the AIS. He was recruited to the project by Tony Naar, who manages the project for the APC. Greg decided to start an account and give it a try in January 2012. He has since written more than 30 articles, has been an active editor every month, and is often a „very active‟ editor, and has 5,111 edits in less than two years of contributing. Since the 2102 Paralympics he has continued to edit Wikipedia, widening his interests to include drugs in sport in Australia, the organisation of sport in Australia, sport and the 2013 Australian federal election and the AIS.
*
Vicki Epstein is the wife of Paralympian
Ray Epstein and has written a book on the history of the disability sport in Queensland. Her interest is in Queensland athletes and she is an active contributor to the HOPAU email group.
*
Tony Naar manages the Paralympic history project for the APC.
*
Rebekka Wake works in the communications division of the APC.
*
Patricia Ollerenshaw has been an active volunteer with the APC since 2001 and currently focuses on sourcing material for the history project. She has attended two workshops and written articles about
people who have been missed by other editors.
* Graham Pearce's mother, Linda, contributes enormously to the HOPAU project indirectly, assisting and
supporting Graham in many varied ways. Graham's work in this project is described above. As just one
example, Linda has searched newspaper article scans for reliable sources.
*
Stephen Townsend is a post-graduate student at UQ and has become involved in editing through the involvement of UQ. He has written a Wikipedia article (at the SLQ workshops), published academic articles about Wikipedia, and fixed an error identified as part of his research.
* User:
Lucky102 (Ireland and Sydney) began editing Wikipedia during the 2012 Paralympic Games, working on Paralympic topics relevant to the ongoing Paralympic Games. They have made more than 1,500 contributions in 1.5 years and have created 34 articles.
Non-Australian
* Courcelles has reviewed many of the disability sport articles, and participates in the HOPAU discussions. He supports the HOPAU project however he can.
*
Roger Conroy has been a disability sport contributor for a long time and has also joined the HOPAU project team, and has seen the benefits of HOPAU to the entire Paralympics area. He continues to support the project.
* User:Axid in France has been writing articles about the Paralympics and Paralympians for a long time. In 2011 and 2013 he has expressed his support for the project and helps whenever he can.
* Brian McNeil from the UK is another editor who supports the program.
* Siska, Kartika, Ivonne, Revo and Risky attended the 2012 Paralympics workshop in Jakarta.
* Kartika and Ivonne have uploaded batches of images to Wikimedia Commons.
Other project contributors