Vigilant wrote:Bigdee opens the door to questions around Laura Hale and paid editing.
That's going to leave a mark.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =916880444
@Bidgee: Thank you for dropping by to discuss this. What was your position with HOPAU? I know that there were many people who were volunteers but there is this budget in the Tender with line items such as copy writer which lists 200 hours and a budget of $20,000.00. Division yields $100/hr. The same for each line item. Each line item is also, associated elsewhere in the Tender with people who will fill the position. The document gives a total budget of 1100 hrs and $110,000.00 with a note "some volunteers use a LETS system" (emp. mine) which carries a very strong implication that in some cases the "volunteers" were only being paid in kind. Volunteer does not always mean free labor cf every United States Armed Forces member is a "volunteer". If none of the people who were on that tender intended to get paid then what was the money for? I mean they represented to the client that the money was going to pay for 1100 hrs of work and I see no change orders so... where do you say the money went?
The tender in question looks very much to me like it was an
unsuccessful one for the contract that the APC eventually let to the
University of Queensland's Murray Phillips, as I pointed out
here. Thus, the sums of money mentioned in that tender document never went anywhere, because they consisted entirely of vapourcoin which never actually materialised.
Also, in 2013 WMFAU joined with University of Queensland in an additional $240,000.00 Linkage Grant for the History of Australian Paralympics project which was expressly about using Wikipedia to document the history. The grant as, as of yesterday showing as active, with an budget authorization, to date, for a bit over $260,000.00.
I have no idea who the account holder of Bidgee is, it is not on the tender so I have no reason to believe you were paid but, for the same reason I have no reason to believe you know who was and was not receiving money from the Tender or the Australian Research Council Linkage Grant. …
I believe the only people likely to have spent the money granted to the University of Queensland under the ARC linkage grant would have been the two
chief investigators, Murray Phillips and. Frederick Osmond. The
funding rules governing the grant (item 6.3.2) required the
partner organisations, Wikimedia Australia and the APC, to make
their own cash or in-kind contributions to the project which (in combination)
at least matched the funding granted to the University Queensland by the ARC.
I also believe the statement that the project "was expressly about using Wikipedia to document the history" to be grossly inaccurate. It appears to me that the Wikipedia activities comprised just one of the many strands making up what seems to have been a multifaceted project. To put those activities in proper perspective, I think it's worth going back through the APC annual reports to see what they have to say about the project. The first mention of it appears to have been in
the 2008-2009 annual report:
APC 2008-2009 annual report, p.16, wrote:The APC is evaluating a project to record the history of the Paralympic movement in Australia. This is a much-needed area of Australian sport research. As part of the process, the APC collaborated with the National Library of Australia to record the first Paralympian to be part of its Australian Oral History Project – Australia’s first Indigenous Paralympian, Kevin Coombes. With the National Library and others, the APC is exploring the best way to build on this start and preserve Australia’s Paralympic history.
In the
annual report for the next year, we find the following:
APC 2009-2010 annual report, p.34, wrote:During the year, the APC formalised relationships with the National Library of Australia (NLA) and the National Sports Information Centre (NSIC), through the Australian Centre for Paralympic Studies, to collect, preserve and manage important elements of Australia’s Paralympic legacy.
The NSIC – Australia’s leading sports information repository – has undertaken the storage and management of the APC’s audio-visual collection. The collection currently comprises 1,072 video items in various formats, 2,333 slide images and 5,430 photographs. It will grow significantly when the APC’s electronic holdings of photographs are transferred. Under the agreement with the NLA, the oral histories of 23 people who have made a significant contribution to the Paralympic movement in Australia will be recorded by the end of June 2011, through the NLA’s oral history project. In the initial phase of the project, priority has been given to recording the oral histories of Australia’s surviving Paralympians from the first Paralympic Games in Rome in 1960.
Thus, in the early stages of the project, it appears to have had nothing whatever to do with Wikipedia. The two main activities were an oral history project, in collaboration with the National Library of Australia, and the storage and management by the NSIC of the APC's collection of audio-visual material. The digitisation of this audio-visual material would eventually come to be included in this latter aspect of the project (see the material from the 2012-2013 annual report below).
The [url=ahttps://
www.paralympic.org.au/wp-content/upload ... Report.pdf]annual report for 2010-2011[/url] is the first to contain any mention of Wikipedia in connection with the project:
APC 2010-2011 annual report, p.34, wrote:As part of the APC history project in 2010/11:
• The National Library of Australia recorded 23 oral history interviews through its oral history project under a formal agreement with the APC.
• The APC recorded video interviews with some of the subjects of the oral history interviews, to complement the oral histories.
• The National Sports Information Centre made further progress in cataloguing the APC audiovisual collection and making it discoverable through the Clearinghouse for Sport under an agreement between the APC and the Australian Sports Commission.
• The first reunion of an Australian Paralympic Team – for the 1960 Team – was conducted to mark the 50th anniversary of the first Paralympic Games.
• The APC’s archive was reorganised and an initial assessment of almost 500 boxes of material stored in the archive was conducted. A process was established to evaluate and manage the collection of key documents in conjunction with the National Library of Australia.
• A tender brief for the written history of the Paralympic movement in Australia was written and the tender process conducted. The APC appointed the University of Queensland and sports historian Murray Phillips to write the history of the Paralympic movement in Australia using a unique process which will draw on resources such as Wikipedia to produce an online book which can meet the APC’s needs for hardcopy and multimedia versions. The University of Canberra and Wikimedia Australia are involved in the online information gathering elements of the project. This written history will draw together many of the other elements of the overall history project and make them accessible to a wide audience.
• The APC identified images which no longer have a commercial value and commenced making these available online through Wikimedia Commons, to meet an identified lack of quality Paralympic sport images online.
• The structure of the Australian Paralympic Hall of Fame was approved by the Board and the process conducted for the nomination and selection of the inaugural inductees – male athlete, female athlete and associate member. The three inaugural inductions will be made in association with the APC’s One Year to Go activities on 29 August 2011. There will be no physical Hall of Fame for the time being.
• Relationships were established with the National Film and Sound Archives, the National Sports Museum, the Powerhouse Museum and other organisations not yet directly involved in the project, to ensure that the project can successfully manage donations and loans of a range of materials, as these increase rapidly. One of the governing principles of the history project is to utilise the expertise of specialist individuals and organisations.
Note, however, that among the nine items listed as activities taking place under the project, the only two mentions of any Wikimedia project are of Wikipedia as
one example of the
type of resources which it was proposed to draw upon in the production of an online book, and Wikimedia Commons as an outlet for publication of images belonging to the APC which it judged to be of no further commercial value. The above outline of the project, as it stood in 2010-2011 makes an isolated statement that it "was expressly about using Wikipedia to document the history" seem to me to be little more than codswallop.
From the
2011-2012 annual report:
APC 2011-2012 annual report, p.53, wrote:The Australian Paralympic history project is a major project of the Australian Centre for Paralympic Studies to capture, manage and preserve the history of the Paralympic movement in Australia in a way which is relevant to the APC’s activities and its present and future needs. During the reporting period:
• Work commenced on the written history of the Paralympic movement by sports historian Murray Phillips, under an agreement between the University of Queensland and the APC.
• The APC partnered with Wikimedia Australia, with the support of the University of Queensland and the University of Canberra, to ensure that the coverage of the Australian Paralympic movement in Wikipedia reflected the history, role and scope of the movement. Project workshops were conducted in Perth, Brisbane and Canberra and approximately 30 volunteer Wikipedia editors have joined the project. More than 700 Wikipedia articles have been created through this project, including an article on every athlete in the 2012 Australian Paralympic Team, every Australian Paralympic medallist and 127 classification articles. In the months leading up to the London Games, these articles were collectively being viewed more than 100,000 times a month. In the month surrounding the 2012 Games, the articles were accessed almost two million times. The APC combined with Wikimedia Australia to send two Wikipedians to the London Games as journalists. The Wikipedians updated Wikipedia articles and wrote more than 70 articles which were published in Wikinews and Google News, and were used by other media sources in Australia and internationally.
• The APC uploaded more than 600 images of Australian Paralympic athletes onto Wikimedia Commons. These images have been widely used in articles about Paralympic sport in Wikipedia and in other media. A further 250 images have been contributed by volunteer photographers through the Wikipedia project.
• A further seven oral history interviews were recorded for the Paralympic Oral History Project by the National Library of Australia through its oral history project under a formal agreement with the APC, bringing the total number of interviews recorded to 30.
• The APC audiovisual collection of more than 1,100 items was catalogued by the National Sports Information Centre under an agreement between the APC and the Australian Sports Commission.
• The second reunion of an Australian Paralympic Team – for the 1964 Team – was conducted in conjunction with the One Year to Go celebration for the London Paralympic Games.
• The APC accepted a number of donations of historic memorabilia, including gold, silver and bronze medals won at the 1960 Games by Australia’s first female Paralympian, Daphne Hilton, and the bow and arrows used by Ross Sutton when he won Australia’s first ever Paralympic gold medal in 1960, as well as the medal itself.
• The APC made the inaugural inductions into the Australian Paralympic Hall of Fame at the APC’s One Year to Go celebration on 29 August 2011, inducting Frank Ponta (inaugural male), Louise Sauvage (inaugural female) and George Bedbrook (associate). The APC has received more than 30 nominations for the second inductions, to be held in early 2013.
• Posters were created through the University of Canberra about Australia’s history in each of the sports it contested at the London Games, and displayed in common areas and the athletes’ accommodation in the Paralympic Village. The history project relies on volunteers and has benefitted greatly from the weekly input of Patricia Ollerenshaw, who has clocked up more than 10 years as a regular volunteer with the APC.
Here again, there are only two items, that mention Wikimedia projects. The first of these is the earliest evidence I have seen of defective oversight on the part of the APC of any aspect of the project. The fact that it is touting ["m]ore than 700 Wikipedia articles" as a significant achievement of the project, when, by all accounts, a huge proportion of those articles are worthless crap, is not a good look. To put this in perspective however, I see no evidence of the APC's ever paying anyone
directly to write any of those articles. I see no evidence that its funding of these activities ever went beyond a contribution towards the expenses of the two Wikimedian "journalists" to attend the London Paralympic Games, and whatever contributions it made, along with the Universities of Canberra and Queensland, to support the project workshops.
From the
2012-2013 annual report:
APC 2012-2013 annual report, p.43, wrote:
The APC seeks to partner with other expert organisations which can add value to the APC’s activities in this area through specialist knowledge and resources. In 2012/13 these partnerships included:
The National Sports Information Centre (NSIC)
An agreement with the NCIS at the AIS in Canberra was signed under which the NSIC has digitised, catalogued and stored the APC’s audio-visual collection. In addition, the NSIC serviced requests for material, freeing APC staff from this role. The APC library collection of more than 1,200 items has been catalogued through the NSIC catalogue system and is discoverable by anyone in the world, while the APC continues to control who may view or borrow items from the library. Inclusion on this catalogue enables the APC to participate in wider Paralympic research and supports initiatives through the Centre for Paralympic Studies.
Australian Sports Information Network (AUSPIN)
The APC became the first “non-library” member of the AUSPIN which has been established to improve access to sport-related information.
National Library of Australia (NLA)
The oral history agreement with the NLA was extended until 30 July 2013, with a further 10 interviews scheduled during the extension period, bringing the total in the collection to 40 interviews. The interviews are part of the national oral history collection and are available through the NLA website. The APC will highlight the oral histories through a partnership with the storytelling website
http://www.cowbird.com, which will make the stories accessible to a wider audience.
National Sports Museum
Medals from the 1960 Paralympic Games and other significant items donated to the APC have gone on display at the National Sports Museum in Melbourne, under a loan agreement with the APC. This ensures that the items will be protected and managed until the APC is in a position to do so itself.
University of Queensland
Under the APC’s agreement with the University of Queensland, work has continued on the written history of the Paralympic movement in Australia. The University, with the APC and Wikimedia Australia as its industry partners, submitted an application for an Australian Research Council linkage grant to expand this project.
Other Knowledge Services activities in the reporting period included:
• The APC continued its partnership with Wikimedia Australia to create and update Wikipedia articles about the Paralympic movement in Australia, Australian athletes and classification. More than 1,650 images of Australian Paralympic athletes have been uploaded by the APC and volunteer photographers onto Wikimedia Commons for use in articles about Paralympic sport in Wikipedia and in other media.
• Further organisation and cataloguing of the APC’s archives.
• Completion of the report of the London 2012 Paralympic Games – this 450 page document contains more than 200 recommendations and will serve as the blueprint to enable the APC to deliver the Team in Rio.
• Development of a detailed and costed federal policy submission after the London Games and an updated version for use in the in the lead-up to the 2013 Federal election.
• A knowledge audit of APC staff conducted with the assistance of an intern, Moritz Kramer. The audit attempted to identify what kind of knowledge the APC holds, where and how it is stored, how the APC can retain and use the knowledge and where there are gaps that need to be filled.
• The Victorian Institute of Sport was accredited as the second Centre for Paralympic Excellence under the Paralympic Sports Centres accreditation program.
• Provision of advice, statistics and information within and external to the APC.
The Paralympic history project relies on volunteers and continues to benefit from the weekly input of Patricia Ollerenshaw, who has been a regular APC volunteer for almost 13 years.
Later annual reports continue to document activities in all these various strands of the project, but since they appear to be getting more and more verbose, I'll just quote the following item from
the 2013-2014 annual report
APC 2013-2014 annual report, p.42, wrote:
Work continued on the written history of the Paralympic movement in Australia under the APC’s agreement with the University of Queensland (UQ). UQ was awarded a Linkage Grant of $244,266 from the Australian Research Council to aid the online component of the project and enable a more comprehensive history to be recorded.
Again, there's nothing here to support the contention that even this particular strand of the project "was expressly about using Wikipedia to document the history".
It would appear from snippets of information which dribbled out in subsequent annual reports that two of the major goals of the project under the ARC linkage grant were the publication of a book, and of an online history of the paralympics movement in Australia. The latter was launched
on April 13th this year, and is
now up and running. According to
this page, the book is due to be published later this year.
E voi, piuttosto che le nostre povere gabbane d'istrioni, le nostr' anime considerate. Perchè siam uomini di carne ed ossa, e di quest' orfano mondo, al pari di voi, spiriamo l'aere.
God I wish I had paid more attention to this.
