Talk:Australian women's water polo team takes test series against Great Britain

Comments prior to submission for review

 * First and foremost, if you've watched the games/are responsible for the photos, and have provided input on that basis, then this qualifies for the Original tag in the sources section. Then, as Original Reporting, it needs a reporters' notes section here on the talk. A bullet-point list covering "watched match X. Saw P beat Q by n points. R scored at time in game part" is the sort of thing that'll happily satisfy reviewers.
 * The lede; I mentioned this on my talk page; 2-3 short sentences, active voice, cover most-important of 5W+H.
 * I reiterate the lede point here because, at a minimum, the article needs to be three paragraphs. This will best be achieved by breaking a lede off from the main content. Remember, that's "the sizzle to sell the steak" (your title and lede are your advert encouraging readers to digest the main body of the story).
 * Dates. Unless years/months ago, we prefer things like "this Sunday", "yesterday",... Referred to on Wikinews as "relative dates".
 * Active voice. Can't stress this point enough, so I've worked over the first paragraph (see here) to avoid passive voice.
 * The above diff also shows off the w template. General advice is to use it where you'd use text to show . It defaults to local-links, which are preferred on the basis that someone clicking on a link to on a news site expects more news about Australia.

That's it, good luck with your mission to prove Wikinews publication isn't impossible. --Brian McNeil / talk 02:48, 28 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I have attended the first four matches. I will attend the last match in a few hours.  I recorded the scores and between myself and Bidgee have media from each match.  I don't have the specific match details because it was hard to get them as the score board did not include who scored. Hence, I cited the Australian Water Polo page.  I can pretty much guarantee if any of the press covered this, they got it from the same source.  Will work on this some more after the last match.  (Have a meeting tomorrow and need to work on my dissertation some.)  *babbles* Want to get an article published so I can say I have.  :)  Will try to work on more active voice.  What sort of notes are required for having attended? --LauraHale (talk) 03:07, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * OR notes? No need to be pretty. The more detail the better - but that doesn't mean you can't abbreviate/shorthand stuff in some way. As you're actually in-attendance, this will qualify for the rarely-used dateline template; I need to dust off the cobwebs on that 'un. --Brian McNeil / talk 03:22, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * You forced me to edit the dateline template :D It now supports a |shortname= parameter to avoid hideously long placename-precision as-is needed on Wikipedia. I also had to refactor the opening as it didn't seem possible to get the pictures as you want them. There are a couple of slideshow templates available. I used them several times on my National Museum of Scotland article. These might be a way to include even more pictures, at a higher resolution, and keep the article looking nice. If doing that, pick your favourite image for the one to show outside the slideshow. --Brian McNeil / talk 03:45, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * My notes would basically be: I went. I took pictures.  At tonight's match, I wrote the score down on my iPhone (14-3) which is confirmed by this, and confirmed that cap number 11. tonight was Melissa Rippon.  I could comment on the quality of play (Great Britain has an effective short passing game from the perimeter, but lacks precision for long passes, couldn't really get shots on goal, and had a number of turn overs for the last match.  Australia's goal keeper in the second game had mastered the precision pass half the length of the pool.) but honestly, that is the extent.  I mostly wanted to take pictures. :( Will work on this in another 12 hours to so. --LauraHale (talk) 10:40, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Original reporting notes
I attended all five test matches, primarily for the purposes of taking pictures that were attained with team permission. The pictures were head shots taken by Bidgee about 70 minutes prior to the second test match, with the understanding the images would be licensed creative commons and would be included on Wikipedia articles for each page about the individual players. To my knowledge, this was the first time a national team had ever treated a Wikipedian like a member of the press and allowed for pictures to be taken this way and for the purpose (while understanding possible re-use). This was coordinate with the team's media manager after having met with a member of AIS based water polo two Fridays ago. All articles about the 17 players have subsequently been nominated for DYK on English Wikipedia. I chose the water polo team because I had previously been involved with sport related stuff at the AIS as a result of the HOPAU project and several people I have talked to at the Australian Institute of Sport had heard about this and work I had done on improving coverage of the Canberra Capitals on Commons and Wikipedia. This made getting access easier.

I attended the first match on my own, the second with Hawkeye7 and Bidgee, the third and fourth matches with Hawkeye7 and attended the fifth match on my own. Outside of the second test match, all pictures in the article were taken by me.

I recorded the scores at the end of each match: 13-5 for the first one, 14-4 for the second one, 15-6 for the third one, 14-8 for the fourth one, 14-3 for the final one. (I have verified these scores by checking the Australian Water Polo website.) I did not record who scored how many goals as players were changing cap numbers every match. No game day materials were provided. The teams were announced three times, but it was not always clear who was who. As there were more available players than those who could actually suit up, that provided an interesting challenge.

At tonight's match, I talked to one of Melissa Rippon's school coaches, who told me what cap number she was wearing as this is extremely difficult to determine without a programme guide. At the second match of the game, I asked assistant Coach Ryan Moar what country the British coach came from as he sometimes was unintelligible. He said from Hungary. (During the second test match, GB Water Polo's website was down for maintenance. GREAT FUN!)

Great Britain has an effective short passing game from the perimeter, but lacks precision for long passes, couldn't really get shots on goal, and had a number of turn overs for the last match. Australia's goal keeper in the second game had mastered the precision pass half the length of the pool. She could and did put the ball between several players shoulders and heads as they moved through the water. Just looking at the Australian side versus the British side, you could see the Australian side had more muscle mass. The goal keeper during Sunday's match lacked the ability to toss the ball the same great distance. When GB went down in the game, they appeared to be demoralised and not capable of bringing it. Australia generally had the momentum.

The parent of a youth player explained the rules to me some, as did Rippon's former coach. If a player does not have the ball, the opposing players cannot touch her.

The referees did not appear overly aggressive in calling fouls. The players appeared set on drowning each other sometimes, and the British coach at times appeared agitated that more calls were not made against the Australians. (Which appeared fair enough, as I did witness two Australians holding one Brit under water at least twice, but I also witnessed similar behaviour by the British.)

During the first and second test matches, Australia warmed up outside and did running and other activities there. It was raining tonight so the team did not do any outdoor warming up. The Australian team consistently arrived before the British side, with the Brits entering the AIS Aquatic Centre each night roughly a half hour before the stated test time for the match.

the ACT development team attended the fourth match. I talked to the team's coach. He said the ACT could not afford to compete in the National Water Polo League, and the territory government was not willing to pay for it. He also said that Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia are traditional water polo playing states in Australia, with many of the national team players being drawn from them… though some players on the national squad do have connections to the ACT.

There was a $2 entrance fee for all games. I paid this for the third, fourth and fifth matches. I was invited to attend the first and second matches. I attended the rest because I enjoyed them.

LauraHale (talk) 12:05, 28 February 2012 (UTC)