Talk:Wiki loves the European Parliament in Strasbourg

Original Reporting notes

 * Arrived at the hotel on the Sunday (2nd); we then went for a meal at a nearby restaurant
 * Monday (3rd): Planning meeting, and travelled (by bus) to the parliament in early afternoon
 * Set up next to entrance to the chamber
 * Three photo-booths, station for make-up for portrait shots
 * Used a 'conical sound booth to shoot videos
 * Had use (for 1 day only) of conference room for photo touch-up/editing
 * Tuesday (4th) were moved further away from the chamber entrance; had been issues with noise spilling into permanent press radio/TV area prior day
 * In-place at new location until mid-afternoon Thursday (6th)


 * Lost one notbook with a significant number of OR notes; have recreated as-much as-possible from memory on Thursday afternoon/evening, and whilst travelling back to Paris CDG to catch flight back to Edinburgh

Recreated notes

 * Students were doing the make-up (avoiding shiney foreheads, etc)
 * Remarks from several MEPs that the parliament itself had not done this for their official photos
 * Depending on the language skills of MEPs, they were encouraged to do video introductions in as-many languages as-possible
 * Andy Mabbett present to do WikiVIP (Voice Intro Project); no 'pure audio' recording was done, left to extract audio from the filmed video clips


 * A small team of editors were on-hand to address BLP/inaccuract concerns from MEPs
 * Those who turned up with fully-prepared texts, requesting these replace their bios, were gently rebuffed and more about how Wikipedia works explained to them
 * The large number of volunteers (and repeatedly stressing we were volunteers) appeared to give most a better-understanding of how Wikipedia works
 * One EU commissioner was very reluctant to do a video intro for concerns over this violating NPOV (admittedly, didn't know the term - but knew was a core project principle)


 * Issues with the 'internal politics' of the parliament led to us being moved around
 * Had, until the Friday before our trip (Jan 31st), been told would be in the press centre itself; instead ended up in open-to-visitor spaces, and assigned access to the public WiFi network rather than the press one
 * Relocation of the photo editing booth to an out-of-the way place next to the Sakharov Exibition saw us next to a half-dozen portable "booths"; learned later (overhead new staff member being given tour) these are for translators when the parliament, or several members, travel. Each contained 2-3 stations for translators
 * Apparently just loaded into a plane when a group of MEPs may travel to Asia, Australia, US, etc.


 * Some amusement from German/Austrian Wikimedians that I corrected "British" to "Scottish"
 * This was mirrored by Scottish MEPS doing the same
 * Catalan MEPs, similarly, corrected "Spanish" to "Catalan"


 * Visited (1st day) by Pirate Party MEP
 * Delivered box of books (Their case for copyright reform); explained they cite Wikipedia as an example
 * Stated intent to call for radical reduction in the length of copyright terms (circa 20 years)


 * Andy Mabbett did two (three?) radio interviews about WikiVIP whilst in Strasbourg
 * One of the radio stations (US-based), when told he was at the parliament, managed to arrange an on-site radio booth and engineer for them to call into for the interview. Other (from Australia) done from Hotel)

Hotel

 * Were based in the Hotel Ochsen for our 'mission'
 * Place served as the HQ of Field Marshal Kolowrat-Krakowski (1796/97) as besiged Fort Kehl, destroyed it with 125,000 bullets, then accepted the surrender of Napoleonic general Desaix on Jan 6, 1797.
 * Some amusement at this detail; the event was organised by Wikimedia Germany (and Austria), with the EU parliament just across the German-French border in Strasbourg.

Inline comments
A number of inline comments have been left dotted through this. --Brian McNeil (talk) 12:21, 10 February 2014 (EST)

Title
The term "love" seems a wee bit strong. Also "Wiki" tends to be more inclusive than just Wikimedia and its projects. (See History of wikis) --SVTCobra 19:05, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The project is "Wiki loves parliaments", I couldn't readily-spot a way to single-quote it and avoid having a single quote as the first character of the title (not too-fond of that). --Brian McNeil / talk 19:14, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Is there a way to use italics in the title? I know they have accomplished that on Wikipedia. --SVTCobra 19:58, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
 * It can be done, I believe, but the full title of the thing doesn't occur verbatim in the headline. It would help if the project name, Wiki loves parliaments, occurred in the article (especially were it in the lede).  --Pi zero (talk) 20:01, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I am sorry I don't have enough time for this, but the Wiki loves parliaments project is not even mentioned in the article by name. If it is in the title, it ought to be named in the article itself as well.  Cheers, --SVTCobra 23:48, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
 * It's now been more than 24 hours since publication (though it hadn't been when I made the above remark). --Pi zero (talk)
 * Yes, Pi Zero, that's why I am lamenting that I don't have time to work on this project (or any other). Cheers, --SVTCobra 02:09, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

FAC
Going to nominate this as a FAC. --Brian McNeil / talk