Wikinews:Accreditation requests/Hawkeye7


 * Unsuccessful; as this has been open a good long time, with 50% opposition from veteran Wikinewsies, it's not realistically going to turn into a positive decision. --Pi zero (talk) 18:27, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Hawkeye7 (talk)

 * Name: Ross Mallett
 * Location: Canberra, Australia
 * Areas of interest: Sports, Military, Australia
 * Reason: To facilitate ability to cover international sporting events, particular Paralympic events.
 * Accomplishments: I have nearly 60,000 edits of Wikimedia Projects, including 43 featured articles and nearly 200 good articles. I have written dozens of Wikinews articles including six featured news articles.

I have a previous, successful, request, which is archived here and an unsuccessful re-accreditation request here
 * Contact information: hawkeye7@gmail
 * User ID: 180828
 * Applied on: 21:55, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Comments
So, true, ok....you can't prance around AS A JOURNALIST at public events in Australia without accreditation. Your quote: "I must have accreditation to attend events." No you don't. You must have accreditation to attend events as AN ACCREDITED JOURNALIST.....to wear your pretty little badge and sit in the media tent etc. etc. So, without all that: You attend an event. Bob and Bill are racing. Bob runs faster than Bill. Bill trips, falls gets hurt and bleeds. Bob wins. The crowd cheers, 'We still love you, Bill.' The medics run onto the field and attend to Bill. You happen to be sitting next to Bill's friend, whom you tell you're working on an article to post online about the race (you state this honestly to the friend). He says, with tears in his eyes, "Bill is the greatest bloke ever. He's worked so hard. I'm just gutted over this loss." You come here, write all that down and submit it. THAT'S JOURNALISM!!! Are you telling me, that in your country, if you did that, police would break down your door and haul you away to jail in the middle of the night?! I'm asking you, seriously...not rhetorically. You don't need accreditation to do that stuff....not here!!! This is CITIZEN JOURNALISM. Ok, so some countries won't give you a badge without a vouching organisation....I get that now (it took me a while to understand that). But I have read a few lines about laws in other countries....and people have blogs, they have Facebook pages etc. If you see/hear something, can't you use that in an article? People come here, seeking the glory but don't want to sacrifice their guts....and it's just annoying. (See, I went down that lane, even though I wasn't going to.) --Bddpaux (talk) 18:22, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * What do you believe has changed since your last request? --Pi zero (talk) 22:05, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Time has passed. People have moved on. I have demonstrated my good faith and good works. I meet all the stated requirements for accreditation in the Accreditation policy Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:12, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Rereading the discussion from your last application, I see a lot of disbelief of fault on your part. And now what you say is "People have moved on"?  I read that as saying you hope the people who remember have left.  The implication being that you see the failure of that application as being other people's fault rather than yours.  --Pi zero (talk) 01:57, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * You read it incorrectly. All I am saying is that I have demonstrated my good faith and good works. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:54, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * It seems pertinent to note you seem to think not being ready to hand over accreditation is somehow equal to a complete community ban from editing. BRS  (Talk)   (Contribs) 21:18, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, I'm going to say a few things and then I'm going to render my vote. Several weeks back, you put this at PiZero's page, when he reminded you that you can submit here without accreditation: "I cannot. I must have accreditation to attend events. Without Wikinews accreditation, I have had to accept accreditation from another organisation. And that means I then cannot post to Wikinews at all." I weighed in (neutrally, mind you) on your last request for accreditation....I commented there (and many other places, at other times) that humility is held in high regard here. Over the past 15 months, you've made very few general edits, barely assisted with two specks of cleanup or anything of that ilk. OK...I won't prattle on down that lane too far, but it's still a fact.
 * What a lovely surprise. People on Wikinews have never asked me about what I've been up to before. You brought up a lot of points. I wasn't able to post anything on Wikinews for a year. Which was a pity, because I had a lot of material that could have been used. I'm not an admin any more either, so there wasn't anything much I could do in that regard to help out. I'm a historian, not a journalist. However, if my accreditation is restored, I promise a good output. Where you can go and what you can do depends on the event in question. Australia is pretty good in that regard, we have broad freedom of panorama that extends to interiors, and you can wander around even major sporting events with a camera and take pictures. The real leg work is in building up a rapport with the players, coaches and officials. Having done that, a sporting organisation will usually issue a pass. Now it gets a bit more difficult when we move to the international arena. In many cases, I travel as a quasi-member of the Australian team. Take, for example, the recent trip to China. Which you can read about here. In this case, being with the team was the only way I was able to access the venue at all. However, once inside the compound, I was quite free to mingle with the athletes and officials and to take photographs, China being a country with robust freedom of panorama. There is more than just physical access though. There's broadband internet, there's the score sheets, and there's photocopiers, so you can take copies of documents the teams lend you. In China, there was a lot of trouble with the Great Firewall. Google, Facebook, Twitter were all out of bounds. Wikipedia worked though. For the 2014 Women's World Wheelchair Basketball Championship in Canada in 2014, I was able to secure media accreditation that gave me access to the media facilities. Unfortunately, they had me working flat out on Wikipedia, so I was only able to switch to Wikinews for the last couple of days. I spent my final day in Canada transcribing an interview for Wikinews. It takes roughly 20 times as long to transcribe an interview as it takes to write it up. Which brings me to the Big Show. Now for London 2012, I was able to secure accreditation through the Australian Paralympic Committee. There were strict rules though, about access, about where you could go, and what you could photograph. The requirements for Rio 2016 are far more stringent. I am going to need a special visa. They don't normally let media in without a lot of documentation, so I was accumulating this, but recently they have created a special visa class just for the Olympics. So the letter of invitation from the APC may be enough. I cannot take that chance at the present time though. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:08, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Votes

 * --SVTCobra 23:53, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * --Pi zero (talk) 01:06, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Based on the past history, there appears to be a serious risk Hawkeye7 could become involved in some incident that, if they're accredited, could seriously mar our public image. I have never seen any reason to think they understood what the problem was in the first place, nor that they have come to understand it any better since, which strongly supports concern of repeat incidents.  To me, that's a showstopper, trumping all other considerations; we must not accredit someone known to be a serious risk of besmirching our good name.  Frankly, even if I accepted the nominee's claims of being unable to contribute at all without accreditation, it would only me sadder about the importance of not accrediting them.  (I agree with BRS about the cliché.)  --Pi zero (talk) 22:30, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I have never done anything that would mar our public image. I resigned from Wikinews to avoid it being abused as a vehicle for a bitter personal dispute. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:06, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for stating your position clearly. That has been my understanding of how you perceived the situation.  --Pi zero (talk) 23:16, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * If you have any reason to believe otherwise, I am willing to address your concerns. I note that serious allegations made against you, which you have never responded to. Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:58, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * with a heavy heart after reading some history. The cliché but appropriate phrase being "nobody's a winner here". BRS  (Talk)   (Contribs) 22:03, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * So, amidst my sordid rant...I say, Meh...what the heck! You'll probably do great. Now, we ascribe to "Assume nothing." here, while the other project loves "Assume good faith." Point-of-fact: you've contributed a great deal of good stuff here, so statistically-speaking, you'll probably do the same again. Also, whatever that thing was you did, or didn't do, of might've done, or might've said or WHAT THE HECK EVER....try not to do it again, OK? --Bddpaux (talk) 21:39, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I had positive interactions with them on others WMF sites. I don't edit here much so I don't know all the history but I support. Reguyla (talk) 17:47, 16 November 2015 (UTC)