[Gendergap] Australian women's national water polo team

Hi. :D Bouncy mood. :D Very happy. I wanted to work on some articles about a women's sport team in Australia and I chose the Australian women's national water polo team as they occasionally train at the Australian Institute of Sport. As luck would have it, they were running a training camp there this week and playing a series of test matches against Great Britain. I got in touch with the media manager for the team. I got permission from the media manager to get profile pictures of every member of the team and the coach of the team specifically for articles about the individual players. The request was basically treated like any other request from a media organisation, which was fantastic. :D The media manager told the players why we wanted the pictures, and about 80 minutes before their match, we (my Commons photographer Bidgee and I) had an opportunity to take the pictures. These were then put into the articles about every player, articles we either newly created or expanded. The whole lot was then nominated for DYK. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alicia_McCormack_(1).jpg> Alicia McCormack <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alicia_McCormack>Australian women's national water polo<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_women%27s_national_water_pol… player. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ashleigh_Southern.jpg> Ashleigh Southern <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashleigh_Southern>Australian women's national water polo<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_women%27s_national_water_pol… player. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bronwen_Knox.jpg> Bronwen Knox <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronwen_Knox> Australian women's national water polo<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_women%27s_national_water_pol… player. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dalibor_Maslan.jpg> Dalibor Maslan<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dalibor_Maslan&acti… assistant coach of the Australian women's national water polo<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_women%27s_national_water_pol… . <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gemma_Beadsworth_(1).jpg> Gemma Beadsworth <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemma_Beadsworth>Australian women's national water polo<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_women%27s_national_water_pol… player. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Glencora_Ralph.jpg> Glencora Ralph <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glencora_Ralph> Australian women's national water polo<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_women%27s_national_water_pol… player. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gregory_McFadden.jpg> Gregory McFadden <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_McFadden> coach of the Australian women's national water polo<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_women%27s_national_water_pol… . <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hannah_Buckling.jpg> Hannah Buckling <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Buckling>Australian women's national water polo<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_women%27s_national_water_pol… player. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holly_Lincoln-Smith.jpg> Holly Lincoln-Smith <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holly_Lincoln-Smith>Australian women's national water polo<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_women%27s_national_water_pol… player. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Isobel_Bishop.jpg> Isobel Bishop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isobel_Bishop> Australian women's national water polo<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_women%27s_national_water_pol… player. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jane_Moran.jpg> Jane Morgan <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Morgan> Australian women's national water polo<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_women%27s_national_water_pol… player. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kate_Gynther_(1).jpg> Kate Gynther <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Gynther> Australian women's national water polo<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_women%27s_national_water_pol… player. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kelsey_Wakefield.jpg> Kelsey Wakefield <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelsey_Wakefield> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Melissa_Rippon.jpg> Melissa Rippon <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melissa_Rippon> Australian women's national water polo<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_women%27s_national_water_pol… player. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nicola_Zagame.jpg> Nicola Zagame <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicola_Zagame> Australian women's national water polo<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_women%27s_national_water_pol… player. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rowena_Webster.jpg> Rowena Webster <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowena_Webster>Australian women's national water polo<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_women%27s_national_water_pol… player. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ryan_Moar.jpg> Ryan Moar<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ryan_Moar&action=edit… assistant coach of the Australian women's national water polo<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_women%27s_national_water_pol… . <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sophie_Smith.jpg> Sophie Smith <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Smith> Australian women's national water polo<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_women%27s_national_water_pol… player. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Victoria_Brown.jpg> Victoria Brown <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Brown> Australian women's national water polo<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_women%27s_national_water_pol… player. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zoe_Arancini.jpg> Zoe Arancini <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoe_Arancini> Australian women's national water polo<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_women%27s_national_water_pol… player. We're almost certain this is the first time ever on English Wikipedia that a national team of ANY gender has given a Wikipedia photographer official permission to take profile pictures specifically for use on Wikipedia. :D That it is a team full of women makes me extra happy. The women were incredibly nice about it. No complaints. All smiles. Some of them were aware of existing articles about them on Wikipedia. (A few had won bronze medals at the 2008 Games.) On a related and yet unrelated note, there currently is NO article about Great Britain's women national water polo team, who will be competing in their first Olympics. (The women's event was only added to the Games in 2000, after extensive lobbying by Australian women. this despite the fact that water polo for men was one of the foundation sports for the Games.) There are a few pictures and videos I took at the first game in the test series at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Water_polo_in_the_United_Kingdom. The quality isn't as great as what bidgee took game wise for the second test series. Those pictures should be uploaded in a few days or so at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Bidgee . It would be awesome to see an article about the Great Britain team and some of their players. :) (Or the Australian articles brought up to GA. ;o) ) Sincerely, Laura Hale -- twitter: purplepopple blog: ozziesport.com