Grants:Project/Women Olympians and Paralympians

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Women Olympians & Paralympians
summaryApplication to hire a Wikipedian in Residence at the LA84 Foundation to create sustain sustainable Wikimedia resources that will make the foundation's library information sources available to writers who wish to create and improve articles about women Olympians and Paralympians. This will be a six-month project.
targetThe project will target English-language Wikipedia, although many of the information sources in the project are written in languages that could be used by writers in other language versions of Wikipedia. The project will engage with existing Wikimedia community members, plus sport scholars and students, librarians and archivists, women's sports advocate, and Olympians and Paralympians who wish to expand the scope of knowledge about women Olympians and Paralympians and need information sources to do so. The goals of this project are consistent with several other WikiProjects such as Women in Red, Women's Sport, and Disability.
type of grantuncertain
amount$22,251 USD
type of applicantorganization
grantee• GeertzSoCal
contact• wwilson@la84.org
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endorse
created on16:02, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Project idea[edit]

What is the problem you're trying to solve?[edit]

What problem are you trying to solve by doing this project? This problem should be small enough that you expect it to be completely or mostly resolved by the end of this project. Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

The WikiProject Women in Red Olympians page states that there are 3,000 women Olympians recognized by Sport Record for which no Wikipedia article exists. There are even more women Olympians for whom there is only a stub article in Wikipedia. To use the US as an example, there have been approximately 2,700 American women Olympians since 1900. There are no Wikipedia articles for approximately 300 of them, and only stub articles for another 1,400.

The problem of missing and short articles is more pronounced among Paralympians.

Simply put, there are missing or short articles for thousands of women Olympians and Paralympians worldwide, reflecting a broader imbalance in Wikipedia between the number of biographical entries for women and men.

A major impediment to creating and improving articles on women Olympians and Paralympians is a lack of awareness regarding Olympic and Paralympic information sources and the inability of interested writers and editors to access relevant information sources.

So, the problem is two-fold: a large number of missing or underdeveloped articles on women Olympians and Paralympians combined with the inaccessibility of relevant information sources.

What is your solution?[edit]

For the problem you identified in the previous section, briefly describe your how you would like to address this problem. We recognize that there are many ways to solve a problem. We’d like to understand why you chose this particular solution, and why you think it is worth pursuing. Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

  • Develop Wikimedia resources that serve as an access point to for people doing research on women Olympians and Paralympians. These resources will utilize resources in the LA84 Foundation Sports Library that are largely unavailable on the World Wide Web, and make those sources electronically available to writers and editors through Resource Exchange, interlibrary loans and other means, in ways that conform to copyright law and fair use policies.
  • Engage with existing Wiki communities to activate participation in a campaign that identifies and utilizes relevant information sources to create and improve articles about women Olympians and Paralympians
  • Recruit and train new contributors and editors from outside of existing Wiki communities.
  • Train LA84 Foundation staff librarians to build and manage the Wikimedia resources, serve as Wikipedia editors, and sustain the initiative following the grant.

Project goals[edit]

What are your goals for this project? Your goals should describe the top two or three benefits that will come out of your project. These should be benefits to the Wikimedia projects or Wikimedia communities. They should not be benefits to you individually. Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

  • Create Wiki resources that will assist writers working on articles about women Olympians and Paralympians and can be sustained by the LA84 Foundation library staff after the grant.
  • Increase the number of Wikipedia articles on US women Olympians and Paralympians and improve existing short entries.
  • Recruit new Wikipedia contributors and engage existing Wikipedia communities to increase the number and quality of articles about women Olympians and Paralympians.

Project impact[edit]

How will you know if you have met your goals?[edit]

For each of your goals, we’d like you to answer the following questions:

  1. During your project, what will you do to achieve this goal? (These are your outputs.)
  2. Once your project is over, how will it continue to positively impact the Wikimedia community or projects? (These are your outcomes.)

For each of your answers, think about how you will capture this information. Will you capture it with a survey? With a story? Will you measure it with a number? Remember, if you plan to measure a number, you will need to set a numeric target in your proposal (e.g. 45 people, 10 articles, 100 scanned documents). Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

Outputs:

  • Develop new Wiki resources to support writing about women Olympians and Paralympians and electronically deliver biographical information to writers who want it.
  • Three in-person training sessions and one professional conference presentation, with a cumulative audience of 250 people.
  • Surveys distributed to training session participants to learn what worked and what didn't.
  • Results of survey of academic historians

Outcomes:

  • 500 new or improved Wikipedia articles on women Olympians and Paralympians, both as a proof of concept and as a contribution the development of more information sources about women on Wikipedia.
  • 400 new registered users in 2018.
  • 10 sport studies scholars who will make Wikipedia assignments a regular part of their teaching, steering new students to Wikipedia assignments each year.
  • 3 trained LA84 Foundation library staff capable of maintaining Wikipedia resources created by the WiR and serving as Wikipedia editors after the grant period ends.
  • Sustainable Wikimedia resources that make LA84 Foundation library resources accessible to a worldwide audience and will make it possible for contributors far more than 500 new or improved articles.
  • An annual LA84 Foundation-hosted Wikipedia edit-a-thon in conjunction with National Girls and Women in Sport Day.
  • The identification of information sources that can be used in non-English language editions of Wikipedia.

Do you have any goals around participation or content?[edit]

Are any of your goals related to increasing participation within the Wikimedia movement, or increasing/improving the content on Wikimedia projects? If so, we ask that you look through these three metrics, and include any that are relevant to your project. Please set a numeric target against the metrics, if applicable. Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

400 new registered users. 500 new or improved Wikipedia articles on women Olympians and Paralympians.

The ultimate goal is to create new content about women Olympians. Engaging the participation of Wikipedia communities is a means to this end; it is not the primary purpose of the project. This project assumes that most writers will not become editors. Some will stick; most will not. Engaging existing Wikipedia editors and attracting new ones would be a welcome outcome because editors will help sustain the project. However, much of what makes this vision sustainable is that every semester academics who teach sports studies classes have new students to whom they can assign projects. This approach obviously is more reliant on crowd sourcing than existing Wikipedia editors and puts the onus of first-line quality control on academic instructors to ensure that the student assignments meet Wikipedia standards. This kind of quality control is exactly what academics do with any written project. Even as few at 10 instructors making Wikipedia assignments year after year will have a significant long term impact.

Project plan[edit]

Activities[edit]

Tell us how you'll carry out your project. What will you and other organizers spend your time doing? What will you have done at the end of your project? How will you follow-up with people that are involved with your project?

The activities are best understood in the context of the LA84 Foundation's mission of closing the play equity gap represented by the historic underrepresentation of people in sport based gender, race, physical or intellectual impairment, and income. The foundation commits most of its resources to grantmaking. A portion of the budget, however, supports the foundation's library, and public education and advocacy efforts. The goal of advocacy is to inspire greater participation and nurture a cultural movement that appreciates the sports accomplishments of groups historically marginalized in sport. This grant application, which is focused on documenting the lives of women Olympian and women Parathletes, is consistent with the foundation's present and future work.

The library is a hybrid of printed and online resources. The digital collection, launched in 1997 alongside the traditional library of 40,000 volumes, contains 95,000 documents, many at periodical-article level. Included in the digital and hardcopy collections are hundreds of information sources that provide biographical information on Olympians and Paralympians. Most notably there are more than 600 Olympic and Paralympic team media guides from 67 countries, in multiple languages. These are supplemented by biographies, autobiographies, oral histories, television network research manuals and national Olympic and Paralympic quadrennial reports, and hundreds of public domain images and photographs for which the applicant owns copyright.

The project participants will include the WiR and three staff librarians, whose credentials appear below in the Participants section. The WiR will work 25 hours a week for six months. The lead LA84 Foundation staff member will work 10 hours a week on the project. Two other librarians will work on it a combined 10 hours a week, for a combined total of 1,080 hours during the grant period. The LA84 staff will sustain the project after the grant.

The WiR areas of responsibility will include:

  • development of one or more Wikimedia resources that will provide access, most likely through Resource Exchanges or electronic interlibrary loans
  • engagement with Wikimedia communities to activate project participation
  • recruitment and training of writers and editors outside of existing communities through edit-a-thons or similar activities
  • training the LA84 Foundation staff librarians in the use and management of Wikimedia resources

The LA84 Foundation staff will do the following,

  • identify women Olympians and Paralympians for whom there is no Wikipedia article, a stub article or an article containing misinformation.
  • identify information sources that can be used to create new or improved articles
  • learn the mechanics of Wikipedia editing
  • learn how to build and manage Wikimedia resources created by the WiR
  • handle all digitization required to advance the project
  • introduce the WiR to important groups and individuals in international sport research
  • introduce the WiR to key people in international sport organizations who can advance the project
  • make logistical arrangements (e.g. scheduling, space acquisition, transportation, lodging) for in-person trainings and presentations.

There will be three in-person recruitment training events and one conference presentation.

  • An edit-a-thon at the LA84 Foundation on National Girls and Women is Sports Day at the LA84 Foundation, in early February 2018. This edit-a-thon will serve as a model for an annual edit-a-thon at the foundation.
  • Two recruitment and training events, probably using an edit-a-thon format, at two universities that operate Olympic Studies Centers, specifically the Institute for Olympic Studies at the University of Texas, and the Center for Sociocultural Sport and Olympic Research at California State University, Fullerton. Each is recognized by the International Olympic Committee as part of the IOC's international network of Olympic studies centers. The audience of students and faculty will learn about, a) the project being led by the WiR, b) the imbalance between women’s and men’s articles in Wikipedia, c) the mechanics of creating and editing Wikipedia articles, and d) how to obtain reliable sources that provide information about women Olympians and Paralympians. These proposed training sessions have the approval of administrators at both centers.
  • A joint presentation, with an LA84 Foundation staff member, at the annual Convention of the North American Society for Sport History (NASSH), in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The goal is to inform university faculty who teach sport history, Olympic, women-in-sport classes of Wikipedia resources for faculty and students that can facilitate research and writing about Olympians and Paralympians, and urge them to incorporate Wikipedia assignments in their teaching. This message will resonate. Recent NASSH conferences have included sessions titled "Doing Digital Projects in Sport History," "New Vision Historiography," and "Teaching Sport History in the Digital Age." The president of NASSH supports this proposed presentation.

The NASSH conference takes place in late May 2018, with session proposals due in January. The LA84 Foundation edit-a-thon will be on February 1. The dates for the events at the University of Texas and CSU Fullerton are not set, but they will need to occur in no later than March to provide sufficient lead time for assignments.

The WiR in cooperation with the LA84 staff will develop training-event surveys and a survey for sport scholars, with the compilation of findings completed during the grant period.

Budget[edit]

How you will use the funds you are requesting? List bullet points for each expense. (You can create a table later if needed.) Don’t forget to include a total amount, and update this amount in the Probox at the top of your page too!

In US dollars

  • WiR SALARY & TAXES

Salary $25/hr., 25 hours a week, for 24 weeks = $15,000

Taxes = $4,500

Subtotal = $19,500

  • LA84 FOUNDATION EDIT-A-THON

Refreshments = $300

Subtotal = $300

  • PRESENTATION AT UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, AUSTIN, INSTITUTE FOR OLYMPIC STUDIES

WiR Airfare = $375

WiR Hotel, 2 nights = $600

WiR Meals & Incidental, 3 days = $177

Subtotal = $1,152

  • PRESENTATION AT NORTH AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR SPORT HISTORY CONVENTION, WINNIPEG, UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA

WiR Airfare = $525

WiR Hotel, 3 nights = $570

WiR Meals & Incidental, 4 days = $204

Subtotal = $1,299

  • TOTAL = $22,251

Community engagement[edit]

Community input and participation helps make projects successful. How will you let others in your community know about your project? Why are you targeting a specific audience? How will you engage the community you’re aiming to serve during your project?

To quote Wikipedia: "The primary role of the Wikipedian-in-Residence is to serve as a liaison between the host institution and the Wikimedia community." The point of the grant is to hire a WiR who possesses knowledge and contacts that the LA84 Foundation does not have. Therefore, the specific ways to engage will be determined by the WiR not by the applicant. Nevertheless, there are several WikiProject Groups such as Women in Red, Women's Sport and Disability that seem obvious partners for engagement.

The engagement of Wiki communities is key to the success of the project. In addition we plan to engage, with the intention of recruitment, an international audience of researchers, sport administrators, athletes and organizations who may not be part of any Wiki community but will have an interest in the project. These organizations and individuals include professional associations of sport historians North America, Australia and Europe; International Society of Olympic Historians; journalists; women in the sports industry (e.g. Women is Sport & Entertainment aka WISE); women in sport advocacy groups (e.g. Women's Sports Foundation) and Olympians and Paralympians (e.g. Southern California Olympians & Paralympians and United States Olympians & Paralympians Association). Methods of engagement will include email, social media, a range of Wikimedia pages, list serves such as H-Sport on the H-Net Network, media advisories, and in-person events.

In addition to the seeking active engagement, we plan to publicize the project among numerous groups internationally as a way of promoting the value of Wikipedia projects and the concept of equity for women and para athletes. The audience for such publicity efforts includes the International Olympic Committee, the World Olympians Association, International Paralympic Committee, more than 200 national Olympic committees and national members of the Paralympic Movement, and 35 international sport-specific governing bodies on the Olympic/Paralympic program.

Get involved[edit]

Participants[edit]

Please use this section to tell us more about who is working on this project. For each member of the team, please describe any project-related skills, experience, or other background you have that might help contribute to making this idea a success.

  • The WiR will be identified and hired in consultation with Wikimedians. Qualified candidates will have experience in Wikipedia editing, a knowledge of Wikimedia resources, familiarity with Wikimedia communities, and presentation experience.
  • Wayne Wilson, M.A., M.L.S., Ph.D, is the foundation's vice president for education services and will work directly with the WiR. He developed the foundation's sport library and digital collection, which includes more than 30,000 documents on Olympic and Paralympic topics. He is the author of several works on the Olympic movement; has served on the Research Council of the Olympic Museum in Switzerland, executive committee of the International Association for Sport Information, executive committee of the North American Society for Sport History; and is a member of the International Society of Olympic Historians, as well as a co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Sport History (2017), the forthcoming LA Sports: Play, Games and Community in the City of Angels (University of Arkansas Press, 2018), and the University of California Press book series Sport in World History. In addition, he has coordinated several non-Wikimedia research projects for the LA84 Foundation.
  • Shirley Ito, M.L.S., is the foundation's digital librarian. She manages the foundation's digital collections, a job which at present includes the migration of 95,000 documents from a Google Mini environment to OCLC's CONTENTdm platform. Ms. Ito is active in LA as Subject, a network of area librarians, archivists and museum curators.
  • Michael Salmon, M.L.S., is the library's cataloger and primary public services librarian. He also supervises the library's ongoing conversion of paper documents to digital documents. He, like Ms. Ito, has worked with a wide range of international users, has participated in the International Association for Sport Information and is a member of the American Libraries Association.


Community notification[edit]

Please paste links below to where relevant communities have been notified of your proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions. You are responsible for notifying relevant communities of your proposal, so that they can help you! Depending on your project, notification may be most appropriate on a Village Pump, talk page, mailing list, etc. Need notification tips?

Endorsements[edit]

Do you think this project should be selected for a Project Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project below! (Other constructive feedback is welcome on the discussion page).

  • I think this project should be selected for a grant. I attended a recent editathon at the LA84 Foundation and saw a lot of enthusiasm and expertise, and even more untapped library resources that would all definitely improve Wikipedia content and coverage, and address the gender gap. There's a lot to be gained. Penny Richards (talk) 17:57, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
  • I support this grant proposal. I, too, attended the en:LA84 Foundation event and found the organization to be generous with sharing their collections. A Wikipedian in Residence will help organize the work and provide necessary training. --Rosiestep (talk) 03:00, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
  • Support I had no idea how many Olympic and paralympic women were missing biographies. That's incredible and needs to be addressed. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:40, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
  • This initiative is important due to a lack of women's visibility in sports, despite a strong presence. As a former collegiate athlete, this issue has affected me, and will continue to do so as I continue a career in sports and non-profit. This initiative will make access to information readily available so that women, and men, can acknowledge the great achievements of women in sport. Mcampb36 (talk) 00:08, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
  • Righting historically incorrect information is invaluable. This initiative is important because women athletes are underrepresented in our history, and all future generations of young women and men alike will benefit from this knowledge. I am a professional in the sports industry and serve as President of the Los Angeles Chapter of a national organization, WISE (Women in Sports and Events), advocating for gender diversity and equity in the business of sports. I highly recommend this project be selected for this grant. STaniguchi)23:08, 3 October 2017
  • As the past-president of the International Sports Heritage Association I am well aware of the underrepresentation of women Olympians and Paralympians on Wikipedia. The LA84 Foundation is well-positioned to change this. Given the appalling lack of media coverage, significant pay inequities, and gender bias that women face in sports, this is an opportunity for Wikipedia to be a leader in gender equality. Marjoriesnyder (talk) 15:01, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
  • On behalf of the Women's Sports Foundation's CEO Deborah Antoine, the Women's Sports Foundation wholeheartedly endorses this proposal to bring attention to the hundreds of great U.S. women Olympians and Paralympians whose accomplishments are too often forgotten. WSF74 (talk) 14:39, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
Comment Would it be possible to expand the scope to allow all female olympians and paralympians but retain a special focus on the US? US and sport traditionally isn't one of the project's weakest areas, though I agree with Megalibrary girl that we should have articles on all of them. I'd like to know more about how people will be trained and the benefit it will have to Wikipedia in the long term as this is a considerable sum. What happens when all the articles are started, will the trained people stick around and develop existing article quality?Dr. Blofeld (talk) 15:42, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
  • Reply to Comment Thank you for your Comment. We chose to focus on US athletes because, per the application guidelines, it is a project that can be completed. The scope of the project lends itself to quantification, easy explanation and mobilization. We expect, based on the several international endorsements here, that this initiative will create a model that others can adopt or adapt to create articles for all Olympians and Paralympians. I can’t predict whether writers in the project will remain involved. However, the lasting value will be the incorporation of Wikipedia assignments in sport studies classes at universities in many countries. In the short term these assignments will result in more biographical articles, but in the long run they will involve more sophisticated sport-in-society topics. The training will be a train the trainer model, which is another way of saying that the training will focus on university faculty. Additionally, we envision the WIR acting as training resource to project researchers/writers. GeertzSoCal (talk)
  • As the president of the International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport I think it is necessary to make as many biographies of Olympian and Paralympian athletes for a broad readership accessable.
Since - so far - there is no gender equitity, meaning that many more male athleres can be found it is necessary to support this project. It should not only make past and present female athletes more visible, they can also function as role models in many cases for the future female athletes. Nettehof (talk) 18:27, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
  • In my position as co-director of the Center for Sociocultural Sport and Olympic Re-search (CSSOR) and assistant professor in the department of kinesiology at Califor-nia State University, Fullerton, I’m writing to pledge my full support for the LA84 Foundation’s grant application to the Wikimedia Foundation to fund a Wikipedian in Residence at LA84 for nine months. The CSSOR wholeheartedly supports the LA84 Foundation’s desire to both increase the number of Wikipedia articles on US women Olympians and Paralympians, and encourage academic sport historians to incorporate students' Wikipedia research and writing in their teaching of sport history.
As an educator, I believe that this project is of great value to my students. In fact, I am excited about the prospect of requesting my students to write Wikipedia articles articles on US women Olympians and Paralympians as part of future course requirements. Johngleaves (talk) 18:35, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
  • This type of initiative is extremely important because female athletes are underrepresented. Ckhastings (talk) 04:43, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
  • This type of project is extremely important because female athletes are underrepresented. As a female and former NCAA Division 1 athlete, I believe it is important to have a more accurate record of women who went before me in opening doors for women in athletics. I am currently a licensed clinical sport psychologist and I believe that it would be empowering for today's female athletes to be able to draw inspiration from their predecessors in sport. Ckhastings (talk) 04:52, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
  • This initiative is incredibly important because women athletes are underrepresented. Sport is a powerful social institution, and a lack of images of women in powerful positions or finding success in sport conveys a poor message to our youth. As the Director for Strategic Relationships for the Alliance of Women Coaches, I endorse this project! AllianceWC (talk) 17:28, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
  • As a Coach Education partner with the LA84 Foundation we endorse this initiative to increase the articles on US women Olympians and Paralympians. These athletes provide leadership and are role models to our youth participating in sports. Their stories, records and achievements are an important part of the Olympic movement, it's legacy and the future of sport. We support providing these resources to students, professionals and advocates who promote the benefits of sports in society. PositiveCoachLA (talk) 19:20, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
  • To improve the visibility of US Women Olympians and Paralmpians. 2605:E000:90D9:CA00:4025:2C24:FD3A:681F 21:32, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
  • I am an Olympian from the 1976 Olympic Games and a member of the 1980 US team. I am writing to support this important project. No one to my knowledge has done this. I am also a member of the International Olympic Committee and was just elected Vice President. For more than a decade, I chaired the IOC Woman and Sports Commission and I am very aware of the significance tis project will be for truth in the world. Adefrantz2 (talk) 00:42, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
  • Having female athletes celebrated and honored shows our girls what they can achieve. This project complements the work we do every day, showing girls their value in the world of sports and the world in general. Girls on the Run of Los Angeles endorses this project. GOTRLA (talk) 19:18, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
  • As Past-President and Co-Founder of the International Society of Olympic Historians (ISOH), I think a project to have Wikipedia expand their scope of entries and bios on female Olympians and Paralympians would be invaluable to sports historians, and anyone with an interest in the Olympics. I would wholeheartedly endorse this idea. – Bill Mallon, Past-President / Co-Founder, International Society of Olympic Historians (ISOH) Bill Mallon (talk) 14:29 15 October 2017 (UTC)
  • I also lead a group of Olympic historians and statisticians who have created our own private Olympic historical site, www.olympedia.org, which is the basis for www.sports-reference.com/olympics. Our group is called the OlyMADMen which reflects our insane devotion to the project. I speak for the entire group in saying that the project to have Wikipedia expand their scope of entries and bios on female Olympians and Paralympians would be invaluable to our group, in addition to outside sports historians. We would definitely look forward to seeing this become reality. – Bill Mallon, CEO, OlyMADMen, LLC Bill Mallon (talk) 14:33 15 October 2017 (UTC)
  • This project is important because articles in the mainstream press, profiles on television, and features on the radio, podcasts, and web channels, are overwhelmingly about male athletes. There are only a handful of female athletes in the USA who grace the covers of "Sports Illustrated," or the front pages of the sports sections of our major daily newspapers. In order for more girls and young women around the world to believe that they too can achieve excellence in sport, they need to see women athletes at all levels celebrated across many media. I am a consultant for The International Working Group on Women and Sport, which is a non-profit that advocates for the equal coaching, training and competition conditions for women worldwide. The IWG is based in a different country every four years, for a four year period. The current host country is Botswana, which will be the location of the conference to be held May 13-15th in Gabarone. I have covered ten Olympic Games and two Paralympic Games. My last Olympic assignment, working for the IOC as the Mixed Zone Manager at the Equestrian Venue, allowed me unique access to female athletes from all over the world. I would be excited to contribute to Wikipedia articles about any of the athletes I have access to or information on. 2602:304:6E47:41D0:E415:260F:73CC:AC0E 03:02, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
  • As Co-Director of the Global Cold War Sports project, I find this an excellent proposal that should provide an example of how to develop Wikipedia articles for women athletes from all countries involved in the Cold War. Professor Chris Young (University of Cambridge, UK) Chrisyoungcambridge (talk) 17:16, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
  • As President of the North American Society for Sport History, I strongly endorse this proposal and hope that it will receive funding.  As an association, the North American Society for Sport History has worked to foster interest in the development of new forms of web-based historical research but one of the limiting factors for both scholars and the students we teach has been the absence of historically accurate Wikipedia entries.  Wikipedia entries are increasingly recognized as the place to start most historical research projects —and to have accurate information and more lengthy reference lists would be enormously useful.  I am particularly delighted in the focus on Paralympian and Women Olympians as both groups of athletes are currently underrepresented on WIKIPEDIA.  I should also note—as a faculty member--that I am teaching a class on the History of Women and Sport in the Spring Semester, and I told Dr. Wilson when he first spoke to me about this project that I was confident it would enhance my teaching of that class in future years and knew that this would be true for many other sport historians around the globe as well.  In closing, the LA84 Foundation has been leading the way in digital sport history for more than two decades... I know they will do an excellent job on this if funded, and also know that the information they provide will be of great service to sport historians, students, the media, and and everyone interested in the history of the Olympic movement. Signed: Jan Todd, Ph.D. , Professor & Roy J. McLean Fellow in Sport History, Director, H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports. President, North American Society for Sport History, Fellow, National Academy of Kinesiology, Department of Kinesiology and Health Education, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712. www.nassh.org; nasshpresident@gmail.com www.starkcenter.org
  • As the Digital Archivist for the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center at the University of Texas at Austin, I am engaged firsthand in efforts to preserve, document, and publicize the histories and accomplishments of US Olympians (https://archives.starkcenter.org/1968ohp/). In the course of this work, I have worked with the LA84 foundation and their materials, and am acutely aware of the need, for historians and the general public alike, to expand and more fully illuminate articles on US women Olympians. The LA84 foundation has been endeavoring along these lines for some time, and based on their prior project history, the great potential merit, and the ready need for this work, I wholeheartedly endorse their grant. Thank you. Samokon (talk) 21:40, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
  • As the co-director of the Institute for Olympic Studies at the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports, I strongly support this initiative because it is clear to me that the experiences of women Olympians are underrepresented in the public media. Women Olympians have powerful stories of courage, determination, and resilience, stories that resonate with people of all backgrounds, but too often these stories have remained unknown. Our Institute worked closely with the 1968 U.S. Olympic Team to gather oral histories of that team. To have well-researched Wikipedia articles on the members of this team, in particular, would create a richer resource for students and researchers, providing background and context for their Olympic experiences. The LA84 Foundation’s knowledge of and commitment to the Olympic Movement makes it the best choice to take on this valuable project. Cindy Slater Starkcenter (talk) 21:52, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
  • The mission of the United States Olympians & Paralympians Association is to create and implement programs that integrate Olympians & Paralympians into every facet of the Olympic Movement. We maintain a database of 10,000 contacts. As USOPA President I strongly endorse this proposal and anticipate that many of our members will actively participate in the project. I also expect that this effort will inspire similar projects so that women Olympians and Paralympians worldwide will be recognized in Wikipedia. Join me! Rfosbury (talk) 20:31, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
  • As frequent author on women's sport topics (Inc. Encyclopedia of Women and Sport in America) I am 100% committed to the value of getting names and impressive bios and life stories of women athletes in the public eye at every opportunity possible esp thru a source as accessible as Wikipedia. This is an extremely worthy topic. No one (not even majority of sport academics understands how utterly 'anonymous' are women athletes! 38.125.52.133 23:53, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
  • As Past President of the Australian Society for Sports History, I strongly commend this project to increase the number of Wikipedia articles on US women Olympians and Paralympians and improve existing short entries. It will help achieve gender balance on Wikipedia and encourage the deeper engagement of students and faculty with Wikipedia. In these ways, the project will enhance the impact of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia and a teaching resource. Gary Osmond, Ph.D., The University of Queensland.
  • As Head of the Olympic Studies Centre of the International Olympic Committee, I fully endorse this project. Not only will it give the opportunity for important knowledge to be built and shared with the world, it will also be a very valuable experience for the Olympic Movement to learn from and maybe multiply on other topics. Bogner maria (talk) 16:33, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
  • The Los Angeles Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games 2028 will devote the next 11 years to welcoming Olympians and Paralympians from around the world. The committee supports this proposal. As the role of women continues to grow in international sport, it is important that the stories of pioneering women athletes be told. Wikipedia is an international information source. This proposal is a great first step in expanding the written history of all women athletes. LA 2028 Press (talk) 17:31, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
  • As President of Southern California Olympians and Paralympians Association I strongly endorse this proposal. Clearly, the impact and influence of women athletes is grossly underrepresented not only on Wikipedia, but by mainstream media as well. Initiatives such as this will begin to shed light on the many important roles that women have played throughout the history of the Games. Van.Haven (talk) 00:16, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
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