User:JFPerry

JFPerry User page

Wikimedia Interests, areas of knowledge

• Women's cycle racing (wikipedia)
• Scottish Highland Games (wikicities)
• Russian language

I found my way to Wikipedia through the article in Wired magazine. I immediately recognized the applicability of the project to some of my own Internet plans (in particular, those related to both women's cycle racing and highland games) which could both benefit greatly from the technology (including licensing) which provides a solid foundation for collaborative work in general.

In addition, I am a strong supporter of open source work in general. Long live Richard Stallman and others who pioneered in this field!

Internet experience

• HTML, CSS, C++ (current study), web site maintenance and promotion

Computers

• 486 (Windows 3.1) - until very recently, still used for some Internet work (using Opera 3.62 browser)
• i586 (Linux)
• iMac (OS 9)
• PowerMac G5 (Mac OS X 10.3)

Highland Games

The Vancouver Ladies Pipe Band marches into competition at the Pacific Northwest Highland Games in the early 1990s

Although my main contributions to Wikipedia thus far have been in the area of Women's cycle racing area (see below), my principal future activities will likely be connected with the Scottish Highland Games. A proposal for a Highland Games Wikicity will be tendered very shortly. I would like to hear from anyone interested in working on this project.

One of my main goals with respect to Highland Games activities is to improve the reporting of results of competitions, especially the athletic competitions. If these events are to take their place as serious sporting activities and be recognized as such (as they should), then it is necessary that there be developed a system of same or next day reporting of results. Only in this way can a fan base be fully developed and serviced. The colaborative potential of the Wiki software provides the basis for doing just this.

Women's cycle racing

Formerly, in the late 1990s, I was the webmaster of Mari Holden's official web site at http://www.mariholden.com. And, for a number of years, until mid-2003, I maintained the Palmarès of Elite Women Cycle Racers web site. This web site was the largest site on the web devoted exclusively to women's cycle racing, attracting between three and four thousand site visits per week.

Much of the material obtained in support of the former Palmares web site (that which is suitable for inclusion in the Wikipedia), including many dozens of photos, will be made available under free license terms on Wikipedia.

Articles created

• Jochen Dornbusch

• Mari Holden
• Rasa Polikeviciute
• Edita Pucinskaite
• Diana Ziliute

• Women's Challenge cycle race
• Grande Boucle
• Tour de l'Aude Cycliste Feminin

Major edits

• created Women's cycle racing category
• Sports in Lithuania
• Jeannie Longo

Images uploaded

• 6 photographs related to women's cycle racing and Highland Games so far (many more to come)

Note on sources

The Palmarès of Elite Women Cycle Racers web site, although no longer available, but with much of the material probably available through archive.org (look for wcrpalmares.org), is the immediate basis for much of the data regarding women cycle racers which I am in the process of posting.

But the primary source (and the basis for the data on the Palmarès web site itself) consists mainly of official race results as reported from official sources and posted on the official race web site for the given races. For results prior to about 1998, Alfred North's data, as reported on the former cyclebase.nl web site was extensively used. At tmes, other sources, such as radsport.de, were also used in the compilation of the data on the Palmarès web site.

Further sources include the UCI web site (http://www.uci.ch), especially for more recent data and, where available, the riders' own web sites. In many instances, I asked the riders themselves to check over the data as reported on the Palmarès web site and report back with any errors they might find. In only one instance did a rider request that a correction be made. First, in that case, I added a result not previously known to me. And secondly, the rider reported that she had finished in 2nd place in a time trial, while the Palmarès web site data indicated that she had won the race. A check with the race director of the race in questin revealed that the Palmarès web site was in fact correct and the rider was thus able to correct her own resumè based on the Palmarès data!

The bottom line is: I have a high degree of confidence in the accuracy of the posted data. A true and correct copy will be kept available on my hard drive, so that it will always be available in case of need.

Photography, Videography

A number of photographs taken by myself have been posted to the various articles on women's cycle racing. Most of these were obtained at the Women's Challenge race between the years 1998 and 2002, the last year in which that race was held. In addition, I obtained a number of photos at the Sea Otter Classic and at the Tour of Willamette.

My current work in this field is in the area of videography and centers mainly around the Scottish Highland Games.