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Serendipity

Wikipedia about FIFA World Cup 2022: quick, factual and critical

I am an ardent lover of poetry, but I understand the beauty of football. Ballet-like movements, wonderful goals, the ecstasy of the crowd, and yes: even the tension that comes with a penalty shoot-out. It comes as no surprise that the match results during FIFA World Cup 2022 were reflected immediately on Wikipedia. Many Wikipedians love the game, and took pride in updating articles on this championship as quickly as possible.

The power of Wikipedia: speed & mass

The power of Wikipedia showed in three aspects during this football tournament:

accurate, balanced and factual reports about the tournament and the matches;
fast reporting of new match results and other facts;
reflection of all positive and negative aspects, such as the corruption allegations over the bid, and the horrific working conditions in Qatar during the building of the stadiums.

Photos: Creative Commons, Iran and freedom of panorama

Iranian photo press agencies deserve special mention. Fars, Tasnim & other photo agencies from Iran have been using Creative Commons licenses for years, and their photos are used thousands of times across many language versions of Wiki. FIFA World Cup 2022 also showed Iranian craftmanship, with photographers Hossein Zohrevand, Mehdi Marizad and Nima Najafzadeh shooting photographs all over. More than 500 of the photos from Fars & Tasnim Photo Agency made in Qatar were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Their photographers are professionals. Of course Tasnim and Fars mainly show the more official photos. Personal photographs made by visitors add a special flavour, like photos of the crowd and photos of protests in the stadiums. And yes: Mehr News Agency from Iran even made videos from the tournament available online under a CC-license. Regarding copyright: as there is no freedom of panorama in Qatar, detailed photos of football stadiums are not allowed to feature on Wiki. A pity? Well, I didn't like the stadiums anyway.

Africa & poetry

Wikipedia editors proved to be able to deliver a quick, balanced and competent reflection of the FIFA World Cup Football Tournament 2022. I do wish that poetry and Africa would at least once get the same attention.

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