Sports

Girl Power

by Pat_Nolan | March 18, 2007 at 12:50 am

1330 views | 0 Recommendations | 6 comments

Photos

Rugby pics -- SNAFU tournament NDSU v. UND male and female sides

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uploaded by Pat_Nolan

A University of North Dakota Sweet Demon rugger struggles to break away from a North Dakota State University Fighting Snapper. Women's Rugby is growing at a rapid pace, about 18 percent per year for the last 8 years, according to US Rugby.

Title IX considerations contribute to rapid growth of the lady's sides. Universitys seeking to provide parity with high dollar men's sports like football and hockey are pumping money into women's collegiate sports. Women's rugby is one of the few collegiate sports in the US to near parity in funding, support and fan interest.

As a result of their early immersion in the sport, foreign exchange students from the UK, Austrialia and New Zealand are recruited by the clubs like star football players, sans scholarships.

Although, growth of American high school rugby clubs at roughly the same rate as local and collegiate clubs. The Springfield Rugby Football Club in Springfield, Mo., owns its own pitch and is workign building a pavillion and eventually a clubhouse and proper stands.

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matte

at 04:47 on March 18th, 2007

NowPublic is a site devoted to user-generated news. At NowPublic, we have a very simple definition of news that allow our members to be assured that what they read is actually newsworthy:

"News is new information on current events." We believe that most people have this in mind when they search out news, regardless of the format in which it is received.

So given this, the news you post on NowPublic should be "news" and typically consist of one of these three forms:

1. Original, relevant information about a current event that you have actually witnessed, documented, or researched
2. New information you have collected, arranged, and contextualized about a current event
3. Commentary, advice or analysis directly related to a current event

I've found that this posting is not particularly newsworthy, because it is not connected with a current event or phenomenon.

Please feel free to write your own comment in response, but first check out NowPublic news values and our Code of Conduct. These will make your stuff better.

matte

at 13:16 on March 18th, 2007

Those others are being addressed as well. It is part of a process just started. Not just by me but the other 15 editors as well.

But "Great photo refining beauty" tells us nothing new, adds nothing new and is too short to be commentary. There should be enough there to tell us the story, without any need for clickthrough.

matte

at 21:00 on March 18th, 2007

ummm, but there is no photo anyway for a caption ;)

Dave Ward

at 22:15 on March 18th, 2007

Isn't it pretty obvious that the sentence "Women's Rugby is growing at a rapid pace." is not a news article?

Write a few paragraphs about the growth of women's rugby. Present some data showing that growth. Find a few quotes from people about it. Research it and tell us something about the growth of women's rugby.

A mechanism for posting photos alone already is in place here and works perfectly well; If you want to add photos without posting a news story, you can do that by uploading the photo. It works perfectly well.

matte

at 00:03 on March 19th, 2007

The photo upload still requires additional elements of a story, - there is room for this on that page. Essentially the news aspects still apply - even a great pic needs to be placed into its news context. This greatly assists the reader in knowing what the heck it is about, and the news that goes with it. The news can be simple, even local sporting club news is fine.

Victoria Revay

at 11:42 on March 19th, 2007

Why are there peas attached to this story?

Dave Ward

at 14:08 on March 19th, 2007

Beats me! But more to the point, why is this "news article" still here. It hasn't been rewritten to become a news piece.

But that's not the only rule broken by the post. The only commentary is the photographer commenting on his own photo, claiming that it somehow "redefines beauty." Isn't there a rule about how product reviews have to be written by an independent party?

As it stands, the "Girl Power" post is nothing more than the photographer promoting his photography. There's no news here. We're not being informed. There's no thoughtful commentary offered -- just a bit of self-promotion/horn-tooting.

When this article was first posted, I posted my own variation of it, also called "Girl Power", linking to one of my own photos, stating that it "redefines beauty" and that female boxing is growing at a rapid pace. Both articles got the same reply from matte. I deleted my own post altogether right away, because I assumed that my point about the inappropriate and self-promotional nature of this "article" had been effectively made.

But this article has been neither rewritten nor deleted. Obviously I was wrong. :-(

Pat_Nolan

at 03:10 on March 23rd, 2007

Dave,

I run a collection agency, write a weekly column on the collections process, volunteer with CCCS and am producing two video documentaries with my wife. If my not being fast enough at updating bothers you, well, too bad. One day you're just going to have to get accustomed to being disappointed.