Wikimedia Conference 2012/Documentation/Day 2/WLM

  • Wiki loves monuments calendar 2012 is distributed
  • 2011 - World record for most photos submitted in a month (Details?)
  • 2012 - started organising in Dec '11
    • 25 countries participating (no antarctic rep)
    • 300K - 500K photos expected.
  • Federative process
    • Has to be done by local people!
      • Team can assist with technical things
    • 5 basic recommendations, but can add local rules to cover local situations.
    • Small budget for a grant programme.
    • Add incentives to get better pictures.
    • Talk to other countries!
    • See the FAQ and the Who's who page.
    • Documentation will be on Commons

Contest rules edit

  • Pictures have to be self-taken
  • Has to be uploaded in September
  • Default license must be CC-BY-SA-3.0
  • Pictures have to be identified by locally determined identifier. The database should be able to do geolocation based on this, and a bot geotags them.
  • Participants must have their email identified.

Judging criteria edit

  • Technical quality
  • Originality and Wow! factor
  • Usefulness for Wikipedia (advised)
  • Still a question of taste

Jury suggestions edit

  • Have a diverse jury
  • Have it ready one month ahead
  • e.g. 2 photographers, 2 heritage specialists, 3 WIkimedians & a facilitator.
  • Lock them in a room, set a deadline, provide cookies and coffee and medical help (very advised) - not too much alcohol though.
  • Can also have public voting on the wiki if you want.

Organisers edit

  • Gather at least 3 people
  • Get your local chapter to support you
  • Divide the tasks (NB, if you try to do all the work yourself, it won't work!)
  • Watch the timeline: which tasks by when? Registering domain, getting a jury, etc. (start early)
  • Build a portal on your local Wikipedia in your local language
  • Create a Wikimedia Commons page
  • Subscribe to the international mailing list.
  • Be bold in contacting partners!

Incentives edit

  • Make it easy
  • Make it fun
  • Make it local (e.g. by having a monument list which is so extensive that people in all places can participate)
  • Help Wikipedia (this way they will keep participating even if they know that they can't win)
  • Give quick and visible results (e.g. seeing their photo on Wikipedia - this is an honour to many people!)

commons:Commons:Wiki Loves Monuments/Philosophy

Partners edit

  • Write to them, call them, meet them!
  • Make use of the name Wikipedia
  • Three main types:
    • Government institutions
    • Publicity partners
    • Sponsors
  • Use European Heritage Days to promote WLM
  • National heritage days: usually monuments open their doors for the public
  • including geo-tagging? most pictures in WLM are geo-tagged already
  • Heritage days are really good for "wiki takes" days - because monuments open their doors.
  • Pictures that already exist aren't a problem: you can often take a better one.
  • How to inform winners? Was previously a problem, but they will have a better handle on the timeline now.
  • Had a pro photographer on the panel of judges in France, also had a prizegiving in a great venue in Cluny. Has been a great PR opportunity.
  • need to sort out sponsoring opportunities: clashes between competing brands is a risk, but the international sponsorship will take a long time, so don't wait for it. If local chapter can help with international sponsorship, great.
  • Have to be clear that it's not going to become the Sony competition with a Wikipedia logo. * risk of becoming a war of logos. Must also not tarnish the Wikipedia brand or sell ourselves out.
  • geo-tagging is not required but makes it much more interesting for the participants. Monuments can be shown on a map etc.
  • Open Street Map: difficult to get a cooperation, but it's worth trying.
  • some official source has to determine whether a monument is worth documenting, i.e. if it is part of the national/cultural heritage
  • Partnership with other social media, e.g. facebook? This is difficult because we don't have contacts with them at the moment.
  • Verification of whether the picture is of the monument itself? Always an issue in WM Commons, but in this case, if you see a picture and it doesn't match the description of the monument as per its ID number, that will clearly disqualify it.
  • What are the "nice to have" vs "must do" parts? There are only a few people in some chapters, and it's a lot of work. Only 3 people from Polish chapter did WLM, but they got about 50 volunteers.
    • Must-have are list and jury
  • Sign up for the Wikimania DC event to make sure that it happens!