Wiki Loves Monuments
| Wiki Loves Monuments | |
|---|---|
 Logo of Wiki Loves Monuments | |
| Begins | September 1 |
| Ends | September 30 |
| Years active | 3 |
| Inaugurated | 2010 |
| Participants | Photographers |
| Organised by | Wikipedia community members |
Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) is an annual international photographic competition during September, organised worldwide by the Wikipedia community members. Participants take pictures of historical monuments and heritage sites in their region, and upload them to Wikimedia Commons. The aim of event is to highlight the heritage sites of the participating countries.
The first Wiki Loves Monuments competition was held in 2010 in the Netherlands. The next year it spread to other countries in Europe and according to the Guinness Book of Records, the 2011 edition of the Wiki Loves Monuments broke the world record for the largest photography competition.[1] In 2012, the competition was extended beyond Europe, with a total of 35 participating countries.[2]
History
The original WLM contest for "Rijksmonuments" (Dutch for "national monuments") encouraged photographers to seek out Dutch National Heritage Sites. The Rijkmonuments include architecture and objects of general interest recognized for their beauty, scientific, and/or cultural importance. Such locations as the Drenthe archeological sites, the Noordeinde Royal Palace in The Hague, and the houses along the canals of Amsterdam were part of the more than 12,500 photographs submitted during the first event.[3]
This success generated interest in other European countries, and through a collaboration with the European Heritage Days, 18 states participated in the 2011 competition,[4][5] uploading nearly 170,000 images by its conclusion. The Guinness Book of Records recognizes the 2011 edition of Wiki Loves Monuments as the largest photography competition in the world with 168,208 pictures uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by more than 5,000 participants.[1]
In 2012, the Wiki Loves Monuments competition had official participation of more than thirty countries and regions around the world: Andorra with Catalonia, Argentina, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Panama, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United States.[2] A picture of Tomb of Safdarjung from Delhi, India, won the contest which saw more than 350,000 contributions.[6][7]
Contest rules
The basic rules for participation in Wiki Loves Monuments are quite simple for both the organizing country committees and the photographers. The participating country committees need to submit their list of monuments in such a way using unique identifiers that they can be tracked by the competition, and the participating photographers must upload their photos with unique identifiers in the time period 1 September to 30 September. Participants must upload their photos directly to Wikimedia Commons, which means that if they did not yet have one, they must first create a user account because anonymous submissions cannot win prizes. The images uploaded may have been taken at any time, but in order to be counted for the contest, they must be newly uploaded to Commons in September, and must be freely licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 (or other compatible licenses such as CC-by or CC-0).[8]
Lists
To be part of the competition, images need to be considered "encyclopedic", so they must be of monuments or places listed with the local government. This is taken care of by the submission lists per country. Photographers must upload images accompanied by an official identifier and the geographic coordinates, though they are generally not even aware they are doing this when they upload through their Wiki Loves Monuments website, or through the mobile phone app that attaches this information for them. The government listings which include this information are refined throughout the year and adjusted as monument information changes. The current selection of participating countries are simply those countries where volunteers have taken the time to create such submission lists. There are however, also some countries in which legal restrictions prevent making such lists available or in which photographs of heritage may not be eligible for Wikipedia. The legislation on cultural heritage varies widely per jurisdiction.
Unique identifiers
To help participants to find monuments in their location and connect them with their unique identifiers, the submission lists are linked from user-friendly Wiki Loves Monuments websites.[9] The Wikimedia Foundation has developed a dedicated Android smartphone app,[10] and MairDumont created an iPhone app for Wiki Loves Monuments.[11]
The logic of the WLM websites and these apps is to simplify the process of attaching the unique identifier to the photograph. Most participants are first-time contributors of Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons and are unable to do this by themselves. The unique identifier and other submission list information gets attached to the participant's photograph at the time of upload using "Wikipedia templates". For example, the unique identifier for "Smedestraat 33, Haarlem" is 19695 and can be found through the Dutch WLM website in a submission list row like this one in the Dutch Wikipedia:[12]
| Description |
Original function? |
Built |
Architect |
Location |
Coordinates? | No.? |
Image |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Smedestraat 33 (Haarlem): Brick gate with round blind window |  Border marker
|
17th century | Smedestraat 33, Haarlem | 52°22′56″N 4°38′11″E / 52.38215°N 4.63636°E | 19695 | .jpg) |
This example already has a photograph in the list uploaded during a WLM competition, but if it didn't, then the lack of a suitable image should cause a "WLM easy upload link" to appear in the list as a placeholder, which looks like this:
| Description |
Original function? |
Built |
Architect |
Location |
Coordinates? | No.? |
Image |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Smedestraat 33 (Haarlem): Brick gate with round blind window | Border marker
|
17th century | Smedestraat 33, Haarlem | 52°22′56″N 4°38′11″E / 52.38215°N 4.63636°E | 19695 |  Upload Photo |
Clicking this easy upload link should take the user to the special "WLM campaign" upload page on Commons that accepts as url arguments the submission list information. This "WLM campaign" upload page is always available for heritage fans, but the photographs only count towards the competition if this is used in September.
See also
References
- ^ a b Guinness World Records, Largest photography competition, 2012.
- ^ a b Eglash, Ruth (28 August 2012). "Hundreds of cultural sites to be visually documented during "Wiki Loves Monuments event."". Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
- ^ Template:Fr Virginie Malbos, Le monumental concours de Wikimédia, dans Libération, 9 September 2011, consulted 22 August 2012. "The operation had taken place last year in the Netherlands, and was concluded by the arrival of 12,500 new royalty-free photos."
- ^ Template:It Bologna su 'Wiki loves monuments' La raccolta delle foto più belle, dans Il Resto del Carlino, 11 août 2012, consulté le 22 août 2012. "In 2011, the competition has also increased, with the participation of 18 European countries that helped with 170,000 images, and now has the support, among others, the Council of Europe and the European Commission."
- ^ Chenu, Isabelle (25 September 2011). "Le site Wikipédia aime les monuments" (in French). Radio France Internationale. Retrieved 22 August 2012.
So far, there are 18 European countries participating in the contest.
- ^ Phadnis, Renuka (7 December 2012). "Indians win in Wiki mega photo contest". The Hindu. Bangalore, India. Retrieved 8 December 2012.
- ^ "Indian photo wins Wiki Loves Monuments online contest". BBC. 7 December 2012. Retrieved 8 December 2012.
- ^ "About the contest". Wiki Loves Monuments website. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
- ^ Each Wiki Loves Monuments website is maintained by a separate country committee and they are all linked from the main Wiki Loves Monuments official website
- ^ "Kölner fotografieren Denkmäler für Wikipedia" (in German). Koln.de Tourism. 25 September 2011. Retrieved 11 September 2012.
(...) also have two free mobile apps for competition: the Android app of the Wikimedia Foundation for direct upload to Wikimedia Commons and the iPhone app 123POI, the hundreds of thousands of sites around the world makes discoverable by geocoding.
- ^ Name * (2012-09-30). "Wiki loves Monuments: MairDumont presents special edition of its 123POI app". Mairdumont.com. Retrieved 2013-02-26.
- ^ Dutch WLM Website monuments lookup for Haarlem will take you to this List of Rijksmonuments in Haarlem Centre on the Dutch Wikipedia
External links
