I disagree: the volunteers are extremely important in every aspect of deciding if, which and how there will be a contest. Without a drive of the volunteers for the topic and method of the competition, nothing will happen successfully. Lots of stuff went wrong this year - and most of it was fixed by volunteers who cared for the cause. If we choose a topic that doesn't suit them, I guarantee that the contest (or any project) will fall flat on its face. And many volunteers care not because of the photos, but because of the heritage part. So if we want to change to natural heritage, we should make sure there are enough (different? the same?) volunteers that support it. But yeah, if there's a big support for writing poems, maybe we should consider that too :) 

Anyway, October it is! :) Feel free of course to poke if nothing in this discussion happened by October 25 - I hope to initiate a discussion before that.

Lodewijk


2013/9/27 Ilario Valdelli <valdelli@gmail.com>
I agree, but you are not speaking about doing or not doing a photo contest next year, but to change the objectives.

I may understand if you would switch the contest by writing poems and not taking photos, in this case the volunteers involvement is important, but the discussion is mainly to define if next year there will be one, two, or three events or a change of objectives, but there will be anyway a photo contest.

Anyway I agree that October is a good compromise, but a clearer picture should be defined before the end of 2013.

Regards


On Fri, Sep 27, 2013 at 11:05 AM, Lodewijk <lodewijk@effeietsanders.org> wrote:
Please note that I said we should have this discussion by the end of October, not a few months before the event. 

The quality of the discussion and the success of the ongoing competition is more important to me than how convenient it is for the budget planning of individual chapters. They can work around this by stating for example that they want to participate in 'one international photo competition *such as* Wiki Loves Monuments'. There seems consensus that there will be at least one international photo competition, so that should be safe. 

The major bottle neck for organizing these competitions is not staff, is not budget (although the lack of it can impact the quality we can deliver). The major bottle neck is volunteers that are willing to do the work - basically what Charles described quite vividly. Budget and staff should support those efforts. 

Lodewijk


2013/9/27 Ilario Valdelli <valdelli@gmail.com>
Let's explain why it may be important not to have a clear picture but at least to define the strategy for 2014... some countries are defining the budget for 2014, mainly for FDC, and they have to define the project plan for next year.

If WLM is not done, I suppose that there would be a general displeasure connected with the request of budget or project plan for 2014.

The same also about reconfirmation of project managers and the working group.

As member of GAC I would say that WLM is becoming an important and crucial event for a lot of chapters and they plan it the year before. Around this event there is a big planning and a decision or a "may be" can have a lot of consequences.

I think that it's time to consider this point and to forget to manage an event like WLM with the same parameters of an event driven by the community and by the volunteers. Behind it there now organizations, staffs and budgets and the requests of WMF to manage them are not so flexible as the flexibility used to take the decision within WLM.

There is no need to have a clear picture but it may be the best to define a general trend. If this decision will come later in the 2014, some months before the start of the event, it may have a big impact in the planning of chapters and may generate a lot of work.

Regards



On Fri, Sep 27, 2013 at 10:27 AM, Lodewijk <lodewijk@effeietsanders.org> wrote:
Again, I suggest we have this discussion in October :) We still have a lot of work to be done, and that makes it harder to be honest while keeping up motivation too. 

I'm not sure if a 'formal' evaluation process would be helpful here - most of the measures won't be available. There will be an evaluation of WLM internationally, but considering the timepath I don't want to wait for that. This decision does not primarily depend on past decisions, how well it went in the past, or even on results, but on the main bottleneck of these events: what do the volunteers want. The only thing I can imagine to wait for is the organizers survey that we'll be running like last year (this is different from the participant survey organized mostly by Beat).

Lodewijk


2013/9/27 Ilario Valdelli <valdelli@gmail.com>
Honestly I would suggest a competition which will not face copyright problems.

A Wiki Loves Earth will give less problems than a Wiki Loves Arts. I don't remember that animals or plants can ask for fee or for copyrights or for privacy.

Some countries like Italy, for instance, will have to do a lot of preliminary work to know if they can participate in a Wiki Loves Art.

Regards


On Fri, Sep 27, 2013 at 10:17 AM, Àlex Hinojo <alexhinojo@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,

I do agree with Lodewijk. Once the contest is finished, we need to have some calmed discussion on what do we want 2014 to be. Some contests have raisen up and we all have pro/cons feelings and experiences. 

Some options have already been raised. We could also use some of the program evaluation techniques in order to make a deep avaluation on the project. Sarah, can you help on this? 
Regarding the Wiki Loves Public Art, I do agree that a wider Wiki Loves Art concept could be a great idea. 

So should we stat this debate formally in some wiki page once the contest has finished?  
 


--
Sent from a mobile device




--
Ilario Valdelli
Wikimedia CH
Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
Tel: +41764821371
http://www.wikimedia.ch

_______________________________________________
Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list
WikiLovesMonuments@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments
http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org


_______________________________________________
Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list
WikiLovesMonuments@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments
http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org



--
Ilario Valdelli
Wikimedia CH
Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
Tel: +41764821371
http://www.wikimedia.ch

_______________________________________________
Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list
WikiLovesMonuments@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments
http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org


_______________________________________________
Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list
WikiLovesMonuments@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments
http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org



--
Ilario Valdelli
Wikimedia CH
Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
Tel: +41764821371
http://www.wikimedia.ch

_______________________________________________
Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list
WikiLovesMonuments@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments
http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org