Hi Roger,
I think there are indeed a few things that characterize a 'Wiki Loves Monuments' - amongst those is, that it is a photo competition about monuments :) Hence, if categorizing would be the main activity, it would make a lot more sense indeed to find a different name. It would have nothing to do any more with 'flexible rules', but rather an entirely different concept. Which doesn't make it a bad idea though.
Wiki Loves Monuments is a great way to get quite good quality pictures of monumental buildings. Even though you have many uncategorized images, there are definitely going to be many locations still without a good quality picture. At the same time, a big benefit is that you make a large group of people (especially amateur photographers) aware that Wikipedia is editable, which gives you an opportunity (not a garantuee) that they can be persuaded to stick around. Additionally it is a nice opportunity to work together with a different kind of partners, but I understand that you have no scarcity there.
As far as I know, Maarten is currently trying to run a lot of the categorization automated, and that seems to be going well although it will take quite a while before it is finished.
But yes, you will have definitely to ask yourself the question whether you want to run this competition at all. Most Wikipedians I heard so far on this topic seem indeed to be mainly worried about categorization, and find that of the most importance (please correct me when I'm wrong). Just don't get the impression that this potential audience that is out there (heritage enthusiasts, photographers) which you might be able to motivate for Wiki Loves Monuments, will be similarly interested in a 'categorization contest'. So far, I have met 1 non-Wikipedian interested in categorization. Ever. And he was only interested because he once did a paper or something on the topic :)
So to put it simple: there is an opportunity to run a Wiki Loves Monuments in the UK. I personally think it is a great thing to do, and am happy to assist in any way possible to help you get it organized. But in the end, the enthusiasm and effort have to come from UK volunteers. I am not a categorization magician, so I can unfortunately not make that problem go away for you - even though I have tried to pull some strings and get other people take a look at it.
Running a categorization contest/event for the Wikipedians (because other people are unlikely to be interested) before the start of Wiki Loves Monuments sounds like a great idea, because the two can potentially reinforce each other. Imho mixing the two up would make things complicated, and weaken both ideas.
With kind regards,
Lodewijk
No dia 30 de Janeiro de 2012 17:22, Roger Bamkin
<victuallers@gmail.com> escreveu:
UK Wikimedians are not entirely indifferent to proper subcategorisation of photos (outdoor or in) on a vaguely monumental theme - lol
Well that was a useful push at the linits of what is possible as I knew you thought that the rules were flexible. I'm feeling on this thread that we need to know why we are gathering more pics when we have so many.
One appeal in WLM was to see the blip of new users on commons that WLM delivered. I only offer the categorisation project because that is where we have a large backlog. I know the category model is tricky but surely its a problem we cannot allow newbies to ignore? Otherwise our categorisation problems gets worse.
We are saying that we should ask people to take pictures of things that we don't have pictures of ..... but we have no idea which things we don't have pictures of.
What would you say were the main benefits of WLM. to the UK given that
we do have thousands and thousands of photos that are uncategorised?
Hi Roger,
I feel sorry for you that you have the feeling that you went out for nothing. However, you did surely add to the wealth - having multiple photos of something is also worth something.
A categorization project sounds great, but should probably not be called 'wiki loves monuments' to avoid confusion. It is also much less useful to new users, the main target group of Wiki Loves Monuments. We shouldn't bother them with Commons' horrible categorization structure - they should just identify what is on their photo, and we can (automagically) take it from there thanks to the (to be built) database.
If you want to motivate people from our communities to categorize pictures, that would be a nice project in its own right. Perhaps it would be nice to do *before* wiki loves monuments - so that both get maximum effect?
Lodewijk
No dia 30 de Janeiro de 2012 15:29, Roger Bamkin
<victuallers@gmail.com> escreveu:
Anecdotal story: My wife decided to take me outside for a trip and asked where I wanted to go. I'd recently seen a tool by Magnus Mankse called Shoot me which lists out all the wiki articles geo tagged near you that lacked pics. So I quickly went
http://toolserver.org/~magnus/wikishootme/index.html
and that listed out half a dozen useful places near me that lacked pics. We went out .... took the pics and when I went to load them I found out that all these pictures already existed ..... they were uncategorised, but there. I think I loaded some *new* pix but I'm not sure I added much to "the wealth".
So if our objective is to "supply everything to everyone" (paraphrase our vision), then first we need a copy of everything. It could be that we already have a copy of nearly everything if we could just sort out what we had and what we lacked. However the chances of running a successful UK categorisation project is low..... or is it?
Do you know I just typed the last sentence and realised that that is what we want. We want a categorisation project. What we know will appeal is a successful photography project. Hmmm
UK WIKI LOVES MONUMENTS - wacky proposal
Prize goes to the best five media files in a complete Wiki-Commons-Category
Entrants will ensure that they use a valid commons category for a village, road, type of monuments etc. They will populate that category with as many photos and videos and sounds as possible. They are invited to add their own pictures, viideo and sounds but also to collect as many freely sourced files they can find from other sources too.
Judges will look at wikimedia commons pages, wikipedia, wikisource etc pages that use or could use these resources. They will choose the winning category and the five media files that best illustrate its reason for winning. This is a "beauty" competition that is is not just based on the quality of the media but also the quantity, meta data and completeness of the chosen category.
So thats an idea for what might work Please feel free to ignore, delete or modify--
Roger Bamkin
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--
Roger Bamkin
01332 702993
0758 2020815
Google+:Victuallers
Skype:Victuallers1
Flickr:Victuallers2
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