I think in fact all the points mentioned in Charles' and Lodovik's were
messages were before the GLAM task force, in at least some form, when we
discussed the matter. The term and concept of a "National Monument"
does not exist as such in the UK, as opposed to other countries, in
itself something of a problem. I believe the Netherlands has a single
list, some 30,000 strong, covering all types of sites, buildings, and
things. That is certainly not the case in the UK where (I forget the
exact figures) when you add listed buildings to Scheduled Ancient
Monuments and other types, you get well over a million, but for the most
part without easily accessible listings. As Andrew rightly points out,
these are not all centralized - listed buildings are by local authority
and SAM's under different bodies for the constituent counties of the UK.
The time available to assemble such listings, which seems to be a
very large task, although in theory the information is available, was
probably inadequate.
As well as photos, many Dutch NMs received WP articles, (also in
English) apparently on the basis that NM's were inherently notable, but
there are several precedents for eg UK listed buildings being held not
to be notable, and the same would be true of the lesser sort of SAMs
which form the majority (hut circles, medieval moats etc). We felt a
rash of deleted articles as a result of a NM project might have a
negative effect.
Overhanging all this was the 80,000 (is it now) mostly good quality,
photos that are already on Commons from Geograph, that are still
unsorted, or incorrectly categorized. Bearing in mind that many of the
326 photos in
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_Loves_Art_at_the_Victo…
from February 2009 are still otherwise uncategorized, or not well
categorized, we thought that pressing on with digesting the Geograph
material was a priority.
In the light of this, and the number of other projects the chapter has
taken on, and the lack of anyone pressing to lead the iniative, we
decided not to involve trhe chapter this year, and I still think we made
the right decision.
John