Hi all,
in the past we have discussed a web based tool to help the juries in their
selection. The idea was:
* Use Category:XXX as input
* Browse through the pictures in that category one by one
* Remember where the tool is left
* Allow the jury member to browse quickly (1 sec per picture - so only
limited resolution to improve loading time) and
* Allow the jury member to 'set apart' (favorite?) images as he goes by -
and view that selection later to trim it down (possibly by downloading the
file and saving it in a folder if he clicks a button)
Who could help with that, if it doesnt exist yet?
thanks,
Lodewijk
My opinion as promised.
I will save my time saying how great the organizers are that we managed to
go above 160K photos etc. This is certainly correct, and I am sure we will
have more of this as we categorize the pictures and the
juries analyze the results. Let me instead go straight to the business.
1. Success or failure?
To my understanding, the purpose of WLM is a subset of WMF mission: To
facilitate creation and propagation of free knowledge related to cultural
heritage (specifically, monuments of architecture and history).
Did WLM advanced this mission? Yes and no. Why?
Well, if you set smth as a competition, then you should expect that the
results conform with the conditions of the competition. The upside of the
competition is that it makes it easy to motivate people, to create high
profile which facilitates advancing the cause (especially if the Guinness
book thing will go through), and to attract new users. The downside is that
you get what is determined by the competition program: In our case, this
was a photo competition with prizes for quality and quantity, and,
consequently, we got a big number of pictures, many of which are of poor
quality (to achieve the quantity bar) or represent well-known objects which
were already sufficiently well illustrated (to have a shot at quality). In
many cases this is a huge step forward, since the monuments which were not
previously illustrated at all get poor quality illustrations, and this is
much better than no illustration at all.
Another point which was repeatedly discussed is the scope. Only 18
countries participated, all of them in Europe, one of them (Russia) imposed
strict geographic limits and started with a two-week delay, another one
(Hungary) also started later.
2. What can we do better next year?
One obvious thing to realize is that different countries are now in a very
different positions. To give examples, Andorra now has the pictures of all
their monuments, the Netherlands stands at about 60%, Denmark has I guess
below 10%, Russia is still having difficulties compiling the lists, and
Japan and Canada did not even start researching. Obviously, Andorra would
not be so much interested in WLM-12 if it is positioned as a photo contest,
the Netherlands will be in a situation when all the easy pictures are still
done, and what is left are mostly monuments in smaller towns or those which
are not publicly accessible, and for Russia or Canada this might still be a
major event with lasting consequences.
This means that next year we would need to be more creative and
differentiate more. One obvious step is to make the competition worldwide,
so that every country which is able to produce the list(s) of monuments
will be eligible to participate.
Second, I guess we should keep photos as the main target, but we should
make it clear that we are interested in (i) photos of the monuments which
previously had no photos; (ii) new photos of the monuments which illustrate
some particular details not covered previously; (iii) photos which have
superior quality
over those previously existed. The points (ii) and (iii) are tricky (not
everybody understands quality in the same way - for instance, if you need
to take a picture of a house at a side of a narrow street, is a better
photo from the side but not distorted, or upfront with strong
distortions?), but I think as a direction it is appropriate.
Third, I think we should start slowly moving to writing articles and have
prizes for this. I am not sure what is the best way to organize this (one
way for instance would be like in GLAM Derby, with a number of points for
an article in each language depending on the quality of the article - in
this case it needs to be sorted out whether a particular country gives
prizes only for the articles on the languages of this country, only about
monuments of this country or whatever, we have a year to discuss the
terms), but if in 2012 articles are no part of the competition, we
seriously risk to lose the most successful countries - those which are
better organized and where are little or no photos left.
There are also some minor issues for improvement. Translation of the lists
could be one thing (I spent yesterday a couple of hours trying to figure
out the structure of Danish and Swedish lists - and I am not a complete
stranger to these languages. A list in Japanese next year would mean only
Japanese could contribute with Japanese monuments). In this way, we make
sure that the competition is really worldwide: One can upload not just the
monuments from his/her own country, but from any eligible country (and may
be even from every country at all, provided there is an access to the
monument IDs). Some of the countries may get preferential treatment like
Switzerland this year: Indeed, in Norway, Russia, or Chile September may
not be the best month to take pictures. There have been several more issues
which came to my mind during September but completely escaped by now. If
these issues come back, I will post them.
3. Meta-project and long-term goals.
Another good thing we should realize is that this is an example of
successful grass-root cross-project collaboration. (The only other one I
know is GLAM). Such collaboration was extensively discussed last year in
the Strategy discussions where I was an active participant. I think the
activities actually require a continuous work and coordination, and for
this coordination we need a meta-project - an analog of a Wikipedia project
based on Meta and doing cross-project work. Obviously only people
interested in the advancement of the cause would participate since this an
everyday (and mostly routine) work - I would definitely be interested in
doing this. Obvious issues to be handled by the project are:
* Coordination of cleaning up Commons after WLM-2011: What is the best way
to categorize pictures, what is suitable for creation into articles etc.
* Coordination of article writing: This is clearly a cross-project
activity and should be done on Meta. The project created by Jane on en.wp
could be a good starting point, but in my opinion this should not be WLM11,
WLM12 or WLM24, since the article stay (hopefully) forever, but just one
WLM or even Cultural Heritage cross-project.
* Reaching out the countries which do not participate in WLM. If a country
is unfortunate to have no chapter, or to have an unable chapter, or to have
a chapter not interested in WLM it still can be helped if the lists of
monuments somehow exist. I would definitely invest time in creating the
heritage lists for say Albania or Guatemala if there is some input provided
somehow. This is the work for the project.
* Translating the lists I believe is also the work appropriate for a
meta-project.
I think the idea of a meta-project is also interesting since it could
become a pilot meta-project. Lodewijk mentioned once that there was
interest expressed in extending things from monuments to rivers and I do
not remember what else - if monuments are successful as a meta-project,
then it shows the rivers how they could be successful too.
Cheers
Yaroslav
PS The will be no Analysis II from my part unless solicited.
Hello everybody,
We made a draft for the thank you message (which is planned to be posted on the talk pages of all participants). And the survey which will be linked from the thank you message.
They are below my email.
Please give any suggestions before 19:00 CET or 17:00 UPC 3 October (tomorrow), so that we can start with translating then. A new email will be send by that time containing the publish version.
Mvg,
Bas (vb)
--------------------Thank-you-message----------------------
==Wiki loves Monuments 2011 has finished==Dear {{NAME}},
Thank you for contributing to Wiki Loves Monuments and sharing your pictures with the whole world. You are very welcome to keep uploading images, even though you can't win prizes any longer. To get started on editing relevant Wikipedia articles, click here[LINK] for more information and help. You can find all uploaded pictures in our central media collection Wikimedia Commons. Many photos are already used in Wikipedia. The contest was very successful with more than 165.000 images submitted throughout Europe.
To make future contests even more successful, we would like to invite you to share your experiences with us in this survey[LINK GOES HERE>SEE BELOW].
Kind regards,
the Wiki Loves Monuments team
---------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------Survey------------------------------------
0: Demographics* What country do you live in?* Photos of what countries did you upload?* What year were you born?
How did you find us?* Through the sitenotice* I was already editing Wikipedia before* Through social media* Through news media (which?)* Someone I know* Other: ___
1 .Motivation
My main motivation for submitting a photo to Wiki Loves Monuments was (select all that apply):* It was easy enough* To help Wikipedia* To win a prize* Other:______
2. Usability
What was the main obstacle (if at all) for you to participate? If you wish, you can elaborate in detail. _____
3. Content
On a scale of 1 to 5.* I am likely to participate next year again if organized in my country* I would recommend Wiki Loves Monuments to my friends* I am now more likely to correct mistakes and/or add content on Wikipedia.
4. Timeline
Please select all that apply:* My images were made in September 2011 (I made them on purpose to participate in WLM)* My images were made in the months before (during travel in 2011 )* My images were made 2000 - 2010.* My images were made before 2000.
5. General comments
Please write down here any further remarks or suggestions: _________________
You can give your username here if you would like to allow us to follow up: ___________
------------------------------------------------------------
Unrelated to my previous post (which is apparently so long that nobody
bothers to read it through)
Now we have a lot of work to do on Commons to accomodate the images, and I
came across the following problem. Let me cite an example.
There were 12 files uploaded of the St. Paul and the St. Peter Cathedral
in Peterhof, Russia. Most, if not all of them are uncategorized (meaning
only have the categories autoimatically inherited from the template). This
is one example (I have just categorized it):
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%A1%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%BE%D1%80_%D0%B…
The cathedral has an id which is 7801172001. All pictures uploaded under
WLM have the template with the ID.
There are also pictures of the cathedral uploaded before September 2011.
There is a separate category for the cathedral:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Saints_Peter_and_Paul_Cathedral_…
They have no id template.
Can the following work done by a bot?
1) I (or somebody else) puts in the category the ID template for a certain
monument (this of course only works if a category corresponds to one and
only one monument);
2) A bot searches for all files with this monument ID and addes the
category (possibly removing the parent category if applicable);
3) A bot adds the ID template to all files in the category.
Is it feasible? Is it reasonable? Could it be done on a regular basis? I
guess it would save a lot of time to those who work on Commons. Though
categorizing 12 files and adding templates to 20 more files is not a big
deal, doing this for every popular monument can be a bit annoying.
Cheers
Yaroslav
Since the question was just raised on the IRC channel, I thought I'd share
our procedure with everybody.
First, some background information: We have nine jurors in Germany, eight of
them being Wikipedians from various fields and backgrounds and one expert.
The jury will meet at the end of October for two days and will compile a top
100.
To prepare this weekend (they have to reach a decision then no matter what
;) ) it's obviously necessary to previously review all the pictures, there
shouldn't be more than say 600-900 pictures to judge from. So we decided to
do the following: Each of the eight Wikipedians will get his or her share of
the almost 30000 uploads and will have to select at most 100 to bring to the
final round.
Each juror receives his or her 3750 pictures on a usb flash drive. This
allows me to "randomize" what each juror gets and is also very convenient
for the jurors since they don't have to download anything. On the flash
drive, each juror can handle the pictures in whatever way they like. They
can delete some, create folders, use the image viewer of their choice, tag
the pictures etc. For the final meeting, they can just bring the flash drive
with them and the jury can quickly and easily create a shortlist.
The files still have their original name, so after the jury made their
decision, they can go to commons and check whether each selected picture
really fulfills all requirements.
So how does it work exactly?
I got a chronological list from the commons API with all files uploaded for
WLM in Germany. I asked german Wikipedian DerHexer for the list, he claims
it's quite easy to do, we already asked him to provide examples or - even
better - a small form.
The list comes as one long line separated by spaces (which in my opinion is
weird ;) ) and I wrote a short python script to handle it:
print "importing modules"
import os
print "reading monument list"
file = open("komplett.txt","r")
inhalt = file.read()
liste = inhalt.split()
print "starting download"
juror = 1
counter = 0
for monument in liste:
print counter
# going to destination
os.chdir(str(juror))
# preparing wget
call = "wget " + monument
# call wget
os.system(call)
# mess with jurors
juror = juror + 1
if juror > 8: juror = 1
counter = counter + 1
os.chdir("..")
print "Done. " + str(counter) + " files processed."
It's a little messed up in terms of language, but I guess you can see what
it does. komplett.txt is the file with all the urls in it, i split it up and
process each url. As I already mentioned, we have eight jurors, so I created
eight folders named "1", "2", ..., "8" and the script walks through these
folders. It works quite well, currently I'm at number 1600 ;)
So if there are any questions, let me know, I'll try to answer them.
Best regards,
Kilian
On http://etherpad.wikimedia.org/WLM-thankyou-survey we are working on an thank you message and survey to know what to improve next year, and to try to keep participants involved with uploading/wikipedia.
Mvg,
Bas
Hi all!
Wiki Loves Monuments is going like a charm, and we think it would be great
to nominate this wonderful project for the European Heritage
Awards<http://www.europanostra.org/apply-for-an-award-2012/>.
It would be great if we could get some extra exposure from that!
The deadline is already on October 1, so we need all help we can get to
finalize the application. The application form is quite extensive, so I
tried to make a nice etherpad out of it so you all can help. You can find it
on http://etherpad.wikimedia.org/WLM-EHA-submission. Please be careful with
editing! The history button is not as solid as on a wiki, but it does help
avoid edit conflicts.
We will need some solid info from you all too in the coming days, but I'll
put those questions in seperate threads - but at least you know where those
questions are coming from.
Best regards,
Lodewijk
