Hi everybody,
I just noticed I have received on my Commons talk page the "Thank you"
message for participating in WLM.
The message is (correctly) displayed in Italian but when I click on
the survey link I get the English version of the survey.
Isn't there a way to get the user to the correct language?
Thank you.
Cristian
(changing the title to give it its own thread)
I think this discussion would indeed be best on the feedback page. But I
will respond to some of the points already here.
First off: I personally do not think this will be an ever lasting event. I
think that a country can only organize Wiki Loves Monuments 3 or 4 times in
a row without exhausting enthusiasm about it. I actually have the feeling
next year (2013) might very well be the last year that we organize it on an
international level. But I hope someone will proof me wrong!
I agree with Yaroslav that a real life organization would be a possibility.
We don't need that though. Actually, I think it would be a worse situation
than what we're in right now. It would cause a lot of bureaucracy (conflict
of interest: I would be one of the people who would have to review the
bylaws in the Affiliations committee).
An ongoing project on Commons to coordinate heritage projects would perhaps
be a good idea. Commons isn't exactly suitable for it as it also involves a
lot of other things - but it is probably better than the alternatives.
Outreachwiki would drive us too far from the content side of things etc. I
don't think it would be a priority of myself, but I can definitely see the
added value. I do not think it could or should replace current efforts, but
it should be complementary.
Some people suggested over time that Wiki Loves Monuments is a GLAM
project. Everyone who knows me, knows that I'm no fan of acronyms and
especially not this one. If you would use the alternative 'cultural
heritage institutions' (or if you prefer acronyms: CHI) it indeed fits the
definition well. However, at the same time it is quite different from all
the other initiatives that are ongoing in this field by Wikimedia.
Wiki Loves Monuments is mostly public facing and not institution-facing.
We're focused on participation by individuals, and while the institutions
that provide the infrastructure (the lists) are critical - they are
primarily a tool to reach that goal. That is why I usually consider it more
a seperate thing from traditional cultural heritage initiatives in
Wikimedia - but it has many interfaces. Every national Wiki Loves Monuments
competition has probably one or several Cultural Heritage collaborations.
In the Netherlands we collaborate with the Museum association (prize
sponsor), National heritage board (providing the lists), a
monument/heritage association (networking partner, outreach and prize
sponsor), the Architecture museum (prize sponsor), Open Monument Days
(networking partner and outreach) etc. In other countries you will likely
see similar collaborations especially in the second/third year develop.
Anyway - I definitely cheer upon Poli's great idea to have a cleanup
project. I have been doing a bunch of that myself recently on some
countries (India, Canada, Argentina) and I think it could use some help. I
think Maarten sent recently an email about it (now WLM is over, what's
next).
Yaroslav, Polimerek: would you like to volunteer to set up such portal on
Commons?
Best,
Lodewijk
2012/11/4 Jane Darnell <jane023(a)gmail.com>
> Well I wouldn't mind changing it to GLAMM - the extra M for monuments...
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Nov 4, 2012, at 10:34 AM, Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > 2012/11/4 Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod(a)mccme.ru>:
> >
> >> Another option, which I personally find more attractive, is to create a
> >> permanently functioning meta-project, smth like Project Cultural
> Heritage
> >> (scope to be discussed). It could be based on Commons or on Meta (to be
> >> discussed, both options have advantages and disadvantages). This must
> be a
> >> meta-project, because it coordinates efforts of many different projects:
> >> Different language Wikipedias, Commons (with which the interaction was
> >> sometimes not ideal), and potentially different languages in
> Wikivoyage, may
> >> be even Wikidata. Many components of this meta-project already exist on
> >> Commons and are supported by Maarten and other enthusiasts.
> >>
> >
> > Well actually it would be a kind of repetition of GLAM / Outreach
> > portal /wiki . I would rather suggest to better integrate WLM with
> > GLAM inititative of which WLM is just one of many other projects.
> > Quite successful - but not the only one.
> >
> > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Partnerships
> >
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM
> >
> > Many of these projects are about the same as WLM is - i.e. they upload
> > many photographs and then, there is no-one to effectively use them in
> > Wikipedias. Actually there is plenty of photographic/database content
> > around which is not very effectively "consumed" by Wikipedia and other
> > Wikimedia projects. The bottleneck is manpower of wiki-editors, not
> > the number of free pictures or public domain governmental data.
> >
> > So, maybe it would be interesting to have a project "Commons heritage
> > cleanup project" which might just screen how Common's content is
> > organized in Commons and how effectively it is used in other Wikimedia
> > projects.
> >
> > --
> > Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
> > http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
> > http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/
> > http://www.cbmm.lodz.pl/work.php?id=29&title=tomasz-ganicz
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list
> > WikiLovesMonuments(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments
> > http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list
> WikiLovesMonuments(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments
> http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org
>
I accidentally stumbled upon this talk page today while watching
recent changes on Commons:
<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Gampe#Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012…>.
This is absolutely amazing; WLM is probably one of the few contests in
which a single participant could reach the final stage in the
Philippines, the Czech Republic, and (I guess) the United States.
Congratulations to Carmelo!
--
Tomasz W. Kozłowski
a.k.a. [[user:odder]]
I've finished putting in everything I want to say about an adjustment
to our long-term goals and direction at
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012/Feedbac…
and will just note that this isn't a major proposed change, just a
suggestion of how we can look to the future and start making some
fairly small (but long-lasting) changes now.
Roel Balingit's note from WLMPH (below) leads me to one example of how
the proposed changes might work. They got an expression of interest
from Natural Wonders Foundation (Philippines) to start a project
similar to WLM.
If we had a more permanent, more flexible organization, they could be
referred to a (new) page on what is required to start such a project.
It would likely include things like a
*list of sites
*connection with a Wikiproject or chapter
*jury process recommendations
*recommendations for prizes
and they'd see what would likely be needed for the WLM-type project.
They might come back with "here's our list, with coordinates.
Wikiproject Philippines could likely coordinate. We're willing to
provide jurors and $xxx in prizes." At that point the Philippines
folks, would be in a much better position to decide whether they
wanted to go forward, and know the things that they would have to do
and whether they have the resources, especially manpower, to do it.
For example they might go back to the Natural Wonders people and say
"we wouldn't be able to do it for the whole country, but we could for
xxx region, and then maybe next year ...."
All the best,
Pete Ekman
User:Smallbones
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2012 10:03:57 +0800
From: Roel Balingit <roel.balingit(a)wikimedia.org.ph>
To: Wiki Loves Monuments Photograph Competition
<wikilovesmonuments(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Wiki Loves Monuments] Long term
Message-ID:
<CA+cNg2Su=pQnZVBdt8KfAsAA-3XG_gA8d936VCDOc+ae=Cv_8A(a)mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
If I may just provide input, at the height of Wiki Loves Monuments
Philippines, we received a phone call from Natural Wonders Foundation
(Philippines) about a proposal that they would like to launch a similar
project like Wiki Loves Monuments, in this case featuring the natural
beauty of the country. I informed them that we are very interested about
it, we may just need to discuss it after WLM international has completely
wrapped-up, by then we would have finished our documentation. Though in the
hindsight we are looking at Cultural mapping activities, because unlike
most countries, heritage is often neglected in our country, so we better
start going around photographing and documenting it.
Roel
WLMPH
I'm pretty encouraged by the several responses to my "different"
proposal, in particular Basvb and Lodewijk (below)
My proposal in brief - move toward a platform/permanent organization
that supports multiple contests on multiple topics at different times
of year, with less stress on bigness and more on retaining
contributors.
I'll write it up - with other suggestions from here hopefully - and
place it in the discussion at Commons
I should have listed "large % of content soon used on Wikipedia" as a
strength - and that should be a continued emphasis
My "(Perhaps) ... lack of success" comment re: retaining contributors
was overstated - I only mean that we (like every other Wiki project
which has attempted this) has a lot of room for improvement.
Lodewijk doesn't seem to me to be disagreeing - just looking at the
same things with a slightly different POV. In particular, while
"everything" might in the very long term be considered something
Wikimedia Loves, I'll suggest we gradually expand from our base of
monument-like things, to anything that is within the Commons project
scope, has the backing of a large or very enthusiastic group of
Wikipedians, which is likely to organize the contest (with our help)
in the best traditions of WLM.
We supply the experience and expertise. Tools and basic standards.
They supply enthusiasm, manpower.
More later.
Pete
User:Smallbones
Message: 3
Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2012 18:18:42 +0100
From: Bas vb <basvb_wikipedia(a)live.nl>
To: WLM <wikilovesmonuments(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Wiki Loves Monuments] Long Term - something a bit
different
Message-ID: <DUB116-W5563EE741F124546466D55AB650(a)phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Hello,
One of the key strengths from Wiki Loves Monuments, at least in the
Netherlands, is that we actually can use the pictures (3.000 new
monuments photographed even in the 3rd year with a coverage of 70%).
In 2009 there was Wiki loves Art in the Netherlands. Wiki Loves
Monuments had a few advantages over this contest: *From Wiki Loves Art
almost none of the pictures are used in the articles, maybe only 200
out of 7000, for Wiki Loves Monuments every year around 50% gets used.
This is because of the identifier system, the identifier gives
participants only one thing to identify and we take it from there.
This means: No categorisation, no finding the right article for the
picture (you could offcourse decide not to do these 2 but that means a
nice contest of unused images).*For Wiki Loves Art organisers had to
arrange permissions with each museum. *You couldn't participate
everywhere: mainly one part of the country where the most museums are.
On the other hand this had a benefit: being able to photograph in
these museum had something exclusive, especially the museums where you
can't photograph normally.
Why telling this here? Well I think at one point we, or some countries
want to try photographic competitions on other topics (seperated new
contest seems best to me). When you decide to do this think very well
about which topics are useful. Having a list (big) of images you want,
and actually a place to put them is a big advantage, at least if you
want the pictures to be useful. When it's more to small topics you
could also think about non federal world wide contests (only one
global organiser). A global contest like that would give a whole other
way of organising a contest. But it would be an idea for smaller, or
less location specific topics. If you're for example going to start a
contest to photograph wildlife or food there are no country boundries,
so why not start it global, on the other if you're going to do that it
would be dangerous to focus on high numbers like 100.000 images, a few
thousand seems more suitable. Smaller world wide contest to meet the
wishes of our contest fanatics, or maybe give users who don't
participate now topics they like more.
Some countries allready have a high coverage of monuments, a good
example is the completed Andorra. For those countries I think
focussing on other subjects would be a good idea (I don't want to tell
any specific country what to do, so I'll talk about my own, the
Netherlands.)
Future of WLM for the Netherlands:*We've 70% off the monuments on a
picture, also the cultural heritage organisation has released it's
560.000 images containing file database. From there we should be able
to get another 10% covered. The question is whether the same contest
will stay fun for all the years to come. Maybe people get more exited
when they can photograph on other subjects.
Another consideration is: do you want to get bigger and bigger every
year. This year we went from 13.000 to 7.000 pictures, I think that's
more in the numbers than the quality (the quality didn't decrease,
only the people who photographed 1000 images in the cities completed
most cities and didn't participate), on the other hand we went up in
photgraphers from 170 to 250 or something. My main question is: how
would scaling down and stabilizing our participation effect the succes
of the contest? If there is a global contest it would be a shame for
the Netherlands, as starting up country, not to participate. But does
it have to be big every year? I think the answer is no, we might also
consider to put less time, and money in the contest and see the
effects of this. We've succesfully participated for 3 years now: the
lists are fine, we experimented with some other ways of reaching out,
but they do not seem that strong to me. Maybe scale it down to just
the classical contest with a few nice prices and a fine running
website will do the trick for the main part. We go down a bit in
numbers (participants and pictures) but it costs us less effort, so
effort based succes might increase big time. This way we also have
more time to experiment with other contests and ideas to reach out.
Another thing is how to get these users editing. The lists might be a
bit hard to start from (not the easiest with templates and all). But
maybe writing articles is an idea. We should try to get users to write
in our local wikipedia about monuments, and this way they can become
writers on Wikipedia. But how?
Greetings,
Bas
From: lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org
Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2012 16:59:07 +0100
To: wikilovesmonuments(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wiki Loves Monuments] Long Term - something a bit different
Hi Pete,
that's an interesting way to look at things! I think it would be
helpful if you bring this to the evaluation table as seperate ideas
(the combination makes it harder to grasp), but some comments from my
perspective (and not necessarily the Truth):
* I don't agree that the yearly cycle (it's not a one-month thing as
we all know - it takes several months to prepare the list, which is
just another phase in the cycle) is a weakness - I actually see it as
a strength. It allows volunteers to commit for a limited period of
time and still accomplish a lot in real life. That also means you get
in touch with a new group of volunteers who you will otherwise not see
become active in chapters.
* I don't agree the emphasis is on bigness. I know that this has been
used in PR, and we used it too often perhaps in our messaging, but our
emphasis is on getting more content and people for Wikipedia.
* I don't agree that getting the monument lists for Wikipedia
(including all its details) is not a goal of the WMF. While the topic
may not be a priority, facilitating volunteers to gather and improve
on content (which the list creation is), is one of the goals. Not that
it matters whether it is a WMF goal or not :) (it is mostly a chapter
and volunteer run program)
* You suggest that we should morph WLM into a Wiki Loves Everything. I
personally believe (and we explained this several times in our
presentations) that the focus is one of the key success factors. It
makes it more tangible for participants, and allows outreach in groups
of potential volunteers we otherwise wouldn't reach. It wouldn't hurt
to have multiple contests ongoing at the same time though!
I'm curious why you think there is a "lack of real success". Perhaps
you can elaborate on that on the feedback page.
The thought I definitely do like is the idea to have multiple
contests. I don't think we should immediately run these
internationally though, but rather try them out nationally, and build
from that - similarly as we did with Wiki Loves Monuments. I would
suggest though to move a bit away from the buildings and make it
clearly distinct. Keep the success factors in mind though (easy
access, fun, helping Wikipedia etc.).
Best,Lodewijk
re Lodewijk
I do think that WLM is ultimately going to have to change focus, and
some sort of permanent organization will be helpful here. In
particular, I think WLM is getting too big to be sustainable (over
several years) and that we've aimed too much for bigness. Let's look
at our goals, strengths and weaknesses and see where we can take this
in an on-going, multiyear basis. My suggestion is that it be a hub
for encouraging and organizing many types of photo contests on Commons
- big and small.
Current Goals
1. To recruit and keep photographers and editors for Wikimedia
projects (Key WMF goal)
2. To document "monuments" and other cultural heritage (wonderful goal
- perhaps a bit narrow, not a key WMF goal)
Strengths
1. Access to Wikipedia banners for recruitment, publicizing
2. Bot and technical processes needed for contests, lists
3. Federal style organization across national boundaries
4. A record of success - which of course can lead to confidence among
editors and the public and thus more success. "Nothing succeeds like
success!"
Weaknesses
1. An emphasis on big for the sake of bigness - unsustainable growth.
2. Trying to mix some quite different things (e.g. situations in
Italy, Switzerland, India, Ghana) into one big contest
3. Once a year focus
4. (Perhaps) Lack of real success/emphasis on keeping newly recruited
photographers (we do about the same as other projects in percentage
terms)
I suggest:
1. Keeping the goal of recruitment of new editors/photogs and
strengthening it to emphasize "keeping" the new recruits.
2. Broaden the goal of documenting "monuments" to anything about
"cultural heritage" or, ultimately, to anything that large numbers of
people like to photograph in contests - become "Wikimedia Loves
Photographs" instead of "WL Monuments"
3. Form a permanent organization, likely on Commons or a new site
closely related to it, to have many contests, at different times of
the year, on slightly different topics, of different lengths.
Gradually increasing the scope of the contests to all topics of
interest to photographers. (Perhaps at first, WL Historical
Buildings, WL Cemeteries (for a week at Halloween!), WL Public Art,
etc. until we get to WL Wildlife, WL Oceans or WL Ships, and maybe
even WL towns in Pennsylvania or Transylvania)
4. Concentrate on recruiting different people to organize the
different contests, and giving them the tools, expertise, and some
standards to meet their similar (but not identical) goals.
There's a lot here, and I'm not interested in beating my head against
the wall if other folks aren't interested, but ultimately I think this
is the direction WLM will take if it's going to be sustainable.
All the best,
Pete Ekman
User:Smallbones
> 2012/11/4 Lodewijk <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org>
>
>> (changing the title to give it its own thread)
>>
>> I think this discussion would indeed be best on the feedback page. But I
>> will respond to some of the points already here.
>>
>> First off: I personally do not think this will be an ever lasting event.
>> I think that a country can only organize Wiki Loves Monuments 3 or 4 times
>> in a row without exhausting enthusiasm about it. I actually have the
>> feeling next year (2013) might very well be the last year that we organize
>> it on an international level. But I hope someone will proof me wrong!
>>
>> I agree with Yaroslav that a real life organization would be a
>> possibility. We don't need that though. Actually, I think it would be a
>> worse situation than what we're in right now. It would cause a lot of
>> bureaucracy (conflict of interest: I would be one of the people who would
>> have to review the bylaws in the Affiliations committee).
>>
>> An ongoing project on Commons to coordinate heritage projects would
>> perhaps be a good idea. Commons isn't exactly suitable for it as it also
>> involves a lot of other things - but it is probably better than the
>> alternatives. Outreachwiki would drive us too far from the content side of
>> things etc. I don't think it would be a priority of myself, but I can
>> definitely see the added value. I do not think it could or should replace
>> current efforts, but it should be complementary.
>>
>> Some people suggested over time that Wiki Loves Monuments is a GLAM
>> project. Everyone who knows me, knows that I'm no fan of acronyms and
>> especially not this one. If you would use the alternative 'cultural
>> heritage institutions' (or if you prefer acronyms: CHI) it indeed fits the
>> definition well. However, at the same time it is quite different from all
>> the other initiatives that are ongoing in this field by Wikimedia.
>>
>> Wiki Loves Monuments is mostly public facing and not institution-facing.
>> We're focused on participation by individuals, and while the institutions
>> that provide the infrastructure (the lists) are critical - they are
>> primarily a tool to reach that goal. That is why I usually consider it more
>> a seperate thing from traditional cultural heritage initiatives in
>> Wikimedia - but it has many interfaces. Every national Wiki Loves Monuments
>> competition has probably one or several Cultural Heritage collaborations.
>> In the Netherlands we collaborate with the Museum association (prize
>> sponsor), National heritage board (providing the lists), a
>> monument/heritage association (networking partner, outreach and prize
>> sponsor), the Architecture museum (prize sponsor), Open Monument Days
>> (networking partner and outreach) etc. In other countries you will likely
>> see similar collaborations especially in the second/third year develop.
>>
>> Anyway - I definitely cheer upon Poli's great idea to have a cleanup
>> project. I have been doing a bunch of that myself recently on some
>> countries (India, Canada, Argentina) and I think it could use some help. I
>> think Maarten sent recently an email about it (now WLM is over, what's
>> next).
>>
>> Yaroslav, Polimerek: would you like to volunteer to set up such portal on
>> Commons?
>>
>> Best,
>> Lodewijk
>>