I guess I might just be because I'm a jaded American, but I am stunned and impressed that you were able to get that much support and encouragement from your government/government agency. It's is an example that I hope many national WLM groups will be able to follow.

Yours,
Sven




-------- Original message --------
From: Estermann Beat <beat.estermann@bfh.ch>
Date: 05/24/2013 9:30 AM (GMT-06:00)
To: "Mailing list for Wikimedia CH (wikimediach-l@lists.wikimedia.org)" <wikimediach-l@lists.wikimedia.org>,"Wiki Loves Monuments Photograph Competition (wikilovesmonuments@lists.wikimedia.org)" <wikilovesmonuments@lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: [Wiki Loves Monuments] Meeting with Fed. Office for Civil Protection - Section Cultural Property Protection


Dear all,

 

Yesterday, I have met with the people responsible for the protection of cultural properties at the Federal Office for Civil Protection in Switzerland.

The minutes (in German) can be found here:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProjekt_Schweizer_Denkmallisten/Meeting_mit_dem_FB_KGS_vom_23._Mai_2013

 

Here a summary:

 

-       They are happy to help us with the monuments lists in their area of competence (in addition to the lists of cultural properties of national and regional significance which are handled at the national level, there are also cantonal and municipal monuments lists which they are not responsible for).

-       They are positive about Wiki Loves Monuments; the same is true for the cantonal instances they are in contact with (monument protection services / civil protection services).

-       They promised to provide us with database dumps, including all the KGS-identifiers (A- and B-objects; identifiers of B objects have been missing so far) by the end of May / beginning of June.

-       They will take measures to facilitate the updating of the lists on Wikipedia in the future (clearly indicating changes on their lists; making database dumps available).

-       They ask us not to use the official white-blue cultural-property sign for any other objects than KGS class A objects and not to use similar signs either (in fact the use of the official sign is regulated by international law and Swiss law) – This should be taken into account when designing the interfaces of information systems (map applications, phone apps, etc.)

-       They gave us recommendations in order to avoid complications due to the different semantic systems at various federal levels

-       They will be happy to get informed about any corrections made by the community.

 

So, and now I hope that the 26+ cantonal and municipal authorities responsible for the rest of the monuments will be as cooperative as the federal ones! ;-)

 

Kind regards,

Beat Estermann

 

_____________________________________________________

Beat Estermann
Research Associate

Berne University of Applied Sciences
E-Government Institute
Morgartenstrasse 2a
Postfach 305
CH-3000 Bern 22 

beat.estermann@bfh.ch
www.e-government.bfh.ch

Phone +41 31 848 34 30
Phone (direct number) +41 31 848 34 38
Fax +41 31 848 34 31