because of the 5th edition and 1 millionth submission to WLM past year, it seemed a nice idea to write a short article for Heritage in motion about Wiki Loves Monuments.
Unfortunately, the deadline is rather short. Please find a draft below. If you have comments, edits, suggestions, they are still very welcome in the coming 23 hours. I would especially appreciate suggestions to make it read more like 'fun' and less like 'numbers'.
Text available under: CC BY SA, authors: Lodewijk Gelauff & Cristian Consonni
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While celebrating its fifth edition, the international photography competition Wiki Loves Monuments welcomed its millionth image submission. A good occasion to take a look at the past editions of the competition that has been supported by Europa Nostra as a partner since 2011, and take a look where it is headed.
In 2010, the competition was initiated by Wikimedia Netherlands as a challenge to appreciate, photograph and share monumental buildings in their environment with the rest of the world through Wikipedia. Over twelve thousand photos were submitted through the competition, and consequently shared through Wikimedia Commons, the media repository behind Wikipedia. In the years that followed, the competition was organized by Wikimedia volunteers in dozens of other countries: first in Europe (2011), later in the whole world (since 2012). Wiki Loves Monuments was recognized as the worlds largest photography competition by the Guinness Book of World Records with over 300.000 submissions each year since 2012. Over the past five editions, a total of 1,2 million photos was submitted to the competition from 65 countries.
More than just a competition
Alongside the competition, data describing the officially recognized cultural heritage monuments has been collected by Wikipedia volunteers: a database was composed with more than 1,3 million buildings in 53 countries, of which more than 450.000 now have an image linked to them. All submitted images are, together with more uploaded images of cultural heritage monuments, available through Wikimedia Commons[1]. All images can be used freely, as long as the author and license are credited.
Images can be used by anyone, but are also actively added to articles on Wikipedia, one of the world's most popular sources of information. As a heritage ambassador, you can contribute in many different ways to this wealth of material: you can release and upload your own photographic material, as long as you use a free license, or contribute articles to Wikipedia about the heritage sites. That way, we can share the beautiful heritage sites that Europe has to offer with every single person. If you are interested, please get in touch with a local chapter of Wikimedians in your country for more information[2], or just start editing Wikipedia.
We hope to welcome you as participant in the 2015 competition!
<did you know box>
Did you know...
- that most of the photo submissions in the past years came from Ukraine, Poland and Germany?
- that even Antarctica participated in 2013, with 22 submitted photos?
- that in Italy, Greece and Egypt, publishing photos of monuments may require government permission?
Photos: the winning photos of 2010-2014