Hoi Lodewijk,
For the international competition I'll wait for input from India. But as
long as we bill it as a commonwealth contest and make sure the judges are
multinational I would be surprised if it caused offence.
As for the database issue, the problem with such a system here in the UK is
that we have at least a million images to categorise before we can build
it. Otherwise anyone taking an image risks discovering that we have several
already.
Personally I think for this year I'll just concentrate on the categorisation
WSC
On 17 May 2012 19:02, Lodewijk <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org> wrote:
Hi WSC,
First of all: I of course know barely a thing about how
this imperialistic contest (for the lack of a better word) would land or
how sensitive it would be. What I do understand from my contacts (but those
are most likely much less extensive than yours) is that it would most
likely be unpopular with our (government) partners in those countries, and
indeed not so much with the potential participants. That has significant
downsides (we need those partners for the local contest) so it would
basically come down to a choice of focus whether we prefer to have national
contests or rather an imperialistic one. But in the end I'd like to leave
this call to the local teams in question (particularly the India,
Bangladesh, Canada and USA (and South Africa?) teams).
When it comes to the list: although it sounds easier to organize, asking
people to make up their own definition brings in a whole lot of problems of
its own. I would like to refer to this essay
<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments/Philosophy>about
the reasons why WLM is successful. Reasons include that it is simple
(people know what to look for: clear definition) and that their photos will
be used on Wikipedia (for that we need the lists as well; and more
important, whatever is on that list needs to be there because of a neutral
and verifiable definition: usually a government definition). It is
perfectly possible to organize a contest with a wider scope, and with a
more vague definition, but we would be talking about a different style of
contest with different communication requirements. Wiki Loves Monuments is
federative in structure (country based) and works from this neutral
standard, even though there is a large degree of flexibility how to achieve
this standard.
This list structure is embedded in the contest concept to a large
(although not infinite) degree. It helps us use the tools we use because
through these predefined definitions and lists people can identify which of
the buildings is on the list through a simple identifier. This makes the
upload form more simple, and helps us to re-use the images in articles. It
also helps us categorizing on Commons and adding geotags and other metadata
when that information is available or becomes available at a later stage.
It also reduces the chance that people will photograph un-monumental
buildings (their own house) and makes it that way easier to do the judging.
Finally I can't mention it often enough that I prefer to have national
contests (including the very UK itself!) with all the impact connected to
it than an effort to have an extra supracontest - if one would have to
choose. But I guess you are yourself the best judge to see if this would be
detrimental in any way at all to the WLM-uk.
Best regards,
Lodewijk
2012/5/17 WereSpielChequers <werespielchequers(a)gmail.com>
Hi Lodewijk,
I can see that there is a risk that a UK funded prize for images of
monuments left over from the era of British rule could potentially be
controversial. But we are a global movement and we can include people from
India and elsewhere in the design and judging - I discussed this at the UK
AGM with a British Gujurati and he thought it could be an interesting
project. But I'll bcc bounce this by some of our colleagues in India and
see what they think.
As for needing a database or a list, I'm not sure that is so essential.
I'd like to see what happens when we ask people to photograph what they
consider to be the monuments of their area. There should be less difficulty
launching the scheme, and who knows we may get some overlooked gems.
WSC.
On 11 May 2012 10:35, Lodewijk <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org> wrote:
Hi WSC,
Hi think there definitely will be some 'sensitivities' and I'd be
personally very careful with awarding such prize unless all countries
involved have an active community that actively support such prize (and of
course only for those countries that participate anyway). However, no
matter how you do it - somehow you will have to define what is a monument
under whatever definition. Making up our own definition is very tricky and
not something I'd suggest unless as a last resort.
Lets try to focus on the model that we know that works as much as
possible and scaling the regular contest to countries - note that even for
the UK at this point it is unclear whether it can participate (as I
understand the current status) simply because there are no volunteers who
are willing to pull the contest off. I much rather see UK, India, USA and
Bangladesh participate as individual countries than that we have some extra
category about an Empire (with all its sensitivities and PR risks) and not
have those countries participate 'for real'.
Best,
Lodewijk
2012/5/11 WereSpielChequers <werespielchequers(a)gmail.com>
I'm assuming it refers to stuff built in
those countries whilst they
were part of the Portuguese empire. Much of that will be well out of
copyright as the Portuguese Empire peaked centuries ago.
I think it would be sensible to do something similar for the British
Empire, but with the slight issue that as the Empire covered a quarter of
the globe less than seventy years ago there will be some stuff that is
still in copyright.
I'll ask the UK chapter by cc if they'd be willing to fund a prize for
"monumental legacy of the British Empire" - obviously there may be some
sensitivities on this so any suggestions as to how not to do this would be
appreciated. But potentially this could give a participation route for
people in large parts of the world that might not otherwise be covered by
WLM.
I'm thinking along the lines of:
No target database.
Anyone may enter.
Any image loaded to Commons in Sept 2012 would qualify, provided it is
of a building or monument built during the era of British rule in a former
part of the British Empire.
Entry would be done by adding a hidden category to the article
[[:category:WLM 2012 - monumental legacy of the British Empire]]
I guess the UK itself should be excluded.
WSC
On 11 May 2012 09:39, Cristian Consonni <kikkocristian(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
> 2012/5/10 Nicolas VIGNERON <vigneron.nicolas(a)gmail.com>om>:
> > 2012/5/10 Vicenç Riullop <vriullop(a)hotmail.com>om>:
> >> These is very interesting, Nuno. I am curious about Portuguese
> monuments in
> >> Espanha and Itália :-) Is the registrant official? Say, a reliable
> source?
> >> You could create an international list of Portuguese monuments
> abroad (maybe
> >> Brazil is a special case). Then it could be shared in other
> languages,
> >> regardless if there is any special prize or not.
> >>
> >> Vicenç
> >
> > There is more or less the same thing for France.
> >
> > Some territories where once inside the French colonial empire but are
> > not anymore. In the meantime (roughly beetween 1840 and 1940), some
> > monuments were officialy protected. Obviously, they're no more
> > official nowadays (except if the local gouvernement decide to
> > re-protect them by itself).
> >
> > Eg.
>
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_des_monuments_historiques_des_d%C3%A9par…
>
> I'm not getting what this "Portuguese Empire monuments" means...
> It means that these monuments are under the control of the Portuguese
> embassy? Are we free to photograph them?
> In Italy, for Italian monuments (sic), one should ask a permission to
> take a photo of a monument and release to the public (for instance
> with a CC-BY-SA). This permission can be granted by local
> Sovrintendenze (the government). Is the situation for the 4 monuments
> indicated above in some way different?
>
> Cristian
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list
> WikiLovesMonuments(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments
>
http://www.wikilovesmonuments.eu
>
_______________________________________________
Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list
WikiLovesMonuments(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments
http://www.wikilovesmonuments.eu
_______________________________________________
Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list
WikiLovesMonuments(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments
http://www.wikilovesmonuments.eu
_______________________________________________
Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list
WikiLovesMonuments(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments
http://www.wikilovesmonuments.eu
_______________________________________________
Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list
WikiLovesMonuments(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments
http://www.wikilovesmonuments.eu