Hi Yaroslav,
thanks for sharing your view on this matter. I also had a few discussions about this situation with Lvova, Putnik and Reve in Moscow, and later also with Spider. I realize it is a complicated situation - unfortunately not really helped by the longstanding conflicts inside the Russian community (I think it is no secret that you and Lvova are not exactly on good terms).
Based on the discussions we had in Moscow, where I was explained that they were in a hard situation, and there was some serious discussion of not having a WLM at all in Russia, we were able to work out a 'minimum' scenario, and I helped Putnik understand how to create the lists. I'm very glad he did even though he was extremely busy those days with non-wiki work.
I can't say much about community discussions here, and I don't think discussing that would be very fruitful on this list. However, what we can do is try to analyze what would be constructive steps to resolve the problems.
1) perhaps someone could take a look at how the special russian database - russian monument lists interaction works. I understand from Yaroslav that currently the database is the master, instead of the lists. It might make more sense to reverse that: this is how it works in most countries. So if someone adds a picture on Wikipedia, that the bot reads that, and adds it to the database (like Multichill does with the international database). This is primarily something technical, maybe Putnik can comment?
2) Adding commons templates: For each list, you could add a commons template at the bottom, with a link to the relevant category where these images should be added. This can be recognized by erfgoedbot, and then erfgoedbot can move the images linked to those lists to the right category on commons. This seems like something anyone could do - one edit per list.
3) If issue 1) is handled, anyone can make the fixes Yaroslav gave as examples of errors in the lists. Lets be clear: every list in every country contains mistakes and problems. It would be nice though if we can correct them (as long as it doesn't damage the integrity of the official list - for example, we should not add new monuments or remove them).
For the coordinates: Yaroslav indeed is right that there are coordinates available for the closest big city. I actually agree with the decision of the organizers that it is probably better to have a 'clean' list on Wikipedia, with only coordinates of the specific monument. Having coordinates of the nearest big city would not be helpful of course.
I suggest to focus on improving the situation. Stopping the contest wouldn't help anyone, and wouldn't solve anything - it doesn't come across as a very constructive suggestion. Lets try to wok together where possible. Also, lets please not use this list to just complain about something, but primarily as a way to get more input, suggestions and help. I'm confident that one way or another, we'll get this to work even better!
Best,
Lodewijk