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@effeietsanders.org
Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2012 16:59:07 +0100
To: wikilovesmonuments@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

2012/11/4 Peter Ekman <pdekman@gmail.com>
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@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
>>

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