When I saw the subject of this email, I thought this was a discussion on how to choose a route for a photo walk. Since it wasn't that, I thought I start one :)
When we made the plans for Wiki Takes Bucharest, we took into account several criteria: * the area should be poorly covered on commons * the walk time should not exceed 15-20 minutes for each hour planned for the photo walk (i.e. you have 3/4 of the time to take photos) *a back-up/alternative route should exist, in case the main route is blocked or you have too many participants. * all routes should begin and end in the same place (the biggest the crowd, the better the beer :D)
What else should one consider in preparation of such an event?
Strainu
2012/6/28 Maarten Dammers maarten@mdammers.nl:
Hi everyone,
I wondered what the best place was to organize a "Wiki Takes ..." event so I did a query :-) Picked out some places :
At the top is:
- Edinburgh 4829
[...]
Hi Strainu,
good points! I think the 3/4 rule is a bit too general. A better approach is to add 45 seconds for each monument to the walking time. It depends a lot on the monument density (has this word ever been used outside Wikimedia context?) how much extra time people need.
I would indeed try to have multiple routes. In my experience, groups of 5-6 people are ideal, so try to get a grasp of the size of the participant group, and act accordingly.
Make sure you exchange phone numbers for each group by the way.
Anyway, the page Maarten links provides most of the important points already :)
Lodewijk
2012/6/28 Strainu strainu10@gmail.com
When I saw the subject of this email, I thought this was a discussion on how to choose a route for a photo walk. Since it wasn't that, I thought I start one :)
When we made the plans for Wiki Takes Bucharest, we took into account several criteria:
- the area should be poorly covered on commons
- the walk time should not exceed 15-20 minutes for each hour planned
for the photo walk (i.e. you have 3/4 of the time to take photos) *a back-up/alternative route should exist, in case the main route is blocked or you have too many participants.
- all routes should begin and end in the same place (the biggest the
crowd, the better the beer :D)
What else should one consider in preparation of such an event?
Strainu
2012/6/28 Maarten Dammers maarten@mdammers.nl:
Hi everyone,
I wondered what the best place was to organize a "Wiki Takes ..." event
so I
did a query :-) Picked out some places :
At the top is:
- Edinburgh 4829
[...]
Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list WikiLovesMonuments@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments http://www.wikilovesmonuments.eu
On 06/28/2012 12:02 PM, Lodewijk wrote:
good points! I think the 3/4 rule is a bit too general. A better approach is to add 45 seconds for each monument to the walking time. It depends a lot on the monument density (has this word ever been used outside Wikimedia context?) how much extra time people need.
45 seconds? No way! you need to plan at least 5 minutes for each, unless the desired result is a mere snap shot. People will have to go round the monument, observe the most significant details and then shoot. Sometime it will take much longer (if they can go inside, for example), but sometime it may be faster, for *very simple* monuments.
it probably depends a lot on the kind of monuments you're expecting :) If you're in a city neighborhood, like Amsterdam, with many monuments packed together, there's only really one side to photograph the monument from. All you can really do there, is make sure no people/trees are in the way (and the 'snapshots' are possibly the best you can get). But of course the more spacious and the more angles are possible, the more time you will need.
So basically the lesson then would be: don't try to listen to other countries when determining the length, but just use your common sense and knowledge of the local situation :P
Lodewijk
2012/6/28 Nicu Buculei nicubunu@gmail.com
On 06/28/2012 12:02 PM, Lodewijk wrote:
good points! I think the 3/4 rule is a bit too general. A better approach is to add 45 seconds for each monument to the walking time. It depends a lot on the monument density (has this word ever been used outside Wikimedia context?) how much extra time people need.
45 seconds? No way! you need to plan at least 5 minutes for each, unless the desired result is a mere snap shot. People will have to go round the monument, observe the most significant details and then shoot. Sometime it will take much longer (if they can go inside, for example), but sometime it may be faster, for *very simple* monuments.
-- nicu :: http://nicubunu.ro :: http://nicubunu.blogspot.com
______________________________**_________________ Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list WikiLovesMonuments@lists.**wikimedia.orgWikiLovesMonuments@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/**wikilovesmonumentshttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments http://www.wikilovesmonuments.**eu http://www.wikilovesmonuments.eu
In the past Wiki takes in the Netherlands we had a lot of "grachtenpanden" which basicly means a lot of the standard houses. Our routes consisted out of 70-250 monuments each (with the 250 monuments being streets where every house is a monuments, so there is not really a walking distance) Some participants in the past have completed these 250 monuments routes in ca. 2 ours, taking over 100 pictures an hour. Other participants indeed visited 50 monuments in the same time frame. And when you want to go inside a big monument like a church that might even take you 30 minutes. The case studies at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments... show these differences. Andorra was more of a quality wiki takes, where 60 monuments spread around on a big area were photographed. Amsterdam on the other hand was more of a quantity wiki takes where 1000-1500 monuments were pictured (and no real walking distances.) But I believe its better to have a list with to many monuments, and that half way throught the list (this only works when all of the route is near the end point) you are out of time and finish there. That seems to be a better scenario then being finished after 30 minutes and having to wait at the end point for 2 ours (althought giving multiple rounds can solve that issue). BTW more case studies would be very welcome, very different wiki takes events took place, with different results and lessons to take into account when organizing a succesful Wiki takes. Mvg, Bas
From: lodewijk@effeietsanders.org Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2012 11:47:56 +0200 To: wikilovesmonuments@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wiki Loves Monuments] How to choose where to do a Wiki Takes? (was: Where to do a Wiki Takes?)
it probably depends a lot on the kind of monuments you're expecting :) If you're in a city neighborhood, like Amsterdam, with many monuments packed together, there's only really one side to photograph the monument from. All you can really do there, is make sure no people/trees are in the way (and the 'snapshots' are possibly the best you can get). But of course the more spacious and the more angles are possible, the more time you will need.
So basically the lesson then would be: don't try to listen to other countries when determining the length, but just use your common sense and knowledge of the local situation :P
Lodewijk
2012/6/28 Nicu Buculei nicubunu@gmail.com
On 06/28/2012 12:02 PM, Lodewijk wrote:
good points! I think the 3/4 rule is a bit too general. A better
approach is to add 45 seconds for each monument to the walking time. It
depends a lot on the monument density (has this word ever been used
outside Wikimedia context?) how much extra time people need.
45 seconds? No way! you need to plan at least 5 minutes for each, unless the desired result is a mere snap shot. People will have to go round the monument, observe the most significant details and then shoot.
Sometime it will take much longer (if they can go inside, for example), but sometime it may be faster, for *very simple* monuments.
2012/6/28 Bas vb basvb_wikipedia@live.nl:
Some participants in the past have completed these 250 monuments routes in ca. 2 ours, taking over 100 pictures an hour.
That sounds great for the WLM world record but horrible for the monuments themselves. In 30s there is no time to appreciate the monument, to see the efforts put into building it.
Wouldn't it make more sense to have different groups covering different parts of the street?
Just my 2c, Strainu
I think it is simply a matter of choise. Please do realize we didn't force the photographers to walk faster, we were just being realistic to what you can expect someone to spend time on. To be honest, expecting someone to stand still for more than 30s for each grachtenpand in Amsterdam is a bit unrealistic. There are simply too many of them. Also, please note that we did have 5 or 6 routes already, each of then with 150-250 monuments on them. Often a whole block of houses could be monumental. And still we covered only a fraction of the total.
It is a matter of focus on super quality (which this perhaps didn't achieve) and coverage of many monuments without any photo (which we were successful at). In my humble opinion I think all monuments got the attention they needed to get a decent/good quality picture. They were not snapshots from a moving car. Yes, you can also focus on super quality - but then you need a different target group (only people with expensive cameras allowed) and you need to pick the monuments who are suitable for that. Grachtenpanden from Amsterdam in the middle of the day are not likely to give super quality photos under any condition.
Lodewijk
2012/6/28 Strainu strainu10@gmail.com
2012/6/28 Bas vb basvb_wikipedia@live.nl:
Some participants in the past have completed these 250 monuments routes
in
ca. 2 ours, taking over 100 pictures an hour.
That sounds great for the WLM world record but horrible for the monuments themselves. In 30s there is no time to appreciate the monument, to see the efforts put into building it.
Wouldn't it make more sense to have different groups covering different parts of the street?
Just my 2c, Strainu
Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list WikiLovesMonuments@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments http://www.wikilovesmonuments.eu
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_from_Wiki_takes_Amsterdam thats where the pictures can be found. The biggest problem are the narrow streets, but waiting 5 minutes wont make the streets larger, so taking a decision on an angle an do the best you can. The thing is that these monuments are monuments, but quite a lot of the same (there are 8000 monuments in Amsterdam, 7000 of the look like that). The idea is that we want to have a wide coverage, people should be able to see how the monument looks like. And that, with time, quality will improve. I think http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lijst_van_rijksmonumenten_in_Rotterdam_(stad) is a good example of the maximum quality you can achieve. In Rotterdam one person made it a two year project to photograph all monuments with decent quality, for some parts he waited half a year for the sun to be in the right position. That is more the 10-60 minutes/monument approach. Offcourse we prefer the pictures in Rotterdam for their quality, they are simply better, but time is limited and with the goal to photograph all 60.000 monuments that approach simply takes 10 years, so why not, at first, take 40 pictures a bit faster in the time you could also make 1 very good picture (and offcourse there is talent, experience and material which makes one person able to make better pictures, but limits for example myself in which pictures I'm able to provide). So basicly I think the difference shows well between these two pictures: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rotterdam_voorhaven5.jpg which is part of the two year project and maybe took 3 times to go there (so lets say 20 minutes) and http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amsterdam_-_Herengracht_384.JPG a 30 sec. picture which always will be a hard one because its 5 floors high and you either have an angle like this, or you have a tree in front of the house hiding it. For showing what the monument looks like both pictures will work, but off course we prefer the first picture, it simply has had more attention. On the other hand, in the same time that monument was illustrated 40 monuments got illustrated with a picture similar to the second one. Currently we've covered all big cities (there are no cities with more then 300 unphotograped monuments exept for Amsterdam), so giving people 300 monuments to photograph wont really work when 20 people show up. So giving each group 50 monuments could indeed be the idea. Another thing we are thinking about is trying to visit something like a castle, and make it a Wiki takes the castle, where basicly one monument (the governement has devided those into sometimes 20-70 different parts (e.g. the castle, the bridge, the vase, the other vase. etc.) is the subject. Mvg, Bas
From: strainu10@gmail.com Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2012 14:14:13 +0300 To: wikilovesmonuments@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wiki Loves Monuments] How to choose where to do a Wiki Takes? (was: Where to do a Wiki Takes?)
2012/6/28 Bas vb basvb_wikipedia@live.nl:
Some participants in the past have completed these 250 monuments routes in ca. 2 ours, taking over 100 pictures an hour.
That sounds great for the WLM world record but horrible for the monuments themselves. In 30s there is no time to appreciate the monument, to see the efforts put into building it.
Wouldn't it make more sense to have different groups covering different parts of the street?
Just my 2c, Strainu
Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list WikiLovesMonuments@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments http://www.wikilovesmonuments.eu
On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 02:14:13PM +0300, Strainu wrote:
2012/6/28 Bas vb basvb_wikipedia@live.nl:
Some participants in the past have completed these 250 monuments routes in ca. 2 ours, taking over 100 pictures an hour.
That sounds great for the WLM world record but horrible for the monuments themselves. In 30s there is no time to appreciate the monument, to see the efforts put into building it.
Wouldn't it make more sense to have different groups covering different parts of the street?
Just my 2c, Strainu
Hi Strainu,
As Lodewijk explained, you really need to know the local situation. These are streets in Amsterdam, were all buildings a basically a big block of buildings are all monuments. You can't go to the back, the sides are not visible, so really the only thing you can do is make a picture of the front, probably standing, and do the next. Sometimes it might make sense to make some extra pictures of details, but mostly not. Su yes, the only split you can make is somebody doing the left site, and somebody else the right site, although there is often even only water on one side.
Regards,
Andre
wikilovesmonuments@lists.wikimedia.org