Dear organisers!
Wiki Loves Monuments 2025 is approaching! In less than a month the first group of countries is going to start.
If you are organising WLM this year, please make sure *now* that your country is in the list of countries to avoid problems and delays: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2025/Partici...
(This has been forgotten before, please avoid that mistake! )
(A few tips: don't wait to check/add until you notice there is no banner/uploading, don't wait until it is 10 minutes before midnight that you want to start, or at the last day before, don't think it will start in October so you have time, don't think that your colleague organiser has added your country, just check/add it now on the page, it avoids a lot of issues! Having your country added in the list of countries is the 1st requirement the international team has set. If you are late with adding, please contact me!)
When you have added your country/checked for it: thank you!
Spoiler: The 2nd requirement is that you have a landing page. Countries starting in September: your landing page needs to be ready at the latest on 29 August! Countries starting in October: your landing page needs to be ready at the latest on 27 September! When not ready on these days, the contest may get delayed or cancelled. PS: You don't have to wait until the last day to have your landing page ready, you may already have it (close to) ready this week!
There is a Telegram group called Wikilovesmonuments where you as organisers are welcome to come! - For asking questions, reporting issues and getting help. - For getting inspiration what you can do. - For helping others with questions. - For seeing last minute notifications. - For just for hanging out to see how it is going. - For seeing how the event starts/end at the beginning and end of the months.
If you have an urgent issue regarding the special upload wizard or with the banner, contact me personally on Telegram for the fastest response. A bit more slow: write something on my Commons talk page https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Romaine or write somewhere else and ping me. The slowest will be sending an e-mail. If you are unsure if something is in order or even urgent, don't hesitate and just contact me!
Don't forget: have fun! 😀
Romaine
Dear Romaine
I would like to ask whether composite photos are allowed in the Wiki Loves Monuments 2025 competition — that is, images created by combining multiple shots .
Thank you in advance for your clarification.
Best regards,
[Summer kamal]
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
On Saturday, August 9, 2025, 11:24 AM, Romaine Wiki romaine.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Dear organisers! Wiki Loves Monuments 2025 is approaching! In less than a month the first group of countries is going to start. If you are organising WLM this year, please make sure *now* that your country is in the list of countries to avoid problems and delays: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2025/Partici... has been forgotten before, please avoid that mistake! ) (A few tips: don't wait to check/add until you notice there is no banner/uploading, don't wait until it is 10 minutes before midnight that you want to start, or at the last day before, don't think it will start in October so you have time, don't think that your colleague organiser has added your country, just check/add it now on the page, it avoids a lot of issues! Having your country added in the list of countries is the 1st requirement the international team has set. If you are late with adding, please contact me!) When you have added your country/checked for it: thank you!
Spoiler: The 2nd requirement is that you have a landing page. Countries starting in September: your landing page needs to be ready at the latest on 29 August!Countries starting in October: your landing page needs to be ready at the latest on 27 September!When not ready on these days, the contest may get delayed or cancelled.PS: You don't have to wait until the last day to have your landing page ready, you may already have it (close to) ready this week!
There is a Telegram group called Wikilovesmonuments where you as organisers are welcome to come!- For asking questions, reporting issues and getting help. - For getting inspiration what you can do.- For helping others with questions. - For seeing last minute notifications.- For just for hanging out to see how it is going.- For seeing how the event starts/end at the beginning and end of the months.
If you have an urgent issue regarding the special upload wizard or with the banner, contact me personally on Telegram for the fastest response. A bit more slow: write something on my Commons talk page or write somewhere else and ping me. The slowest will be sending an e-mail.If you are unsure if something is in order or even urgent, don't hesitate and just contact me!
Don't forget: have fun! 😀
Romaine _______________________________________________ WLM-Announce mailing list -- wlm-announce@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wlm-announce-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Dear Summer kamal, That is a good question! If I may give a quick first answer: The scope of Wiki Loves Monuments is the documentation of monuments in way that is also useful for Wikipedia. Documentation is the central aspect and what we aim for. So usually images should not be edited in a way that does not show them - and the surroundings - in a different way than they can be seen in reality. Combining images, even just replacing the sky for example, may be aesthetically more pleasing sometimes, but it should be avoided at Wiki Loves Monuments.
Best regards, Manfred
Am 29.10.2025 um 21:11 schrieb Summering K via WikiLovesMonuments:
Dear Romaine
I would like to ask whether composite photos are allowed in the Wiki Loves Monuments 2025 competition — that is, images created by combining multiple shots .
Thank you in advance for your clarification.
Best regards,
[Summer kamal]
On Saturday, August 9, 2025, 11:24 AM, Romaine Wiki romaine.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Dear organisers! Wiki Loves Monuments 2025 is approaching! In less than a month the first group of countries is going to start. If you are organising WLM this year, please make sure *now* that your country is in the list of countries to avoid problems and delays: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2025/Participating_countries (This has been forgotten before, please avoid that mistake! ) (A few tips: don't wait to check/add until you notice there is no banner/uploading, don't wait until it is 10 minutes before midnight that you want to start, or at the last day before, don't think it will start in October so you have time, don't think that your colleague organiser has added your country, just check/add it now on the page, it avoids a lot of issues! Having your country added in the list of countries is the 1st requirement the international team has set. If you are late with adding, please contact me!) When you have added your country/checked for it: thank you! Spoiler: The 2nd requirement is that you have a landing page. Countries starting in September: your landing page needs to be ready at the latest on 29 August! Countries starting in October: your landing page needs to be ready at the latest on 27 September! When not ready on these days, the contest may get delayed or cancelled. PS: You don't have to wait until the last day to have your landing page ready, you may already have it (close to) ready this week! There is a Telegram group called Wikilovesmonuments where you as organisers are welcome to come! - For asking questions, reporting issues and getting help. - For getting inspiration what you can do. - For helping others with questions. - For seeing last minute notifications. - For just for hanging out to see how it is going. - For seeing how the event starts/end at the beginning and end of the months. If you have an urgent issue regarding the special upload wizard or with the banner, contact me personally on Telegram for the fastest response. A bit more slow: write something on my Commons talk page <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Romaine> or write somewhere else and ping me. The slowest will be sending an e-mail. If you are unsure if something is in order or even urgent, don't hesitate and just contact me! Don't forget: have fun! 😀 Romaine _______________________________________________ WLM-Announce mailing list -- wlm-announce@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wlm-announce-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
WikiLovesMonuments mailing list --wikilovesmonuments@lists.wikimedia.org Public archives athttps://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikilovesmonuments@lists.wikimed...
I agree that the 'accurate representation' is essential. This also goes back to one of the main judging criteria: usefulness (which Manfred refers to implicitly).
I should note however that there are some practices that are more commonly accepted that use some level of editing - for example panorama shots, and there are some techniques that are commonplace to combine different exposures of the same angle. These are generally accepted because they don't try to distort reality, but document it accurately.
So in the end it is a matter of judgement - there is also a grey zone (for example, editing out an annoying object) which reasonable people can disagree on.
One thing I can be pretty clear on though, is that anything that distorts reality, should be strongly discouraged (editing a different background behind the building, adding a non-existing starry sky, using AI to make the building look more 'pretty', editing window frames into a picture where none exist, editing in puddles with reflections, perfecting reflections - all those I would personally consider unacceptable and I would encourage a jury to disqualify such edited images.
The most important thing to do for you a photographer, is to be fully transparent about how you created the photo. The metadata if the image usually discloses the camera used, but if there are any special settings you used, mention it in the description. If you stitched photos together, say so.
If the photographer wants to be entirely transparent and safe, I would encourage them to upload both the 'improved' photo and the original - and let the jury determine which one they prefer.
Hope that helps! I don't represent any official body in this email, I'm just someone who organized the photo competition for many years, so hopefully I'm capturing the essence well here :)
In fact, I would encourage someone to write a blog post about 'how far should you go in editing monument photos for Wikimedia Commons' on Diff some day with clear examples!
Best, Lodewijk
On Wed, Oct 29, 2025 at 11:08 PM Manfred Werner (WMAT) < manfred.werner@wikimedia.at> wrote:
Dear Summer kamal, That is a good question! If I may give a quick first answer: The scope of Wiki Loves Monuments is the documentation of monuments in way that is also useful for Wikipedia. Documentation is the central aspect and what we aim for. So usually images should not be edited in a way that does not show them - and the surroundings - in a different way than they can be seen in reality. Combining images, even just replacing the sky for example, may be aesthetically more pleasing sometimes, but it should be avoided at Wiki Loves Monuments.
Best regards, Manfred
Am 29.10.2025 um 21:11 schrieb Summering K via WikiLovesMonuments:
Dear Romaine
I would like to ask whether composite photos are allowed in the Wiki Loves Monuments 2025 competition — that is, images created by combining multiple shots .
Thank you in advance for your clarification.
Best regards,
[Summer kamal]
On Saturday, August 9, 2025, 11:24 AM, Romaine Wiki romaine.wiki@gmail.com romaine.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Dear organisers!
Wiki Loves Monuments 2025 is approaching! In less than a month the first group of countries is going to start.
If you are organising WLM this year, please make sure *now* that your country is in the list of countries to avoid problems and delays: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2025/Partici...
(This has been forgotten before, please avoid that mistake! )
(A few tips: don't wait to check/add until you notice there is no banner/uploading, don't wait until it is 10 minutes before midnight that you want to start, or at the last day before, don't think it will start in October so you have time, don't think that your colleague organiser has added your country, just check/add it now on the page, it avoids a lot of issues! Having your country added in the list of countries is the 1st requirement the international team has set. If you are late with adding, please contact me!)
When you have added your country/checked for it: thank you!
Spoiler: The 2nd requirement is that you have a landing page. Countries starting in September: your landing page needs to be ready at the latest on 29 August! Countries starting in October: your landing page needs to be ready at the latest on 27 September! When not ready on these days, the contest may get delayed or cancelled. PS: You don't have to wait until the last day to have your landing page ready, you may already have it (close to) ready this week!
There is a Telegram group called Wikilovesmonuments where you as organisers are welcome to come!
- For asking questions, reporting issues and getting help.
- For getting inspiration what you can do.
- For helping others with questions.
- For seeing last minute notifications.
- For just for hanging out to see how it is going.
- For seeing how the event starts/end at the beginning and end of the
months.
If you have an urgent issue regarding the special upload wizard or with the banner, contact me personally on Telegram for the fastest response. A bit more slow: write something on my Commons talk page https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Romaine or write somewhere else and ping me. The slowest will be sending an e-mail. If you are unsure if something is in order or even urgent, don't hesitate and just contact me!
Don't forget: have fun! 😀
Romaine
WLM-Announce mailing list -- wlm-announce@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wlm-announce-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
WikiLovesMonuments mailing list -- wikilovesmonuments@lists.wikimedia.org Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikilovesmonuments@lists.wikimed... http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org
WikiLovesMonuments mailing list -- wikilovesmonuments@lists.wikimedia.org Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikilovesmonuments@lists.wikimed...
wikilovesmonuments@lists.wikimedia.org