Thanks for the constructive thoughts both here and in the meeting.
Richard: I'm not sure this would really 'avoid' the challenge altogether -
there would likely still be calls for sites from certain regions to be
excluded, or even participants from certain countries. It may be an
interesting proposal separately (although there are also other good reasons
for having a national approach to begin with - scaling, partners primarily
being national and communication practices being some of them) and there
might be other reasons to go that route (e.g. it would lower overhead in
some regions, and make it easier to be uniform). I think it may be a
different conversation. The international team has however been looking for
volunteers to pick up a "rest of the world" competition though, so if the
idea of a somewhat-global competition strikes you as interesting, that may
be an exciting opportunity.
As for the conversation, we made some interesting progress, and I think it
was complementary to some of the thoughts shared here. I'll give some
thoughts to how to structure the conversation going forward. For now, I'll
give the floor to the winner announcements soon, and we'll return to this
in a few months.
Lodewijk
On Sun, Jan 21, 2024 at 1:34 PM Mykola Kozlenko <mycola-k(a)ukr.net> wrote:
Hi Richard,
This is not really an unusual way: in fact, most of our campaigns are
locally-based because of language and culture barriers. While Commons is
multilingual, most discussions (including this one) happen in English, a
language most people in the world actually don't speak.
The heritage lists are also not a 'some degree' dependency but a major
one: organising contest without lists will result in a mess of photos that
someone needs to categorise manually. It's not easy to sort pictures from
places you have never seen with descriptions in a language you don't
understand. Thus I can hardly imagine how we can sustainably organise
contests in places where local volunteers don't want to work on them.
The only international heritage lists that exist are the UNESCO ones. I
can imagine a campaign dedicated to UNESCO world heritage monuments in
different countries. We had such an experience with UNESCO Biosphere
Reserves for Wiki Loves Earth, which was moderately successful (a few
hundred uploads and some interesting places that were not pictured before).
It is something that can be attempted, but of course it cannot really
replace Wiki Loves Monuments with its national contests.
Mykola (User:NickK)
Wiki Loves Monuments Ukraine & Wiki Loves Earth international team
*21 січня 2024, 20:09:58, від "Pharos" <pharosofalexandria(a)gmail.com
<pharosofalexandria(a)gmail.com>>m>>: *
I think some of the tensions might be reduced if WLM and similar
photo drives were in future structured less around "national" contests, and
"national" teams. This is a somewhat unusual way to organize activities in
our movement, and I think alternatives might be possible, even as we rely
to some degree on state heritage lists.
Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)
On Sun, Jan 21, 2024 at 4:50 AM Bodhisattwa <bodhisattwa.rgkmc(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Totally agreed with Alexey. We are not supposed to judge and sanction
people based on what their governments are doing. Our focus should
completely remain on how to digitally preserve built heritage of our
regions in a better way, keeping aside geopolitical conflicts and
differences. If we want to drag world politics and play UN here, then the
"international" part of the competition will be gone soon as no country in
this world is a piece of heaven fallen from the sky; geopolitical conflicts
are everywhere, even if they are not visible as wars.
WLM is a collaborative international project and it should welcome any
country willing to document their heritage. There should be no exception!
Regards,
Bodhisattwa
On Sun, Jan 21, 2024, 12:28 Aleksey Chalabyan <xelgen.am(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Dear all,
I wanted to add my 2 cents, since I'll be at another wikimedia call and
will miss this call (or most of it) and since last time I followed
principle of least drama.
I am seriously afraid stepping into this territory will open a Pandora's
box with dozens of requests to exclude this or that country, arbitration of
those requests etc, making organisation of WLM, WLE and any other
international cooperation much, much less pleasent and if doable per se. It
will fill more like all-against-all UN session or international court -
then a collaborative, friendly place to make a wiki photo contest to get
more free photos of monuments from every corner of the world.
Unfortunately, there are many wars and conflicts, and many cultural
genocides. Some get more media coverage, some less. But there will be a
long line of countries to ban if we go there. And if we do - I personally,
will add couple more countries to the top of the list, with a sound proofs
of decades of cultural genocide done by them.
Also there are countries with great track of preserving monuments, even if
those are of another culture/religion, no wars started in centuries, but
very poor track record of human rights in general, and let's say woman and
LGBT rights in particular. Are those countries "good enough to play with
us" or not?
How about cases where monuments are preserved but culturally apropriated?
How about millitary suppliers and military allies of countries we'll ban?
How about countries where UNESCO officials were caught bribed by regimes to
cover up acts of cultural genocide? How about UNESCO itself?
How far do we go in our Wiki Loves Justice campaign?
I mention no country name now on purpose, to preserve comfortable
collaborative environment and not make anyone feel like they needs to
defend themselves. I believe any true Wikimedian in good standing should
feel safe and comfortable here for our international cooperation to be
possible. Even if their governments and military do unforgivable and
unforgettable crimes - as we speak, or a year, 10 or 100 years ago.
That's not how and where we should punish those governments and regimes.
And let's be frank they won't care. We'd just go far away from our mission
and make our lives worse - less fun and less meaningful, and the only part
we'd punish will be victims on the other side.
P.S. Sorry for long letter, was short on time. (c)
Love and peace,
Aleksey a.k.a Xelgen
2024 թ. հնվ 21, կիր, 5:07 effe iets anders <effeietsanders(a)gmail.com>
օգտատերը գրել է․
Hi Illia,
thanks for letting us know. I understand the constraints you must be
dealing with, and I wish we could have announced this earlier (not limited
to your situation - this is desirable for other reasons too). Please know
that it was not our intention to announce it last minute, but that we
realized too late that time was running out for this in the way I
explained. Hopefully we can indeed better meet the timeliness expectations
going forward.
Lodewijk
On Fri, Jan 19, 2024 at 1:04 PM Ilya Korniyko <intracer(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Lodewijk,
WLM Ukraine's organizing team is interested in this discussion, but it's
difficult to find time for it on such a short notice -- because of the
armed conflict most Ukrainian Wikimedians have to simultaneously fit into
their agendas their main work, Wikimedia volunteering and activities we
have to do because of the war. For example, I have an emergency casualty
care training this Sunday, and another team member cannot join because she
goes to a training area for drills on the same day.
We ask that you take these circumstances into consideration and notify us
in advance in the future.
Regards,
Illia
On Wed, Jan 17, 2024 at 2:23 AM effe iets anders <effeietsanders(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Hi all,
(with apologies for the delay in sending this announcement)
This email discusses a sensitive topic of armed conflict, and may contain
triggers for some of our community members. While we appreciate your input,
please prioritize your own mental wellbeing and don't feel obligated to
respond or participate. I have tried to frame this as sensitively as
possible, but welcome constructive suggestions on how to do this better
off-list.
*Summary*: On Sunday 21 January (08:00 PST, 16:00 UTC), the international
team of Wiki Loves Monuments will organize an office hour/community
conversation on: How should an international federated photo competition
like WLM handle national teams, international finalists and communication
in the case of geopolitical armed conflict. We will announce the link
later, and you can register here:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2023/Office…
*Topic*: In the past years, our communities have been confronted with the
question how to deal with a number of geopolitical armed conflicts. This
question came up in the past years in a few different ways: whether photos
of heritage from certain countries should be allowed to be represented or
compete in international competitions like Wiki Loves Monuments, whether
and how photos of heritage in disputed areas can participate (especially
when that dispute becomes an armed conflict) and there are probably more
ways ahead that various armed conflicts can make an international
competition and communication about the competition complex. There is no
question whether human and cultural destruction is desirable, and every war
is likely one too many.
*Why now*: It is particularly hard to discuss these sensitive topics when
they are current: it is a painful conversation for everyone to have,
especially because the people who are living through the real-life
consequences are given an additional burden of engaging in these
discussions, under the pressure of time.
For this reason I believe it would be helpful to discuss this topic
without focusing on a specific conflict - but rather to discuss principles.
How would we, generally speaking, international competitions such as Wiki
Loves Monuments like to be influenced by armed conflict? Are there
guidelines that they could maintain? At this point, we don't know who the
winners of Wiki Loves Monuments are, and we can still have an abstract
conversation. I don't expect this conversation to conclude right away, but
hope that we can continue it in a few months after the dust of the winning
images has settled.
While this is already very soon, we have settled on Sunday 21 January,
16:00 UTC to avoid getting too close to the announcement of international
winners.
*Framing*: Some questions that come to mind as useful conversation
starters would include:
* Under what conditions could or should a national team be disqualified
from participating in an international federated activity such as WLM?
* If yes, who should make the decision whether to disqualify, and using
what criteria? Who should they consult?
* Under what conditions could or should the national submissions be
disqualified, if a national competition already has taken place?
* Should the international team make efforts to not appear to support an
armed conflict when communicating about the competition, or even previous
events? What are some guidelines that they could follow?
I would invite others to contribute in framing a constructive conversation
(publicly or privately - when in doubt, just email me privately).
*Conversation timeline*: We want this to be the start of a constructive
community conversation with national organizers, international organizers
and other community members who feel they can constructively contribute. We
welcome contributions from organizers of other similar international
competitions/activities. The conversation will be in English but if there
is sufficient interest, we can see if we can organize translation resources
in future conversations. You can sign up here:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2023/Office…
. Please do sign up, in case we have to share the link privately.
As mentioned, I don't expect this conversation to be "one and done".
It's
a first step, and I expect to follow up with a next conversation in a few
months, and again around Wikimania - if there is sufficient interest.
I will guide this conversation as a former WLM international team member
and a current advisor.
Warmly,
Lodewijk
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