Hi,
just a few clarifications:
I totally agree with Naoko of course. However, for me the main goal is not even just the photos itself, but the reach it gives us to involve more people. If I understand the statistics correctly; up to date, we have been able to involve roughly 1000 people throughout Europe in this contest who never before uploaded/edited anything.
Involving new people was also the reason to set WLM up as a contest - that assists at least in Europe very well in attracting attention of people who normally do not edit Wikipedia, and persuade them to participate. However, in the end they often keep participating because it is fun and because they like it that their images appear on Wikipedia.
@Yaroslav: the main reason to focus on Europe this year was the large concentration, intergovernmental support (European Commission & Council of Europe) and lack of resources (mainly man power). If there are next year enough people to carry on the idea, I'm sure we can include more countries, *if* the concept works for them.
Then lists etc are a very practical precondition - not a fundamental one. If we can find other ways to make it work, that is find of course. Also, if countries rather run a project on different topics (volunteer involvement is important, otherwise it won't work) they should definitely do that (I heard suggestions for Wiki Loves Wildlife, Wiki Loves Rivers and many others!).
Finally a note about chapters. Yes, having a chapter is very helpful - usually it is a group of organized volunteers who has existing experience with media and volunteer coordination (because some coordination is necessary) and they have access to some kind of budgeting / bank accounts. But also this is very practical - this year four countries without any chapter participated: Andorra (with the help of Amical), Belgium & Luxembourg (with a lot of dedicated volunteers, mostly in Belgium) and Romania (with the help of a local pro-linux association and local volunteers). So there is definitely no rule against chapters without a chapter to participate, but it does require a steeper learning curve, and some extra dedication.
You can find much of the thinking behind this concept in our post-mortem of 2010 and the notes on the Berlin meeting last May with many participating countries; all available on Commons. Of course I invite all comments regarding improvements for next years in our post-mortem after September.
Best regards, Lodewijk
Am 12. September 2011 07:49 schrieb Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru:
On Mon, 12 Sep 2011 10:51:33 +0900, KIZU Naoko aphaia@gmail.com wrote:
Off topic alert:
I haven't given a closer look to your main topic, Milos, so I cannot give a responsible statement in any way. But your reference to Wiki Loves Monuments, while I agree it's heavily Europe-focused, I strongly disagree with you on its decadency, as an (retired) aesthetic. While the determination what artworks are heavily depends on the community to appreciate, so partly I understand your concern, if WLM is carried on only by European chapter people, it can hardly of NPOV at some future moment, but artworks belong to the critical part of "the sum of human knowledge" along with the information who created them and then have appreciated or rejected them.
Only countries which have lists of monuments compiled by the government and having the status of the law are eligible for WLM. This is in some sense POV but no more POV than say writing articles of members of parliament who were elected by direct vote. If Japan has such a list (I hope it does) next year it would be eligible to participate. My understanding is that somehow the organizers did not expect such interest and did not try to contact chapters outside Europe. Presumably next year they will do. On the other hand, by the next year some of the European countries may exhaust their monuments (in the sense that the most of the pictures will be taken and the articles written or judged to be impossible to write). Thus, NPOV does not seem to be a problem to me.
I do see two other problems with WLM, which are (i) competition format, which implicitly stimulates certain strategies we normally do not want to stimulate; (ii) involvement of the chapters as a precondition - some countries do not have chapters, some chapters showed no interest, some were unable to organize anything in the end. But I am not sure such discussion belongs to this thread.
Cheers Yaroslav
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@Yaroslav: the main reason to focus on Europe this year was the large concentration, intergovernmental support (European Commission & Council
of
Europe) and lack of resources (mainly man power). If there are next year enough people to carry on the idea, I'm sure we can include more
countries,
*if* the concept works for them.
<...>
Finally a note about chapters. Yes, having a chapter is very helpful - usually it is a group of organized volunteers who has existing
experience
with media and volunteer coordination (because some coordination is necessary) and they have access to some kind of budgeting / bank
accounts.
But also this is very practical - this year four countries without any chapter participated: Andorra (with the help of Amical), Belgium & Luxembourg (with a lot of dedicated volunteers, mostly in Belgium) and Romania (with the help of a local pro-linux association and local volunteers). So there is definitely no rule against chapters without a chapter to participate, but it does require a steeper learning curve,
and
some extra dedication.
Well, as one example, we had some private correspondence about involvement of Russia: The chapter failed to organize anything, mostly because they failed to realize that the database they were pointed out to is workable, they did not want or dis not manage to contact other people who understand the subject, and there was no way for any other group of people to organize the contest. As the result, I just had to fill up the (previously empty) category "WLM 2011 in Russia" myself single-handedly, not obviously expecting any credit for this, but just to avoid creating an impression that there are no monuments in Russia.
Also, if there was no group let us give a random example - in Macedonia - who wanted to organize the contest, still it would be a good idea to open a category for WLM in Macedonia, just to get a chance to indeed involve new people and to possibly get a number of good quality image previously missing. Especially if people would know this in advance and could take pictures for instance during the summer holidays.
Just to be understood correctly, I think WLM is in general a good idea, and my criticism is not to undermine it is any way, but to possibly create some input for the next time. (I am a WLM supporter and I uploaded so far I believe about 1% of the total amount of images).
Cheers Yaroslav
Am 12. September 2011 11:04 schrieb Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru:
@Yaroslav: the main reason to focus on Europe this year was the large concentration, intergovernmental support (European Commission & Council
of
Europe) and lack of resources (mainly man power). If there are next year enough people to carry on the idea, I'm sure we can include more
countries,
*if* the concept works for them.
<...>
Finally a note about chapters. Yes, having a chapter is very helpful - usually it is a group of organized volunteers who has existing
experience
with media and volunteer coordination (because some coordination is necessary) and they have access to some kind of budgeting / bank
accounts.
But also this is very practical - this year four countries without any chapter participated: Andorra (with the help of Amical), Belgium & Luxembourg (with a lot of dedicated volunteers, mostly in Belgium) and Romania (with the help of a local pro-linux association and local volunteers). So there is definitely no rule against chapters without a chapter to participate, but it does require a steeper learning curve,
and
some extra dedication.
Well, as one example, we had some private correspondence about involvement of Russia: The chapter failed to organize anything, mostly because they failed to realize that the database they were pointed out to is workable, they did not want or dis not manage to contact other people who understand the subject, and there was no way for any other group of people to organize the contest. As the result, I just had to fill up the (previously empty) category "WLM 2011 in Russia" myself single-handedly, not obviously expecting any credit for this, but just to avoid creating an impression that there are no monuments in Russia.
Also, if there was no group let us give a random example - in Macedonia - who wanted to organize the contest, still it would be a good idea to open a category for WLM in Macedonia, just to get a chance to indeed involve new people and to possibly get a number of good quality image previously missing. Especially if people would know this in advance and could take pictures for instance during the summer holidays.
Just to be understood correctly, I think WLM is in general a good idea, and my criticism is not to undermine it is any way, but to possibly create some input for the next time. (I am a WLM supporter and I uploaded so far I believe about 1% of the total amount of images).
Thanks for the clarification - I understand better what you mean now. We indeed chose explicitely only to organize WLM in countries where there could be an effort to make the necessary preperations (preparing monument lists that are useful for non-Wikipedians, having a national jury and awards to attract attention of newbees etc). So it was indeed necessary to have an organizing team locally to organize Wiki Loves Monuments. This because otherwise the images would indeed end up on Commons, but most likely unused, because the monument is not clearly identified etc.
Anyway, lets have this discussion more in depth later on, after we can see some more clearly the final results of the 2011 edition in all countries.
Best regards,
Lodewijk
Thanks for the clarification - I understand better what you mean now. We indeed chose explicitely only to organize WLM in countries where there could be an effort to make the necessary preperations (preparing monument
lists
that are useful for non-Wikipedians, having a national jury and awards
to
attract attention of newbees etc). So it was indeed necessary to have an organizing team locally to organize Wiki Loves Monuments. This because otherwise the images would indeed end up on Commons, but most likely unused, because the monument is not clearly identified etc.
Anyway, lets have this discussion more in depth later on, after we can
see
some more clearly the final results of the 2011 edition in all
countries.
Best regards,
Lodewijk
Yes, I see the motivation, and I also agree that it would be better to discuss it in October in an appropriate place.
Just may be to note that every single picture I uploaded for Russia has a monument ID and will be used in at least one article in English Wikipedia (though in some case I would need to create these articles myself). It is of course easy to do when there are only 30 images, and I see how much effort is now to take care of all pictures of RM in the Netherlands.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 11:04, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
Also, if there was no group let us give a random example - in Macedonia - who wanted to organize the contest, still it would be a good idea to open a category for WLM in Macedonia, just to get a chance to indeed involve new people and to possibly get a number of good quality image previously missing. Especially if people would know this in advance and could take pictures for instance during the summer holidays.
Eh, wrong example. There is Wikimedia Macedonia and they really hate monuments because every local tycoon builds monuments in Macedonia, presently.
On 12.09.2011 19:05, Milos Rancic wrote:
Eh, wrong example. There is Wikimedia Macedonia and they really hate monuments because every local tycoon builds monuments in Macedonia, presently.
What was that supposed to mean? Either I don't get the joke or this isn't really a joke, is it?
W dniu 12 września 2011 19:30 użytkownik Tomasz Kozłowski odder.wiki@gmail.com napisał:
On 12.09.2011 19:05, Milos Rancic wrote:
Eh, wrong example. There is Wikimedia Macedonia and they really hate monuments because every local tycoon builds monuments in Macedonia, presently.
What was that supposed to mean? Either I don't get the joke or this isn't really a joke, is it?
Maybe it is just missunderstanding of word "monument"? In "Wiki Loves Monuments" it does not mean a memorial statue of the person, but an "unmovable pice of human heritage" such as historical buildings, old towns, old cementaries, etc. So - a recently built memoral of recent political or social activities rather do not fulfill the definition. In order to avoid this missunderstanding we called our (Polish) part of "Wiki Loves Monuments" -"Wiki Lubi Zabytki". Maybe in Macedonian there is similar word to Polish "zabytek" ?
2011/9/12 Tomasz Ganicz polimerek@gmail.com:
W dniu 12 września 2011 19:30 użytkownik Tomasz Kozłowski odder.wiki@gmail.com napisał:
On 12.09.2011 19:05, Milos Rancic wrote:
Eh, wrong example. There is Wikimedia Macedonia and they really hate monuments because every local tycoon builds monuments in Macedonia, presently.
What was that supposed to mean? Either I don't get the joke or this isn't really a joke, is it?
Maybe it is just missunderstanding of word "monument"? In "Wiki Loves Monuments" it does not mean a memorial statue of the person, but an "unmovable pice of human heritage" such as historical buildings, old towns, old cementaries, etc. So - a recently built memoral of recent political or social activities rather do not fulfill the definition. In order to avoid this missunderstanding we called our (Polish) part of "Wiki Loves Monuments" -"Wiki Lubi Zabytki". Maybe in Macedonian there is similar word to Polish "zabytek" ?
Not expert in Macedonian, but I think that you are probably right, as it seems that nouns are the same in Serbian: "spomenik" is both particular ("memorial statue") and general word (Belgrade Castle is also "spomenik"). There is a word "monument", but that one means something of really big importance (Egyptian pyramids are "monument"; while even Belgrade Castle isn't usually named with that word; Wikipedia could be called "monument", as well) or for something very old, usually connected with civilization which doesn't exist anymore (obelisks could be called "monument").
And, yes, according to Macedonians which I know (including Wikimedians), there is ongoing "monument/statue rush" in Macedonia. It's a kind of subcultural kitch movement among richer Macedonians. At lesser level, it could be seen in the rest of Balkans, as well.
On 09/12/11 10:05 AM, Milos Rancic wrote:
On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 11:04, Yaroslav M. Blanterputevod@mccme.ru wrote:
Also, if there was no group let us give a random example - in Macedonia - who wanted to organize the contest, still it would be a good idea to open a category for WLM in Macedonia, just to get a chance to indeed involve new people and to possibly get a number of good quality image previously missing. Especially if people would know this in advance and could take pictures for instance during the summer holidays.
Eh, wrong example. There is Wikimedia Macedonia and they really hate monuments because every local tycoon builds monuments in Macedonia, presently.
This makes getting the pictures more important ... before their successors tear them down.
Ray
Hello there,
Japan has a such (thanks Yaroslave for your concern) and iirc Taiwan has too. Perhaps other countries.
If people are ambition enough to spread coordination efforts to the large international orgs, I'd point out not only UNESCO but also International Society of Aesthetics would be a good candidate to contact. In particular where the government doesn't provide such a list. ISA itself won't be so excited but you could ask them to have you contact to the local appropriate associations which are keen and open to collaborate with guys coming outsides from adacemia.
On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 6:04 PM, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
@Yaroslav: the main reason to focus on Europe this year was the large concentration, intergovernmental support (European Commission & Council
of
Europe) and lack of resources (mainly man power). If there are next year enough people to carry on the idea, I'm sure we can include more
countries,
*if* the concept works for them.
<...>
Finally a note about chapters. Yes, having a chapter is very helpful - usually it is a group of organized volunteers who has existing
experience
with media and volunteer coordination (because some coordination is necessary) and they have access to some kind of budgeting / bank
accounts.
But also this is very practical - this year four countries without any chapter participated: Andorra (with the help of Amical), Belgium & Luxembourg (with a lot of dedicated volunteers, mostly in Belgium) and Romania (with the help of a local pro-linux association and local volunteers). So there is definitely no rule against chapters without a chapter to participate, but it does require a steeper learning curve,
and
some extra dedication.
Well, as one example, we had some private correspondence about involvement of Russia: The chapter failed to organize anything, mostly because they failed to realize that the database they were pointed out to is workable, they did not want or dis not manage to contact other people who understand the subject, and there was no way for any other group of people to organize the contest. As the result, I just had to fill up the (previously empty) category "WLM 2011 in Russia" myself single-handedly, not obviously expecting any credit for this, but just to avoid creating an impression that there are no monuments in Russia.
Also, if there was no group let us give a random example - in Macedonia - who wanted to organize the contest, still it would be a good idea to open a category for WLM in Macedonia, just to get a chance to indeed involve new people and to possibly get a number of good quality image previously missing. Especially if people would know this in advance and could take pictures for instance during the summer holidays.
Just to be understood correctly, I think WLM is in general a good idea, and my criticism is not to undermine it is any way, but to possibly create some input for the next time. (I am a WLM supporter and I uploaded so far I believe about 1% of the total amount of images).
Cheers Yaroslav
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Hi Naoko,
Thanks for your pointers. What I'm seeing this year is that in order to go global, we'll probably need around 10 people to coordinate the event (I'm thinking that this year there were only 2 people involved in all the steps and a few more that helped in different areas).
This means that it's not too early to start talking about WLM2012, but perhaps a better place for this is the WikiLovesMonuments lists. We would like to see you participate in discussions there :)
Thanks, Strainu
2011/9/13 KIZU Naoko aphaia@gmail.com:
Hello there,
Japan has a such (thanks Yaroslave for your concern) and iirc Taiwan has too. Perhaps other countries.
If people are ambition enough to spread coordination efforts to the large international orgs, I'd point out not only UNESCO but also International Society of Aesthetics would be a good candidate to contact. In particular where the government doesn't provide such a list. ISA itself won't be so excited but you could ask them to have you contact to the local appropriate associations which are keen and open to collaborate with guys coming outsides from adacemia.
On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 6:04 PM, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
@Yaroslav: the main reason to focus on Europe this year was the large concentration, intergovernmental support (European Commission & Council
of
Europe) and lack of resources (mainly man power). If there are next year enough people to carry on the idea, I'm sure we can include more
countries,
*if* the concept works for them.
<...>
Finally a note about chapters. Yes, having a chapter is very helpful - usually it is a group of organized volunteers who has existing
experience
with media and volunteer coordination (because some coordination is necessary) and they have access to some kind of budgeting / bank
accounts.
But also this is very practical - this year four countries without any chapter participated: Andorra (with the help of Amical), Belgium & Luxembourg (with a lot of dedicated volunteers, mostly in Belgium) and Romania (with the help of a local pro-linux association and local volunteers). So there is definitely no rule against chapters without a chapter to participate, but it does require a steeper learning curve,
and
some extra dedication.
Well, as one example, we had some private correspondence about involvement of Russia: The chapter failed to organize anything, mostly because they failed to realize that the database they were pointed out to is workable, they did not want or dis not manage to contact other people who understand the subject, and there was no way for any other group of people to organize the contest. As the result, I just had to fill up the (previously empty) category "WLM 2011 in Russia" myself single-handedly, not obviously expecting any credit for this, but just to avoid creating an impression that there are no monuments in Russia.
Also, if there was no group let us give a random example - in Macedonia - who wanted to organize the contest, still it would be a good idea to open a category for WLM in Macedonia, just to get a chance to indeed involve new people and to possibly get a number of good quality image previously missing. Especially if people would know this in advance and could take pictures for instance during the summer holidays.
Just to be understood correctly, I think WLM is in general a good idea, and my criticism is not to undermine it is any way, but to possibly create some input for the next time. (I am a WLM supporter and I uploaded so far I believe about 1% of the total amount of images).
Cheers Yaroslav
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-- KIZU Naoko / 木津尚子 member of Wikimedians in Kansai / 関西ウィキメディアユーザ会 http://kansai.wikimedia.jp
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On Tue, 13 Sep 2011 11:39:52 +0300, Strainu strainu10@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Naoko,
Thanks for your pointers. What I'm seeing this year is that in order to go global, we'll probably need around 10 people to coordinate the event (I'm thinking that this year there were only 2 people involved in all the steps and a few more that helped in different areas).
This means that it's not too early to start talking about WLM2012, but perhaps a better place for this is the WikiLovesMonuments lists. We would like to see you participate in discussions there :)
Is there a public WLM list open for discussion?
Cheers Yaroslav
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments _____ *Béria Lima* http://wikimedia.pt/(351) 925 171 484
*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. É isso o que estamos a fazer http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Nossos_projetos.*
On 13 September 2011 11:26, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
On Tue, 13 Sep 2011 11:39:52 +0300, Strainu strainu10@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Naoko,
Thanks for your pointers. What I'm seeing this year is that in order to go global, we'll probably need around 10 people to coordinate the event (I'm thinking that this year there were only 2 people involved in all the steps and a few more that helped in different areas).
This means that it's not too early to start talking about WLM2012, but perhaps a better place for this is the WikiLovesMonuments lists. We would like to see you participate in discussions there :)
Is there a public WLM list open for discussion?
Cheers Yaroslav
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Yes, there is (thanks Béria for linking) - however I think I speak for many on that list that it would be appreciated if you can hold off the more general 2012 discussions until October :) Just to state the obvious.
Best regards,
Lodewijk
Am 13. September 2011 12:28 schrieb Béria Lima berialima@gmail.com:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments _____ *Béria Lima* http://wikimedia.pt/(351) 925 171 484
*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. É isso o que estamos a fazer http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Nossos_projetos.*
On 13 September 2011 11:26, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
On Tue, 13 Sep 2011 11:39:52 +0300, Strainu strainu10@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Naoko,
Thanks for your pointers. What I'm seeing this year is that in order to go global, we'll probably need around 10 people to coordinate the event (I'm thinking that this year there were only 2 people involved in all the steps and a few more that helped in different areas).
This means that it's not too early to start talking about WLM2012, but perhaps a better place for this is the WikiLovesMonuments lists. We would like to see you participate in discussions there :)
Is there a public WLM list open for discussion?
Cheers Yaroslav
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Agreed with Lodewijk, and thanks for your clarification
On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 5:34 PM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:
Hi,
just a few clarifications:
I totally agree with Naoko of course. However, for me the main goal is not even just the photos itself, but the reach it gives us to involve more people. If I understand the statistics correctly; up to date, we have been able to involve roughly 1000 people throughout Europe in this contest who never before uploaded/edited anything.
Thank you for raising that. I then implied, but did not mention explicitly, avoiding for scholastic redundancy (or decadence?). Picking up monuments for reach people out is a good idea corresponding with the main reason d'etre of so-called monuments; monuments are intersubjective, that is, a monument is what we as a community think as monument. I am not sure if any other themes had got the same level success. A monument, or precisely a certain object which the local or wider level of society is considered as a monument, is a focal point of interest by definition.
It's a corollary of art concepts so ideally we could go to the art works in general, but the copyright issues might then arise, so beginning with monuments placed in an open are seems a modest but good step. 'D
Involving new people was also the reason to set WLM up as a contest - that assists at least in Europe very well in attracting attention of people who normally do not edit Wikipedia, and persuade them to participate. However, in the end they often keep participating because it is fun and because they like it that their images appear on Wikipedia.
@Yaroslav: the main reason to focus on Europe this year was the large concentration, intergovernmental support (European Commission & Council of Europe) and lack of resources (mainly man power). If there are next year enough people to carry on the idea, I'm sure we can include more countries, *if* the concept works for them.
Then lists etc are a very practical precondition - not a fundamental one. If we can find other ways to make it work, that is find of course. Also, if countries rather run a project on different topics (volunteer involvement is important, otherwise it won't work) they should definitely do that (I heard suggestions for Wiki Loves Wildlife, Wiki Loves Rivers and many others!).
Finally a note about chapters. Yes, having a chapter is very helpful - usually it is a group of organized volunteers who has existing experience with media and volunteer coordination (because some coordination is necessary) and they have access to some kind of budgeting / bank accounts. But also this is very practical - this year four countries without any chapter participated: Andorra (with the help of Amical), Belgium & Luxembourg (with a lot of dedicated volunteers, mostly in Belgium) and Romania (with the help of a local pro-linux association and local volunteers). So there is definitely no rule against chapters without a chapter to participate, but it does require a steeper learning curve, and some extra dedication.
You can find much of the thinking behind this concept in our post-mortem of 2010 and the notes on the Berlin meeting last May with many participating countries; all available on Commons. Of course I invite all comments regarding improvements for next years in our post-mortem after September.
Best regards, Lodewijk
Am 12. September 2011 07:49 schrieb Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru:
On Mon, 12 Sep 2011 10:51:33 +0900, KIZU Naoko aphaia@gmail.com wrote:
Off topic alert:
I haven't given a closer look to your main topic, Milos, so I cannot give a responsible statement in any way. But your reference to Wiki Loves Monuments, while I agree it's heavily Europe-focused, I strongly disagree with you on its decadency, as an (retired) aesthetic. While the determination what artworks are heavily depends on the community to appreciate, so partly I understand your concern, if WLM is carried on only by European chapter people, it can hardly of NPOV at some future moment, but artworks belong to the critical part of "the sum of human knowledge" along with the information who created them and then have appreciated or rejected them.
Only countries which have lists of monuments compiled by the government and having the status of the law are eligible for WLM. This is in some sense POV but no more POV than say writing articles of members of parliament who were elected by direct vote. If Japan has such a list (I hope it does) next year it would be eligible to participate. My understanding is that somehow the organizers did not expect such interest and did not try to contact chapters outside Europe. Presumably next year they will do. On the other hand, by the next year some of the European countries may exhaust their monuments (in the sense that the most of the pictures will be taken and the articles written or judged to be impossible to write). Thus, NPOV does not seem to be a problem to me.
I do see two other problems with WLM, which are (i) competition format, which implicitly stimulates certain strategies we normally do not want to stimulate; (ii) involvement of the chapters as a precondition - some countries do not have chapters, some chapters showed no interest, some were unable to organize anything in the end. But I am not sure such discussion belongs to this thread.
Cheers Yaroslav
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