Ashwin,
Thanks for the suggestions. But the contest deliberately kept the entry barriers low - the contest was for the uploads alone. So we are not considering any additional behaviour (categorising, clear descriptions, usage suggestions) for the prizes.

Too add to Srikanth L's points on the tamil wiki media contest, these are some of the preliminary lessons learnt (the official report will carry the complete list):

1) The commons admins/maintenance activity oriented users  are even more overworked than en wiki. If we are bringing files there through our activities, we carry the responsibility to not to overburden them. We realised this and have formed a team from ta wiki, which is doing the categorising and adding descriptions. (This team just coalesced on its own, without any conscious effort on the organisers part and is doing well aided by commons regulars).[1] Two of us have applied for and got file mover rights and two more have obtained AWB rights for doing cleanup. Categorisation is about 90 percent complete now.

We plan to finish the clean up (copyvio tagging / rotating/ cropping / description / categorising/ watermark removal) for all the files that were uploaded as part of the after contest efforts.

The priority for us is 1)eliminating copyvio 2)clear filenames/descriptions 3)rotations 4)categorisaton
 
And do the categorisation using people who are familiar with it in your own wikis (to avoid redundancy and errors like Beria points out). Dont do categorisation drives by people who aren't familiar with how and why categorising should be done.

2) Let contestants know where the images go and what they are used for. This will earn our wikis more active users. We managed to do this for part of the contestants - couldnt reach them all. But to my knowledge, ta wiki has gained atleast half a dozen new users who are using their files and some are even writing new articles for using their entries. Once they became involved, they are involving themselves in further activities in commons too.

3) Of the 15k odd files uploaded as part of the contest 8k are being used in various wiki projects and counting multiple usage, across all wikis there are a total of 11k file usage instances.

4) Taking cue from WLM Europe, we are planning a followup message on all uploaders talk pages  (and email if their email facility is enabled) thanking them and telling them of furthur activities they can take part of.


==Links==
1) http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:RecentChangesLinked&limit=250&target=Category%3ATamilWiki_Media_Contest

On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 10:59 PM, Noopur <noopur.raval@gmail.com> wrote:
Just to add to what Konarak and Ashwin said, I am guilty as charged. We kept the Category:Ahmedabad_1 to avoid flooding the popular category. It was decided to serve as the ''maintenance category'' but none of us really got around to transferring images to the Ahmedabad category or cleaning up. There are several reasons for this:

1) People started using images from Ahmedabad_1 soon after the event to make Ahmedabad articles. So, the attention was diverted there.

2) Personally, I was unclear as to whether all these images had to be migrated because of course some are repetitive and redundant. But, I/We are no one to judge whose image stays or goes. 

3) Since then and since the Tamil Wikimedia contest I have been contemplating on things:
How can we minimize and optimize image uploads? Can we set parameters in the contest format so that everyone can contribute but its more diverse in terms of results? Maybe we should generate a more exhaustive list of items? Also, are there guidelines for maintenance that we can make (5-7 points) so that the organizers can follow that up too (just in case they aren't aware or don't know how to)?

Do let me know what you guys think!
Regards
Noopur


On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 8:27 PM, Konarak Ratnakar <konarak.11@live.com> wrote:
Agreed, I wasn't involved in editing until the Ahmedabad photowalk happened, else I'd have helped.
I suggest we should segregate the photos in sub categories, while keeping track of those identical images that should be deleted.

Konarak Ratnakar | kondi
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2012 20:09:10 +0530
From: ashwin.baindur@gmail.com
To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Lesson from the past: Photowalks and other events


Yes, Konark. But I do not want to point figures to one event. In my view all events are culprits. 

Imagine the problem of processing 15K images of the Tamil contest - I shudder to think!

Suggestion : No image should be considered eligible for competition till it is uploaded with :
* proper description.
* suggested/recommended article for image use or for creation.
* proper categorisation in Commons.

Have volunteers available to help photographers. The photothon should end in an uploading function where volunteers help in these aspects.

Warm regards,

Ashwin Baindur
------------------------------------------------------


On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 7:30 PM, Konarak Ratnakar <konarak.11@live.com> wrote:
The question just got asked when I was about to ask it.  

The problem is that the organisers end their activities with the upload of hundreds of images. The cleanup is expected to be done by un-named, unknown others. The encyclopedic value of the images that the people took in the photothon never get realised.

The organisers of any photothon must realise that the photothon should end only after the Juice is squeezed out of each image. Better to have 50 good images, catalogued and embellishing articles than thousands "[[waiting for Godot]]".

Take a look at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ahmedabad_1 you're talking about something like this, right Ashwin? 

Konarak Ratnakar | kondi

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Student
Arts and Aesthetics
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Ph: 9650567690


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