Hi all,

It's been an incredible 4 months. On behalf of Wiki Loves Monuments international team I'd like to thank /all/ of you who made this year's contest possible. We have achieved a lot together.

In this email, we're sharing with you the result of the contest. There are 15 winners in this year's contest chosen among 392 photos that made it to the international contest. The international jury carefully reviewed these photos and chose the top 15 among them.

Like any other contest, there are photos and countries that have made it to the top 15 and those who haven't. It's important for us to remember that our work towards free knowledge for everyone is beyond the geographical borders and contests. The contest is a means to an end. This is a day that we all should celebrate for empowering more people to share in the sum of all human knowledge, for helping them bring amazing photos to Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Wikivoyage, Wikidata, and our other projects, and for helping them discover their heritage.

All key metrics showed significant growth compared to last year: the number of participating countries (more than 30% increase), the number of participants (62% increase), the number of first time contributors to Wikimedia projects (78% increase), and the number of photos uploaded (20% increase). This year we also welcomed four first time participating countries from very different parts of the world: Bangladesh, Greece, Peru, and South Korea. I want to emphasize this: /you/ made all of this happen! :)

Now, please sit back and enjoy the result of your efforts:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2016_winners#Winners

You can read the blog posts about the results as well. They are:
http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/winners-2016/
and
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/12/15/seventh-annual-wiki-loves-monuments/

Best,
Lily, on behalf of the WLM international team

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User: LilyOfTheWest