I would like to thank everyone who weighed in on what Wiki Loves Monuments should look like in 2020. It will be a special year - originally we thought it would be special, because it's the 10th international edition. It turns out, that it will also be an especially challenging year to organize a photo competition. 

Countries around the world are dealing with the consequences of this ravaging pandemic, and many national organizers have already been wondering what approach to take this year. We organized office hours about this a few weeks ago, and as international team, we took the time to digest this. I wanted to take this email to give hopefully a bit more clarity about how we will organize Wiki Loves Monuments this year. 

Responsibility for national organizers: First of all, I would like to emphasize that the international team coordinates the national competitions: we are not qualified to tell you exactly how to organize your competition. The situation is rapidly evolving, and different in each country. National teams are best placed to decide whether and how to organize a competition in your country.  We will try to help set an international framework, and assist in the exchange of best practices. We expect that national organizers will follow the guidance and regulations set by their national governments and health authorities. Note that funding and WMF affiliate recognition may come with additional guidance/requirements. 

Extended timeline: National organizers have the opportunity to choose a different range of dates for their national competition. You can pick any range of 30 or 31 days within the period September-November 2020 as your upload dates. That means that one country does not have to use the same upload dates as another. This hopefully allows more flexibility for rapid changes in a national situation, but also for national organizers that currently don't have the capacity to organize a competition due to personal circumstances, to push the competition a little later in the year. However, uploads after November 30 will not be accepted. The jury deadline will be January 2, 2021 for all countries. A simple timeline has been published on Commons, and will be updated there. Other documentation may be outdated - feel free to update. 

Exchange of best practices: There will be plenty of national challenges this year. I created an exchange page to share some best practices (but you can also keep using our mailing list). How to organize a competition when there are government restrictions? How do you make sure that not too many people show up? What kind of in-person events may be responsible, if permitted by local government? How to organize online upload workshops? This may be especially a good place to exchange some good blog posts and communications that inform participants on how to behave. I put up a few empty headers, and would love it if people help flesh out tips based on their experiences. 

Special awards in 2020: We already scheduled special awards in 2020 before the crisis became obvious. The international team is planning to organize two special regional awards (to be finalized in August) for underrepresented regions and possibly one award for some 'innovation category' (such as drones or 3D representation). Finally, we're considering a special award for UNESCO world heritage outside of participating countries (this would cover an upload period in November 2020). Thoughts about this are welcome on the main talk page on Commons.

Please don't forget to register your interest to participate here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2020/Participating_countries#Participating

I'm sure that this won't be the last email on this topic, but invite you to ask questions if you have any. You can do that on the Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list, or on the main talk page. 

On behalf of the international team, 

Lodewijk