Monastery of Rousanou, Meteora, Greece by Alexis Alexandris
About Wiki Loves Monuments
Wiki Loves Monuments is an international photo competition that has monuments and as its abiding theme. It is organized annually by the Wikimedia community in and around September. Wikimedia is the community movement behind Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – a global collaboration authored by volunteers.
Cultural heritage is an important part of the knowledge Wikimedia projects collect and disseminate. In more than 40 countries all over the world, a national competition is organized. Wikimedia communities in each country work with the custodians of their national monuments and additional partners to host the competition with local rules, events and winners. Every national competition nominates some of their winning pictures for the international competition.
Since the successful pilot competition in the Netherlands in 2010, the competition has been organized globally each year, successfully mobilising volunteers to contribute images to the Wikimedia projects. After ten successful iterations, the competition sourced close to two million freely usable images related to cultural heritage.
Information to organize the competition in 2020
It’s that time of year again when we get started for Wiki Loves Monuments. By 2020, we have completed ten iterations of the international edition. Thanks to all other organizers, participants, sponsors and partners, who collectively achieved this feat. With the onset of a global pandemic, last year has been particularly challenging for many organizers to keep the photo competition running. Nevertheless, we received 200,000+ images.
Though it is great to see several countries recovering to normal life after a long period of lockdowns and restrictions, many countries aren’t quite there yet. Since February this year, we have been organizing office hours to have inputs from community members regarding various aspects related to the competition, which also includes the timeline. The framework for 2021 is based on all consolidated feedback from these conversations and surveys we did for 2020.
Responsibility for national organizers
We 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. 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 guidelines and regulations set by their national governments and health authorities. Note that funding and WMF affiliate recognition may come with additional guidance/requirements.
Transparency of national juries
The international team has been receiving feedback over the last couple of years for better transparency of national juries, to avoid potential conflict of interest organizers may have with jurors. So from this year on, national organizers should publish their information (username or name) of jurors and rounds organized on this page.
Extended timeline
Many organizers welcomed the extended timeline last year. Though we will be continuing that this year, but not exactly as we did last year. 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 of September-October 2021 as your upload dates. That means that one country does not have to use the same upload dates as another. This will allow flexibility according to the situation in various countries.→ The last date for all uploads is 31 October 2021.
→The last date to submit the national winners is December 5, 2021, for all countries.
Exchange of knowledge
National organizers innovate in many ways to make their competitions successful. While some try out new social media campaigns, some organize an interesting photo walk, and others use Wikidata to make the upload process easy. It would be helpful for other organizers to learn from these practices. Here is the page where you can share your strategies and let the community know what worked, what didn’t and any suggestions for others interested in the idea.
Special awards in 2021
Though the international team tried to organize special awards last year, we couldn’t make it work. We have a budget this year as well to award special prizes. We would like community members to suggest ideas for these special prizes. For example, underrepresented regions, the most numbers of unique monuments covered etc. Please send in your ideas via email or by posting on the Wikimedia Commons talk page by July 15.
Organize
Lastly, and most importantly, if you are interested in organizing the competition for your country/region, please sign up at https://w.wiki/3a5s.
If you need any support with organizing, please reach out to one of the international team members, or you can also post to the mailing list, or on the help desk on Wikimedia Commons.
If you are interested in helping with the international coordination,
please check out the roles here and let us know if anything interests you.
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