The Wikimedia Foundation’s mobile team is proud to release the first official way for users to contribute to Wikimedia projects via mobile: Photo uploads for the Wiki Loves Monuments contest, a worldwide event to contribute freely-licensed photos of cultural heritage sites to Wikimedia Commons, which started in over 30 countries on September 1.
With the Wiki Loves Monuments Android app, you can easily see monuments near you or browse through a country and its regions. In addition to finding monuments on the local map or in a list, photos can be taken from within the app or chosen from the phone’s gallery, to be uploaded immediately, or to be saved for later so they can be uploaded in batch with a better data connection.
Please download the app and participate in the contest! More than 30 countries are participating this year, so it is very likely that you will find a monument near you to photograph, either in your home town or during your travels. This is an ideal way to add more meaning to your holiday by contributing to the record of national heritage sites on Commons and Wikipedia.
The app is currently available for Android in the Google Play store in the Photography category, and for direct download. It has been developed using the open-source framework Cordova (formerly PhoneGap) and the free content maps from OpenStreetMaps, which are used in all our mobile apps. The intention is to learn from this experience and integrate much of the same functionality in the Wikipedia mobile site and apps.
One of the key features of this app is the ability to upload photos to Commons with a streamlined process that includes all the templates, license info and metadata that are required for Commons and the WLM contest. This is a new take on the uploading process, which is the first step toward making photo contributions to Wikipedia a mobile reality.
Due to the popularity of Android devices in many of the participating countries, the initial focus was on Android, but an iPhone version is also possible because of the Cordova framework. Developers are welcome to fork the source code and develop other apps or help with integration in the existing Wikipedia mobile projects.
If you have feedback about the app, please post comments on the feedback page or send us an email.
Phil Chang
Product Manager, Mobile
Can you help us translate this article?
In order for this article to reach as many people as possible we would like your help. Can you translate this article to get the message out?
Start translation