Wiki Loves Monuments

Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) is an annual international photographic competition held during the month of September, organised worldwide by the Wikipedia community members with the help of local Wikimedia affiliates across the globe. Participants take pictures of local historical monuments and heritage sites in their region, and upload them to Wikimedia Commons. The aim of event is to highlight the heritage sites of the participating countries with the goal to encourage people to capture pictures of these monuments, and to put them under a free licence which can then be re-used not only in Wikipedia but everywhere by everyone.

The first Wiki Loves Monuments competition was held in 2010 in the Netherlands as pilot project. The next year it spread to other countries in Europe and according to the Guinness Book of Records, the 2011 edition of the Wiki Loves Monuments broke the world record for the largest photography competition.^[1] In 2012, the competition was extended beyond Europe, with a total of 35 participating countries.^[2] During Wiki Loves Monuments 2012, more than 350,000 photographs of historic monuments were uploaded by more than 15,000 participants. In 2013, the Wiki Loves Monuments competition was held across six continents including Antarctica and had official participation from more than fifty countries around the world.

History

Infographic showing the actual behind-the-scenes workflow.

WLM is the successor to Wiki Loves Art which was held in the Netherlands in 2009. The original WLM contest for "Rijksmonuments" (Dutch for "national monuments") encouraged photographers to seek out Dutch National Heritage Sites. The Rijkmonuments include architecture and objects of general interest recognized for their beauty, scientific, and/or cultural importance. Such locations as the Drenthe archeological sites, the Noordeinde Royal Palace in The Hague, and the houses along the canals of Amsterdam were part of the more than 12,500 photographs submitted during the first event.^[3]

This success generated interest in other European countries, and through a collaboration with the European Heritage Days, 18 states with the help of local Wikimedia chapters participated in the 2011 competition,^[4][5] uploading nearly 170,000 images by its conclusion. The Guinness Book of Records recognizes the 2011 edition of Wiki Loves Monuments as the largest photography competition in the world with 168,208 pictures uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by more than 5,000 participants.^[1] In total, some 171,000 photographs were contributed from 18 participants countries of Europe. Germany, France and Spain contributed highest number of photographs. Photo from Romania won the first international prize, whereas Estonia secured second and Germany third position in WLM 2011.

In 2012, the Wiki Loves Monuments competition had official participation of more than thirty countries and regions around the world: Andorra with Catalonia, Argentina, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Panama, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United States. In total 363,000 photos were contributed from 35 participants countries. Germany, Spain and Poland contributed highest number of photographs.^[2] A picture of Tomb of Safdarjung from Delhi, India, won the contest which saw more than 350,000 contributions.^[6][7] Spain secured second and Philippines third position in 2012 edition of annual WLM photo contest.

In 2013, the Wiki Loves Monuments competition had official participation of more than fifty countries from all six continents including Antarctica. Among the new participant nations were Algeria, Chine, Azerbaijan, Hong Kong, Jordan, Venezuela, Thailand, Taiwan, Nepal, Tunisia, Egypt, the United Kingdom, war-torned Syria and many others. In total, some 370,000 photos were contributed from more than 52 participants countries. Germany, Ukraine and Poland contributed highest number of photographs. Switzerland won the first international prize, whereas Taiwan secured second and Hungary third position in 2013 edition of WLM.

Contest rules

The basic rules for participation in Wiki Loves Monuments are quite simple for both the organizing country committees and the photographers. The participating country committees need to submit their list of monuments in such a way using unique identifiers that they can be tracked by the competition, and the participating photographers must upload their photos with unique identifiers in the time period 1 September to 30 September. Participants must upload their photos directly to Wikimedia Commons, which means that if they did not yet have one, they must first create a user account because anonymous submissions cannot win prizes. The images uploaded may have been taken at any time, but in order to be counted for the contest, they must be newly uploaded to Commons in September, and must be freely licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 (or other compatible licenses such as CC-by or CC-0).^[8]

Lists

To be part of the competition, images need to be considered "encyclopedic", so they must be of monuments or places listed with the local government. This is taken care of by the submission lists per country. Photographers must upload images accompanied by an official identifier and the geographic coordinates, though they are generally not even aware they are doing this when they upload through their Wiki Loves Monuments website, or through the mobile phone app that attaches this information for them. The government listings which include this information are refined throughout the year and adjusted as monument information changes. The current selection of participating countries are simply those countries where volunteers have taken the time to create such submission lists. There are however, also some countries in which legal restrictions prevent making such lists available or in which photographs of heritage may not be eligible for Wikipedia. The legislation on cultural heritage varies widely per jurisdiction.

Winners

The following is a list of international winners of Wiki Loves Monuments who secured first prize.

Year	Photographer	Country	Description	Photo
2010	Rudolphous	Netherlands	Vijzelstraat 31 in Amsterdam
2011	Mihai Petre	Romania	Winter picture of Chiajna Monastery. The monastery is situated on the outskirts of Bucharest.
2012	Pranav Singh	India	Tomb of Safdarjung, New Delhi, India
2013	David Gubler	Switzerland	A RhB Ge 4/4 II with a push–pull train crosses the Wiesen Viaduct between Wiesen and Filisur, Switzerland.
2014	Konstantin Brizhnichenko	Ukraine	Holy Mountains Monastery, Sviatohirsk, Ukraine.
2015

Spin-offs

Wikipedians attending Wiki Loves Monuments in Erfurt.

Several spin-offs based on Wiki Loves Monuments are organised within the Wikimedia movement locally and internationally. They generally follow the basics of Wiki Loves Monuments and mostly differentiate in their scope and changes in some of the rules.

• In spring 2013, a photographic competition called Wiki Loves Earth (Ukrainian: Вікі любить Землю) was organised in Ukraine with a main focus on taking photographs of the natural heritage sites in Ukraine and subsequently uploading them on Wikimedia Commons.^[9]
• A few months later, Wikimedia Sweden and Europeana initiated a photographic competition with the name Wiki Loves Public Art aiming to increase the number of photographs taken from public artworks.^[10] The project was organised in five countries and resulted in more than 9,250 photographs uploaded.^[11]
• In autumn 2013, the photographic competition Wiki Loves Cultural Heritage (Macedonian: Вики го сака културното наследство) was organised in Macedonia, broadening the scope of Wiki Loves Monuments to the cultural heritage in any form, both tangible and intangible, including monuments, heritage sites, dishes, outfit, tapestries, crafts, dances and other traditional elements.^[12]

See also

• Heritage site
• Wiki Loves Monuments on Wikimedia Commons
• Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 winners
• Wiki Loves Monuments 2014 winners

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Wiki Loves Monuments.

• Official website
• Wiki Loves Monuments Android package at the F-Droid repository
• Wiki Loves Monuments at the Google Play store