WLM 2014 planning meeting
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An in-person planning meeting for this year UK participation of the Wiki Loves Monuments photography competition.
Basic information
- Date: Sunday 29 June 2014, 12:30pm-3:30pm BST (11:30-14:30 UTC)
- Venue: Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London, EC2A 4LT
Agenda
- What happened last year?
- What went well, and what didn't?
- What do we need to do differently this year?
- Preparing for WLM-UK 2014
- Where are we so far?
- Infrastructure
- Source lists
- Promotion
- Sponsorship
Wiki Loves Monuments planning meeting - 29 June 2014
Note: These comments aren't intended as a complete set of minutes. If you were at the meeting please do contribute and add anything that is missing.
Attendees
- Colin
- David
- Richard Nevell
- Katie Chan
- Harry Mitchell
- Michael Maggs
- Stevie Benton
- Peter Coombe
- Rob
MM began the meeting by going over the details of the previous year. Successful, but lots of work. Difficult to find volunteers to put in lots of effort (but easy to find some prepared to put in some). Judging had its difficulties due to lack of infrastructure and numbers.
One of the problems people faced when trying to enter was not knowing the English Heritage number - was tricky for people to find the numbers on the English Wikipedia page. Some of this was due to templates, some due to unexpected naming. The English Heritage listings are all historical and don't correspond to anything else.
We needed to feed in to the international competition but the situation this year is unclear. Not all countries want to be involved this year and have already entered Wiki Loves Earth. Unsure whether there will be an international competition this year. If there is an international competition it will come quite late and there will be no real infrastructure for the contest.
MM then explained why we participated last year and why we will do so this year.
We have learned that WLM in itself is not a factor in encouraging participation of new contributors who will remain involved longer term. Question of focus also needs to be addressed - going for quantity is fine but quality is much more effective and useful.
A feeling that we should focus on photography magazines and hobbyists rather than the mainstream press. Could also try National Trust and English Heritage (but not with too much expectation of success).
The balance between quality and quantity is likely to be best met by a combination of different prizes for different styles or types of photos (including some for lower resolution but some for high resolution)
Purposes of the competition
- Reach out to local people and get more people involved who aren't already Wikimedians
- Encourage people to upload high quality and high resolution images to Commons
- Making this a high profile event to promote the Wikimedia movement
- Have two separate categories - a) high quality images b) images that fill gaps.
- To illustrate Wikipedia
Judging criteria and prizes
Technical quality Originality Potential usefulness and overall value of the image (including its licensing) to the Wikimedia projects. Once images are shortlisted, high resolution images will be required for images to be considered as prize winners (concept only, this was not agreed)
Could there be categories for art, encyclopaedic and other? Short-listing mechanism needs to be fixed. However, there doesn't seem to be much of an alternative to the triage-style system we used last year. It is advisable to begin as soon as the contest begins rather than waiting until the very end.
We need to update the website to reflect the 2014 competition.
Scope of contest: Same as last year, plus Grade II listed buildings (if English Heritage numbers can be found), protected wrecks, neolithic monuments, scheduled monuments
Sponsorship and publicity
- Royal Photographic Society potentially interested as a partner. Prepared to do an article in the society's journal
- Will our images be of sufficient quality, esp for print?
- Discussion last year w/English Heritage
- Provided a judge
- Images of England - EH got fingers burnt w/bad publicity resulting from photography of private residences.
- Keen to help, but want to avoid negative publicity.
- Cadw and Heritage Scotland declined to support last year due to EH's reluctance.
- EH especially interested in photographs of items on 'Heritage at Risk' register
- Specific prize?
- Offering EH membership/discounted entry to EH properties as a prize?
- National Trust?
- MM: NT distinctly uninterested in WLM
- Organisations with remits that include listed buildings (eg Canal and River Trust, Network Rail).
- Geograph?
- Upload via third-party sites?
- MM: is it worth partnering with a camera manufcturer (Canon/Sony/Nikon) - eg sponsoring prizes?
- Potentially problematic due to commercial nature of companies - may not be able to provide a satisfactory quid pro quo
- Publicity for prize giving ceremony
- Jimmy Wales has offered to help again
- Higher-profile venue
- Necessity for high-quality winners and high-quality prints
- Canvass prints as prizes?
Stevie to approach potential sponsors once the relationship with English Heritage and National / Royal Photographic Society is formalised.
Prizes
- Would be nice to have larger prizes to encourage more/better submissions.
- Appropriate use of charitable funds?
- Fund through sponsorship? Also possibly printing companies who do canvas prints
- Realistic to expect sponsorship from companies in exchange for mention in publicity as sponsoring prizes, but protecting non-commercial nature of Wikimedia movement - no branding on projects, logo, etc?
- Sponsor with goods (vouchers, cameras, etc) instead of cash.
- Large prizes not necessarily in keeping with movement values.