[Wiki Loves Monuments] Re: Regarding the participation of Russia in Wiki Loves Monuments 2022

14 Dec 2022

Hi all,

As you may be aware, I'm no longer part of the International team. But as
an advisor i followed the conversations about this closely.

First of all i want to express my sincere appreciation for both the teams.
Both in Russia and in Ukraine a competition like this is hard to organize,
arriveert for different reasons. I appreciate the contributions to free
knowledge that they managed to accomplish.

The Ukrainian team was in an impossible situation to organize the
competition in the first place and managed to anyway. I'm very proud of
their work on this. It is eventually their choice whether they feel that
they can submit images to the International round, and i can understand how
they feel this is the right choice for them and their participants.

I don't think it's fair to characterize this as the way thing to do. It's
not. It was a hard decision to make, and any outcome was bound to face
significant criticism. I can appreciate the arguments made - they resonate
with the arguments made to and in the International team.

It is true that designing a better overall policy would be good, but good
policy is rarely written based on a single case. I have yet to see a
realistic draft of what this could look like (it's been on my mind many
months now, and ice brought it up in some private conversations), in a way
that generalizes across the world. I generally don't like whataboutisms but
in this case it's unfortunately a very fair question. Whatever we come up
with, should be applied the same across countries and conflicts.

This is not a drafting task i feel we can put on the Ukrainian team. But if
there are community members that wasn't too take on this challenge, i would
invite them to take some time to draft this and discuss with folks whether
that could be a way forward. I trust we'll see a separate thread appear
about this at some point

Lodewijk

On Wed, Dec 14, 2022, 10:21 AM Philip Kopetzky &lt;philip.kopetzky(a)gmail.com&gt;
wrote:

...
  Hi Manfred,

 meanwhile Wikimedia Ukraine has decided not to participate in the
 international contest. Doing nothing seems like the easiest thing to do,
 but long-term it damages the relationship with everyone involved, because
 there is no framework to orient themselves on.

 I'm also failing to imagine the international jury awarding any prizes to
 Russia, given the logistical complexity, so while they can participate,
 promoting Russian pictures (as Wikimedia Ukraine points out) would not go
 down well publicly.

 Best,
 Philip

 On Tue, 13 Dec 2022 at 23:28, Manfred Werner (WMAT) <
 manfred.werner(a)wikimedia.at&gt; wrote:

  Hi Philip,
 Finding a framework of rules seems to be necessary. As far as I know, but
 I am relatively new to the team of WLM international, this is the first
 time the question comes up if a country should be excluded from the
 international competition. Personally I'd see that as a contradiction to
 the basics of all the Wikimedia projects that aim to connect people from
 all over the world and to share among all of us. As long as the organisers
 are independent from political influence I see no reason to exclude them.
 Until now it always was one of the goals to include as many countries as
 possible.

 Regarding subnational (or also transnational) entities it very much
 depends on who is organising the campaign there I think. It should at least
 be a group of people. New problems may arise if a monument is "claimed" by
 different groups I can imagine. On the other hand there might be situations
 with difficulties that are beyond our influence. Anyway we have to be
 careful (neutral and unpolitical) when trying to find regulations.

 Best,
 Manfred
 Am 13.12.2022 um 15:44 schrieb Philip Kopetzky:

 Betreff:
 [Wiki Loves Monuments] Re: Regarding the participation of Russia in Wiki
 Loves Monuments 2022

 Von:
 Philip Kopetzky &lt;philip.kopetzky(a)gmail.com&gt; &lt;philip.kopetzky(a)gmail.com&gt;

 Datum:
 13.12.2022, 15:44

 An:
 rodelarwiki(a)gmail.com, Wiki Loves Monuments Photograph Competition
 &lt;wikilovesmonuments(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt;
 &lt;wikilovesmonuments(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt;
 Hi Ruben,

 thank for giving your reasoning - I would urge you and the team though to
 establish some rules (since you mention the lack of rules around this
 issue) for future competitions, since the war in Ukraine is not the only
 conflict happening right now and will unfortunately not be the last one
 either.

 The same goes for establishing a logic around admitting countries and
 nations within certain countries. The 2030 strategy is quite clear on the
 fact that equity in participation and access to resources matters, and
 sticking to a country-by-country approach limits the viability of WLM for
 the architectural/cultural heritage of ethnic groups within a country (or
 is dependent on the benevolence of the majority group in that country)

 Best,
 Philip

 On Tue, 13 Dec 2022 at 21:03, Rodelar &lt;rodelarwiki(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

  Hi everyone,

 The Wiki Loves Monuments international team has been asked if
 photographs from Russia should be allowed or excluded from participating in
 this year's international contest. We have been in contact with the
 organising teams of Wiki Loves Monuments from Ukraine and from Russia to
 discuss this and to find a solution.

 We greatly appreciate that the team from Ukraine has organized the local
 edition of the competition while there is war in their country! We
 understand that there are reservations against seeing images from Ukraine
 and Russia presented side by side in the galleries of nominated or winning
 pictures.

 The volunteer team organising Wiki Loves Monuments Russia emphasizes to
 have no ties to the Russian government or the Russian Wikimedia affiliate.
 They are submitting the 10 finalist images to the international final round
 of Wiki Loves Monuments 2022, but the occupied areas, including Crimea and
 Sevastopol, have been excluded from the Wiki Loves monuments campaign.
 Also, in Russia there is no freedom of panorama for works of art. This
 excludes, in fact, any images of monuments and statues erected since World
 War II, and which for example glorify the war, from being legally uploaded
 to Wikimedia Commons.

 If images from Russia are excluded because of the war in Ukraine, this
 could, without being based on a rule for the competition, set a precedent
 for other territories where there is war around the world. Rules would have
 to found, before deciding case by case, if a country should not be allowed
 to send its nominations to Wiki Loves Monuments international.

 With these considerations in mind, the WLM organising team does not see
 a reason to exclude the submission of Russian finalists images to the
 international final round.

 On behalf of the WLM 2022 organising team,

 Rubén Ojeda

 International jury coordinator, Wiki Loves Monuments 2022
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[Wiki Loves Monuments] Re: Regarding the participation of Russia in Wiki Loves Monuments 2022