Hi all,
it is good to see that between all the SOPA noise, there is some Wiki Loves
Monuments discussion ongoing! I want to use this opportunity to once again
point to the brainstorm meeting in London next month (details on the
wikimedia UK wiki), where we can probably tackle these and other issues
much more effectively.
TL;DR version: don't worry, problems can be solved, solutions are plenty.
Let's discuss it at the London brainstorm on 18 Feb.
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Monuments_brainstorm
I don't want to go into detail here on every single issue, and I don't have
all the answers immediately either. However, I would like to make a few
general points which might help in finding solutions.
1) Wiki Loves Monuments is indeed an international contest, however it is
organized very much in a federative way. Our general credo is always that
you should "do whatever works best in your country" within a few main
restrictions of course. And these restrictions are not even thát tight - if
you have very good reasons to deviate that is up for discussion (at the
international WLM mailing list of course, which everyone is welcome to
join). This means for example that it is common to hold the contest in
September, and it is common that it is called 'Wiki Loves Monuments' (or a
translation), it is common that we offer a high number of objects
('monuments' in the broadest sense of the word) so that there is sufficient
coverage throughout the country, and that each object is identified with an
identifier. However, you can create special categories, choose to have a
jury or a public vote, you can organize local events or not, you can even
create a prize for categorizing existing photos. Do whatever works best in
the UK.
2) I hear many worries about categorization - this is something we have
tried to tackle in previous years already. You may have noticed that I
mentioned times that objects have an identifier. The idea is that a
submission to the contest is only valid if the uploader identifies the
object on the photo with that identifier. Because this identifier is linked
to a database, it would then be pretty easy to categorize the images once
you know what the object is - you can even immediately geo-locate them
(exceptions probably present). Surely there is community work involved
still in fixing up stuff, broken templates and whatever else, but
categorization would be one of the last tasks I'd expect - that can be done
with a bot.
3) You could definitely choose a theme to give extra attention - such as
war memorials. Personally I would advise not to limit yourselves to that,
and allow all historic sites you can get a list for. However, that would be
your call as organizers of the national contest of course.
4) The definition of 'monument' worries some people. I would like to make a
note that this definition simply differs from country to country. It is
probably clear that we mean all kind of buildings that deserve preservation
- however thanks to our NPOV principles, we tend to choose an external
definition for what buildings fall inside that category. In the Netherlands
we use the definition that it has to be a national monument
('rijksmonument'), and this year we may expand that definition with
municipal monuments and provincial monuments. In the UK you would have to
choose a definition which suits your needs best. Some good criteria would
be imho: a) get the list (will possibly require negotiation with the
government agencies/agency responsible), b) coverage throughout the country
(everybody should be able to get to a monument easily, where ever he or she
happens to live), c) usefulness on Wikipedia (if the photos don't end up on
Wikipedia, people are not that interested - so lists of these monuments
would have to be(come) available) and d) diversity and interest (people
need to feel "wow, interesting, I never knew that this cool building was so
nearby"). You can probably find more and even more relevant criteria, but
this as a trigger to think about it.
Keep the thoughts flowing, and hopefully see you in London soon!
Best,
Lodewijk
No dia 18 de Janeiro de 2012 21:11, WereSpielChequers <
werespielchequers(a)gmail.com> escreveu:
I was in the same discussion as Charles last night,
and I'm one of the
people who has categorised bits of the Geograph backlog.
Currently we have 1.7 million images from the Geograph on Commons, roughly
two thirds of the Geograph has been loaded and that bit constitutes two
thirds of the Geograph. The Geograph is a UK and Ireland project, and its
2.5 million images are probably rather more images than Commons has from
the British isles, even including the 1.7 million geograph ones loaded so
far. The bot lad was stopped due to categorisation problems, much is done
by geocode and there are anomalies, and not just the predictable ones of
places on either side of the Solent being categorised to the wrong shore.
We don't know how big the categorisation backlog is because Catalot won't
remove the uncategorised Geograph template - though it is possible that we
might get a bot to fix that.
The migration is unlikely to resume en masse, but the licenses are
compatible so we can still suck in the images we want.
I'd suggest that we run a WLM contest asking people to add war memorials
and listed buildings that we don't have images of or views of those images
that we don't already have. Obviously we don't want yet more images of the
Gherkin, Tower Bridge or Buckingham Palace.
But there are circa 30,000 war memorials in the UK and we only have a
minority of them.
As for judging, it is easy to create userboxes for participants to claim,
much more difficult to judge thousands of images and fairly choose a winner.
On the categorisation side I think we could do some outreach work and
recruit people to categorise images of the UK. I'd be up for a training
session if we put an ad in Metr or somesuch inviting people to help.
WSC
On 18 January 2012 03:38, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I would argue that the UK is a uniquely bad place
for wikipedia loves
monuments. Not only has it already been done directly:
http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/
But geograph has also covered a lot of the ground. Repeatedly.
So what are the alternatives. If you want to insist on architecture
then everything listed in the Pevsner Architectural Guides is an
option. At least the stuff there has a reasonable chance of being
notable. Alternatively everything listed in the Defence of Britain
project
http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/dob/
While I think photos of everything there exist they are not all online.
If people are prepared to move away from monuments options include
every single species native to the UK and underwater wrecks (which
have a higher challenge aspect). The species approach has the
advantage that we could also include videos.
--
geni
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