Commons:Wiki Loves Africa 2015/FAQ

What is Wiki Loves Africa?

Wiki Loves Africa (WLA) is a public annual photo contest where people across Africa can contribute media (photographs, video and audio) about their environment on Wikimedia Commons for use on Wikipedia and other project websites of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Wiki Loves Africa particularly encourages participants to contribute media that illustrate a specific theme for that year. Each year the theme changes and could include any such universal, visually rich and culturally specific topics (for example, markets, rites of passage, festivals, public art, cuisine, natural history, urbanity, daily life, notable persons, etc).

The theme for the 2015 photo contest will be Wiki Loves Africa Cultural Fashion and Adornment. The competition scope will be: Submissions of media that cover cultural dress and fashion; specifically fashion that is defined by local cultural influences and determines cloth, styles, ways of wrapping and hanging, etc. This theme would include adornment, that include culturally defined jewellery, make-up, hairstyles, cloths and woven materials.

The project is a two-month competition which will start on the 1st October and end on the 30th November 2015.

The project will be run at the entire continental level. However, some specific actions (training, communication etc.) will be held in some countries with national organisers. The project will feature a contest to select the best media at the continental level, with a ceremony and prizes as deemed appropriate.

What happens to the photos after they are uploaded?

All images that are used on Wikipedia are uploaded to a website called Commons. This is a large and wonderful database of images, audio, and video files. All those media files are published under free licences – this means that they are free to be re-used by anyone as long as they say who authored the photograph and keep them free (under the same licence). For more information on Wikimedia Commons licence policy, read here.

Who's behind it?

Wiki Loves Africa is organised by the Wikimedia community with the help from (whenever applicable) their local Wikimedia chapters or user groups.

The 2015 edition is managed by:

• Anthere (talk)
• Islahaddow (talk)

How do I get involved?

It's really simple and easy, and fun! You may participate in two main ways

• You can participate to the contest itself. Grab your camera (or any relevant device) and shoot pictures. Upload !
• You want to organise events locally. In this case, please check out Local events and the Organizers' FAQ

What are the technical requirements for the pictures?

There aren't any general technical requirements for the pictures. All self-taken photos that fulfilled the other basic rules and filled in the Wikimedia Commons scope will be accepted into the contest, as the main goal of Wiki Loves Africa is to collect as many pictures usable for Wikipedia as possible. Quality pictures are essential to the success of your entry and the competition. For tips and trick in how to take a good quality image for Commons, take a look at these guidelines:

• Tutorial in English about how to take pictures: How to take pictures for Wikimedia Commons
• Images guidelines
• Atelier photographique, in French:Atelier photographique

What software will be used to upload pictures ?

We will be using the UploadWizard simplified by a special Wiki Loves Africa overlay.

Pictures can be uploaded using other tools (e.g. Commonist, but as this requires further knowledge of wiki markup and Wikimedia Commons itself).

To upload images, please use this link

How should I tag the images ?

All images uploaded via the upload wizard will be put in the Category:Images from Wiki Loves Africa 2015. If you do not use the upload wizard, please add the template {{Wiki Loves Africa 2015}} to the tags so that we can identify the image as part of the contest.

Where will special activities take place ?

We hope that events will take place in several countries. Typically, it might be conferences to present Wikimedia Commons, photo hunt parties or mass-upload session

Click here to get more information and in contact with the local organisers.

How can I contact you ?

Please preferably drop a message on the talk page: Commons:Wiki Loves Africa/Help desk

Otherwise...

• wla-fr wikimedia.org - French
• wla-en wikimedia.org - English
• wla-ar wikimedia.org - Arabic

Who are Wiki Loves Africa supporters and funders ?

Wiki Loves Africa is supported by WikiAfrica at the Africa Centre and is funded by the Wikimedia Foundation.

What are the rules of the contest ?

There are just a few simple rules to participate to Wiki Loves Africa photographic contest:

Acceptable files

• All photos participating in the competition should be self-taken. They can be either self-uploaded or uploaded during a registered mass upload session;
• Upload is done in October and November only. However, the media can have been created at any time; e.g. historic photographs can be entered as long as you own the copyright.
• You must supply your entry under a free copyright licence, or release it to the public domain. The preferred licence used by the upload wizard is Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 CC-BY-SA 4.0;
• All eligible pictures must be categorised under Wiki Loves Africa 2015. This is assigned during the upload process. The identification is done by adding the following category to the page description of the image: [[category:Images from Wiki Loves Africa 2015]];
• Participants must register on Wikimedia Commons, and enable e-mail, to be eligible for prizes.

Not eligible files

• Non-photographic works such as drawings or entirely computer-generated works
• Photographs that are already on Commons (ie re-uploading is not allowed)
• As the images will be hosted on Wikimedia Commons, all entries must fall within Commons scope. Any that do not will be disqualified and may be deleted without notice.
• Any entries with watermarks or signatures embedded on the image or file will not be accepted.

Judging criteria

The jury will judge individual entries based on the following criteria (in no particular order):

• Technical quality
• Originality
• Potential usefulness and overall value of the image (including its licensing) to the Wikimedia projects

Jury composition

• Oguntimehin .A. ARIYO is an artist, documentary photographer and a free lance photojournalist. He born in Lagos, graduated from Auchi polytechnic Edo state, majored in painting in 2000. He has a post graduate diploma in Education. He further studied photography from Nigeria Institute of Journalism. He is a recipient of state Merit Award From Benue State Nigeria (2002). He has facilitated various Art and Photography workshops and seminars, with University of Lagos, sponsored by Omooba Yemisi Shyllon Art Foundation or Greenhouse Art Gallery. He was a jury in Ufuk Dialogue Foundation and organizer of The Art for Peace Project in Turkey. He has documented most fast disappearing festivals in Nigeria and Benin Republic. He has more than 55 thousand shot of indigenous shoots of Nigeria cultural festival.
• Sylvain BOISSEL is a developer and wikimedian, currently working as a systems and network administrator for Wikimedia France. While living in Paris in France, he is "Breton" and, as such, very attached to linguistic diversity. He passionately loves being involved in the free dissemination of knowledge
• Siwar HORCHANI ZARROUK, an industrial chemical engineer, is passionate about photography and blogging. She is a member of several associations and photography clubs, interested in citizen journalism, OpenGov, free software and Tunisian heritage. Twitter: Siwar_h and blog: http://siwar-horchani.blogspot.fr
• Fanta KONE (@fantastyck) self defined as a Digital Girl. Computer engineer but also fashion blogger and model, she has combined these two areas of activity to co-create Fall in mode a webzine named best media for fashion in Ivory Coast in 2015. Fanta is also the artistic director of Fall in mode.
• Jacques KOUAO is a professional photographer who, with bloggers and friends, decided to visit various cities of Ivory Coast in search of these men and women that provide real and pragmatic solutions to the problems of their communities. The story of their adventures since January 2015 is available on helloafrika.net. Jacques is also co- founder of the Wikimedia User Group Ivory Coast.
• Habib M'HENNI is a long time Wikipedian and Wikimedia, amateur photographer, and contributor to Wikimedia Commons. He is very actively involved in Wikimedia Tunisia User Group. He also was a member in Wiki Loves Africa Jury in 2014. Contact: http://about.me/habibmhenni
• Samson NGUMENAWE is a geo-informatician and an amateur photographer from Uganda. He is a fresh Wikipedian who joined Wikipedia in 2015 under the username Ngumenawe
• Yetty OGUNNUBI (Yetty D) is a professional in the Fashion and Art Industry in London and Nigeria (where she lives). Yetty is a lady of many talents, and wears many hats. In her own words My main aim is to help solidify the place of African fashion industry in the world, as fashion is my passion and Africa is home to me. There are so many undiscovered multi-talented creatives in Africa that needs to be discovered. My job is to unearth them. She is the head of PR & Communications for AFWL & AFWN 2015, the creative director and owner of Yetty D label/ Revolution by Yetty D which is based in London, runs her Pr & Branding Consulting business. Over the years she successfully organised an annual fashion event named after her label, co-produced a TV show Uber Africa Unmasked, worked as a fashion editor for Isaac Outlook Magazine, Side View Magazine, launched Online fashion Website in Nigeria etc.
• Céline RABAUD is a young wikipedian (less than 3 years !) and is also member of Wikimedia France. She combines her activities as a photographer, her passion for heritage and interest in collaboration through Wikimedia projects. She was notably member of the jury for the latest edition of Wiki Loves Monuments France and helped design the photographic Guide Wiki Loves Africa in 2015. Contact: celine.rabaud@wikimedia.fr
• Paul WEINBERG is a South African-born documentary photographer, filmmaker, writer, curator, educationist and archivist. He began his career in the early 1980s by working for South African NGOs, and photographing current events for news agencies and foreign newspapers. He was a founder member of Afrapix and South, the collective photo agencies that gained local and international recognition for their uncompromising role in documenting apartheid, and popular resistance to it. He has built up a large body of work which portrays diverse peoples, cultures, and human environments ‘beyond the headlines’, in particular a sustained engagement with indigenous people throughout southern Africa, particularly in rural settings. He has taught photography at the Centre of Documentary Studies at Duke University in the United States, and holds a master’s degree from the same university. He is currently senior curator of Centre for African Studies Gallery at the University of Cape Town, and lectures in documentary arts at the same university. Weinberg has founded, with David Goldblatt, the Ernest Cole Award for creative photography in southern Africa. http://www.paulweinberg.co.za.

Awards

• 1st prize: a Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 + An Africa-published book + Mystery gifts from the Wikimedia Store + print of the participant winning picture
• 2nd prize: US$300 Amazon gift + An Africa-published book + Mystery gifts from the Wikimedia Store + print of the 2nd prize picture
• 3rd prize: US$200 Amazon gift + An Africa-published book + Mystery gifts from the Wikimedia Store + print of the 3rd prize picture
• Community Prize: US$200 Amazon gift voucher + An Africa-published book +Mystery gifts from the Wikimedia Store + print of the Community Prize

Winners

There will be 4 winning pictures, announced by the end of January 2016 !

The small print

The organisers of the Wiki Loves Africa competition reserve the right to modify these rules or to cancel the contest at their sole discretion, even after it has started. The organizers accept no responsibility for the provision by the sponsors of any prizes, nor of any liability whatsoever in respect of this contest. Neither the rules nor anything on these pages amount to an offer to create legally binding relations with any of the organizers. Members of the jury and staff of Africa Center are not eligible to receive any award (although they are otherwise welcome to contribute images).