Commons talk:Wiki Loves Monuments 2022

Landing page

Does someone update the landing page [1]. It's still 2021. Greetings from Germany Z ^thomas 13:22, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

We should probably write a little blog post about this year's competition. If someone can draft it, I'm happy to review and post. Effeietsanders (talk) 18:10, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

WLM in Ethiopia

I have some pictures of Waterfall, Chebera-Churchura National Park, Ethiopia to upload but Ethiopia is not hosting can I have a link to upload it to?

Best regards, James Moore200 (talk) 09:46, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Hi James Moore200,

For Wiki Loves Monuments 2022 it is not possible to participate with images of countries without a national competition. You can hold on the image in anticipation of the organizing countries for WLM 2023, though I do not know it this waterfall is considered a 'monument' by our compeition rules. Alternatively, maybe Ethiopia will take part in Wiki Loves Earth 2023, which may be a better fit for your image. Ciell (talk) 09:27, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

WLM in russia

I'd say that the russian participation in this year's Wiki Loves Monuments can consist only of photos of Ukrainian (and perhaps Syrian, Chechniyan, Georgian, etc. etc. etc.) monuments russians destroyed.

All other entries by them should be absolutely ineligible, rejected with utter disgust, and russian participation in the WLM should be barred until further notice.

The decision to include genocide perpetrators and monument destroyers in this years WLM is abominable. It is a conscious, political statement that amounts to genocide and destruction support - and it was made without consulting other participating countries (especially Ukraine), and other contributors to WLM. I as a contributor myself will absolutely reconsider having my entries displayed together with those from genocidal, monument-destroying russia.

In order to correct the unfortunate (and absolutely inappropriate) decision to include russia in this year's WLM, I'd suggest to eliminate it immediately from the competition and have this link: https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/damaged-cultural-sites-ukraine-verified-unesco - as it perfectly shows their "contributions" to WLM.

--KAP Jasa (talk) 08:15, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

The user has been warned for vandalism. Ymblanter (talk) 06:45, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Regarding the participation of Russia in Wiki Loves Monuments 2022

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 be 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, Rodelar (talk) 13:00, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Just for transparency. The organizers of the WLM in ukraina annouced that WLM in Ukraine organizers not to submit photos for the international round as Russia is participating. (their rationale behind the link)-- Zache (talk) 06:27, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

russia and Wiki Loves Monuments, a response

As WLM organizers decided to keep russia in this year's competition, a controversy arose, and the organizers and some other people responded by defending the decision. The reasons for keeping russia in this year's Wiki Loves Monuments competition seem to be:

1. WLM is neutral;
2. the contributions are based simply on geography, not nationality, ethnicity or the sense of belonging of the contributor;
3. russian WLM is not affiliated with russian government or russian Wikimedia;
4.  photos of illegally occupied areas (Crimea, Sevastopol, Donetsk, Luhansk) are not allowed;
5. russian WLM is opposing putin;
6. exclusion would set a precedent;
7. there are no rules for exclusion of a country.

Well, every one of these reasons requires a clear response - or, better, a rebuttal ...

ad 1: being "neutral" in the face of a genocidal invasion is a deliberate political position that amounts to supporting the invader and the genocide;
ad 2: contributions to WLM promote the country, its monuments, its photographers, and its culture;
ad 3: no WLM organizers are "affiliated" with any government (and who are russian organizers if they have no ties to russian Wikimedia?);
ad. 4: why on earth should russian WLM include photos of monuments in Ukraine?
ad. 5: maybe the russian organizers really are "opposing putin" (and who knows if they are opposing the invasion), but it is irrelevant anyway. There is a thing called collective responsibility for one's country crimes; even more so if said crimes amount to genocide (to be clear: guilt is individual, responsibility is collective);
ad. 6: yes, exclusion would set a precedent, and it should set one: an invading murderous regime waging a genocidal war (and destroying monuments) can not be a part of the Wiki Loves Monuments;
ad. 7: okay, here is a rule: if you kill, rape, torture, loot, destroy, etc., you can not be a part of a global community.

...

First, I'd like to congratulate the Ukrainian WLM team that, during the indescribable conditions of war, culturocide, and genocide perpetrated by russia, succeeded in organizing a superb photo contest. You managed to overcome and collect nearly 14,000 photos of Ukrainian cultural heritage from almost 300 participants, depicting over 5,300 monuments. You have my respect, my support, and my immense admiration. Bravo!

Now, the decision of WLM organizers ("we see no reason to exclude russia, everything is cool, why you keep bothering us with this war, let's enjoy these nice photos of monuments, leave politics out"), in spite of pleading of the Ukrainian WLM team (and others) to reconsider, has repercussions, and will have more. The Ukrainian team has rightfully withdrawn its submissions - with a perfectly clear rationale, please read it! - while others (myself included) have decided not to be a part of such WLM, have removed their contributions, and will not participate in future WLM, for they don't want to have their works about love of monuments shown alongside those of destroyers of monuments.

This was a great but unfortunately missed opportunity to assert the commitment of WLM to preserving, promoting, and respecting different cultures - especially those under grave threat, as Ukrainian culture is now. WLM could and should lead by example. WLM should firmly state that those who are trying to eradicate a culture have no place among us; that those who invade, kill, torture, rape, loot and destroy are to be excluded from a community devoted to global cooperation, education, understanding, and humanity. To repeat: citizens of russia share a collective responsibility for the crimes of their regime (which a vast majority of population vote for, support, and encourage), and are thus excluded from global affairs; their participation should not be granted just because of some vague and sparse "opposition to the regime" (especially as this "opposition" firmly supports the russian invasion and illegal occupation of Ukrainian territory).

The decision to let russia participate in WLM 2022 irreparably taints the image of arguably the greatest photo competition in the world, diminishes its importance for education, culture, diversity and skill - just because of (willful?) blindness and ignorance on behalf of the organizing team.

So, enjoy the photos from a country that destroys monuments, and have fun loving monuments. I hope you can do both at the same time. And, regarding Ukraine, please listen to Ukrainians.

Saša Iskrić, Slovenia — Preceding unsigned comment added by KAP Jasa (talk • contribs) 11:39, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Hello Jasa,

Thank you for sharing your concerns.

I am very taken by the effort of the UA team to organize WLM this year, despite everything that is going on in their country right now. While I understand and respect their decision not to send images for the WLM 2022 international finals, I regret not having their images to present to the international jury since they had international top-10 images for several years, and also that political conflicts seep into the spirit and cooperation in our volunteer projects.

The members of the Russia WLM team are Wikimedia volunteers, the same as you and me, and do their best to gather free knowledge and engage in our common mission. It is true that their government is guilty of great destruction and genocide, and they also make sweeping decisions that greatly affect conditions for their immediate neighbors, on the broader European continent, and also beyond.

Unfortunately, however, in the past and today, there are war and unrest in more places around the world. In the recent past, World Heritage sites in Syria (WLM participant in 2013, 2014, 2017, 2018, 2020) were destroyed by the occupying power, and Israel (WLM 2012-2018, 2020, 2021) and Palestine (WLM 2014, 2017, 2018, 2020) have also been in turmoil for years. On the African continent, power outages and Internet connection problems are commonplace alongside ongoing civil unrest, and monuments are likely to be destroyed that have never even been designated as monuments by current or previous powers, but which had great significance for the country's inhabitants.

It is very difficult for members of the international team to rule out one and not the other - especially when the volunteers (often renowned Wikimedians and Commoners) have done no wrong themselves. I don't think we can hold our individual Wikimedian colleagues responsible for decisions made by their government. I understand that there is a lot of high running emotions in cases like this, but unilateral intervention here would be even more unreasonable imho.

For this request, I do not think the international team can make a decision that satisfies everyone and addresses all concerns. As said, I sympathize deeply with the feelings the request raised, but on the other hand I also value the diligence in the approach by the Russian team.

For the future, I would propose to work on conditions that leave both sides in their value in cases like this, where exclusion is only a very-very-last option, and then only in cases of misconduct by the organizing team. Input from the community is of the utmost importance here, but will have to be done without blaming or excluding each other from the process. After the end of the current competition (expected is February/March), let's continue the exchange of ideas and see if we can come to a clear understanding of standards.

(Responding here in my personal capacity, my response may not reflect the opinion of others on the international team.) Ciell (talk) 23:45, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Your decision is clear: include russia and exclude Ukraine (I mean, what else did you think would happen? That Ukrainians would be thankful that they can participate alongside their killers?)

I feel it's pointless to 'discuss' this further. It's basically down to "russians are not putin" and "we made mistakes in previous years, so we must make another one this year". Plus the usual whataboutism & bothsideism - "what about Israel (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.)?"; "here we have a terrorist and there a victim, let's appreciate the value of both sides" - that isn't worth replying to.

More responsible, more moral, and more courageous international organisations (that means pretty much all of them) have kicked russians out until they accept and admit their collective responsibility, face consequences, and engage in meaningful restitution - with all the "valuable diligence" they can muster. Only then can russians be accepted back into the civilised world and participate again at various sport and culture events, photo contests, etc.

Until that happens, every contest or event that has russians participating while russians kill, rape, torture, destroy, terrorize, and steal, is an implicit endorsement of their actions. It's not just wrong - it's repugnant.

Anyway, thanks for the reply; I hope that one day it will be possible to participate again in WLM, that has been until now rightly called one of the greatest photo contest in the world.

Best regards,

Saša Iskrić ... KAP Jasa (talk) 11:34, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

It is not Russians are not Putin, but how much we can set collective responsibility to the people who do not have the power to change the situation. For example, Afghanistan is a clear example of a country where we can't extend collective responsibility to Afghan women for the government's actions in banning women's rights. In Russia, government actions mean forced recruitment to the military, severe limitations on freedom of opinions and information, and rewriting school curriculums to create a confrontation between nations. Even if most of the population would support government activities, there are always victims of oppressing governments inside the country. Because of this, I would be careful about shutting out people based on their nationality. Also, as said in the mailing list thread, it would be bad to set Ukrainians and Russians to compete with each other, so the UKR organizer's choice not to participate was the correct one. I hope that RU organizers will make the same decision. For the others, we should do (together as a group) something to raise awareness of the destruction of cultural heritage in UKR in the context of the Wiki Loves Monuments and collecting of free knowledge as we have better opportunities to do that than people who live in Ukraine or Russia. Zache (talk) 13:00, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

I see ...

.

Unlike so many moral and courageous people all over the world russians "don't have the power to change anything" (while they somehow do have the power to kill, torture, rape, destroy, and steal).

Therefore russia must remain a part of WLM.

But it would be bad if Ukraine is a part too because then russians and Ukrainians would "compete against each other".

So the correct thing to do is to make the conditions deliberately unbearable for Ukrainians, thus forcing their withdrawal.

Now we can only hope that russians will withdraw too, as it seems the organisers also "don't have the power to change anything".

.

Thanks for the clarification.

.

(p.s. - it will be really something if the jury would raise awareness of the destruction of cultural heritage in UKR by awarding a prize to a russian. It would ... fit in the context of Wiki Loves Monuments.)

.

Saša Iskrić ... KAP Jasa (talk) 16:24, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Link in the mass message

The link to the survey in the mass message does not work, at least for me. It says the survey has expired. Ymblanter (talk) 09:49, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Same for me. Polibil (talk) 09:59, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Fixed now, thanks to whoever has done this.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:04, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Tip: next year, survey from Qualtrics to LimeSurvey (Libre Open Source)

Hi all! I received a kind email from @Manfred Werner (WMAT): as member of Wikimedia Italy. As technical volunteer of Wikimedia Italy I would like to suggest, for the next year, to try to adopt the m:LimeSurvey platform of Wikimedia Foundation to conduct surveys (that is Libre and Open Source), instead of the Qualtrics platform that has some ethical issues described in m:LimeSurvey#Ethical values. For WMF-LimeSurvey platform adoption questions, I think you can contact the m:Global Data and Insights Team. If that platform is not available, feel free to land on m:Wikimedia Italia/LimeSurvey and they can probably dedicate an account to make Wiki Loves Monuments even more privacy-friendly. Thank you so much for what can be done for this! --Valerio Bozzolan (talk) 08:10, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, @Valerio Bozzolan: , for the suggestion and the links! We (WLM international team) have been discussing several options and finally I used Qualtrics as it is offered by the WMF. A Google form would have been easy, but there are even more privacy issues. So using LimeSurvey next time is definitely a good idea. Best, Manfred Werner (WMAT) (talk) 13:42, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

You are the best, thank you @Manfred Werner (WMAT): Valerio Bozzolan (talk) 17:38, 9 February 2023 (UTC)