Commons:Wiki Loves Monuments International Team meeting 2017

On 10-12 February 2017, the Wiki Loves Monuments International Team held a meeting with three basic goals: write out the mission of the international team, discuss the 2016 Wiki Loves Monuments, and plan for the 2017 campaign. In addition to the members of the international team, we invited a few guests to share their experience and expertise. Over three days, we wrote out a draft mission for the team, discussed the results from the 2016 organizer's and non-organizer’s surveys, and started mapping out two big projects for 2017 (including improving support for monuments data in Wikidata).

Here are the highlights:

• The international team's draft mission: We discussed how Wiki Loves Monuments campaigns can serve a few different, very important purposes -- helping people connect to built cultural heritage, providing a significant number of new high quality contributions for Wikimedia, and helping a local group jumpstart their Wikimedia activities. We decided that these three goals should be our mission: to freely document and raise awareness of built cultural heritage, increase contributions to the Wikimedia projects and bolster local Wikimedia communities by leading and facilitating an annual federated, global, low-barrier photo competition. We hope this mission will help us focus and do some valuable work for Wiki Loves Monuments this year.
• Recap of Wiki Loves Monuments 2016: We wrote about some of our work that was necessary to run the campaign in 2016. This will hopefully be a helpful resource for future organizers, and help us improve some of the documentation.
• Organizer and non-organizer evaluations for 2016: In addition to the amazing results and statistics from 2016, it's helpful to reflect on feedback that organizers and those who did not organize Wiki Loves Monuments in 2016 provided throughout the process. Thank you to everyone who provided replies to us last month. We learned about a few successes (increase in participation, partnerships with UNESCO, and beyond), as well as some opportunities to improve (such as making the process easier, and helping with more partnerships in the future).
• Our projects for 2017: We discussed working on three projects for the 2017 campaign: enriching and integrating the monuments data in Wikidata (supporting work from Wikimedia Sweden), supporting more global partnerships and international competition, and providing better statistics.
• What do we think Wiki Loves Monuments will look like in five years? We hope to see the competition continue to grow, for it to be the world's biggest collection of monuments data (in addition to the world's biggest photo competition). We will aim to welcome more countries into the campaign, as well. Of course, these are just a few concepts from the international team, hopefully to start more conversations with everyone who has a part in Wiki Loves Monuments around the world.

If you want to learn more, we have prepared a more detailed report from our meeting. If you are considering organizing Wiki Loves Monuments in your country in 2017, we will share more details later in March. Meanwhile, you can share your comments or questions in the Discussion page and please don't forget to indicate your interest through the participating countries page.

Full meeting notes

Wiki Loves Monuments International Team meeting 2017

Day 1 →

• Day 1: The international team and the mission
  • Introduction
  • Ground rules for the meeting
  • Defining the international team's mission
• Day 2: Reflections from 2016
  • History of Wiki Loves Monuments
  • Outline of the 2016 competition
  • Survey results from 2016
  • Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
• Day 3: Planning for 2017 and beyond
  • Project proposals
  • Monumental demo
  • Project planning
  • Five-year strategy

Wiki Loves Monuments international team members

• André (User:Lokal Profil / User:André Costa (WMSE)), is a Wikimedian and an employee of Wikimedia Sverige. He is a co-maintainer of the Monuments database and its API, as well as ErfgoedBot.
• Ido (User: Alleycat80) is a Wikimedian, and an Audit Committee and Board Member for Wikimedia Israel in the last 4 years. He joined the international team in 2016 to focus on partnerships, sponsorships, and alliances with like-minded organizations.
• Ilario (User:Ilario) has been a contributor to Wikimedia projects since 2005 and started to be administrator of the Italian version the same year; founder of Wikimedia Italy and Wikimedia Switzerland, he is active in several communities and associations also external to the Wikimedia world. Since 2011 he has been involved with the organization of Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Earth in Switzerland, since 2015 he has been part of the international team of Wiki Loves Monuments. For this photo contest he mostly follows the grant and the organizational aspects.
• Jean-Fred (User:Jean-Frédéric) is a Wikimedian from France, and has been part of the organization of WLM in that country since 2011. Since 2015, he is co-maintainer of the Monuments database and its API, as well as ErfgoedBot.
• Lily (User:LilyOfTheWest) organized Wiki Loves Monuments in Iran in 2015 and 2016. In 2016, Lily was responsible for the coordination efforts for the international team.
• Lodewijk (User:Effeietsanders) is a Dutch Wikimedian since 2005 and has been involved with Wiki Loves Monuments since its first edition in 2010 in the Netherlands, as well as several other projects.
• Pawel (User:Yarl) is a Wikipedian since 2005, from Poland. He has built several tools for Wikimedia Commons, including VicuñaUploader and Pattypan. In 2016, he joined the international team to work on the front-end part of Montage.
• Romaine (User:Romaine) has been a contributor to Wikimedia projects since 2003; over the years helping out as administrator of several wikis, GLAM volunteer for Wikimedia Nederland, founder of & GLAM volunteer for Wikimedia Belgium, publisher of the Wikimedia newsletter This Month in GLAM.
• Stephen (User:Slaporte / User:Slaporte (WMF)) is a Wikipedian in California and staff at the Wikimedia Foundation. In 2016, he joined Wiki Loves Monuments as a volunteer to work on Montage (source) a photo evaluation tool for Wiki Loves-style photo competitions.

Guests

• Cristian (User:Cristian Cenci (WMIT)) is a member of staff for Wikimedia, and project manager for Wiki Loves Monuments in Italy in 2015 and 2016.
• Isla (User:Islahaddow) is Wikipedian in Cape Town, South Africa, organizing WikiAfrica movement across Africa.
• John (User:John Cummings) is Wikimedian in Residence at UNESCO. Previously, he was a Wikimedian in Residence at the Natural History Museum and Science Museum, London 2013 - 14, and an organizer for Wikimania 2014 in London.
• Martin (User: Martin Rulsch (WMDE) / User:DerHexer ) is a member of staff of Wikimedia Deutschland and a Wikipedian from Germany. For Wikimedia Deutschland, he is a project manager for digital engineering including the Wiki Loves contests in Germany. In his volunteer capacity he is a Wikimedia steward and an administrator on several wikis.
• Seddon (User:Seddon / User:Seddon (WMF)) is a Wikipedian and staff member for the Wikimedia Foundation. His work includes coordinating the Central Notice messaging system.