There are a few simple rules to participate in the contest:
- Photos must be taken and uploaded by you
- Photos must be uploaded in September 2012. It doesn’t matter when you took the photo, only that you upload it during the contest. The deadline for the final upload is Monday, October 1, 2012, 12:01 a.m Hawaiian Standard Time, which is equal to 6:01 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time.
- Photos must be freely licensed. CC-BY-SA will be entered automatically for you if you use the WLM uploader. It is the standard license on Wikimedia Commons and is highly preferred. You may also choose to dedicate your photos to the public domain with a CC0 license.
- The subject of the photo must be a site listed on the National Register of Historic Places (an NRHP reference number will be automatically included with the upload).
Please make sure that you are not uploading somebody else’s photos, since you will be giving anybody the right to use these photos freely. Similarly, you can’t upload anybody else’s intellectual property. For example, if a copyrighted modern sculpture is near the site, please do not photograph that as part of the site. If you leave recognizable people out of the photos, you will not have to worry about securing a written release for their picture.
Please drive safely — don’t take photographs while operating a motor vehicle or bicycle.
In addition it is important for you to activate your email on your Commons userpage so we can contact you if you win. To do this, click on the ”My preferences” tab at the top right of commons.wikimedia.org (only for logged-in users) and click “enable email from other users.”
The decisions of the organizers and jury are final. Void where prohibited or restricted by law. The organizers reserve the right to cancel the contest or modify the rules at their sole discretion.
SPECIAL CATEGORIES
Besides the regular contest, there are may be special categories on a state or local level organized by – with their own award and jury. Besides that, the normal rules apply.
So is it any monument of our choosing in or around our city and do they have to images with us holding up a Wiki Loves Monuments Sign as well in the photo?
I would love to participate!
Take a photo of any NRHP site (anywhere in the USA). You can start now and upload to Wikimedia Commons in September. I’ll suggest that you start by looking at the article on your county in Wikipedia. Say it is Boyle County, Kentucky Just look up Boyle County, Kentucky on Wikipedia and under the “See also” heading will be a link to the list of NRHP sites in Boyle County. National Register of Historic Places listings in Boyle County, Kentucky Go to that list and take photos of any site on that list, but we especially want photos of the sites that don’t already have photos on the list. No need to put yourself or a sign in the picture, but do put a descriptive filename on the photo’s file and make sure you match up the right photo and historic site.
What if I have a lot of pictures from outside the USA. Can I submit them?
Hi Ze,
You can submit photos of historic sites from any of the participating countries. The photos need to correspond to a monument on the official lists by country, which you can find on the right hand column here:
http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/
If you don’t see the country on that list, it means they are not participating this year.
Hope you enjoy taking photos and uploading!
-Matthew
What if I already have a bunch of NRHP photos on WM Commons (or Wikipedia)? In this case there are roughly 50 such photos between my husband and I already present on Commons and/or WP and attached to their respective NRHP articles on WP.
Is there a way to automatically submit those images without re-uploading?
Hrm, the rules already answered my question, just didn’t really “parse” it. Must be uploaded during this month.
Ok, but what about all those other photos you were going to upload “when you have the time”? Now’s the time!
Can I watermark my own photos?
Best not to. Wikipedians tend to dislike watermarks. Under the CC-BY-SA license, they are allowed to remove the watermark, or make other adaptations, while still crediting you for the photo. It would likely happen in some cases.
I may have overlooked, but I found no information regarding the size of the photographs, format (jpeg, tiff etc.) and number of pictures per site/participant that could be submitted.
Hi Louri,
There is no stated rule on how many photos can be uploaded for each site. Generally we advise against exact duplication, but some people (myself included) like to do a lot of different angles, different zoom, detail, etc. It’s really up to you. As for file types, here is a list of accepted types:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:File_types
I usually go with jpg.
No limit on the number of photos per participant either. As of this writing, there’s a Spanish uploader with over 1800 files already in the first three days (!!)
Happy uploading
-Matthew
How to nominate and review?
We’re just putting together the mechanism for nomination and should have it ready in the next day or two. Will let you know here when it is available.
-Matthew
Can I use the category tags until then?
Ready now. Sorry for the delay. See the “Judging” page.
I’d love to take part, but video is more my thing than stills these days… are you taking video submissions?
They tried it in Europe last year with mixed results, so no video this year. Maybe next year. I’d imagine that video for an encyclopedia is a very special art. Wikipedia Commons does accept video (just not WLM this year), so I’ll suggest trying a couple of uploads to Commons of short video, seeing how they work, and getting eady for next year.
So, historically registered places only? Privately owned only too, or can they be part of the national park system or owned by state government? No natural features/landmarks either, like mountains or waterfalls?
Also not included: famous places that are not historically registered? (ex Baseball Hall of Fame, Ground Zero)
See my longer comment about this. Just the sites on the lists. But you are always welcome to upload photos of places like the Baseball Hall of Fame or Ground Zero. Those photos will be part of Wikipedia’s image database and will be freely-usable by anyone in perpetuity, thus adding to the educational and free-knowledge values of the world! They just won’t be part of the contest
The standard uploader on Commons is in the navigation bar on the left of commons.wikimedia.org. Or here’s a direct link:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:UploadWizard
Thanks!
Matthew
Yes, Wikipedia needs good photos of all the places you mention, but for the contest in the US, the subject must be a site that is on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) or on the similar California state list.
Your list of other interesting sites is very interesting and I’ll encourage you to upload these as well – but just not as part of the contest. The upload form is at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:UploadWizard
and is only slightly more complicated than the simplified form used for this contest. In particular, it will ask you which free license you like to release your photos under.
I suggest CC-BY-SA which allows anybody to use the photo for any reason, as long as they attribute you (or your user name). You might also consider giving the photo to the public domain (CC0), which allows any use of the photo without restrictions.
Hi Getoutgirl,
Yes, for this year’s contest, it was organized around the National Register of Historic Places lists. In California, one very industrious editor made the CA state historical lists, but no other state has this on Wikipedia yet. Hopefully next year there will be time and energy to put up state and local lists before September and the new contest.
As for the sites, they correspond to the list and they vary. There are private buildings, public structures, and natural features. For instance, numerous buildings on the list in most cities are owned privately. The Washington Monument and other public structures are also on the list. So are many natural features in Yellowstone (the whole valley is considered historic, so that would include Half Dome and Yosemite Falls, for instance). It just depends on the list.
Hope you have fun uploading! Don’t hesitate to ask any other questions or seek out assistance from us.
best,
Matthew
How about an international one?
We’re actually just a part of a big international contest with about 30 countries involved, including Canada and Mexico and most European countries. See http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/ for details,
Would you guys like detailed information on any of the historic buildings like what it was originally and what it is now.
Yes. You can put it in the articles. Per Wikipedia rule, you will need to quote sources on this.
It used to be that when big corporations needed photos, they’d hire a professional photographer and pay them. Now, all they do is have what they call a “contest” with prizes less than they’d pay for a single photo, and they get thousands. Once they have the photos, only a few get paid, and the photos appear to be “free for everyone”. However, despite the fact that only a few get any compensation for the photos, the images themselves (thousands of them), contribute to the financial success of WikiPedia.
From a monetary viewpoint, this is way too one-sided for me to want to participate.
Hi Mike:
Wikipedia is not a for-profit corporation. In fact, they survive mainly by donation. And as you may have noticed, they do not advertise.
The fact that they offer a monetary prize at all is quite surprising. If they had even the slightest profit-motive operating, they would charge one dollar for each uploaded picture in this competition.
If this were a traditional corporation, I’d say, you’re absolutely right. But wikipedia is not even close.
Erica
Should the photos be basic color or is artistic license taken into consideration for the photo? Ex. Black & White or HDR?
Color, B&W, artistic, basic informational photo – that’s all up to you.
Can photos be historic if you own the rights to them?
You can upload historic photos at Commons if you own the rights to them. Just clearly state in the descriptions something along the lines of “These photos were taken by my grandfather and I inherited them with full rights.”
Nevertheless, for the contest, you may only upload photos that you have taken yourself.
3 Questions:
1) I happen to live “inside” one of the listed districts (Galveston, TX: Silk Stocking Historic District) I have lived here for over 17 years so I have numerous pictures of houses throughout the whole district. Since the district consists of several blocks it would not be possible to have one picture of the whole thing so are pictures of ANY of the houses accepted?
2) I have numerous pictures of the houses in the district I mentioned and many other listed sites in Galveston from both BEFORE and AFTER hurricane Ike (2008) which completely changed the way all of the houses and trees look now. Can I submit both the before and after pictures of listed sites?
3) I saw that one of the sites was removed because it was destroyed by the storm (the Balinese Room in Galveston), I have pictures of it from before Hurricane Ike, and I also took pictures of it right after the storm hit, when it was still standing but missing whole sections (these pictures are incredible). My question is can I still submit them even though the site is no longer there? Even if those pictures can’t be part of the contest I believe they would be quite interesting to anyone wondering what happened to the Balinese room…
Yes, we want it all!
The before and after photos and the photos of the delisted sites might be especially interesting.
I am an ammature photographer, I have edited photos for my websites and put my photography business name and the © on them…The question` does that matter w/ the contest? Do I need to delete them and remove the © & then reload?
It’s best not to have watermarks or copyright notices on the photos. Editors on Commons may think you don’t understand the CC-BY-SA license, so they may try to delete the photo to protect your rights!
Other folks over there just don’t like watermarks, and, in line with the license, they may remove the watermark without your permission.
is there an age limit?
If you’re young enough that you can still press the shutter button (say 110) it’s ok with us if you want to upload.
On the other side, what’s too young? As long as you can understand the CC-BY-SA license and are mature enough to understand why you might want to talk to your parents about this, then it is ok by me. Start uploading!
i’m 15 and i wasn’t sure if you had to be 18 and older or not. thank you for answering my question!
Is there any age limit?
Nevermind. I didn’t finish going through the comments.
When will we find out who won?
Before October 28 for the US contest, before November 30 for the international contest. Watch for the results on this page.
Thanks for the judge date. Even though I only entered 1 photo i’m holdin my breath…. starting now.
Breathing is important! Please remember to breathe
Hi, I’m working on WLM Pakistan website. I’m using the same theme however the header is different. It would be appreciated if you kindly share the code of your header with me please.