Commons:Wiki Loves Africa 2015/Organizers' FAQ
Related links[edit]
Which countries are involved in the contest ?[edit]
The contest is open to anyone who wishes to contribute pictures, whether they live in Africa or not. (Of course, the pictures have to be relevant to Africa and the theme.) However, the site notice displaying the call for participation will only appear in African countries (and France partially). There are some countries where specific events are being held. You can find out more information and get in contact with the local organisers.
I want to help and organise a local event, how do I do it ?[edit]
Local volunteers are more than welcome to publicise the competition, talk to the media, organise photo hunts, meet ups and/or upload sessions.
If you want to help, please put your name on Commons talk:Wiki Loves Africa. Join the African mailing list and mention that you are interested in being part of the competition. You may write to the list in English or French (other languages may be fine, but fewer people will understand you).
You don't need to be a member of your local Wikimedia chapter or User Group to organise a Wiki Loves Africa event in your country, but if there is a chapter or a user group in your area, please try to approach them and get their support! If you are already a member of your local Wikimedia chapter, please make sure to involve the community in the project as much as possible.
What types of events can I organise ?[edit]
1. You can present Wikimedia Commons and the contest to the general public. There are press releases that you can adapt to for country. See below for where you can find presentation material, ideas and goodies.
2. Organize a photo hunt - this is when you meet up with a group of people with the intention of taking photographs about a specific theme or idea. In the case of Wiki Loves Africa 2015, a photo hunt could take place at a museum of fashion or ethnography, or at a local fashion show.
3. Involve a museum or a local cultural group !
4. Hold an upload session : Organise a meeting and space where people can do mass upload of images. It is best to do this in a space that can offer wifi access to the internet (university ?). an upload session is typically held after a photo hunt, but may be done simply to help people with large collections. Take the opportunity to do a proper detailed categorization of images uploaded.
What kinds of photographs are you looking for? Tips and tricks[edit]
- Tutorial in English about how to take pictures: How to take pictures for Wikimedia Commons
- Images guidelines
- Atelier photographique, in French:Atelier photographique
- Check out these links [1] and [2]
Where can I find presentations of Wikimedia Commons ?[edit]
Various powerpoint-style presentations may be found about Wikimedia Commons : Category:Wikimedia Commons slides
Any help for picture upload ?[edit]
Pictures are the main type of multimedia to be uploaded during the months of October and November of the Wiki Loves Africa Photo Contest.
To upload just a couple of images, using the Campaign upload wizard is recommended. For batch uploads, tools such as the Commonist is the best choice. Commonist is an upload tool (Java program) for simplifying uploads of many hundreds of images onto Wikimedia Commons. For the easiest installation and use steps, see documentation about the Commonist here.
What about images description and categorisation ?[edit]
It is important (essential!) that you and any participants to the contest put complete and accurate descriptions of the images that they upload. All entries should also add relevant categories to the images they upload. It is important for many reasons:
- We need to identify which images are part of the competition. For this, we set up a special template: template:Wiki Loves Africa 2015. Please make sure to always add this template to uploaded images.
- Images are not meant to just sit on Commons, lost amongst millions of others. They are meant to be reused, on Wikimedia projects or elsewhere. Which means people need to FIND them. And most of the time, they find them thanks to categories.
Which licence to use ?[edit]
The preferred licence will be cc by sa 4.0 : https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Some links to help communicate on free licences
- The famous graphic tutorial about uploading pictures on Commons
- Licensing for beginners (English)
- Licensing for beginners (Arabic)
- Licensing (French)
What if uploaders need to give permission ?[edit]
Only the copyright holder of a work can license it under a free content licence.
No one else can declare a free license for a work without permission from the copyright holder, except in cases where the copyright holder has been dead long enough for the work to be in the public domain or it is in the public domain by some other means.
Media tagged by a user for not having permission to license it under a free content license from the copyright holder will be deleted a few days from the day it is tagged (or sometimes immediately…).
Confirmation of licensing permission is handled with OTRS system, which can keep records of email correspondence sent to it and verified by a volunteer. Unless the source declares a free license (if there is a source link) somewhere for an image, permission must be logged in the OTRS system or the image will be deleted for having no permission.
OTRS confirmation of permission or authorship is usually required in several situations:
- When a work looks too professional to have been created by an amateur photographer. New users who have uploaded high quality images will usually be targeted more under this rationale than established users.
- When a work by a professional is uploaded by someone with a user name or other mannerisms that suggests in good-faith that they may be the person who created it.
- When a user declares on the image description page or in a deletion discussion that they have permission to post an image, yet there is no evidence.
- When a user declares a free license for a work that they did not make.
- When a user posts an author name that is not their user name, and there is a doubt as to whether the two are the same person.
In those cases, the uploader of the image needs to send a “permission” : an email to the OTRS system stating that they hold the copyright of the image.
More information about the permission: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Permission
Email templates for permission:
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Email_templates (English)
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Messages_type (French)
What should I do when many new people register at one event[edit]
If more than 6 people attempt to register new accounts during one event, that IP will be blocked unless you follow the instructions on this Meta page that allows for Mass Account Creations.
I want to help but I need funding, can you help ?[edit]
We suggest expenses should be covered with the help of sponsors. In many countries it is possible to find sponsors to pay for the things or services you would otherwise have to pay for yourselves (prizes, goodies, promotional materials, etc.).
If the amount of money you require is higher (e.g. more than €300), or if you find it more convenient, you can also request money through the Wikimedia Foundation grants process.
Where can participants get some help ?[edit]
They can get some help here: Commons:Wiki Loves Africa/Help desk (please help answer their questions !)
Or they can send email here
Where can I find promotional material ? (banners, stickers, tee-shirts etc.)[edit]
Marketing material for Wiki Loves Africa contest is available at Category:Wiki Loves Africa 2015 marketing material. For more information, access to .ai or .svg files or for a high resolution poster file, please contact us: here.
How to manage a Wikimedia meetup[edit]
Hundreds of meetups have been hosted around the world. If you wish to host a meetup in your area, consider using the following sets of lessons from others who have hosted meetups in the past.
Procedure and advice
- Post a notice on this page
- If suitable, create a sub-page to talk about your meeting only.
- Make it easy to sign up, with simple subsections like Likely attendees, Possible attendees and Regrets for signup lists, as at Meetup/NYC.
- Add links to relevant pages (such as a Facebook account etc.)
- Attract attendees
- Solicit invitations of geographically local Wikipedia users.
- Create a list of Wikipedians interested in future and regular meetups for a given location where they can sign up (alternatively, userboxes with corresponding categories can be used).
- Use an info box like {{Meetup/Melbourne/Invite}} for mass invitations.
- Use other media outside of Wikipedia to advertise to non-Wikipedia users
- Organize event
- Decide which type of event you want to organise (photo hunt, upload session, training session, meet-up, categ-a-thon etc.)
- Organize location
- Organize eating arrangements
Setup
The meetup
After
If the meetup is regular
Prizes or gifts
Other links of interest
- English Wikipedia meetup page, includes a global list of upcoming meetups
Can you give me examples of how I can help right now ?[edit]
Here is some examples of the things you may do:
- Let your community know about the contest. Your local community can include local Wikip/medians and aligned Open Movement members (enthusiasts from Creative Commons, Open Street Map, Open Data, OER, etc.). Relevant links to provide include WLA on Meta, WLA on Commons, wikilovesafrica.org, WLA on Twitter and WLA on Facebook.
- Provide press contact: When you know who your press person is, put their name and contacts down on this page.
- Look for local partners: think of associations, schools, networks, shops, festivals, and cultural groups who might be key partners in spreading the word or hosting events.
- Decide on whether you wish to host a national round of judging and prizes - if you do, you will need to organise the judges and the prizes (we can give you guidance on how).
- Think about the events, meet ups and training sessions that you can do with your community during the contest. Make sure everyone knows about it (and they are included in the press release).
- Get together a list of media contacts in your country that you think will be interested in talking about the competition.
- Participe to press releases: Help on crafting a press release template, adapt this for your country, and send it out to your media contacts. Other marketing and communication tools will be written and template created, we will share everything with you for you to adapt and translate.