Commons:Wiki Loves Monuments 2021 in India/FAQ

Wiki Loves Monuments is a public photo competition in which readers and contributors of Wikimedia projects are asked to take pictures of monuments from participating countries and to upload them to Wikimedia Commons. The contest was first organized in 2010 in the Netherlands and is nowadays organized in countries around the world. Wiki Loves Monuments has collected some 2 million photos over the past years that can be used on Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, and is recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest photography competition in the world.

The photo competition focuses on built heritage. Photographers, hobbyists and heritage enthusiasts are invited to submit photos of buildings that are on the lists of built heritage that are available through Wikipedia and Wikidata. The definition of what constitutes a 'monument' differs a lot, depending on the country. The national organizers are responsible for finding the most suitable definition for their country, usually there is an official list of protected or recognized heritage provided by the government. Images can only be submitted of monuments in 'participating countries'.

There are, however, several general recommendations which are common for all participating countries in order to make the contests compatible with each other; these recommendations (or rules) will be outlined below.

Wiki Loves Monuments exists of many national competitions, and is on a national level typically organized by the members of the local Wikimedia community with the help from local Wikimedia affiliates. In some countries heritage enthusiasts and heritage organizations have taken up an active role in organizing the competition.

The competition is facilitated on an international level by the Wiki Loves Monuments International Team and supported by volunteers around the world. This team develops and maintains the infrastructure that is used by national teams (for example, tools for finding monuments and judging) and ensures a smooth international finale.

Sure! You can find an overview of all countries participating in the various years, with the number of submissions per countries on this overview page. We summarized the main information in a table on Commons:Wiki Loves Monuments. By the way, did you know, the contest even happened in Antarctica before?

There is a basic set of rules which are common for all participating countries in order to make the contests compatible with each other; these rules to run the contest are:

1. All photos participating in the competition should be self-taken and self-uploaded;
2. Upload to Wikimedia Commons is possible only in the month of September;
3. The default license is Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 (CC-BY-SA 4.0);
4. Participants should have their e-mail enabled on Wikimedia Commons (or the platform they uploaded their photos to) to be eligible for prizes;

The competition will happen on any 30/31 days from 1 September, 2021 to 30 November, 2021 worldwide. In India, it will happen from 1 September, 2021 to 30 September, 2021. The national jury team will judge the photographs from 1 October, 2021 to 31 October, 2021 and declare the first 10 selected photographs from the country publicly. These images will represent India in the international competition, which will be taken over by international jury team, who will have the entire month of January, 2022 to judge the photographs. The international winners will be declared on February, 2022.

Yes! You are free to upload as many pictures as you want, from as many countries as you want — as long as they participate in Wiki Loves Monuments this year. There are no restrictions on the number of national contests you can take part in; if you happen to have pictures from other countries, even if they were taken in the past, you can submit them to the competition and increase your chances to win a prize!

West Bengal Wikimedians User Group, which is an affiliate of Wikimedia Foundation, has taken the initiative and responsibility to organize the event in India this year. If you want to contact the team, they are here.

Sure you can. You can upload photos of the monuments, which you have taken in the past.

Of course, you are most welcome. This competition is open to everybody in the planet. If you have visited India and taken photographs of the listed monuments, please feel free to upload them. By the way, please do check, if your country has also participated in the event, so that you can upload for your country too.

You can upload as many pictures as you can of as many monuments as you can. Don't worry, we are a large repository and we have space for all. We also have a special prize for highest number of uploads in the competition. We even have a special prize for highest number of uploads by an individual worth 2,000 gift voucher.

You don't have to go outside of your home. If you have clicked photographs of the desired monument before, you are totally allowed to submit that photograph. In fact, the organizers are discouraging you to go outside from your home in this pandemic situation. We urge you to remain safe at the first place.

You can find the navigate through the Indian maps from this page. If you click on your desired state or union territory, you will get the list of the monuments categorized accordingly like Monuments of National importance or State Protected Monuments etc. Check these categories to find your desired monument.

To upload photographs of monuments, follow the steps below:

1. You have to first check this page. Here, you can see a map of India having boundaries of states and union territories (UT) and a list of boxes with their names.
2. Click on the map or the box of your desired state or UT and that will lead to a specific page for your state or UTs, where you will get the list of the monuments categorized accordingly in the form of list of boxes like Monuments of National importance or State Protected Monuments etc.
3. Click on these boxes to find your desired monument. A page with all the monuments under this category will open up.
4. Find your desired monument.
5. Find the last column of the monument table and you will get . Click there and they will redirect you to Upload Wizard tool.
6. Start uploading by giving proper title and description of the image. Note that, the tool will remember the Monument ID and categories, so you don't have to worry about it.

The competition is not intended to document only the protected or heritage designated monuments of the country. There are thousands of other monuments spread all over the country, which reflect the history and heritage of India. This competition intends to encompass them all.

Actually, we intend to do so, but its a gigantic task considering the vastness of the country. There are innumerable heritage structures throughout the country, many of them are not even properly documented anywhere! Thousands of independent and state-funded researchers have tried to meticulously document them as per their capacity for years, but still, we can safely say, all the monuments of the country are far from covered. We are trying to digitally document them as per our very limited capacity too, but frankly speaking, we can enlist all the monuments of India, one day, if you join hands to this initiative and start documenting too.

Yes, please upload the photographs of any monuments you want to document. Our lists of monuments are far from perfect. But to let the jury learn more about the monument, please add detailed description with references. That will help a lot.

From this page, if you go to the specific page for your desired state or union territory, where the monument you are looking for is located and you can't find them in the lists there, you can upload them by clicking on the Monuments not listed above button, which you will find there at the bottom of the lists of boxes there.

This list of monuments is created by humans and so, in spite of their best of efforts, there might be errors. If you have found some errors, please let us know here with references. We will be extremely happy to correct it as soon as possible.

The Indian national jury team for this competition comprises of 3 highly experienced photographers and Wikimedia Commons contributors. Check this page to know about them.

The jury will determine the winners of the contest taking into the consideration the following criteria. Note importantly that this is not just another photography contest. In order of importance, the criteria are as follows:

• Effort put into researching the subject and taking the image - we welcome descriptive notes on the subject, how the the photo was taken, processed etc.
• Quality of description provided on the image (in any language) [judged primarily on the basis of what is provided by the image submitter rather than other contributors].
• Value of the image in terms of usage - ideally demonstrated by usage in any language Wikipedia with appropriate captions and well-referenced text surrounding the image that demonstrates that the article has been greatly enhanced by the image.
• Value of the image based on uniqueness - is it filling a blank, is it from a location that is hard to reach, is it the only image of its kind etc.
• Technical quality (sharpness, use of light, perspective, composition, etc.)

Grounds for rejection of submitted images can include but are not limited to:

• suspected of copyright violation.
• if required jury members may contact participants via talk pages or email - if they cannot be reached or responses to emails are not received within 48 hours - then the submission may be considered suspect and be rejected, participants may please ensure that they enable email, watch talk pages, and check their spam folders.
• lack of full EXIF information - where possible, contributors should include (or link to file versions with EXIF) other versions/from other angles in the other versions details.
• excessive processing, use of filters that are unrealistic.
• image does not document monument faithfully enough.
• watermarks, credit to author is ensured through the license and shall not be included in the image.
• resolution below 5 megapixel.

Yes, the photographs which will secure first 10 places in the national event, will get the following prizes:

• 1st Prize - 12,000 worth gift voucher + 1 T-shirt + 1 SWAG material + 1 digital certificate
• 2nd Prize - 10,000 worth gift voucher + 1 T-shirt + 1 SWAG material + 1 digital certificate
• 3rd Prize - 8,000 worth gift voucher + 1 T-shirt + 1 SWAG material + 1 digital certificate
• 4th Prize - 6,000 worth gift voucher + 1 T-shirt + 1 SWAG material + 1 digital certificate
• 5th Prize - 6,000 worth gift voucher + 1 T-shirt + 1 SWAG material + 1 digital certificate
• 6th to 10th Prize - 4,000 worth gift voucher + 1 T-shirt + 1 SWAG material + 1 digital certificate (each)

There are two more special prizes this year

• Highest number of uploads - Photographer who will upload highest number of eligible images will get 2,000 worth gift voucher
• Winning photograph from West Bengal - If a photograph of an monument located in West Bengal gets into top 10 of the national contest, the photographer will get 1,000 worth gift voucher. If more than one picture of monuments situated in West Bengal, gets into top 10, the person, who has secured higher rank will get the prize.

If your photograph gets selected within first 10 places of national competution, the organizing team will both mail you and post on your Wikimedia Commons talk page and request you to provide your address and other necessary details in a Google form. Don't worry, your privacy will not be breached and the information which you will provide will be deleted after you get your prizes. Please note, the WLM organizing team will try their best to ensure that the prizes reaches you, but we hope, you understand that, there may be some unforeseen incidents involving postal department or other areas, which cannot be avoided and which are beyond our capacity to handle.

Unfortunately, the organizer team do not have the capacity to send gift vouchers all over the world. However, the organizers will do their best to reach out to Wikimedia affiliates operating in your country to send you the gift vouchers, but as the process requires another organization, there is no guarantee that they will agree to our request. Whether or not, we succeed to send vouchers, we will definitely send a digital certificate and forward your winning photographs to the international competition.

No, cash is not an option.

No, we can not send another voucher if you fail to redeem it for whatsoever reason.

Yes, of course! The first 10 national photographs will be sent to international jury team to evaluate, and if you secure to be within first 10 places, the international WLM team has loads of exciting prize for you! You can check about those here. Best of luck!