Grants:Project/Rapid/Nsultan/Wiki Loves Monuments 2016 Bangladesh/Report

Report accepted
This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2016-17 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

As part of the international contest, Bangladesh organized international Wiki Loves Monuments photography competition for the first time in 2016. The topic of the contest was the archaeological sites of the country. The motivation behind participating with only the archaeological sites was to make make available freely licensed photographs of the archaeological buildings and sites of the country. Most of the archaeological sites of Bangladesh did not have freely licensed photographs on the internet. Wiki Loves Monuments offered a unique opportunity in this regard. The competition generated over 7500 photographs of more than 350 archaeological sites.

Goals

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Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went? We wanted to reach people throughout the country to take part in the contest with a target of 100 participants. But in reality 204 participants submitted photographs of over 350 archaeological building and sites (among 452 Government listed archaeological sites). We had a target of 50 new users to engage in the contest, but 135 new users were engaged which exceeded our expectation. The number of photographs that were used in the Wikimedia projects also exceeded our target. So almost in every aspect, the competition exceeded our expectation. But the quality of the photographs were not of high quality in general. We hope to receive more quality photographs in the upcoming year.

Outcome

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Winners


Target outcome Achieved outcome Explanation
Number of participants: 100 204 Since it was our first time in WLM so we thought participantions will be rather low but because of a good press coverage the participation rate had been increased.
Number of photos uploaded to Wikimedia Commons: 2000 7,093 After a month-long competition during September 2016, Bangladeshi participants uploaded more than 7,093 freely licensed photographs of 270+ different archaeological monuments and sites in Wikimedia Commons. Almost all the monuments photos were uploaded for the first time.
Number of photos used on Wikimedia projects: 500 1636 (23%) This photography contest had specific scope; we participated this year's WLM with govt. listed archaeological sites only. Before this competition, there were only a handful of archaeological buildings and sites of Bangladesh that had photographs available on the internet and those sites & buildings were mostly from major cities and localities, let alone the availability of freely licensed photographs. After the contest most of the articles now have pictures.
New user engaged:50 135 (66%) We thought 50% of the participants will be new to Wikimedia projects but because of a good press coverage the participation rate had been increased to 66%.


Press mentions

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2016-09-4
2016-09-3
2016-09-2
2016-09-1
2016-08-31
2016-08-30
2016-08-29
2016-08-27

Learning

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Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

  • What worked well?

The press coverage about the event in local online and print media helped get more participation from around the country. We partnered with seven local photography clubs in order to get the words out among the photographic community in Bangladesh. After a month-long competition during September 2016, a total of 204 Bangladeshi participants uploaded more than 7000+ freely licensed photographs of 270+ different archaeological monuments and sites in Wikimedia Commons. Among all the participants, 10% of them were women, a participation rate which is more than that of any other previous Wikimedia related competitions held in Bangladesh. Though it is still the early days, about 23% of all the photographs uploaded in the contest are now being used in Wikimedia projects.

Before this competition, there were only a handful of archaeological buildings and sites of Bangladesh that had photographs available on the internet and those sites & buildings were mostly from major cities and localities, let alone the availability of freely licensed photographs. The competition turned the situation into a better state. As people from various regions and districts participated in the competition, many of the less known archaeological sites were photographed alongside the better known ones.

  • What did not work so well?

A number of participants reported that they didn't find the building or even debris of several archaeological sites listed by the Department of Archaeology of Bangladesh. Another group of participants reported that quite a number of archaeological sites and buildings were in very dilapidated conditions thus taking photographs of those monuments was not easy.

  • What would you do differently next time?

Since this was our first year in the competition, we decided to participate with the archaeological sites of Bangladesh only and wanted to expand the list in the upcoming years with modern monuments as well.

Finances

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Grant funds spent

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Sl.No Item Quantity Rate (BDT) Total (BDT) Notes
items
(Subtotal :148886 BDT)
1 crest+certificate for winners 10 32600
2 Prize-money for best three photographs 3 45000
3 Highly Commendable Awards 7 14000
4 Award for the judges 12000
5 WLM T-shirts 70 270 18900
6 Customize mug 10 300 3000
7 Pens 70 4200
8 calendar 40 270 10800
9 others 8386

Remaining funds

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Do you have any remaining grant funds? No

Anything else

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Anything else you want to share about your project?

We noticed, during this competition, that there is a great lacking in the availability of valuable information on the internet about the archaeological sites of Bangladesh. To address this unavailability, Wikimedia Bangladesh organized an article writing contest in the Bengali Wikipedia. This article writing contest was held in parallel with the WLM photography contest and resulted in adding 178 new articles about the archaeological sites of Bangladesh. As there were hardly any information online, participants collected information from books, journals and hard copies to produce the articles.