Grants:Project/Rapid/WMROMD/Wiki Loves Monuments 2019 in Romania/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2019-20 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Project/Rapid/WMROMD/Wiki Loves Monuments 2019 in Romania.
You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
You are welcome to Email rapidgrants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Goals

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went? Regarding our goals, we finished somehow in the middle. Two goals were successfully achieved and two not quite well. We surpassed our target of 3000 images and got 3474 including the ones on Wikipedia (16% more than the target), 109 participants (45% above the target of 75), with 64 of them as newcomers, most of them joining towards the end of the contest. On the other hand, the number of images used on wikipedia projects (249 - representing 8% of all images) was not very impressive and the number of videos uploaded (2 videos) was really disappointing. Generally we succeeded in increasing the number of freely licensed images of Romanian cultural monuments, even though some of them are of landmarks that are popular each year. Also we succeeded in raising awareness of cultural heritage through the photographs uploaded during the competition and improving the quality of the content on Wikimedia projects by providing images to some of the existing articles.

Outcome

Please report on your original project targets.

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
75 participants	109	Our communication was targeted towards people already liking our Facebook and Instagram page or familiar with WLM competition, which reduced the potential pool of participants. As the number of uploaders and photography was not very impressive in quality and quantity, we got in contact with some heritage associations, including the National Heritage Institute in Romania and photography groups to help us spread the words about the event.
3000 images	3474	(2953 images on Commons + 521 images on Wikipedia (FOP)) - We met our expectations with these 521 images on Wikipedia. Otherwise, the number would have been the lowest from all the years - 2953 images. There were only 4 users with uploads above 100 images (one of them passing the 1000 photos limit and the second user passing 400).
330 pictures used in Wikimedia projects	249	The number of images used on wikipedia projects was only 75% fulfilled. Compared to previous years, it was the lowest. It dropped comparing to 2018 to about half in number, as most of the accessible monuments are already covered.
10 movies	2	We had 2 participants. Not what we expected because in 2018 we had 14 videos.

Learning

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?
- Infrastructure was good. The whole wiki-part of the contest (uploader, list, robot, judging tool) worked perfectly, which saved a lot of organizer time.
- The support and the collaboration with the National Heritage Institute in being one of the juror of the contest and in promoting the contest throughout the month of September on their social media pages.
- Judging process worked well once again; we used Montage. This year was the first time having a juror from another country (Alina Vozna from Ukraine) and a winner from 2018 WLM Romania edition (Neighbour's Goat, 1st place winner and also winner of video section).
- All the prizes were won by various participants and we were happy to have among them three international winners from Hungary, Ukraine and Poland.
- Although gadgets are cool as prizes and as this year the grant did not fund these kind of prizes anymore, cash prizes in vouchers are more appealing to the participants and is was easier to be received by the winners.

What did not work so well?
- The late announcement (27 August) of the participation of Romania in the international list created a problem for one of our long WLM contributor that uploaded photos before the start of the competition. These photos could not be taken into consideration and he had to upload other pictures.
- We really liked the new design of WLM landing page template but because we were informed about it too late, we had no time to create it and translate it in Romanian too
- We did not reach our targets regarding the number of pictures and pictures used in Wikimedia projects.
- One of the winners, from the special prize section - the best photo by a newcomer, did not answer our messages. We tried to contact him on his talk page and social media, but because he did not have an email attached to his account, we could not get in touch with him.
- Compared to other online contests, the online contest focusing on monuments had some mediocre results (only 16 new articles including images from WLM 2019 written by 16 users)
What would you do differently next time?
- One thing for sure would be to prepare the contest more in advance and to announce the participation of Romania earlier in August to avoid confusion in the future. If last year we were facing two choices for future editions (commit to a more open contest, collaboration with entities interested in monuments or scale down and concentrate on experienced wikipedians) this year we have realised that the collaboration with other organisations has lead us to a new audience and hopefully new future contributors. Although, in this case, the amount of monuments will not grow, but it will bring higher quality images to Wikimedia Commons, we do count on experienced wikipedians to fill in the missing monuments in the national lists. We would like to continue the collaboration with the National Heritage Institute, hoping that one day we will be able to involve them in different other wiki projects.

Finances

Grant funds spent

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.

Prizes = 3200 RON (752.94 USD)
Online writing contest = 500 RON (117.64 USD)
Internet domain renewal =42.22 RON (9.94 USD)
TOTAL SPENT = 3742.22 RON (880.52 USD)

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

Remaining funds = 400 RON (94.11 USD) that we proposed to be used for the 2020 1Lib1Ref project.

Remaining funds from this grant have been returned to WMF in the amount of 87.24 EUR (equivalent to 400 RON).

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project?

Winning pictures

Palatul „Vulturul Negru”, Oradea
Photograph: Mihairomeob
Biserica „Sf. Nicolae”, Densuș
Photograph: Sebastian Mierzwa
Turnul de Apă al Palatului Cantacuzino, Florești
Photograph: Teodosius7
Castelul Corvinilor, Hunedoara, azi muzeu
Photograph: Prymasal
Situl arheologic de la Enisala, punct „Palanca”, Enisala
Photograph: Paul Istoan
Castelul Pelișor, Sinaia
Photograph: IrinaAnton
Biserica fortificată din Prejmer
Photograph: Thaler Tamas
Teatrul Național „Lucian Blaga” din Cluj-Napoca seara, fațadă principală
Photograph: Andrei Lucian Vaida
Baia Neptun din Băile Herculane s-a închis la câteva luni după ce acoperișul s-a prăbușit
Photograph: Máté
Ansamblul fostei mănăstiri cisterciene, Cârța
Photograph: Nicubunu