Wiki Loves Africa 2019 South Africa
The purpose of this report is to have baseline data that can be used for future participation in WLA competitions and give recommendations on how the competition can be improved upon.
The Wiki Loves Africa competition ran from 1 February 2019 until 15 March 2019. More information on the competition can be found here.
User A3_Baard volunteered to manage the project and represent South Africa. This was the first time that South Africa officially participated in the competition, even though entries had been submitted in previous years.
Stats:
edit2018: 642 entries
2019: 435 entries from 132 unique users
Advertising:
editAn Instagram account was created for Wikimedia ZA as this lends itself well to the photography space. Since then the account has been used to announce other chapter events as well.
A total of 7 posts were done on Facebook and Instagram advertising the competition, but never boosted. A press release was sent to local photography groups and associations, but I don't know if anything came of it. This list is available for future campaigns
Winners:
editThe selection committee in South Africa were: Mike Orms and Rachel Reeves from Orms Photography as well as Douglas Scott and Adri Baard from Wikimedia ZA.
The top 10 have been selected and submitted to the International Jury
The top 3 have been selected as well, but not notified. This will be done by end-June 2019 in order to distribute the prizes in a timely manner.
The prizes are: Amazon gift cards to value of $80, $40 and $20 for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place respectively.
The funds for these prizes are coming from allocated funds in the Wikimedia ZA Chapter chapter.
Top 10:
Kiowa17 (2 entries made the top 10)
Improvements/Learnings:
edit1. Entry requirements need to be highlighted. Written in a shorter and bulleted format.
2. A "How to upload a GOOD entry" tut would also be good as this could highlight the fact that meta data is needed around the image for searchability.
3. "How to verify" your email address is also needed. I clicked on the link about 6 times before I realised what I was meant to do.
4. Budget for the boosting of posts to be set aside for future competitions.