Wiki Loves Africa 2021/Participating countries

It should be noted that Wiki Loves Africa runs in EVERY African country (and beyond !). In some countries, there is a wikipedian team willing to hosts event and activities. If that's your case, please add your country below. But if your country is not listed here and you still want to participate to Wiki Loves Africa and submit pictures, please go ahead !

Wiki Loves Africa 2021 – Health and Wellness
The countries participating with events in 2021 Wiki Loves Africa contest
The countries participating with events in 2021 Wiki Loves Africa contest

Participating countries in 2021

edit

If you intend to host specific events, lead local actions and you know for sure that you'll be able to participate IN 2021 please list your chapter, your user group, or your name+country below. If you see a mistake in that table, please fix it !

Link to rapid grant portal : https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid

Guidelines for teams

edit

We really look forward to working with you on this project and getting some great results!
Below are some actions to consider working on with your team.

  • 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, WLA on Twitter and WLA on Facebook
  • 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.
  • Look for local partners: groups who might be key partners in spreading the word or hosting events.
  • If you are interested in hosting events around the project then and need funding, submit a rapid grant (see below)
  • Join the Wiki Loves Africa mailing list [1] and African mailing list [2] for discussion and announcement
  • Join the Telegram group
  • Get together a list of media contacts in your country that you think will be interested in talking about the competition. Contact them. What about holding a press conference ? or sending them a press release ?
  • Help select the jury: suggest judges who might be interested in taking part in the international contest (perhaps a locally celebrated photographer, chef, filmmaker or journalist).
  • 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.
  • Facebook has been set up - https://www.facebook.com/wikilovesafrica - please like this page - we will repost your info.
  • Twitter has been set up - @WikiLovesAfrica - please follow and link your tweets about the competition to our handle.
  • Instagram has been set up - [3] - please follow etc.
  • other suggestions ?

Grants
It is not mandatory to run a pretty successful activity, however that could boost your range and impact. Wikimedia Foundation reserved December for the Wiki Loves Africa the Project/Rapid application, so have that in mind, and mind the deadline for applications, the 15th Dec. Check out this page. Some guidelines available on that historical page.

National Judging Charter

edit

This page details a charter for best practices with regards to National Juries and National competitions for Wiki Loves Africa. They are a set of ideals and guidelines.

Context

Wiki Loves Africa runs in EVERY African country (and beyond !). In some countries, there is a Wikipedian team willing to hosts event and activities. Some of those teams have decided to host local competitions so there are national winners. Note that organizing a selection of national winning images is NOT A REQUIREMENT. But it is a good activity for the local team if they feel strong enough as a team to do so. Hosting a local award process has many benefits, these range from:

  • providing another, high-profile element that encourages the team to collaborate (and have fun!),
  • working with professional photographers on the jury that helps to validate the contest at a local level among the photographic community,
  • providing winners to create visibility and excitement among the media.

Countries hosting local competition processes

edit

If you, as an organiser, have chosen to do a local awards process, please add your country below with a link to the page that lists both the winners and the jury.

  • Add your country here

Suggested guidelines around procedure

edit

On 16th April 2020 a meeting was held among WLA organisers at the local level to discuss options and ideas around local competitions. There is an audio file of the meeting and covers a lot of what is discussed on this page. Here is a text guide that also might help.

Choosing the jury

edit

The jury should be made up of professional photographers and Wikimedia Commonists. Please consider skill set, experience and diversity when gathering your Jury. Approach media and photographic groups, schools and associations for nominations. Please make an effort to find representatives of minority groups.

The size of the team ... depends on the number of photographs that have been submitted. It really is up to you, but a guideline would be 3-5 members for under 750 images. 5-8 members for 2500 images and below.

There are also practical considerations:

  • Jury members must be able to write and read in the same language - you will be discussing images online, it is best to be able to understand one another!
  • They must be able to commit the time to judge up to 200-500 photos in three rounds over a period of 3-6 weeks (be clear about your timeframes)
  • It would be helpful if the juror would be willing to share their real name for documentation (if a Wikimedian).
  • Jury work is a voluntary effort, there is no financial compensation or reward.

Conflicts of interest and ethics

edit

It is best practice to ensure that the jury members are independent of the competition. This means that they have not submitted photographs for the competition and they are not part of the main organising team. The jury members can be drawn from the local professional community (photographic associations, photography teachers, or photojournalists). Jurors can also be drawn from the local (and international) Wikimedia Commons community. This allows a healthy mix of people who know about Wikimedia world, and those who are professionals.

Guidelines on criteria for selection

edit

Here are a few things for the jury to consider when selecting photographs to go through the process.

  1. Encyclopedic value - does the photo present the subject with clarity?
  2. Subject Matter – is the subject appropriate to the theme? (In this case, Transport / On the Move?
  3. Storytelling – how well does the photo evoke the viewer’s imagination?
  4. Impact – what you feel when you first view the photo. Does it evoke an emotion?
  5. Creativity – has the photo captured the photographer's idea, message or thought in an original and imaginative way?

They should also consider technique, composition, presentation, colour balance, lighting and focal point/s. And, of course, the photo, or an aspect of the photo, should be in focus (unless intended not to be). All photos should be more than 3 mb in size.

Selection process

edit

Depending on the size of the 'pool' of entries, you should plan on the following process (if your pool is smaller (350 or less), you could probably reduce rounds 2 and 3 to the final round:

  • 1st round - yes/no cleaning round. This round is where the quality contenders are separated from the mediocre or poor quality entries. Criteria is a quality assessment, and check for and Copyvios, watermarks, etc.
  • 2nd Round - a rating round. This round has the jurors rating the images by between 1-5 stars.
  • Final or 3rd round. The jurors rank their top 30 selection. in order of ranking.

The international team currently uses the Montage Jury tool, but there are other tools and processes available should the local teams not wish to use it.

You have your top 10 winning images, now what ?

edit
  1. IMPORTANT: Check that the images are not copyright violations. You can use this tool Tineye to see if these images have been used anywhere else and by whom. Please contact the photographer if there are any doubts. We CANNOT have winners that are copyright violations. It is against the licencing laws we abide by.
  2. Do not have the two images in the top 3 from the same photographer. If necessary, place the 3rd image 4th and then the 4th image 3rd so other photographers have a chance at the limelight.
  3. Contact your winners. Let them know. Give them time to get back to you. Do not defer the winning pot to the next ranked winner. Their image has won. It is theirs.
  4. Ask you winners why they chose to shoot that image. Ask them what winning means to them. Document those quotes. These quotes will provide more interest to your press release, country page or grant request report.
  5. Once you have contacted the winners, let the press and community know. Make some noise about it!
  1. Write up the winners on your Commons page.
  2. Share the link with the international organising team and on the Telegram channel!
  3. Share your link and the photographs on Social Media - link the photographers and @WikiLovesAfrica in your posts
  4. Write and send out a press release. Make sure you include information about who made up the Jury. You can use this international press release from the 2019 winners as a guideline.

Jury tools

edit

There are a few tools that have been created to assist in Jury selection process. While each national contest is free to choose their jury tool of choice, the international team develops, maintains, and supports Montage if you decide to choose this jury tool.

The Montage Tool
  • Sign your country up for using Montage in the talk page.
  • Check if your campaign is ready
  • Go to the coordinator panel in Montage and sign in using your wikimedia account
  • Edit campaign
  • Setup Round
Other tools to consider

Frequently asked questions from the Community

edit

to be updated PLEASE NOTE: 2020 : all discussions, deliberations and meetings must be held online until the WMF has given us clearance to meet in-person. This also applies to any planned Award-giving event or ceremony. These events or ceremonies must please be delayed until the all-clear has been given.

1. Can we do the photo selection and hold everything until the COVID-19 situation ends and we host our ceremony as planned?

Yes! Please proceed through the jury process (doing everything online and remotely). Once the COVID-19 crisis is over, you can plan an awards ceremony. One suggestion is to send the send the prizes to the winners (if it is financial) when you announce the winners. Then have something physical (a certificate and or framed copy of their image or t-shirt) to give them at the ceremony. How you choose to do that is up to you and your team.

2. If the award ceremony is delayed, is it okay to make the report after that time. For example, if we host the awarding ceremony in June and we make the report in July?

That is between you and the WMF rapid grant team. As it is not something you can control, they should give you an extension.

3. If there was a plan to provide electronic voucher as the prize and now such shops are closed, wouldn't this be a cause to wait a bit until the situation calms down for us to finalize the WLA 2020?

This is up to you and your team to decide. It will probably take up to 4-6 weeks to do the selection. By then, things will probably be different. Cash transfer might just be easier around this time.

When done... document and share

edit
  • Jurors names
  • Jury process
  • Prizes delivered, winners and winning images
  • Share the winners with us!!
  • Ask the winner's questions - such as "why did you choose to take that picture?" or "How was the experience of entering Wiki Loves Africa?"

Be inspired by c:Commons:Wiki Loves Monuments/Documentation/International jury process

Announcement list

edit

For wikimedians to receive news on their meta talk page : Wiki Loves Africa/Recipients. Please feel free to add your name...