@antanana have you considered cross posting this to https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/glam.lists.wikimedia.org/ and possibly creating a diff post? These lessons learned would be really valuable for other community members working on other living and cultural heritage projects.
Cheers, Alex On Sat, Apr 15, 2023 at 5:01 PM attolippip <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello there! > > I am sharing my reflections below as the organiser of the Photographic > Film Special Nomination in Wiki Loves Monuments Ukraine this year -- this > was the first time we did something like this, and we have just announced > the results on Friday: https://wlm.org.ua/film-results-2022/ (the blog is > in Ukrainian, but you can see the pictures, and the years they were taken > in are in the attribution). > > == Context == > So, 2022 was especially challenging for us as the organisers, as we had to > limit accepting participants' submissions only to pictures taken before > February 24, 2022, when the russian army started a full-scale invasion of > Ukraine, as we feared for the participants safety (believe me, even in > peaceful times a stranger coming to your remote village to take pictures of > buildings can be weird; during the active full-scale invasion the level of > suspicion is tripled at least), and we also worried about encouraging their > accidentally filming some military actions or objects. > > This does mean less quality (people might upload pictures from their > archives they have not uploaded during previous years, as they know about > the contest, but have no chance to upload newer pictures) and quantity (for > obvious reasons of people who just learnt about the contest not being able > to join, unless before February 24, 2022, they had a hobby of taking > pictures of cultural monuments around them). And it is also challenging > interest-wise -- unless you had something to upload -- you are out. We also > realised that we have very limited resources to organise ourselves -- too > many things and people to worry about, while taking care of lists or > templates. So we needed a light version contest, but also to find something > interesting to try to tap into new audiences we have not yet had > time/resources to tap into. > > So, we decided to implement an idea a Ukrainian Wikimedian, Nataliia > Lastovets, had -- to have a special category for scanned photographic film > -- the Photographic Film Special Nomination -- with pictures (of course) > taken before February 24, 2022, accepting files of cultural monuments > created from scanned photographic films or scanned/photographed prints, > made by a film camera originally. > > == Challenges and lessons learnt == > First of all, if one aims at having a light version of the contest -- *this > nomination is not an easy *one to organise :) We, of course, went lighter > on the promotional part of this due to our own limited volunteer resources > (and promotion is really important, and we should have done more there, of > course), but we did have ads on social media (Facebook, Instagram), and did > reach out to cool professional photographers on Instagram, telling them > about the contest, and that if they are not interested in taking part, > maybe they would agree to become jury members. > > We also had to figure out *how to check the uploads* -- our upload form > was asking people to mark pictures as "photographic film" ones, and we had > a separate category for them, but we still ended up with more than 600 > pictures, and before giving them to the jury members, we had to check them. > The WLX Jury Tool > <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:WLX_Jury_Tool>we are using to > rate pictures would not be useful for this, opening ~600 files to check the > EXIFs and descriptions would be quite time consuming. So User:Ahonc had to > create a script to get all the possibly useful data from the pictures in > the category in one table: > https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ahonc/WLM-2022_UA/images/films > > With this, we just needed to check the uploads done by non-film cameras. > Of course, we could not just dismiss those files, as a film print from 1990 > could have been photographed with a modern non-film camera (or even a > mobile), so we also looked at the user pages, sometimes people mention that > they are professional photographers, and chances of their pictures being on > a photographic film are higher. We also reached out to those users we knew > -- some of them indeed mistakenly marked pictures for the nomination... > Long story short -- it took us quite some time to remove pictures we were > certain didn't belong. And when we had ~400, we started the first jury > round. > > *More information is needed at the upload stage. *For the first round we > asked them to select up to 50 entries out of ~400 that would go to the next > round. They selected 95, and then they rated them with points (20 points > was max, 1 point was minimum). We planned to award 10 best pictures, but we > ended up with 23 entries to select from. If we had time and resources, we > would have tried to organise an additional round, an online call or meetup, > but this was just a bit too much to do, so, I just basically wrote to each > author directly, listing pictures, and asking to provide for more details. > And indeed, some of those pictures were not taken using a photographic > film. That really helped to narrow the pool. > > What's more, the authors using photographic films, were able to provide > quite detailed stories about their pictures, when they were taken, and in > most cases technical information including camera models, what kind of film > they used, lenses etc. It was quite impressive, to tell you the truth :) We > ended up selecting 10 best pictures. But it seems that the upload form for > this kind of content should include not only a checkbox for this special > nomination, but also fields for camera model, lenses, film, year it was > taken, additional information -- first, it will help the participants > themselves to make sure they are not making an automatic mistake, and > secondly, it will help with checking the uploads. That way people do not > upload hordes of pictures, they (in a way) treasure them, and remember > (sometimes) each frame, the weather it was taken in, angle, context, etc. > > *The jury has to have professional photographers, who themselves use > photographic film*. It is sometimes more difficult to organise -- we > expect them to be volunteers, and cost them working hours; it is not as if > we provide them with a lot of professional fame or that the quality of our > submissions is guaranteed. Finding these people is still possible, just... > difficult. > > == Outcomes === > We have determined the 10 best pictures as we planned. We also showcased 8 > more pictures, sometimes adding up to a set. You can see them here: > https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2022_in_Ukraine#«Фотоплівка» > > We still have ~400 pictures we cannot be certain have been taken using > photographic film, unfortunately. On the bright side -- we are now smarter > as organisers, and if we decide to do it again, we would take into account > our lessons learnt. And we would probably be better positioned to make more > new and interesting mistakes :) > > Anyway, sorry for the long read, I just thought documenting our experience > here, on the list, has some value for organisers to (maybe) come. > > See you all around! > > З повагою / Best regards, > antanana > Wiki Loves Monuments Ukraine > Wikimania 2023 Program Subcommittee > Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2023 Programme Committee > > Disclaimer: This letter is sent in my Wikimedia volunteer capacity, not as > a Board member of Wikimedia Foundation > > > нд, 18 вер. 2022 р. о 12:33 attolippip <[email protected]> пише: > >> Thank you. Yes, we were thinking of creating a special nomination for >> that kind of pictures -- we were thinking of scanned films, but you are >> correct in pointing out that some can actually have only prints. Both >> copyright issues and how to understand if a picture was taken on a film, >> and not digitally, are a part of issues we are trying to figure out... >> Reaching out to professional societies is a good idea for a start, thanks! >> I am not sure how much (if anything) will come out of our efforts to have a >> contest this year, but we shall see >> >> З повагою / Best regards, >> antanana >> Wiki Loves Monuments Ukraine >> >> Disclaimer: This letter is sent in my Wikimedia volunteer capacity, not >> as a Board member of Wikimedia Foundation >> >> >> нд, 18 вер. 2022 р. о 10:27 Yaroslav Blanter <[email protected]> пише: >> >>> Hi Nat, >>> >>> do you mean scanned films or scanned prints? >>> >>> The process was first to process the film, and then go on to make >>> prints. In the former Soviet Union, for b/w prints, everything was made at >>> home with a simple equipment; for color, unless you are professional, you >>> would have to go to a shop. Btw colored photographs were usually for >>> producing slides, and people did not make prints but rather projected them >>> on the screen. Now, scanning film is difficult and requires special >>> equipment, but scanning prints only requires a standard scanner. >>> >>> Most people stopped using film in around 2000. and thus they are not so >>> old now (they would typically start taking pictures at 10-15, and, for >>> example, I am 55 now and I still had 25 years of film experience). The >>> problems are more that prints get lost or stayed behind as people are >>> moving, and that after 30 years they are not exactly sure what they were >>> filming. I would suggest a special nomination for scans of prints, if it >>> still can be done this year (though you have to be extra careful to make >>> sure people scan their own photographs). >>> >>> For professional photographers, this is a never-ending story but I would >>> start with professional societies. >>> >>> Best >>> Yaroslav >>> >>> On Sat, Sep 17, 2022 at 11:01 PM attolippip <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> hello there! >>>> has anyone tried locally to organise something around outreach to >>>> photographers whose pictures were made on photographic films? >>>> >>>> we have not had such a campaign in Ukraine before, just individual >>>> efforts, like when a Wikipedian convinced an old photographer to upload his >>>> pictures of lost heritage to Commons, they had to scan his films to do >>>> that: https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/photos-of-destroyed-heritage/ >>>> >>>> as this year (to make sure people are not roaming around taking >>>> pictures for their own safety) for the Ukrainian part of the contest we >>>> decided to accept only pictures taken before February 24, 2022, we thought >>>> of maybe looking for ways to reach this audience -- photographers whose >>>> pictures are on films, so most probably old enough... but maybe there are >>>> some tips/things to be aware of when dealing with scanned films, and >>>> somebody on the list has travelled down this path already, and can share >>>> useful information? >>>> >>>> (sorry for crossposting, i have also asked about this on the telegram >>>> channel) >>>> >>>> З повагою / Best regards, >>>> antanana >>>> Wiki Loves Monuments Ukraine >>>> >>>> Disclaimer: This letter is sent in my Wikimedia volunteer capacity, not >>>> as a Board member of Wikimedia Foundation >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list >>>> To unsubscribe send an email to >>>> [email protected] >>>> http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list >>> To unsubscribe send an email to >>> [email protected] >>> http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org >> >> _______________________________________________ > Wiki Loves Monuments mailing list > To unsubscribe send an email to > [email protected] > http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org -- Alex Stinson Lead Program Strategist Wikimedia Foundation Twitter: @sadads Learn more about how the communities behind Wikipedia, Wikidata and other Wikimedia projects create calls to action to invite new contributors through campaigns: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Campaigns
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