I can add a little more as I was in the loop of some email conversations in 2013.
A big problem for us to participate in WLM is the expectation that we can upload a database of monuments including lat/long coordinates for use with the WLM Mobile app. I don’t know how it is in other countries, but we just don’t have the ability to construct such a database without a massive manual effort. Obviously we known of various heritage registers compiled by the Commonwealth, states, local governments and various other organisations (National Trust, Engineers Institute, …), but these are generally not available to us in any electronic format. I’ve been in conversation about getting the Queensland Heritage Register released under CC-BY license which is apparently OK in principle, but has yet to actually occur in practice. Obviously we don’t need to have every possible monument in this database, which is why we had thought we might start with just war memorials, as the upcoming Gallipoli centenary means that a lot of effort is going into documenting war memorials making it more likely we could obtain (or scrape) the data for a number of states at least. However, the WLM committee knocked back that idea. As Gnangarra has already said, we were told war memorials were not acceptable to them as monuments, despite our attempts to explain the cultural importance of war memorials in Australia. AFAIK, the conversation with WLM terminated on that rather unpleasant exchange and has not been resumed. Personally I would prefer to see a WMAU-takes-War-Memorials in the leadup to the Gallipoli centenary (25 April 2015) over participating in WLM. There’s plenty of scope here. In Queensland there are currently over 1300+ documented war memorials (and no doubt many more undocumented ones), yet Commons has about 120 photos of them (incidentally, a big barnstar goes to WMAU member Mattinbgn who took and uploaded many of these Qld war memorial photos). And of course the impact of WW1 on Australia is more than just the war memorials, so we could broaden it to WMAU-takes-WW1 and encompass anything linked to WW1 themes relating to Australia. Kerry _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Gnangarra Sent: Monday, 19 May 2014 10:04 AM To: Australian Wikimedians mailing list Subject: Re: [Wikimediaau-l] Wiki Loves Monuments Please note I'm not speak on behalf of WMAU committee and as far as I'm aware no one has proposed anything to the committee in relation to WLM WLM is a complex issue As we found out last year if Australia wants to participate in WLM we cannot run a scaled down version, neither can we include War Memorials within the scope of WLM as the definition of monuments in this project is not the english definition. If Australians had participated on that basis none of our entrants would been eligible for the international aspects so that would result in a very disappointing outcome for us, if not a very embarrassing one as well. I'm aware that this year the founding country of WLM has withdrawn, that is a concern if the country the size of Netherlands doesnt have the capacity to continue then Australia with a significantly smaller user base and a significantly larger area of distribution will have potentially more complex capacity issues. With this knowledge I can only recommend caution, suggest that there maybe better alternative given the limit of resources On 18 May 2014 02:01, Russavia <[email protected]> wrote: Hi all, Does anyone know if there is going to be an Australian edition of Wiki Loves Monuments this year? The page is up on Commons,[1] but there's nothing there showing an Australian presence. Having an Aussie edition of the comp as a precursor, if there is still interest, in having a "war memorials" competition in the lead up to Anzac Day in 2015. Anyway, just wanting to put it out there that WLM is open and seeing if there is any interest in it. Cheers, Russavia [1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2014 _______________________________________________ Wikimediaau-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaau-l -- GN. WMAU: http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/User:Gnangarra Photo Gallery: http://gnangarra.redbubble.com <http://awards.stateheritage.wa.gov.au/WAH2014/images/award_finalist.jpg>
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