Commons:Wiki Loves Monuments/Documentation/Landing page

During the Wiki Loves Monuments competition, participants are invited to participate through a banner and other messages. These messages are typically country specific, and will point towards a national 'landing page' that explains the purpose and conditions of the competition, why people should participate, and how to participate. In this page we will shortly describe what elements should probably be present on such a page, and hopefully give some helpful suggestions on what this page could look like.

Main elements

If people arrive to this landing page, they likely have some interest in participating. The most important thing is now to provide a very clear pathway for them to turn that intention into action: give them clear directions with steps they can follow. If they get lost at any point, they can always come back to this page.

The most important elements to cover in your page are:

• Give a clear pathway how to participate. What steps need to be taken?
• Explain in 2-3 paragraphs what the competition is, and what we're trying to achieve. We're not just some random competition, but we're trying to do something good: document monumental buildings for Wikipedia.
• Explain (or, if very long: summarize) the specifics of the competition:
  • Specific rules
  • What are the prizes
  • What are the criteria that your jury will use
  • What does the jury process look like
  • What is the definition of 'monuments' you're using in your country?
• Explain how to find out what are the monuments in your country and how to find them.
  • A hard component of this is explaining how to find the monument identifier. Participants have to provide the monument identifier during their upload.
• Maybe provide some inspiration with images that won the competition in previous years.

Some specific thoughts

Some specific things you may want to think about:

• Go beyond the usual suspects: if you provide examples, don't get stuck with the one or two monuments everyone already knows. Encourage people to photograph monuments that are less famous. After all, those are less likely to have good images available, so there's more improvement possible.
• Keep it simple: In our experience, 40-80% of the participants are new to Wikimedia, and have never edited before. Keep your explanations super simple and specific. Don't try to explain how to add images to articles on this page, or how to navigate the category system. Stick to the basics.
• Focus on the positive: Make sure to explain why it's fun and good to participate. Don't focus too much on what is hard and what problems may arise.
• Avoid legal traps: Wikimedia Commons can be tough when you're violating copyright restrictions. In the context of Wiki Loves Monuments, that is two things in particular:
  • 1) using photos taken by someone else (not permitted by the rules anyway) and
  • 2) In some countries, you need permission from the architect to photograph a building. Check out the status of 'Freedom of Panorama' in your country. If there is no Freedom of Panorama in your country, or only limited, you'll have to explain this to the participants and tell them how they can see which buildings they can photograph.
  • 3) Check if there are any legal complications in your country. Talk with a professional photographer.

Example page

We have put together an example of a landing page here: Commons:Wiki Loves Monuments/Documentation/Example landing page. This page is currently (July 2018) not 'responsive', meaning that it will look the same for every format of screen. After some anticipated software changes, we aim to change this so that the experience is better on all screen sizes.

To use this example, read carefully through the page, and see what needs to be changed for it to be relevant to your country. We used XX to indicate many things that definitely need to be changed. Once you think you're finished, please do a quick search (control+F) for 'XX'.