Wikipedians Launch World's Largest Photo Contest

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 13, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Wikipedians around the world are participating in the world's largest photo contest by number of uploads: Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) 2012. The contest runs from September 1st through 30th and many of the photos will appear in Wikipedia, the world's largest encyclopedia. As with all images on Wikimedia sites, they are freely licensed and available for anyone to download from Wikipedia's image database, Wikimedia Commons (http://commons.wikimedia.org).

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120913/NY73579 )

In conjunction with the contest this year, the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia, has developed a free Wiki Loves Monuments mobile application for Android smartphones, available in the Google app store. With this app, Wikipedians for the first time are able to upload photos to Wikimedia sites through their mobile devices. Try the app here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wikipedia.wlm

"Wiki Loves Monuments is an important way for volunteers around the world to showcase the cultural heritage in their countries and share these images with everyone through Wikipedia," said Lodewijk Gelauff, an organizer of the international contest.

Volunteer Wikipedians organize the contest in each country, with the winning photos from national contests considered by an international jury in November. The international jury will announce the top-ten international photos and the overall best picture winner in early December. The grand prize winner will be flown to Hong Kong for a photo tour as part of the Wikimania 2013 conference.

"By uploading your photos you are sharing our national heritage with everybody in America and in the rest of the world," said Peter Ekman, national coordinator for the U.S. part of the contest. "The photos will be free to use, and free of cost, forever."

WLM 2012 builds on the success of last year's contest, where 5,000 photographers from 18 European countries uploaded more than 168,000 photos. Already in the first 10 days more than 5,000 participants in 33 countries have uploaded more than 80,000 photos.

• One Spanish contributor has more than 5000 uploads already
• India leads with most contributors by country with over 1,000
• September 9th was the busiest day so far with over 10,000 uploads

Related blog posts and announcements
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/WLM_photo_contest_launches_August_2012
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/09/01/wiki-loves-monuments-for-mobile-is-here (includes screen captures)
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_from_Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012 (galleries of images)

More information
International contest: http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org
U.S. contest: http://wikilovesmonuments.us
Statistics: http://toolserver.org/~emijrp/wlm/stats.php
Winning photos from 2011 contest: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2011_winners

Media contacts for international contest: Lodewijk Gelauff and Barbara Fischer
Phone:+49 (0) 30 219 158 26 18
Email: [email protected]  

Media contact for US
Peter Ekman
Phone: (484) 238-3489
Email: [email protected]

Media contact at Wikimedia Foundation
Matthew Roth
Phone: 415-839-6885 x6635
Email: [email protected]

About Wikipedia
Wikipedia and the related sites operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive more than 460 million unique visitors per month, making them the 5th most popular web property worldwide (July 2012). Available in more than 280 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 24 million articles contributed by hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

SOURCE Wikimedia Foundation