Submissions/Wiki Photographer

After careful consideration, the programme committee has decided not to accept the below submission at this time. Thank you to the author(s) for participating in the Wikimania 2013 programme submission, we hope to still see you at Wikimania this August.

Submission no.: 3020
Subject no.: B13

Title of the submission: Wiki Photographer

Type of submission: Presentation

Author of the submission: Nasir Khan

Country of origin: Bangladesh

Affiliation: Founding member, Wikimedia Bangladesh

E-mail address: nasir8891gmail.com

Username: nasir8891

Personal homepage or blog: http://nasir8891.blogspot.com

Abstract

"Wiki Photographer" is a project of Wikipedia. The goal of this project is to encourage the photographers (s/he might be amateur or professional or just love to see good photographs) to contribute to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is hosting different types of photographic events (Wiki Loves Monuments, GLAM, Wikipedia takes my city, photo-walks and so on). But I think there are a few problems or limitations of these events. Like Wiki Loves Monuments is an annual event, GLAM is organized in only a few countries and these two events are organized mostly by the local chapter. The number of chapter are only a few, so the larger part of the community cannot attend or organize such events. So through this project we will try to create a bridge between Wikipedia and the persons who own a camera or have access to a camera.

The photographers are skilled in taking good photos and they have the information about the related topic (and we may train then the better was of collecting information), so this group of people could be the most effective contributors of Wikipedia. So we just need to take the initiative to introduce then with the Wikipedia in a proper way.

Detailed proposal

The goal

'Wiki Photographer' will be a badge, banstar or designation; which will be applicable for those who will contribute photographs to the Wikipedia. Through this project the photographers will be encouraged to contribute to different wiki projects.

This new set of users engagement will be organized through a specific process. We age not going to create any new group or society of photographers, but we will use the existing ones. The first phase of the project will be initiated for Bangladesh then i believe this structure could be used for other regions. There is a photography club in each(almost) university of Bangladesh. In a regular basis the clubs organize photowalk, they visit historical places and other places of interest. This the main point to start this initiative.

Engagement Process

Photographers maintain a community between them. They go to visit different places and take photographs. They have the information about that place as well. We will contact, train and encourage them contribute to the Wikipedia and its sister projects. WikiVouyage would be another great place where they can contribute. From my initial research i found that almost all travelers have their own blog, most of the photographers share their photographs in social media sites, write blog about the photographs. So they have the photographs of a place/establishment and the information as well well. Based on these info and photos they can create articles or update the existing ones. So if we show the benefits of joining Wiki projects encourage them to contribute then both of us will be benefited.

As long as they started to contribute to the projects we will have a structure to recognize them. Like if 10 photos of a users is used in Wikipedia then he will be given a banstar, and again we share his success to the same community they age involved in. Again this will encourage others to contribute more.

The benefits

Wikipedia needs more editors. Being involved to the Bengali WIki projects i can confirm the the Bengali projects need more. Bringing photographers in a role of editor would be a different approach. But i believe this step will help the all wiki projects.

Track

WikiCulture and Community

Length of presentation/talk: 25 Minutes

Language of presentation/talk: English

Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?: Yes

Slides or further information (optional)

The presentation can be viewed at http://nasirkhan.github.io/wikimedia-commons-presentation. (work in progress, need to update more).

Special requests

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I agree that the tools for many projects, like WLM and GLAM, ought to be hosted in a central shared space and not associated with particular projects when the tools can be reused. This is an important problem to address. Blue Rasberry (talk) 08:53, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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