Press release Wiki Loves Monuments 2011 organized in Belgium and Luxembourg
In 2001 Wikipedia celebrates its 10th anniversary. During this decade a lot of knowledge and information has been added to many articles. People, institutions and foundations also contributed to this goal. However way too often pictures are still missing.This is not only a problem that concerns the encyclopedia; even many governmental institutions do not have proper images available themselves.
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An image tells more than a thousand words. |
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This is the reason for a number of Flemish, Wallonian, Brusselian and Luxemburgian Wikipedia volunteer to organise the event "Wiki Loves Monuments". This is a public picture contest concerning urban and rural landmarks, worthwhile buildings and works of art in the public space. The event is organised in September and aims to be a complement to the Open Monument Day organised as well on September 11th.
The format of the contest is simple. Visit your own neighbourhood, make pictures of monuments and worthwhile objects, place them on-line by using the form on our website. It will be a joyful and learning experience and you help the worlds largest encyclopedia to florish.
All images will be reviewed by a professional jury, amongst which the well known press photographer Michiel Hendryckx. The judges will compile a top fifteen, and also distribute the prizes. The top ten will also compete for the European award.
Background
Belgium and Luxemburg have many national monuments. A lot of these already have existing articles on Wikipedia but the pictures are sometimes still lacking and pictures are a welcome addition to the text.
Practical
More information about the contest can be found on the website: http://www.wikilovesmonuments.be
There are lists available containing all monuments in Belgium and Luxemburg, categorised by community or region. Coordinates are present, what can be a help to find the monuments.
Pictures that are uploaded must be made by the contestant themselves and submitted under a free license.
About Wikimedia Commons
During the contest, the pictures are posted on the Wikimedia Commons site. This is the online central database of images, videos, sounds and other media with a free license that are used on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Commons now has more than 10.5 million files and more than 25,000 volunteers contribute on a regular basis.
The images can be used on articles in Wikipedia. Since they are freely available, they can also be used by other persons and parties.
About Wikipedia
Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia of which the contents can be changed by everyone. The information may be copied and be spread freely. The English version of Wikipedia started on January 15, 2001. The website is maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia is currently available in more than 270 languages, has about 100,000 volunteers, who maintain more than 15 million articles, and gets more than 350 million unique visitors every month. The English Wikipedia has more than 3,700,000 articles, and this number is growing every day.
Wiki Loves Monuments
Our website: http://www.wikilovesmonuments.be
On Twitter: http://twitter.com/wikimonumentsBE
An overview of other actions in other countries: http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org