User:Fabrice Florin/Wiki Loves Monuments

Here are the 100 photos I took for Wiki Loves Monuments 2012, a wonderful photo contest organized to add pictures of historic landmarks on Wikipedia.

Most of my pictures so far are from Marin County, California, where I live. I am focusing on historic sites listed in the National Register of Historic Places that don't already have good photos. I will most likely go on to write articles for some of these historic sites, once the Wiki Loves Monuments contest is over. Stay tuned for more ...

I would like to thank everyone who made Wiki Loves Monuments possible!

I think this is a great example of a successful editor engagement program, for a variety of reasons:
 * it gives you a way to contribute to Wikipedia that is both fun and useful
 * it gives you a good reason to create an account, if you haven't already
 * it gives you a sense of belonging to a global movement while acting locally
 * it gives you a simple to-do list of specific tasks that can be completed in a relatively short amount of time
 * it gives you enough creative freedom to take the photos that you think are most relevant to the task
 * it makes you feel more confident that your contribution will not be edited inappropriately
 * it lets you interact with people face-to-face in the places you visit, rather than only interacting online
 * it gives you an opportunity to collect data in the field that can lead to better articles
 * it encourages current editors to write or expand more articles after they take the photos

I really enjoyed participating as a volunteer in this contest, and found it a very compelling way to contribute to Wikipedia. As a result, I now plan to start articles on some of the historic sites I photographed which do not have articles yet.

A couple notes about the process: It took more time than I thought -- about 2 hours per historic site (including selection, scouting, shooting, editing and uploading), with an average of about 20 pictures uploaded per site. I also had a few minor issues during uploading, when I could not tell whether or not the pictures were properly uploaded, because I could not see their thumbnails. Other than that, I found the process pretty smooth, and very enjoyable. I worked off the historic monument lists for the United States and California, which had a convenient upload button for each site, so I didn't have to worry about finding the right number or category for WML.

Lastly, in my official role as product manager at Wikimedia, I look forward to applying some of the lessons learned from this successful project to some of our other editor engagement programs.

Kudos to everyone who organized Wiki Loves Monument for this great accomplishment. Thank you!

Outdoor Art Center, Mill Valley
For more info, check out my photo set on Flickr for this project.

Enjoy these first photos. More to come!