Wikipedia:Wikipedia Takes Montreal

Wikipedia Takes Montreal was a photo-hunt held in Montreal, Sunday, August 28, 2011 as part of the 10th anniversary of Wikipedia. It was hosted by Wikimedia Canada, with the help of Wikimedia France it became the Montreal edition of Wikipedia Takes Your City.

A photographic scavenger hunt set to a hurricane

Description
On August 28, 2011, 284 people were registered to participate in Wikipedia Takes Montreal. Despite the impact of Hurricane Irene, which struck Montreal, 112 people in 59 teams still braved the tropical storm to photograph some of the 394 targets. A total of 26.7 gigabytes of media were collected in five hours.

Anyone could participate in this photo-hunt; without needing to be a member of Wikipedia. There was no charge for registration. More than CAD ​​1,500 was available to be won, plus there was the chance to see the best photos on the main page of Wikipedia. The event took place August 28, 2011 between 10:00 to 18:00, from a base at 552 rue Sainte-Catherine East.

Wikipedia Takes Your City is a series of photo-hunts orchestrated in cities around the world. It began in 2008 in Manhattan and has since been embraced by over twenty-five other cities. The event, named in reference to the song "First We Take Manhattan" by Montreal's Leonard Cohen, has now been held in the city which gave birth to the poet and singer.

Organized by Wikimedia Canada with help from Wikimédia France in celebration of Wikipedia's 10th anniversary, the Montreal photo-hunt aimed to enrich the repertoire of free media in Wikimedia Commons. These media may be reused in any Wikimedia projects, or any unrelated independent project.

Where and when
The photo-hunt started and ended at the resto-pub "L'Escalier" of Montreal, located at 552 Saint Catherine St. East, between Berri street and Saint-Hubert.
 * 10 am: Doors open. Registration of participants and team training, delivery of the participant kit.
 * 11 am: Start of the hunt. Participants had five hours to shoot the targets. The best photos were eligible for the grand prize!
 * 4 pm: Back to "L'Escalier" of Montreal to transfer photos to Wikipedia. Latecomers lost 50 points per 15 minutes late.
 * 6 pm: The activity ended, but you could stay, eat, drink and have fun all night until the pub closed.

Before the hunt
Participants filled out the registration form, organized teams of one to five, chose their targets from this map of Montreal, and prepared their cameras for a minimum resolution of 1280 x 853 pixels. Only a single empty memory stick was allowed for each team.

During the hunt
Beginning with a reference photo to show the name of the chosen target the participants would shoot a target from all angles, check the target on the given list, and move on to the next target.

After the competition
At 6 pm, participants returned to L'Escalier, where, due to weather conditions, the organizers chose not to have them upload their photos to Commons that evening as originally planned. Instead they were transferred locally to external drives for upload at a later time. Thank you to all the brave who made this event a success despite the hurricane!



Results
The photos from the contest are now available at Wikipedia Takes Montreal in Commons.

Prizes were awarded as follows
 * Eight prizes were awarded at random for any participants who completed the contest and contributed photographs.


 * Three teams won prizes of $300 each in gift certificates for getting the highest number of points for pictres based on the target list. These points were based on such criteria as the need of pictures for a specified subject, and the distance of the site from the meeting place. The winning teams were
 * Josée Robidoux, Pauline and David McKinney Traversy;
 * Andrew Hylton, Marilou Ferland and Christine Ferland;
 * Pierre-Yves Montpetit.


 * The official jury ruled on this grand prize winner according to the criteria of the Société de promotion de la photographie du Québec (SPPQ), with 383 points out of 500. This was Sandrine Andoulsi who won a digital SLR camera Nikon D3100 18-55VR with a photo of the interior of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel.

Media mentions

 * Branchez-vous
 * Halifax Chronicle Herald
 * Montreal Gazette
 * First article
 * Long online version &mdash;
 * Short print version &mdash;
 * The Montreal Mirror
 * Tourism Montréal
 * The Canadian Press
 * Toronto Star, page A2, 26 August 2011.
 * Tourism Montréal
 * The Canadian Press
 * Toronto Star, page A2, 26 August 2011.
 * The Canadian Press
 * Toronto Star, page A2, 26 August 2011.
 * Toronto Star, page A2, 26 August 2011.