Commons:Wiki Loves Monuments/Documentation/International jury process

Introduction

Wiki Loves Monuments consists of a series of national competitions and an international finale. Each national contest is allowed to nominate ten images for the international finale, typically resulting in a total pool of 250-500 photos for the international finale. The international jury, made up of 5-9 members with different skills and backgrounds, determines the winners of this final round out of the nominated images and awards the prizes. The practices described in this page focus on the international finale. This means that this mechanism is not immediately usable for national jury processes.

The finale images are each rated (1-5 stars) by the international jury members based on the criteria outlined below. Based on these ratings, a ranking is drawn up, and a selection of images is made. Typically no fewer than 40 and no more than 60 images are forwarded to the next round, based on a natural breaking point in the ranking. After this first round, the jury has some time to discuss these outcomes, and remove images from the selection or even disqualify them if they conclude that they don’t meet a minimum level of quality expected of a top image in Wiki Loves Monuments.

Finally, each jury member will make their ordered top-25 ranking, based on which the final overall ranking is determined. In the past, this was based on the system that 25 points would be awarded to the top picture, 24 points to the second etc. The total of points would determine the final ranking. Only the final ranking was published, with comments collected from jurors and descriptions of the monuments in a jury report.

Tasks & Process

The jury coordinator is responsible for coordinating the international jury processes. This starts with collecting and processing the nominations from the national competitions, and ends with publishing the jury report and ensuring the winners will receive their prizes. This means the coordinator has mostly interactions with the liaisons of the national organizing teams ('national liaison'), the jury members, the international coordinator of the international team and the (potential) winners of the finale.

First of all, it is important to ensure that the jury coordinator and the international team have the same understanding of the basics of the jury process and the timeline. The following topics should be discussed and agreed upon:

Timeline (see below for a default timeline)
Type of jury members (see below for the default concept)
number of rounds, number of nominees per national competition, voting mechanism & tool used (see below)
Who prepares the jury report content
Who prepares the jury report layout
Who makes the announcements

Voting mechanisms

In the past years, we used a three-round system for the international jury. The system is designed to guarantee a ranked outcome, while giving all images a fair chance, and surfacing the best images. At the same time, it is designed to ensure that no images make it to the top ranks that are opposed by a (pre-determined) part of the jury. The final ranking should include some reasons why the jury has selected the top images over the others. We used the jury tool 'Montage' for the first and third round, the second round is executed via the email discussion list.

The first round is set up to judge all images and surface the top images. All jurors are asked to rate all images in the finale pool with 1-5 stars (see the instructions email). We have so far asked them to rank only one value, combining all criteria in their rating. The round results in a ranked list of images with an average score between 0 (all 1-stars) and 1 (all 5-stars). The top-X from this ranked list is used, where a natural threshold is found between place 40 and 60. For example, if the score difference between place 51 and 52 is relatively large, that would be a natural cut-off point.

This ranked list is then used as input for the second round, and the previously earned scores are no longer used after that point. Between the first and third round, the jurors are encouraged to engage in discussions about the images - both about the general quality level, about points of attention, and specific findings on some of the images. For example, it could be surfaced that a particular image is deceiving because of an excessive use of photo editing software. The second round will only take a few days, and allows jurors to 'veto' an image - three vetoes will result in removal of the image from consideration for the third round. Jurors are asked to do this for images they feel strongly about that they should not make it to the top-25. Typically between 0 and 5 images are removed through this way. This is also the best moment that formal objections can be put into effect: if the photo does not actually display a monument, or it turns out that the photographer is not the same person as the uploader.

The cleaned list (typically between 40 and 60 images) will be considered for the third and final round. They are entered in the jury tool and the jury is instructed to rank their 25 favorite images by preference: their top image taking place 1, etc. After all jurors have done this, a final ranking is calculated. In the past years we have used a system of vote counting where points would be distributed to the preferences: number 1 would get 25 points, number two 24 points all the way to 1 point for number 25 and 0 points for each remaining image. The total number of points collected would determine the final ranking. Ties would be broken by the highest preference awarded to the image (for example, the image with the most first places would win).

Discussion Points

A few topics are prone to cause discussion, and should be re-evaluated:

Should there be a hard threshold for technical quality? So far, we have never considered a hard threshold for technical quality of the photos to make it to the final round. The reasoning was that theoretically, the originality and usefulness could make up for a sub-optimal technical quality, and that the judges are very well able to make that determination. Some have argued that a minimum number of pixels or a ban on watermarks (the name of the author written into the image) should be enforced to ensure a minimum quality. I would suggest to explicitely suggest the jury to discuss those images in the second round, and even bring up the images as examples in that round, if they don't meet the minimum technical criteria for the Wikimedia Commons featured picture process.
Which version of the image should be considered?: Some images are changed after their original upload. As the judging tools become more advanced, this question of which version should be considered, becomes more real. The author can choose to upload a different version of the photo (based on feedback for example, or a higher resolution), during the competition or afterwards. Sometimes the image is even edited by other users to remove a watermark or make the image otherwise more useful to the encyclopedic use. Most of the times, this improves the image, but instances have occurred that this deteriorated the image quality/resolution. In 2015/2016, the policy was that the jury should consider the version as it was by the end of the competition in that country (unless vandalism occurred etc). Some argued that it should be encouraged that photographers upload better versions after the closing of the competition. The international team's decision was that it is also important to support a fair competition, and that this means that no changes should be considered after the close of the competition. Also, allowing photographers to upload a better resolution once they progress to a next round (after they have been notified by national organizers), would potentially encourage them to not share their highest quality in the first place.
What is the exact voting mechanism that should be used in the third round: There is no perfect voting system to always arrive at the best decision with a ranked voting system. So far, we have used a voting system compared to the Eurovision voting system and the Borda count. This system has the advantage that it is easy to understand and manually calculate (and administer), the downside is that it doesn't work well for situations where there are multiple similar images and has some potential for tactical voting. As the voting in the third round is now automatically administered by a jury tool, other ranked voting mechanisms (with more complicated vote counting) could also be considered.

Timeline

Timeline for 2016 (earlier is sometimes better). This assumes that the competition only takes place in September - you may have to adjust if more months are included:

Begin July: agree on timeline with international team
Begin August: agree on 'special awards' for this year
Mid-August: Call for suggestions for international jurors
September: Invite candidate jury members
Mid September: Explain how to submit nominees
Mid October: reminder how to submit nominees
October: Receive, accept, confirm and process nominees on an ongoing basis
20 October: send jury instructions
27 October-30 October: Send daily reminders with overview of received nominees
30 October: Deadline for nominees
1 November: confirm that all jury members have received and understood the jury instructions
1 November: check if all countries submitted nominees
4 November: Clean up the list of nominees, check if all file names are correct, if nothing funny is going on.
5 November: No longer possible to accept late-nominees
6 November: Set up jury tool for international jury
8 November: Test international jury tool
8 November: Instructions for round 1 to international jury
9 November: start round 1
13 November: Check with jury members that didn't vote yet, whether their access is functional
15 November: last day round 1
16 November: Put together ranking based on results round 1, and share with jury. Identify natural cut-off point and propose Top-X (X between 40 and 60) to the jury.
16 November: Instructions for round 2 to international jury
17 November: start round 2
17-19 November: process 'veto votes' of jury members.
17 November: manually check all photos in round 2 for formal requirements: identified monument, activated email address of photographer, self-made picture and possibly other suspicious information the jury should be aware of (for example, misleading photoshopping). Email national liaisons or photographers to allow them to correct the situation.
19 November: send overview veto votes so far, last day.
20 November: Remove photos with at least 3 veto votes from the selection. Set up round 3 in jury tool.
21 November: Instructions round 3 to jury
22 November: start round 3
27 November: reminder to jury about deadline
29 November: Deadline round 3. If necessary, privately remind jury members of deadline.
30 November: Tally the results from round 3, send votes and resulting ranking to the jury members to check.
30 November: Start the process to write the jury report
5 December: analyze the results, summarize the comments of the jury on the top-25 photos into a jury statement. If not sufficient comments are received, either reach out to the jury, or interpret their votes to come to a proposed jury statement.
5 December: Prepare English descriptions for the monuments in the top-25 (can be delegated)
11 December: Send draft jury report text to the jury for no-objection
13 December: Announce the results and publish jury report

Tasks not included here

This documentation includes the work that is directly relevant to the jury coordinator, and does not include the following tasks (that may or may not be delegated to the same person):

Coordination with national liaisons before and during the competition
Preparing and coordinating the social media around the announcement of the results
Writing the blogpost, press release and
Layout of the jury report

Criteria

We described the judging criteria below in the emails to the jury, and in this blog post on the WLM blog. To reiterate, these are the explained criteria:

Technical quality: The first criterium is all about the quality of the picture itself. What is the sharpness and resolution of the picture, how do you make use of the light in the situation, did you have to go through particular trouble to make this picture as it is? Is the perspective not distorted, is the view realistic, etc. A good rule of thumb is that a winning picture should usually fulfill the Wikimedia Commons technical criteria for ‘featured picture’ status – which you can read more about here.

Originality: Of course also the original setting is considered. If your setting already exists thousands of times around the web, it is probably not the most original way of photographing the monument. After all this is a competition, and jury members are looking for that little “extra” that your image may contain.

Usefulness of the image on Wikipedia: One of the main goals of this competition, is to collect good photographs of the monuments to be used on Wikipedia. How well does your image keep that in mind? Does it represent the monument well, so that it can be used in an encyclopedic context? Is it not misrepresenting the monument, or are there very distracting details?

Almost no image will be perfect on all three criteria – and that is fine. A certain balance is what we’re looking for. Hopefully this gives a bit of guidance towards the best way of getting one of your pictures scoring really well in the upcoming Wiki Loves Monuments competition!

We’re looking forward to the competition to start in a few days, and to all the beautiful submissions that we hope to receive. Please be bold and submit many pictures – not every single picture has to be a winner. In the olympic spirit: participating is more important than winning.

Template texts

Call for suggestions jurors

Each year we invite local organizers to suggest people from their network as international jurors. To be sent mid-august to the wlm-announce mailing list:

Hi all,

Like every year, we need to put together a good jury for Wiki Loves Monuments <insert year>. It is a complicated and delicate process to come to a balanced jury, and I would like to outline the criteria here, and to ask for your input. I have agreed to take the lead on this process - but would definitely welcome your input, and help.

As in the past years, I think it is important to aim once again for a jury that as a whole is neutral and balanced in many ways. This means ideally:
* A mix of photography experts, heritage experts and Wikimedia experts (aiming at a total size of 7-9)
* Geographically balanced so that no two jury members come from the same country.
* Balance in many other ways imaginable (while at the same time, one can never assure a balance in all aspects)
* The international jury members do not serve on a national jury for WLM

At the same time, there are some practical considerations:
* Jury members must be able to write and read English
* They must have the time to commit to judge 200-500 photos in three rounds over a period of 3 weeks in November
* While jury members can participate in a local competition, their photos cannot participate in the international finale
* Jury members should not participate in any national jury for 2016 (previous years is OK)
* It would be helpful if the juror would be willing to share their real name for the jury report.
* Jury work is in a volunteer capacity.

Do you know someone who would make a good juror, please contact me privately with the suggestion. At least let me know who the juror is, how I could contact him/her and why they would make a good jurymember (and whether you have reason to believe they would accept the nomination, if asked).

I will do my best to put together once again a qualified and diverse jury, with your help!

Thank you in advance!

Best regards,

<insert name of coordinator>
international jury coordinator, Wiki Loves Monuments <year>

Invitation jury member

Invitation sent to candidate jury members (September), to be sent to the candidate jurors:

Dear <insert name>,

I would like to reach out to you to invite you to take place in the international jury of Wiki Loves Monuments for 2016. As a <insert reason why this person would be a good jury member>, I think you would be a great addition to the jury!

As was also the case in previous years, all national competitions will nominate 10 photos for an international finale, which will be judges by the international jury. All put together, Wiki Loves Monuments is the biggest photography competition in the world (according to the Guinness Book of World Records).

The international jury is (ideally) composed of 9 geographically diverse experts in heritage, photography and Wikimedians (currently confirmed members available here[1]). The jury is responsible to come to a final result of the international competition of the best images, to be selected through 3 rounds from the pool of finalists (300-450 images). This process will take place online and (within time windows per round) asynchronously. I expect that this would take you, depending on how quick you operate, on your download speed and how precise you are, somewhere between 7 and 15 hours spread over the month November. At the end of the process, we will put together a jury report based on the input from jury members.

There are a few practical constraints: all communication will take place in English (I assume this is no problem), photos submitted by you (if any) cannot participate in the international finale and you cannot both join a national jury and the international jury. I'm not sure if any of these constraints would form an objection to you.

I hope that you're willing to consider joining the Wiki Loves Monuments international jury. Please let me know at your earliest convenience.

Kind regards,

<insert name and username of coordinator>
international jury coordinator, Wiki Loves Monuments

[1] http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/jury/

Explain how to nominate

To be sent to wlm-announce and wikilovesmonuments-l

Reminder how to nominate

To be sent to wlm-announce and wikilovesmonuments-l

[This email contains important information on how you can submit the 10 nominees of your country to the international finale and the deadlines. Please forward this to your coordinators if need be.]

Dear national coordinators, jury coordinators,

Thank you for an amazing job in the past weeks and months in organizing what seems to have been yet again an amazing competition in more than 40 countries! It's great to see all the beautiful images that have been submitted.

As you know, the international Wiki Loves Monuments competition is based on a federalized model: there's a national competition in each country, with a national organizing team, a national jury and national winners. The national jury determines up to (maximum) 10 images that will be submitted to the international finale.

These ten images should be submitted via email to the international jury coordinator before the deadline: <insert email of coordinator>. Unless you have agreed a different deadline with <insert international team coordinator> (in cc), this deadline is 31 October, 23:59 UTC. But if you like me, please send them at least a few days before that time. Submissions after this deadline are not guaranteed to be included in the finale. When submitting your finalists, please take these instructions into account:
* Submit no more than ten images per (national) competition. It is OK to submit less images, for example if you don't find enough images of high quality.
* Submit the images to: <insert email of coordinator>, and include in the CC at least one (additional) jury member besides yourself. Please also include <insert international team member> in the cc.
* If the results are still not public (if you plan to announce them later publicly), please add the planned announcement date. Please note that we will announce the international winners in December, and will not wait for national announcements.
* Submit for each image: URL, File name on Wikimedia Commons and Author username
* Check basic information about the images. It is NOT possible to replace finalists after the deadline!
** that the author has activated their email function on Wikimedia Commons. If we cannot email the user there, they may automatically forfeit any prize. You can help them by posting a message on their talk page, or tracking them down through social media.
** that the monument on the image is identified (preferably also described in English)
** that the image is freely licensed

If you want, there are opportunities to share your national winners also on the international blog. Please get in touch with either of us about this - more information about this soon.

Thanks a lot for your cooperation. After all nominees have been received, this will result in a pool of some 350-430 images for the international jury to consider. The international jury is described on this page. The jury will first rate all images with 1-5 stars, from which a top-40/60 will be considered. Then, the jurors will have the opportunity to remove images from the selection, which they consider unfit. Finally, they are asked to rank their top-25 images, and share their reasoning. We will create a jury report based on this information. We expect to announce the results in the first two weeks of December (depending on the swiftness of jury report creation and media opportunities).

We're looking forward to the judging process!

With warm regards,

Confirmation receipt nominations

To be sent to the national liaison after confirming that the nominees are valid, max. 10 in number and in cc of a national jury member (keep cc's intact):

Dear <insert name of national liaison>,

Thank you for your 10 nominees to the Wiki Loves Monuments finale. I have included them in the jury pool. I will include some more info in this email, sorry if it repeats!

In the month November, the international jury will consider the nominated pictures from all participating countries this year, and pick their favorites by first judging each image separately and then by combining their favorites from the resulting top images. We expect to announce the winning images in the first two weeks of December - keep an eye on our announce mailing list[1].

I will not announce the winning images for you, that is up to you! You could consider writing a blog post about them on the international WLM blog - now or later. I attached an example blog post from a previous year to this email, which you can use as format. Please stick (roughly) to this format, and also provide a title for the blogpost, and who I should credit. Please note that nowadays, one image can be used as 'featured image' which is usually the winning image. Add a link & credits to that at the bottom of the post.

Also, don't forget to add the winning pictures here: <insert URL of winners page>

And don't forget to add a short description in English to every winning picture's description page! There may be information available about the monument (in your local language), but that is not always easily findable and/or understandable. Please add a description of 10-15 words in English to the file description page and in the overview! Thank you. That way, we can use that for announcements and the jury report.

If you have questions, please contact me. If the answer to your question could be somewhat useful to others too, it would be best if you send your question to the main mailing list, wikilovesmonuments AT lists.wikimedia.org [2]

Best regards,

<insert name coordinator>
international jury coordinator, Wiki Loves Monuments

[1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wlm-announce
[2] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments

Example blogpost nominees

Jury instructions

To be sent to the jury mailing list, around 10 days before the deadline of the national nominees:

Dear jury members,

Thank you again for volunteering for the international Wiki Loves Monuments jury. I would like to take this opportunity to explain the jury process and give you some pointers on the criteria used. I will also specify some deadlines coming up in the next month. Lets take this journey together and enjoy the beauty of heritage world wide! At the bottom of the email, I included an action list for you to execute now.

This mailing list is for the members of the international jury and two or three people involved with the international competition to assist you. The members of the jury are:
<insert name & short description for all jury members>

(please feel free to introduce yourself on the list in a bit more detail!)

The other people on this list are non-voting (myself, <insert name international team liaison>).

I apologize for the length of this email, but I hope I have put all the necessary information here together. Please feel free to ask any questions. Please especially note the deadlines and open questions below.

This timeline is assuming everything goes as planned, we may have to shift it a bit as we go.

== Procedure ==
The contest took place in September (with the exception for some countries, where the timeline was shifted up to four weeks) and the national juries are deliberating their national winners. The total amount of submitted pictures is more than 270,000 - but luckily you don't have to go through all those! The national juries selected their nominations for the international finale to me and Lily. Each national competition is allowed to submit up to 10 nominations. With 43 participating countries, we will receive up to 430 nominated pictures for your consideration. Some of these nominees will have been publicly announced, some of them not yet (because of national prize ceremonies scheduled at a later time).

As soon as we have entered all nominations in the jury tool, you should start the evaluation process. There will be three rounds in the international jury process:

Round 1 - November 9-15
- We will bundle the wiinning images from all countries and make them available for you (where possible timewise I will also do an initial check if the images conform with the international rules broadly). Please treat these submissions as confidential - some national winners will not be publicly announced yet.
- we will set up an online tool which you will be able to access with your Wikimedia account, where you can rate each image 1-5 stars. Based on that we can do an initial sorting which allows us to focus on the best pictures in the lot. Please use as indication that 5 stars is for the top-5% of the pictures (really awesome). 4 stars is for the top-20% (really good), 3 stars is for the top-40% (good), 2 stars is for top-80% and 1 star is for the worst 20%. This is an indication, exact percentages don't matter.

From this, we will pick the top 40-50 (depending on what is a convenient cutoff number).

Round two: November 17-19. In these three days, there is an opportunity to 'veto' any of the top nominees. If three jury members veto the same image, the image is removed from the selection. Please only use this option if you think an image is really bad and shouldn't win at all (for example, because it doesn't show a monument, is misleading, it has a disturbing watermark or is poor technical quality). See also below, at 'criteria'.

The list that is left over after the veto phase, will be published in the jury report as the 'shortlist'. In the coming days, I will also manually check whether the remaining images meet the formal requirements - and I may suggest that you disqualify some images if they don't (which is formally up to you, the jury).

During and after this, a short discussion among the jury members (November 15-21) on the outcomes of this (are we going in the right direction with technical quality etc) Then, a final round will be initiated.

Round 3: November 22-29. In this round, you are asked to rank your top-25 from this pool. That would give 25 points to number 1, 24 to number 2 all the way to 1 point to number 25. You are also asked to give a few arguments for at least your top-10 images in this (For example: "This image shows to adhere to the golden ratio in many different ways, and is still surprising." or "This is clearly a lucky shot, the photographer took optimal advantage of the unique circumstances to capture this monument" or "This photo captures the decay of the monument perfectly - while it is not a pretty picture, the photo explains the state of the topic clearly, and is very instructive"). I will tally them and share that with you again.

- Based on these points, we will produce a top-25 (in case of a tie, the image with the most first places will win, etc.). If a consequential tie remains, a three-day vote by email will follow. The top-15 images will be announced as the 'winners' the remaining 10 as 'runners-up'.

- Based on the ranking and the arguments given, we will also produce a jury report which I will make available to you as a draft in the week after closure of the third round. If there are no objections in the three days after the draft, the jury report will be published together with the announcement of the winners. The report will include a top-25 and reasoning for why the highest ranked images have won - based on the arguments you provided. The 15 highest ranked photos will receive a certificate, and the top photos win a prize.

The jury: The jury consists of 8 members (If another confirmation comes in in the coming days, it might grow to 9). All jury members are subscribed to this mailing list - so you can use this to communicate. The mailing list and its archive is private. We tried to get a healthy mix of jury members: 3 (semi)professional photographers, 3 heritage experts and 2 experienced Wikimedians who have a feeling for photography. International jurors cannot have their photos considered for the international finale, and cannot participate in a national jury.

We would like to publish a description of the jury members on http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/jury/ . Please send me a short description of 20-30 words you would like to share about your background. For now, I put up something based on my knowledge and what I could find online.

Criteria: For the judging, three main criteria have been determined and communicated to the local organizers:
* Technical quality (resolution, sharpness etc.).
* Originality
* Usefulness on Wikipedia
Based on feedback from previous years, I would like to give some special attention to the technical quality criterion. For this criterion I would like you to keep the 'Featured Pictures' criteria of Wikimedia Commons in mind. This is especially relevant for resolution (a minimum resolution of 2 Megapixel is generally used), and digital manipulations (must not deceive the viewer). See also http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Featured_picture_candidates . Community jury members: perhaps you could check and communicate this explicitely during the discussion phase.

For originality, it is probably clear what is meant: going beyond the usual and obvious, giving the photo some artistic quality.
For usefulness, it mainly refers to usefulness in Wikipedia articles: the image must be clear, helpful in showing the monument or its details etc. It is not enough to be a 'pretty image' but it must also have descriptive value.

I hope this is all clear, and look forward to working with you all! If you have any remaining questions after this very long email, please let me know.

Best regards,

<insert name coordinator>
(non voting) jury coordinator

---
Action list for you:
(*) Check your judge description on the jury page and/or send me a 20 word description: http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/jury/
(*) Make sure you have created a (free) Wikimedia account. You should be able to log in here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:UserLogin . You need this account to be able to log in to the jury tool. Send me your account name privately.
(*) Check if you understand and agree with all points in this email.
(*) Please confirm to me privately that you received this email, if you don't already respond in another way.

Update received nominations

Hi everyone!

So far, we have received correct submissions for: <insert countries>. 

That means the following countries are still missing: 
<insert countries>

For most of these countries, we have not heard back yet at all. Please make sure that your jury coordinator is at least in active contact with either myself or <insert name international coordinator>! 

The deadline (unless agreed by <insert name international coordinator> or myself otherwise) is 31 October <insert year>. After this date, we may not be able to still accept the nominees. If you have any doubts that your country may meet the deadline, let us know as soon as possible. 

Looking forward to many thrilling nominees,

<insert name coordinator>
(international jury coordinator)

Private ultimate reminder for nominees

To be sent to the national liaisons, for the countries that have not (correctly) submitted their nominees.

Hi <insert name national liaison>,

please don't forget to submit your national winners! You can do this until 19:00h UTC tonight, after that we have to finalize the list. Please find the instructions here: <insert link to post with instructions on mailing list>

Kind regards,

<insert name coordinator>
International Jury Coordinator, Wiki Loves Monuments

Finale pool complete

To be sent when all nominees are received, to wlm-announce:

Hi all,

The international jurypool is now closed, and contains 392 images from 41 national competitions (if nothing comes up as problematic during import). It was a great joy to see many of the beautiful nominated pictures. I thank everyone who has submitted their nominees with care following the outlined process. 

We will be setting up the jury process now, and the international jury will soon start with its work. Their process and membership is described here[1]. One final juror may be added still. 

We have not checked all nominees for validity. We will soon be importing the images nominated into the jury tool. For this particular finale, we will take extra care to import the version as it was 'live' by the end of the competition in that country - and to ignore all edits made after that point. If you're aware of exceptional situations where this would be especially problematic (for example: the image was vandalized and replaced just before closing, and reverted shortly after), please get in touch with me privately. 

We are planning to go through this process in a steady and thorough pace - and finish the process by the end of November. We expect to announce the winners officially in the first two weeks of December - depending on challenges with regards to the jury report, press and checks & balances for particular images. 

I hope you're looking forward to the winners as much as we are! 

With warm regards,

<insert name coordinator>
international jury coordinator, Wiki Loves Monuments

[1] http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/jury/

Instructions round 1

Dear jurors,
The time is here: the first round of the international finale is ready for your votes. Just to reiterate, I have included the procedures that I shared earlier before.

In this round, you’re asked to rate each photo in the pool (392 photos, from 41 national competitions) on a 1-5 scale. I’d like to ask you to keep the following qualifications of the rates in mind:
* 5 stars: top-5% of the images – really awesome
* 4 stars: top-20% of the images – really good
* 3 stars: top-40% of the images – good
* 2 stars: top-80% of the images
* 1 star: bottom-20% of the images

The percentages are indicators, and there is no need to achieve those percentages.

Please treat these submissions as confidential - some national winners will not be publicly announced yet.

Also, I’d like to reiterate the criteria to be considered:
Technical quality: For this criterion I would like you to keep the 'Featured Pictures' criteria of Wikimedia Commons [1] in mind. This is especially relevant for resolution (a minimum resolution of 2 Megapixel is generally used), and digital manipulations (must not deceive the viewer). Community jury members: perhaps you could check and communicate this explicitly during the discussion phase.

Originality: it is probably clear what is meant: going beyond the usual and obvious, giving the photo some artistic quality.

Usefulness: refers to usefulness in Wikipedia articles: the image must be clear, helpful in showing the monument or its details etc. It is not enough to be a 'pretty image' but it must also have descriptive value.

For the rating, you can make use of the Montage jury tool – we have set up the tool here[2]. You can log in to the tool with your Wikimedia username. If you open the round, you will see the images in a random order, and you’re asked to rate each image. By clicking the ‘original file’ link, you will see a full-resolution file, if you want. By clicking on the link to Wikimedia Commons, you can see more details about the photo (usually when, where, whether there are multiple versions etc).

For technical reasons, we’re only able to display the latest version of the photo (some have been edited slightly after submission). We can address potentially heavily edited images in the discussion phase for the top rated images.
The deadline for this round is on 15 November.

I hope the voting process will be smooth for you! Please enjoy the pictures, and share general thoughts you may have. If you have any questions, please do reach out.

Best regards,

[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Featured_picture_candidates
[2] https://montage.toolforge.org/#/login

Please check the details of this photo

After checking validity of the competing photos during round two, email this to the national organizers of the relevant countries:

Hi <insert name national liaison>,

Thanks again for the submissions of your national jury! The jury process is entering it's second round, which means that I'm paying a little extra scruteny to the top images (~top60-70). When you submitted the pictures, we asked you to check that the authors have activated their email function on Wikimedia Commons, that the monument on the image is identified and that the image is freely licensed. If one of these criteria is not met, we may have to disqualify the image now, or at a later stage. 

Going through the top-60 of the images so far, I noticed however that the following image(s) do not have an identified monument on them (with a monument template, and a monument identifier). Could you please look into this, preferably in the next 24 hour, and add the monument identifier, or let me know if the image does not display an identified monument? 

* <insert URL of image>

The jury is currently considering to disqualify images that do not fulfill this criterium (among others). Please help us out here, and identify the monument, and let me know! 

Without this identification, we may remove the image from the selection in the next 48 hour (this depends on the jury). 

Please keep this information confidential! Thank you for your understanding. 

I hope this will all work out after all. 

Best regards,

<insert name coordinator>
(international jury coordinator)

Instructions round 2

To be sent to the jury list at the start of round 2:

Dear members of the jury,

Thank you all for your votes in the first round. In this email I will first report on the scores, and then explain the process for the second round, which starts now and will take only until 19 November (UTC).

In this email, I will share with you the top photos in the ranking that resulted from the votes you have cast. Each photo has been voted by all eight jurors, with 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 stars. This translates into respectively 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 or 1 point per vote. The photos with the highest average score are placed highest in the ranking. I have attached the list of all votes, in case someone would want to check the outcome of the votes, and how they have been processed. You may also see empty columns for tool admins that didn't vote (we needed those to be able to test that everything worked correctly).

I have copied below a list of the 60 highest ranking photos in url. There is a natural cutoff point at a score of 0.59375 (top-48) and a natural cutoff at 0.5625 (top-60). I would like to aim for roughly a top-50 for the third round, and considering your option to veto some images, I suggest the top-60 in this case.

In this second round, you have the opportunity to 'veto' any image in this top-60 that you think is definitely not worthy of making it to the top-25. For this, you can look at the images more carefully, and for example consider if they meet the minimum technical criteria, or if the image is misleading. I encourage you to share your thoughts about this on this mailing list, and engage in a little bit of discussion. I would suggest you pay especially attention to:
* Does the image fulfill the minimum 'Featured Pictures' criteria of Wikimedia Commons?[1]
* Is the image particularly misleading (excessive Photoshop)?
* Have very significant edits taken place after the submission deadline for that country, and would the original version not qualify for you?

If any three jurors agree an image has to be removed from the selection, I will remove it. Please be a little careful with using it only for images you think are really below quality - and be very clear whether you're in doubt, or whether you want to exercise a veto. There is no hard limit to the number of veto's you can express.

I will also look at all images myself, and may suggest that you disqualify certain images - but the decision is yours, as a jury.

Finally, I encourage you to share here any general observations you have regarding quality or otherwise about the photos you have seen.

If you have any questions, please let me know!

Best regards,
Lodewijk

[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Featured_picture_candidates

Top-60 images:
<insert list of links>

Last call for veto's

To be sent to the jury mailing list halfway round 2:

Hi all,

I have so far only received two sets of veto votes. Only one image was voted as veto by both, a number of other images by one of them. 

Without three veto votes, all images will pass to the next round. I will try to process as long as possible until the next round starts. 

The one image that was vetoed by both <insert names>: 
* <insert link> (<insert reasons>) This image only needs one more veto to be removed from consideration. 

Just sending an email to me or the list with which images you'd like to veto is enough. 

Best,

<insert name coordinator>

Instructions round 3

To be sent to the jury mailing list, at the start of round 3:

Dear jurors,

Round 3, the final round, is open! There are 58 images available in this round.

For this round, we will make use of a ranking mechanism in the jury tool. You will be asked to rank your top-25 in order: Place one is the best picture, and so on. Place 26-58 will all receive zero points, place 25 receives 1 point, place 24 gets 2 points all the way to 25 points for place 1. We will use the Montage jury tool again: https://montage.toolforge.org/#/login . You can log in[1] to the tool with your Wikimedia username.

You will see the images in a random order. Please drag the images to the correct position (number of position is under the image). You can save the round, and return later to make changes. However, please note that we will use whatever order you have saved by the deadline: The end of day, November 29 (any timezone). It would be appreciated if you can confirm to me when you have finished ranking.

Besides the ranking (which is important for the points), there is one more thing to pay attention to: the argumentation you provide. You can provide arguments by clicking on the image, and add a 'review'. This also shows a larger version of the image. After that, just close the small popup, and it will be saved together with your vote. In this popup, there's also a link to the full-size image (you may have to scroll a little).

Please provide for your top photos (preferably all 25, but at least your top-10) a short review why you think this image should score so high. Tell something about the light use, the composition, etc (10-25 words). We will combine these arguments for the jury report.

Also, I’d like to reiterate the criteria to be considered:
Technical quality: For this criterion I would like you to keep the 'Featured Pictures' criteria of Wikimedia Commons[2] in mind. This is especially relevant for resolution (a minimum resolution of 2 Megapixel is generally used), and digital manipulations (must not deceive the viewer). Community jury members: perhaps you could check and communicate this explicitly during the discussion phase.

Originality: it is probably clear what is meant: going beyond the usual and obvious, giving the photo some artistic quality.

Usefulness: refers to usefulness in Wikipedia articles: the image must be clear, helpful in showing the monument or its details etc. It is not enough to be a 'pretty image' but it must also have descriptive value.

The tool now displays the version of the image as it was uploaded by the last day of the competition. This is the version you should consider (on the wiki, may be a later version for 4 images).

I hope the voting process will be smooth for you! Please enjoy the pictures, and share general thoughts you may have. If you have any questions, please do reach out.

Good luck and enjoy voting!

Best,
<insert name coordinator>

[1] https://montage.toolforge.org/#/login
[2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Featured_picture_candidates

Summary results & tally

Heads up national organizer

To be sent to the national liaisons of the countries that have an image in the top-15, so that they can prepare for the announcement:

Dear <insert name national liaison>,

We have winners for the international competition of Wiki Loves Monuments! The jury has finalised its process, and we will plan to announce the winners on 10-16 December (UTC). We're informing you, because at least one of the top-15 images is from your country, and you may want to reach out to local press because of that. This information is UNDER EMBARGO and should not be shared until the official announcement has been made through @wikimonuments on Twitter[1]. We will probably schedule these announcements one by one starting in the European morning, and sending out one every 15-45 minutes. The full list of winners will be shared on our mailing list[2] and on the blog[3]. We may announce it elsewhere too. I will inform you with more details in the days before the actual announcement.

We have included images from your country that made the top-15 below. The jury was excited about the great quality again this year and the variety of monuments that was being shared through these national finalists. We have received 392 finalists from 42 national competitions which were considered by a jury of 8 experts with a range of expertise.

The following images from your country scored top-25 (unspecified order):
* <insert URL>

The international team will get in touch with the winners in the coming days. The winner of the competition wins a travel grant to Wikimania in Montreal and 4 vouchers are available for the runners-up. For an explanation, see here[4].

The jury is described here[5]. A jury report is expected in the coming weeks as well, elaborating the reasons why images have scored well and describing the jury process in more detail.

If you have any questions, please do get in touch. We hope that you use this advance notice to prepare a press release (if relevant).

Best regards,

<insert name coordinator>
International jury coordinator, Wiki Loves Monuments
[1] https://twitter.com/wikimonuments
[2] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wlm-announce
[3] http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/
[4] http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/awards/
[5] http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/jury/

Heads up winner

To be sent to all winners that are in the top-15. The section 'your prize' should only be sent to people that have to make a choice between prizes, or are runners-up. This helps a smooth prize distribution process. Emails must be sent through the 'email user' function on Wikimedia Commons, to ensure it ends up with the right person (confirm identity). Once the email address is confirmed to belong to the winner, further communication can happen directly to that email address unless another confirmation is required.

Dear <insert name>,

Congratulations, your image scored in the top-15 of the international Wiki Loves Monuments finale! In this email some practical information and questions.

Thank you again for your submission(s) to Wiki Loves Monuments! Not only did your photo(s) score high in the national competition - I am happy to tell you that you have also scored high in the international finale! Your photo:
<insert URL>
has scored in the top-15 of the international finale. This is definitely something to be proud of - more than 275,000 photos have been submitted from 42 national competitions, of which 392 were nominated to the international finale. Congratulations!

We expect to announce the winners between 10 and 16 December (UTC) the winners through at least @wikimonuments on Twitter[1], Instagram[2] and our mailing list[3] and on the blog. Until that moment, please keep this information confidential! In the announcement, it will also become clear how high you scored in the top-15.

== Your Prize ==
For the distribution of the prizes, we would like to know that if you would win the first prize, what would be your order of preference for the following prizes:
* <insert the prizes that are available this year in order of decreasing value>

Please respond to this email within 7 days with your order of preference. If no order is received, and you do win a top-5 prize, we will assume the order mentioned above as the default order of preference.

== Social Media Permission ==
In our announcement, and in future years to ensure continued participation, we would like to share examples of great winning pictures on social media. Of course it would be great to display your photo along with others in the actual messages.

Due to licensing policies, we've however been asked to get your explicit permission to share your photo on social media. We would greatly appreciate your explicit permission, besides the CC BY-SA license under which you have already made your photo available.

You can give the permission, by saying yes to the following question:
"Do we have permission to post your photo entered in Wiki Loves Monuments to the Wikipedia, Wikimedia and Wiki Loves Monuments social media accounts? We use the photo in posts on social media such as Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, or Facebook in order to show off your work to a large audience and promote the contest. We may use it this year and in future years."

If you respond with 'yes' to this email, that should be sufficient. If you have multiple images in the top-15 of the international finale we will understand this as a permission for all of those.

I'm looking forward to sharing the winners soon!

Best regards,

<insert name coordinator>
International Jury Coordinator, Wiki Loves Monuments

[1] https://twitter.com/wikimonuments
[2] https://www.instagram.com/wikilovesmonuments/
[3] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wlm-announce

Confirmation prize winner

For place 1-10:

Dear PLACEHOLDER,

On behalf of the international Wiki Loves Monuments team, I would like to congratulate you on winning a prize in the international Wiki Loves Monuments competition. As we shared with you before, you have won a top-15 rank in the international Wiki Loves Monuments finale!

We have now announced the winners of these international finals. It is my honour to confirm that your photo, PLACEHOLDER, has won the PLACEHOLDER prize in the international finals! You can find the full jury report with all winning pictures through our announcement blog post on https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/travel-the-world-through-the-lenses-of-wiki-loves-monuments-2020-winners/.

To reward your rank in the finale, we want to send you the following:

* A prize equivalent or below the value of €XXX
* A physical and signed certificate of your result

The prizes will be likely sent in June/July, and for that we need:

1. Your full name
2. Your preferred name on the certificate (it can also be your username)
3. Your email address
4. Your postal address
5. IBAN and bank account data (for reimbursement)

Regarding the prize, it is something that we have mutually agreed upon, that fits the goals of the Wiki Loves Monuments or the larger vision of Wikimedia. So to get started, please let me know what you would like to purchase with the prize money. Some ideas are:

* Photography equipment
* Archiving/scanning equipment
* Books
* Donation to a Wikimedia affiliate

Please note that the above suggestions are indicative only, and only to help you get started on what is possible. Please see what best suits your needs - in the past people chose to get campaign equipment so that they can go camping to take some good pictures :) I would also like to emphasize that these don’t in any way mean commitment towards contributing to Wikimedia, but an attempt to make the best use of the donor money we have for this project.

Once the item is agreed upon, we have two ways to proceed:

* You purchase the item and claim reimbursement (easiest and fastest)
* If not, please send the details to place an order and we will do it for you. In such cases, please try to select from an easy to access online store such as Amazon, so that international payments will be easy.

Please send me this information before 19 June 2021, i.e. preferred prize, details for the certificate, bank account details for international fund transfer, and preferred mode of purchase for the prize. Please let me know if you have any questions, and I look forward to hearing from you.

With kind regards,

Krishna Chaitanya
on behalf of the International Team, Wiki Loves Monuments.

PS: We are sorry for the extreme delay that was caused in this process. Several reasons contributed to this, including major team changes, the COVID-19 pandemic etc. Thank you for your patience.

For place 11-15:

Dear PLACEHOLDER,

On behalf of the international Wiki Loves Monuments team, I would like to congratulate you on winning a prize in the international Wiki Loves Monuments competition. As we shared with you before, you have won a top-15 rank in the international Wiki Loves Monuments finale! 

We have now announced the winners of these international finals. It is my honour to confirm that your photo, PLACEHOLDER, has won the PLACEHOLDER prize in the international finals! You can find the full jury report with all winning pictures through our announcement blog post on https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/travel-the-world-through-the-lenses-of-wiki-loves-monuments-2020-winners/. 

To reward your rank in the finale, we want to send you a physical and signed certificate of your result. To draw up such certificate, we will need:

* Your full name
* Your preferred name on the certificate (it can also be your username)
* Your postal address

Please send me this information before 19 June 2021, and I will send this information to the people who will ensure you get your prizes. I hope you are pleased with your final position, and I look forward to hearing from you.

With kind regards,

Elena Tatiana Chis
on behalf of the International Team, Wiki Loves Monuments.

PS: We are sorry for the extreme delay that was caused in this process. Several reasons contributed to this, including major team changes, the COVID-19 pandemic etc. Thank you for your patience.

Members for the international jury

To provide some inspiration for international jury members, the international juries of the past years are included below (2010 was a national jury only). A longer list with suggestions is available in a privately archived document with the international team (for example, the 2016 archive).

Like every year, you will need to put together a good jury for Wiki Loves Monuments. You will need to come to a good balance between expertises from different backgrounds. As in the past years, it is important to aim for a jury that as a whole is neutral and balanced in many ways. This means ideally:

A mix of photography experts, heritage experts and Wikimedia experts (aiming at a total size of 7-9)
Geographically balanced so that no two jury members come from the same country.
Balance in many other ways imaginable (while at the same time, one can never assure a balance in all aspects)
The international jury members do not serve on a national jury for WLM

At the same time, there are some practical considerations:

Jury members must be able to write and read English
They must have the time to commit to judge 200-500 photos in three rounds over a period of 3 weeks in November
While jury members can participate in a local competition, their photos cannot participate in the international finale
Jury members should not participate in any national jury for 2016 (previous years is OK)
It would be helpful if the juror would be willing to share their real name for the jury report.
Jury work is in a volunteer capacity.

It is good to invite a few jurors from previous years and some new jurors. Especially our heritage partners (in the past European Commission, Europa Nostra and UNESCO) were happy to recommend one of their employees as juror. Photography experts can be sought among professional photographers, ideally with some experience in the heritage field. Jurors are invited for the duration of one year a time - to ensure a balance each year.

Jury 2021

Gnangarra (Australia)
Dragoș Pîrvulescu (Romania)
Mircla (Aruba)
Carlos Figueroa (Chile)
Johanna (Sweden)
Gianfranco
Rangan Datta (India)
Johnny Alegre (Philippines)
Farzin Izaddoust (Iran)

Jury 2020

Rajeeb Dutta
Rezkallah Fayçal (Algeria)
Gab Mejia (Philippines)
Laurie Neale (The Netherlands / Canada)
Eduardo Teixeira de Sousa (Portugal)
Frank Schulenburg (United States)
Kalyan Varma (India)

Jury 2019

David Iliff (Australia)
Kalyan Varma (India)
Ayokanmi Oyeyem (Nigeria)
Kafui Doris (Ghana)
Yan Nasonov (Israel)
Jan Ainali (Sweden)
Joel Aldor (Philippines)
Michael Peter Edson (United States)
Emma Cunliffe (United Kingdom)
Derek McAllister
David Heaton

Jury 2018

Wolter Braamhorst (Netherlands)
REZKALLAH Fayçal (Algeria)
Schulenburg Frank (USA)
- Frank Schulenburg is a landscape, wildlife, and travel photographer based in California. He greatly enjoys spending time outdoors and sharing his images with a worldwide audience through Wikipedia. In 2013, Schulenburg won the U.S. edition of Wiki Loves Monuments.
Ken Worker (China)
Nelson Abiti (Uganda)
David Iliff (Australia)
Stevan Kordic (Montenegro)
Nao Hayashi

Jury 2017

Benjamin Benita (France), the international coordinator of #MuseumWeek and project manager at Unite4Heritage at UNESCO
Wolter Braamhorst (Netherlands), historian, journalist, tv producer and communication advisor. He is editor of the Heritage in Action magazine for Europa Nostra.
Katie Chan (United Kingdom), longtime Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons contributor. She's chair of the Wikimedia Foundation elections committee and former chair of Wikimedia UK
David Iliff (Australia), photographer and Wikimedian who has been contributing to Wikimedia Commons for over 10 years and partisipated in the WLM-UK jury twice. His photographic interests are broad, however much of is work is panoramic and stitched architectural photography.
Daniel Schwen (United States), staff scientist at the Idaho National Laboratory and experienced amateur photographer with numerous high-quality contributions to Wikimedia Commons.
Manit Sriwanichpoom (Thailand), one of Thailand's leading photographers and best known in the international art world - exhibiting his work world wide.
Tala Vahabzadeh (Iran), photographer and videographer who has exhibited in several exhibitions in Iran and worldwide. She's currently working at UNESCO in Tehran.

Jury 2016

Ons Abid (Tunisia), photojournalist, artist and media facilitator
Armelle Arrou (France) is Head of Public Relations and Events at UNESCO.
Alessandro Bordin (Italy), IT journalist and freelance photographer – videomaker. First prize winner in Wiki Loves Earth Switzerland, 2015. Teacher in Photography and Post Production schools.
Wolter Braamhorst (Netherlands), Independent communication specialist, advisor to European heritage organisation Europa Nostra and editor of their magazine Heritage in Motion
Gohar Grigoryan (Armenia) is national coordinator of the European Heritage Days in Armenia, and of the Community-led Urban Strategies in Historic Towns (COMUS)
Patricio Lorente (Argentina) is former Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation, and has been active in the Spanish Wikipedia since 2005.
Daniel Schwen (USA) is staff scientist at the Idaho National Laboratory and is an experienced amateur photographer with numerous high quality contributions to Wikimedia Commons.
Pranav Singh (India) is the 2012 first prize winner of the international finale of Wiki Loves Monuments. He is a photographer by profession specializing in lifestyle and landscape photography; a cinematographer by hobby.

Jury 2015

Ons Abid (Tunisia), photo journalist
Alessandro Bordin (Italy), journalist
Wolter Braamhorst (Netherlands), Independent communication specialist, advisor to European heritage organisation Europa Nostra and editor of their magazine Heritage in Motion
Gohar Grigoryan (Armenia) is national coordinator of the European Heritage Days in Armenia, and of the Community-led Urban Strategies in Historic Towns (COMUS)
Ivan Martinez (Mexico) is experienced Wikimedian and president of Wikimedia Mexico
Kiran Ravikumar (India) is a senior Wikimedian in Kannada community. He was the co-organizer of Wiki Loves Monument in India edition in 2012 and 2013. He was part of Wiki Loves Monuments India jury in 2012 and 2013. He is also assisted with various workshops and photowalks in Bangalore & Mysore.
Frank Schulenburg (United States of America), Wikimedian and photographer

Jury 2014

Yan Nasonov - Long time Wikipedian and Wikimedian, contributor to Wikimedia Commons.
Deror Lin - Long time Wikipedian and Wikimedian, organizer of Wikimania in Haifa, and head of the Wikimania Programme Committee since, amateur photographer, and longtime contributor to Wikimedia Commons.
Pierre-Selim Huard - Long time Wikipedian and Wikimedian, an engineer in green aviation development but also a dedicated amateur photographer, and contributes high quality pictures to Wikimedia Commons in topics such as sports, museum items and cultural heritage monuments.
Gillian White - Long time Wikipedian and Wikimedian, and art historian, former Wikipedian in Residence at the State Library of New South Wales, Australia.
Elio Grazioli - Professor of History of Contemporary Art at University of Bergamo, Italy. Elio is an Italian art critic and has a specific expertise in photography as writer and as curator of the festival of european photography of reggio emilia since 2007.
Iolanda Pensa - Long time Wikipedian and Wikimedian, art critic and researcher at SUPSI University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland.

Jury 2013

Piotr M.A. Cywiński is director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Poland, historian, former board member of Wikimedia Polska and active contributor to the Polish Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons as “Wulfstan”.
Diego Delso is a Spanish electrical engineer in electric cars development, amateur photographer and active contributor to Wikimedia Commons and the Spanish Wikipedia as “Poco a poco”. Diego has uploaded more than 9,000 pictures, of which more than 2700 have been declared ‘Quality Image’.
Diego Eidelman is an Argentinean photographer and journalist, and has worked as photographer for the Direction of National Heritage and Museums of the Secretary of Culture of the Argentine Nation.
Pierre-Selim Huard is engineer in green aviation development but also a dedicated amateur photographer, and contributes high quality pictures to Wikimedia Commons in topics such as sports, museum items and cultural heritage monuments.
Heta Pandit is chair at India’s Oldest Maritime Museum in Nhava, Maharashtra and former . She’s a published writer, academic, heritage activist and heritage preservation advocate – she has been involved in heritage preservation and protection since 1981 in Bombay and Goa.
Sneska Quaedvlieg-Mihailovic is secretary-general at Europa Nostra, an umbrella association for European heritage organizations. She was also jury member in the 2011 and 2012 competitions.

Jury 2012

Stephen Alvarez is a professional photographer with National Geographic since 1995 and has won multiple awards with his photos, including in Pictures of the Year International and Communication Arts.
Muhammad Mahdi Karim is a Tanzanian student currently studying computer sciences in India. He has over 5 years experience is digital photography, specializing in nature shots, particularly macros. His work can be found on Wikipedia with some of the latest ones being shared via Facebook and 61 of his images have received the status Featured Picture at Wikimedia Commons.
Guillaume Paumier came to photography through Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. He likes to heavily document the places he visits with photos, as well as illustrating Wikipedia articles with hard-to-get pictures, taken at events like the 2011 G8 Summit or pop culture conventions. He has shared thousands of pictures on Wikimedia Commons, a ridiculous amount compared to those still to be uploaded.
Sneska Quaedvlieg-Mihailovic is Secretary-General at Europa Nostra, a pan-organization with over 400 member organizations that are defending cultural heritage through the European continent.
Barbara Köstner studied archaeology and has a strong affinity for social media. She is in charge for the Tag des offenen Denkmals (Heritage Day) at Deutsche Stiftung Denkmalschutz (German Foundation for Monument Protection), Germany’s largest private initiative for monument protection.

Jury 2011

Michael Biedowicz, director of photography of the Zeit Magazin
Ann Branch, head of the Culture programme and actions unit at the European Commission
Sebastiaan ter Burg, professional CC-BY-SA photographer
Tomasz Ganicz, president of Wikimedia Polska, Wikipedian since 2001 and enthusiast photographer
José Gustavo Góngora, Wikipedian since 2006 and philologist
Marina Milella, archaeologist in Rome and Wikipedian since 2004
Sneška Quaedvlieg-Mihailovic, Secretary-General of Europa Nostra