Jury

The competition consists of a series of national competitions and an international finale. Each national contest is allowed to nominate ten images for the international finale. The international jury, made up of seven members with different skills and backgrounds, will determine the winners of this final round out of the nominated images and award the prizes.

National juries need to send their results to the international team before 3 January 2021, and the are intended to be published at the latest by end of February.

Criteria

The jury will determine the winners of the international contest taking into the consideration the following criteria (in no particular order):

  • Technical quality (sharpness, use of light, perspective etc.);
  • Originality;
  • Usefulness of the image for Wikipedia.

Images that reach a top ranking of the international finale, will typically at least fulfill the technical criteria of the ‘Featured Image’ process at Wikimedia Commons.

The international team reserves the right to disqualify any images at any point in the process if they are uploaded without confirmed email address in the account on Wikimedia Commons, if the images are deleted or are otherwise ineligible.

Process

Each national competition is allowed to nominate up to 10 pictures from their national winners for the international finale. This results in a pool of 250-500 images. These images are rated 1-5 stars by the international jury members based on the criteria above. Based on these ratings, a ranking is drawn up, and a selection of images is made.

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 feel that they don’t meet a minimum level of quality expected of a top-20 image in Wiki Loves Monuments.

Finally, each jury member will make their ordered top-20 ranking. The total of points will determine the final ranking. Only the final ranking will be published, with comments collected from jurors.

International Jury composition

The international jury for 2021 consists of Wikipedia users, heritage experts and professional photographers:

  • Gnangarra joined Wikipedia in 2005 and first contributed to Wikimedia Commons in February 2006. In June 2006 Gnangarra created the Commons: Quality Images project to help address the lack of high-quality user-created images. Gnangarra lead Wiki Loves Monuments in Australia in 2017 & 2018 and was part of the Core Organising teams for Wikimania 2020 & 2021.
  • Dragoș Pîrvulescu is a Romanian enthusiast photographer, focused mainly on capturing historical monuments (medieval fortified churches of Transylvania) and wildlife photography. Wikipedia contributor & contest participant since 2015; national jury member since 2019.
  • Mircla is from Aruba, and has been working for the Monuments Fund of Aruba since 2012 and has joined Wikipedia in 2013. Mircla organized Wiki Loves Monuments for the island of Aruba between 2013 and 2020.
  • Carlos Figueroa is an active Wikimedian, chair of Wikimedia Chile since 2020. He has been in charge of the “Chile in images” project which portrays the main cultural events in the country.
  • Johanna is based in Stockholm and is working on digital heritage at the Swedish National Museums of World Culture. She is also on the board of Wikimedia Sweden and chaired the national Wiki Loves Monuments jury last year. She is “MissWord” and on board with the schedule and general planning.
  • Gianfranco is a seasoned Wikipedian and a VRTS agent. He has worked on copyright, FOP, Wiki Loves Monuments (as a juror in Italian contests), Wiki Loves Earth, and smaller contests. He has been active in different roles in Wikimedia Italia and operated in external campaigns and advocacy for the broader Wikimedia Movement.
  • Rangan Datta is from Kolkata, India, and much into heritage photography and documentation. He is an active member of the Wikimedia movement in India.
  • Johnny Alegre is from the Philippines and has been a Wikimedian for 16 years albeit his editing activities have been on and off. He is actively engaged with the ESEAP and is a listed member and Coordinator of the Philwiki Usergroup in the Philippines. His travel experience has a broad range in various countries, such as the US, UK, Germany, Greece, Switzerland, Spain, Australia, India, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, the Netherlands, Borneo, Malaysia, Thailand, and of course the Philippines, and all these destinations gave him the chance to witness splendid monuments, landmarks and works of art and architecture. As a practicing musician and composer, he is a copyright holder of at least 80 original musical works, which exposed him to copyright laws. He is a recipient of a national literary award which gave him opportunities to mingle with artists in other creative disciplines, including those in the visual arts. Johnny Alegre is profiled in the Cultural Center of the Philippines Encyclopedia of Philippine Art.
  • Farzin Izaddoust is from Iran and experienced in different fields of photography, such as landscape, architectural photography, astrophotography, cityscape and others.

Author