Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Wiki Loves Monuments in Turkey 2026 (ID: 23946588)

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Describe all relevant roles with the name of the group or organization and description of the role. (required)

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Main Proposal

1. [TITLE] Title of your proposal.

Wiki Loves Monuments in Turkey 2026

2 - 3. [FROM - TO] Proposed start and end dates for the grant proposal. (required)

2026-10-01 - 2026-10-31

4. [AREA OF IMPLEMENTATION] Where will this proposal be implemented? (required)

Turkey

5. [TARGET GROUP] Who are the target participants and from which community? How will you engage participants before and during the activities? How will you follow up with participants after the activities? (required)

Target participants: the wider public across Turkey — amateur and professional photographers, university photography clubs, and local history enthusiasts — plus contributors already active on Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata. Main projects: Wikimedia Commons (uploads), Wikidata (P18/monument data), and Turkish Wikipedia (illustrating articles). Before: we announce through Wikimedia Geonotice, social media, and WLM organizer mailing lists. Our campaign web tool (vikianitlariseviyor.toolforge.org) lets newcomers browse an interactive map and filter monuments that still need photos, then upload directly to Commons. During: we run an upload help desk, share step-by-step guides, and check uploads for correct monument IDs and quality. After: we categorize images on Commons, add the best ones to Wikidata (P18) and Wikipedia articles, recognize top contributors, and run a short feedback survey. On-wiki discussion: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons_talk%3AWiki_Loves_Monuments_in_Turkey

6. [TOPIC/ AREA OF EXPERTISE] What is the change you are trying to bring? What are the main challenges or problems you are trying to solve? Describe this change, as well as the main approaches to achieve it. (required)

Turkey has one of the world's densest concentrations of cultural heritage: over 100,000 registered immovable heritage assets are documented in the Kültür Envanteri (Cultural Inventory), and more than 35,000 of these monuments are listed for Wiki Loves Monuments. Yet the great majority still have no freely licensed photograph on Wikimedia Commons and no image linked on Wikidata. This is a serious geographic knowledge gap: Turkey's heritage is heavily under-documented in free knowledge relative to both its size and its global importance. The change we want to bring is to close this gap in a lasting, data-driven way — not only by collecting more photographs, but by directing contributors toward the monuments that are actually missing coverage, and by connecting each image back to structured data on Wikidata and to articles on Wikipedia. Our main approach pairs a national photo contest with a volunteer-built campaign web tool, whose monument data is drawn from the Kültür Envanteri site. The tool shows contributors an interactive map of registered monuments and lets them filter the ones still lacking photos, then upload directly to Wikimedia Commons. This steers participants toward under-documented and often rural monuments, instead of only the famous, already well-covered sites. After the contest, the best images are categorized on Commons, added to Wikidata (P18), and used to illustrate Wikipedia articles. We know the demand exists: the first WLM Turkey edition in 2025 was an immediate success, with Turkish entries placing 4th (Ishak Pasha Palace) and 11th (Perge) in the international finale. The 2026 edition scales this proven interest with wider outreach and systematic integration of contest images into Wikidata and Wikipedia.

7. [HOW / ACTIVITIES] What are the planned activities? (required)

Main activities:

Pre-contest preparation (September 2026): finalize the monument lists, update the campaign web tool, and prepare upload guides and infographics for participants.
Outreach and promotion: announce the contest through the campaign website.
Photo contest (1–31 October 2026): participants photograph registered monuments across Turkey and upload their images to Wikimedia Commons with the correct monument IDs.
Jury evaluation (November–December 2026): a multi-stage review using Montage, with a mixed jury of Wikimedians, professional photographers, and heritage experts, selects the national top 10 to submit to the international finale.
Prizes and closing (December 2026 – January 2027): award the winners with cash prizes.
Post-contest data integration: categorize images on Wikimedia Commons, add the best photographs to Wikidata (P18), and use them to illustrate Wikipedia articles.

Public project page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_in_Turkey

8. [METRICS] What are your Wikimedia targets in numbers (metrics) for your project? Set Wikimedia metrics for your proposal. (required)

Number of participants, editors, and organizers
Other Metrics	Target	Optional description
Number of participants	150	In the first edition (WLM Turkey 2025), 122 participants uploaded 7,030 photos covering 1,875 monuments. For 2026, with wider promotion and improved tooling, we target 150 participants.
Number of editors	150	In the first edition (WLM Turkey 2025), 122 participants uploaded 7,030 photos covering 1,875 monuments. For 2026, with wider promotion and improved tooling, we target 150 participants.
Number of organizers	1	All work related to running the contest — technical infrastructure, preparing the monument lists, answering photo uploaders' questions, and general coordination — is handled by one volunteer organizer. In addition, an independent jury made up of professional photographers evaluates the submissions and selects the best photographs; the jury is separate from the organizing work and reviews the entries independently.

Number of content contributions to Wikimedia projects
Wikimedia project	Number of content created or improved
Wikipedia	500
Wikimedia Commons	10000
Wikidata	3000
Wiktionary
Wikisource
Wikimedia Incubator
Translatewiki
MediaWiki
Wikiquote
Wikivoyage
Wikibooks
Wikiversity
Wikinews
Wikispecies
Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia

Optional description for content contributions.

In 2025, participants uploaded 7,030 photos covering 1,875 monuments. For 2026 we target ~10,000 new photographs on Wikimedia Commons. The best images will be linked to monument items on Wikidata (P18), improving ~3,000 items, and used to illustrate ~500 Wikipedia articles that currently lack a photograph.

9. Do you have any other project targets in numbers (metrics)? (optional)

No

Main Open Metrics Data
Main Open Metrics	Description	Target
N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A

10. [TOOLS] What tools will you use to measure each target (metrics) mentioned? (required)

Participants, editors, and uploads (Commons): the official Wiki Loves Monuments campaign statistics tools (the WLM upload/participation dashboards) and Wikimedia Commons category statistics for the contest category.
Monument coverage and Wikidata (P18): Wikidata SPARQL queries to track how many monument items gained an image.
Wikipedia article illustration: GLAMorous / media usage tools to measure how many uploaded images are used in Wikipedia articles.

11. [TEAM] Describe your team. Please provide their roles, Wikimedia Usernames and other details. (required)

The project is organized and run by a single volunteer:

Adem Özcan (User:Sadrettin) — organizer, volunteer. Turkish Wikipedia editor and interface administrator since 2009, with long-term contributions to Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons. Responsible for all aspects of running the contest: technical setup, preparing the monument lists, answering uploaders' questions, communications, jury coordination, and post-contest data integration (Commons categorization, Wikidata P18, Wikipedia illustration).

The campaign also relies on a volunteer-built open-source web tool (vikianitlariseviyor.toolforge.org), developed and maintained by https://github.com/ooguz (volunteer), which draws monument data from the Kültür Envanteri and helps contributors find and photograph monuments that still lack images. In addition, an independent jury of professional photographers evaluates the submissions and selects the best photographs. The jury works independently of the organizing effort; jury members will be confirmed and listed on the project page before the evaluation stage.

12. [LEARNING LESSON] What do you hope to learn from your work in this project or proposal? (required)

We would like to answer the following learning questions:

Does showing contributors which monuments still lack photos (through the campaign web tool) actually shift uploads toward under-documented and rural monuments, rather than the already well-covered famous sites?
Which factors most affect participation — for example, how much does offering a cash prize increase the number of participants and uploads compared to the first edition, which had none?
After the contest, how many of the uploaded photos are actually reused on Wikidata (P18) and in Wikipedia articles, and what are the main bottlenecks in that integration when it is done by a single organizer?
How does the second edition compare to 2025 (122 participants, 7,030 photos, 1,875 monuments) — where did we grow, and where did we not, and why?

The data we collect (upload statistics, monument coverage, media usage) should help answer these questions and guide the next edition.

13. [BUDGET] Upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it. (required)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Dfq-H0mZd_bjFX8gGsv6mcipH0ZMLJJNAafbC1_IlUk/edit?usp=sharing

14 - 14.1. [AMOUNT] What is the amount you are requesting for this proposal? Please provide the amount in your local currency. (required)

151500 TRY

14.2. Convert the amount requested into USD using the Oanda converter. This is done to help you assess the USD equivalent of the requested amount. Your request should be between 700 and 5,000 USD. (required)

3247.59 USD

15. [BUDGET EXPLANATION] Please explain the units used in your budget in a few sentences, so we can better understand your proposed budget per unit and per amount. (required)

The budget consists of cash prizes for two contest categories plus one bank fee. Each category — Best Photograph and Documentation — awards three winners: 1st place ₺35,000, 2nd place ₺25,000, and 3rd place ₺15,000. Each prize is a one-time payment to a single winner (unit = 1 award per line), so the six prize lines total ₺150,000. The Documentation category rewards contributors who add the most coverage (e.g. first photo of a monument, most distinct monuments photographed); its exact criteria will be finalized and published on the project page before the contest. The remaining line, ₺1,500, covers EFT/bank transfer fees for receiving the grant and distributing the cash prizes to winners. Total: ₺151,500.

16. [REGIONAL COLLABORATION] Did you notify the existing affiliate in your region? Are you going to collaborate with them? (required)

Wiki Loves Monuments in Turkey was organized last year with the sponsorship of Dijital Bilgi Derneği, a Turkey-based association that was itself supported by the Wikimedia Foundation through a General Support Fund grant, "Growing the wiki spirit in Turkey, 2025" (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Programs/Wikimedia_Community_Fund/General_Support_Fund/Growing_the_wiki_spirit_in_Turkey,_2025). This year the association is no longer receiving that support and no longer has the financial capacity to sponsor the campaign, which is why I am applying for a Rapid Fund grant instead.

17. [SUSTAINABILITY] Did you think about the sustainability of this project? If yes, can you explain why you believe in that and which activities can continue regardless of the funding? (required)

Yes. The core of this project is sustainable because most of it does not depend on funding. The campaign website (vikianitlariseviyor.toolforge.org) is open-source and runs on Wikimedia Toolforge at no cost, so it stays available year-round and can be reused in every future edition. The photographs uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, and their integration into Wikidata (P18) and Wikipedia, are permanent contributions that keep benefiting the projects long after the contest ends. Wiki Loves Monuments in Turkey is designed as a recurring annual campaign that can be organized by volunteers. The grant mainly enables cash prizes that broaden participation and improve quality; but even without funding, the contest, the tooling, the monument lists, and the community documentation work can continue at a baseline level.

18. [REPLICABILITY] Did you think that this project could be replicated in other communities? If yes, please explain further why your project will be good for other communities? (required)

Yes. Any community with a national heritage inventory but sparse Wikimedia coverage can adapt this model: connect the database to an open-source tool showing which monuments lack photos, then run a contest to close those gaps. We'll publish our methodology and code so others can reuse it.

19. Does your project involve work with children or youth? (required)

No

19.1. Please provide a link to your Youth Safety Policy. (required) If the proposal indicates direct contact with children or youth, you are required to outline compliance with international and local laws for working with children and youth, and provide a youth safety policy aligned with these laws. Read more here.

N/A

20. Are your activities part of a Wikimedia movement campaign, project, or event? If so, please select the relevant project or campaign below. (required)

Photographic contests (WL contests, WPWP, etc.)

20.1. Specify the campaign name. (required)

Wiki Loves Monuments

21. Does your proposal include any of these areas or thematic focus? Select one option that most applies to your work. (required)

Culture, heritage or GLAM

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I/we confirm: Yes

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