Talk:Wikimedia LGBT/Wiki Loves Pride Featured Picture drive 2016

Discussions after 2016 can be found at Talk:Wikimedia LGBT/Wiki Loves Pride Featured Picture drive 2017.

Does your photograph qualify?

From my experience on Photo Challenge, getting the entry criteria correct is vital. Especially so when prize money is involved rather than just a gold star. Looking at the grant application, this appears to be aimed at photographer's own work. This should be made clear so that those who restore historical photos, for example, or who upload others' photos from Flickr, for example, know they are excluded. Similarly, I assume that photos of 2D artworks (such as a portrait painting) would also not be eligible.

Dates are important too. Both WLM and Photo Challenge require photos to be newly uploaded to Commons during the competition period (and not just a new version of an existing photo). I assume this is the purpose here, rather than for people to find existing content on Commons and nominate it. Also there is the question of when the image was taken. Some Photo Challenges required photos to be taken during the challenge. This generally results in much lower participation, despite being the point of a "challenge" -- to go out and take something new. Also there is the fact that evidence of "when taken" is reliant on EXIF data which may be missing or is trivially easy to forge with EXIFTOOL. That's not a problem for a friendly challenge with no prize, but more concerning here. So I suggest you just follow WLM rules and admit photos taken in the past.

I think "visual LGBT+ theme" is confusing. Is a standard portrait photo of a man who is notable wrt LGBT+ issues "visual" enough, or do they need to wear a rainbow badge while kissing another man? The link on the page (for examples) doesn't work. Consider the kinds of photos we may get based on the groups at FP:

• People. Pictures of people without any context (event, location). What is required here? Some sort of LGBT+ notability? How determined? Wikipedia article? In the Grant page I queried whether for example David Cameron was notable as he is most proud of his record with Gay Marriage [he's not got a lot else to be proud of imo]. What about non-notable people?
• Buildings. Buildings (exterior and interior) are very popular subjects for photographers on Commons. What links a building to LGBT+? Sites such as Historic England may be useful here.
• Events Clearly LGBT+ events such as Pride marches are eligible, though not all photos taken as such an event may be obvious. Is there any advice needed on taking photos of strangers. For example, this recent news event could be relevant. Does painting your face with a rainbow (per grant image) make it LGBT+ enough, even though the event is not obvious without someone saying when it was taken.
• Objects I'll leave this one to the imagination.
• Animals/Plants/Fungi/etc Same-sex activity? Other organisms with non-binary sexes? You never know what someone might nominate. So be prepared for some snail photo or whatever. Might be easier if restricted to human LGBT+.

These concerns might seem picky but ultimately a decision to include or exclude might be viewed as arbitrary and for pragmatic reasons, and so best applied in advance rather than made up when challenged.

For English Wikipedia FP, an image must generally be present in the article for 7 days without dispute before nomination unless there is a very clear improvement that is likely to be non-contentious. This is worth repeating in the competition as the nature of the prize will naturally make people hasty.

As I noted before, there are concerns that canvassing can easily disrupt the FP forums. What will the rules be on canvassing? You cannot rely on the FP forums policing this as some may take a view that "a vote is a vote" whereas from a competition point of view, it's rather unfair. This may be impossible to prevent, especially if off-wiki, but at least the page could request that users nominate their image without fuss, or posts to other forums and talk pages.

-- Colin (talk) 14:35, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

How to enter the competition

Instead of clarifying the entry criteria, it is now proposed that entrants must contact Fae for him to decide whether an image is eligible. I have never seen a photography competition where entrants are given unclear entry criteria, but asked to submit their photos (i.e. upload to Commons) while releasing their works for the competition-runner to benefit from, and for a sole individual (or secret committee) to later judge if it was even eligible. In any professional competition there are clear rules made ahead of time, and should a committee decide a photo was not eligible (e.g. the raw file was significantly Photoshopped, and the competition rules disallowed that), then this is done in a way that the community can judge if that was fair. I can see some advanced photographers, who aren't always fully on-board with Free Content, responding to a decline at this point with a deletion request. Which some on Commons might then refuse, because non-eligibility in a contest is hardly a good reason to decide that a non-retractable free licence can be retracted. Far better to give clear example images (not just a huge category) along with a clearer description. By all means offer a place for people to ask if their image is eligible if they are unsure. Perhaps even suggest that they don't need to upload to Commons before asking (they can link to a Flickr page or a Dropbox file, for example). It remains unclear to me, for example, that A photo of Ruth Davidson, a very well known LGBT politician in the UK, is "visually LGBT+". It's a terrible quality image and I'm pretty sure that a better image of her would be the sort of thing that this Featured Picture Drive would seek to achieve, but the criteria don't encourage me to think that. If you don't know about her, looking at that photo will not visually inform you of the LGBT category that image might be filed in. Some who enter this competition will either go out and take a photo for it, at the expense of time and money, or perhaps professionals will be encouraged to donate a freely-licensed from their portfolio, from which they could otherwise make money. I think they deserve to have some up-front clarity on the criteria. And I see no reason why discussion on the eligibility of an individual photo can't be done in a community forum by community consensus. -- Colin (talk) 12:25, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

I note: "a limit of 4 candidate photographs per month per entrant". I'm not sure this is helpful or necessary. The FP process restricts people to two active nominations. An overwhelmingly supported image (10+ supports in 5 days, no opposes) will be promoted after 5 days and win the competition for that forum. Game over. A moderately supported image with some oppose votes will take 10 days to clear. So during those 10 days, only two active nominations allowed. Should a photographer decide their image has no hope, they can withdraw, which takes effect usually within the day. They can then nominate another. But if they are serially nominating images with no hope, then I would think someone would have a word with them. For example, if a photographer keeps nominating 2MP images and keeps getting them knocked back for being too small. There's also the FPX process where an image that gains no support and only opposes can be swiftly withdrawn by the community. So I think a continued stream of low-quality candidates would be dealt with by the community getting either fed-up with them or offering help and advice. Whereas a continued stream of high-quality candidates..... why on earth would anyone want to restrict that??? That seems to be against our mission to grow the number of images in this area. Since the FP forums are independent of this competition, you could then face the possibility that an excellent LGBT image is promoted to FP and yet the author denied a prize because that was their fifth nomination that month.

I continue to be concerned that the "first past the post" approach will kill off the competition within a month and after relatively few images are submitted. I can't see any good reason to run the competition that way, and have never seen any other competition done that way. Always a competition has a submission period to maximise participation and then the prize is awarded at the very end. There's a very real risk you get one or two Featured Picture on Commons and that this has cost WMF $300. Well I'd love to be paid $100 a featured picture but if every FP cost $100 then we'd blow a hole in WMF's budget! In contrast, Photo Challenge gets hundreds of nominations and WLM gets tens of thousands. Wouldn't you rather run this for three months, get a dozen Featured Pictures, and then have to run a POTY/PhotoChallenge style community vote on the best one?

I know I voted against this competition, but it's going ahead so I would like it to be a success. You guys still haven't asked any of the FPC forums for their advice, and yet are completely dependent on them for it to be a success. -- Colin (talk) 12:25, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

On-wiki submission

I am currently at WikiConference North America and some people here discussed this effort.

In asking around, user:Paulscrawl offered this image as a submission - File:Love-wins-with-a-kiss-Bourbon-and-Dumaine-2015-06-26.jpg. The context of it is that it was taken on the day that LGBT marriage was legalized in the United States.

I am posting this here as preparation for formal submission, whenever that opens. It seems like right now, submissions are to be made by email, but I am not clear when this process begins. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:27, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Bluerasberry, The Grants page says "The prizes are not retroactive, so to be eligible photographs must have been first uploaded to Wikimedia Commons after the competition starts, though the photographs may have been taken at past events or be of historic interest but not previously released". There's also a Rules page but that doesn't seem to be linked or repeated here. As you can see from my comments above, I don't think the eligibility criteria are very clear. The start date does not appear to have been set yet. Most competitions like WLM/WLE and Photo Challenge require the photo to be uploaded during the competition only. I also think the technical and artistic qualities of that photo are considerably below the standard expected at FP. -- Colin (talk) 17:37, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Colin I confirm everything you are saying here.

I am not clear on the rules, and am not sure how this project will progress. I am sharing this photo as an example of what people might submit when they hear that there is a call for LGBT-themed photos. If we want other sorts of submissions, then we might need to be careful to make a request other than "submit LGBT themed photos for review". I am not sure what the recommended request should be to get the best quality submissions. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:06, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Well it is User:Fæ and User:Funcrunch who are running this, so I am unable to clarify the rules any more than what has been written. I am very concerned that the community is not involved in planning this activity: there was a single post to the VP when the grant was requested but there have been no posts (I'm aware of) to any of the featured picture forums to either ask for their advice or even to warn them of a possible influx of nominations and voters. The project page is very much still a draft. I see no requests for translation, which is the norm for any large forum/contest on Commons. I do fear that FP will be swamped by inadequate photos submitted by newbies attracted via social media - both with nominations and also over-enthusiastic canvassed votes. Contests like WLM/WLE attract an enormous number of dire photos and very very few at feature level. The same could well happen here, and those forums are simply not capable of screening a huge number of entries. The grant discussion suggested a team of helpers, but I see no formal process by which newbies can submit images outside of FP to at least gauge whether it stands any chance. Posts on social media are more likely to attract random folk who happen to have taken some photos that might fit the theme, rather than serious photographers who stand a chance of FP. The WLM/WLE contests do not generally attract many serious photographers compared to the large numbers participating (and I've yet to see any professional photographer enter those competitions). The first-past-the-post nature of awarding a prize seems almost designed to kill the "picture drive" as soon as possible rather than attract a large number of high-quality images. The grant has been awarded, so this appears to be going ahead. But I strongly suggest those running this engage with the Commons and WP FP communities, and the wider Commons community, for help in organising a contest that won't crash and burn on day one. -- Colin (talk) 17:20, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Suggestion for entry

Since this drive is aimed at encouraging newbies (via social media) there will be many entrants unfamiliar with wiki markup and policies and existing standards. I know from Photo Challenge that many newbies struggle with the (to us simple) task of adding one line with their image name to the entries list. Some paste a URL. Some forget the .jpg. Or don't realise it is case-sensitive. Some cause edit havok to other entries. Some post in entirely the wrong place on the page. I wish this was better automated. Similarly the QI and FPC forums are fairly complex for newbies. The FPC requires the creation of a new page and then transclusion of that page onto another list. It also expects users to identify a likely category for FP. While Photo Challenge is probably the most newbie-friendly in that only positive feedback is encouraged (you can't oppose), the feedback is delayed a month and sometimes just a series of "Like" supports with no details. QI also is rather poor for feedback, with images that pass often given a standard "good quality" stamp and images that fail given a very terse reason. If you wish to challenge a fail, or query, then the wiki syntax for typing into a QI entry is extremely challenging. FPC is quite likely to give terse and indelicate feedback for images that are well below standard -- remember many participants do not speak English and so can only write basic reviews. It's basically expected that a nominator to FP has "done their homework" and not simply use the forum as a place to fling nominations in the hope that one eventually gets support.

Currently it is suggested that users upload their image then contact Fae. Meanwhile they can nominate their image. I think we can do better than this. The Special:UploadWizard can be configured (I believe) with little effort so that it targets a campaign. It can place uploaded images into categories for example. These custom upload wizards are used by WLM (and perhaps WLE). Look at my File:Royal Albert Hall - Gallery View.jpg for example, which is in a number of WLM UK categories. These can be used to identify new submissions. A team could then review these submissions and move them to a "reviewed" category while providing feedback to the uploader (either concerning their eligibility or their chances at FP). The user can then make improvements to the image prior to nomination or get a gentle "knock back" if unlikely to be good enough. This process also ensures all entrants are categorised which lets everyone assess the effectiveness of the campaign. -- Colin (talk) 18:16, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Suggestion: abolish the first-past-the-post award

As I've said before, I think the first-past-the-post approach is not only unheard of in any Wiki or Photographic competition, but also seems designed to swiftly kill the picture drive with as few featured pictures achieved as is possible. Surely that's not a good use of the money or effort involved. Far better that the contest achieves a large number of entrants and entries and maximises the number of high quality images generated. These could be at either QI or FP or VI. If sufficient FP-class images are achieved during the "picture drive" then a community vote could be made to decide the winner on Commons. Similar could be done for Wikipedia FP forums, though I really don't know how many are active other than en:wp which isn't nearly as active as Commons. The Wikipedia forums have the additional complication of requiring an article picture, which has its own issues wrt stability of that insertion. It would be quite possible to use the voting system from Photo Challenge for deciding between the LGBT+ Featured Pictures this drive generates. (Currently, the rules for voting require users to have 50+ edits on Commons or to have submitted an entry to a challenge that month -- this is to stop the creation of sock accounts and similar rules apply to QI/FPC).

This is my strong recommendation. Otherwise I can't see this producing more than a string of failed nominations, unhappy nominators and at most one or two Featured Pictures. -- Colin (talk) 18:25, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Twitter and Facebook suggestions

The proposed English Wikipedia banner text fits within Twitter's 140 character limit, so we might as well use that as a starting point (a link to this page won't count against the character limit):

Help share LGBT+ themed photographs on @Wikipedia, and win up to $200! Submit candidates to the Wiki Loves Pride Featured Picture Drive. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT/Wiki_Loves_Pride_Featured_Picture_drive_2016 (137 characters without the URL)

As for Facebook, same as above, with a sample photo or two for extra visual impact.

We should also get the contest announced in the next Signpost... Funcrunch (talk) 00:57, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Funcrunch, looks fine, though realistically getting your photo onto "Wikipedia" is a much harder challenge than just submitting an image to Commons. We don't require that of WLM/WLE, for example. There are no instructions here on how to "proceed with raising a Featured Picture candidate nomination on your preferred project". Or even guidance on adding images to articles. Users who aren't already Wikipedians are going to need a lot more hand-holding. Or do you think only existing Wikipedians will participate? If you think it likely that there will be significant newbie participation, then I do recommend adopting the WLM approach of having a webpage with a link to an appropriately configured Upload Wizard as described above. And newbies will need help as to whether their image belongs in any article, and how to add it and nominate it. For example en:wp normally requires a wait of 7 days between adding an image and nominating at FP, though exceptions are made if it's an obvious improvement on what was (or wasn't) there before.

Wrt Facebook, note that you will need to be careful what images you include. If you have some of your own then that would be best, as the CC and GFDL licences are incompatible with Facebook so you can't use someone else's without getting their permission.

I think there's a disconnect between the open invitation approach of this "picture drive" to "help share LGBT+ themed photographs", and the FP contests. There's an assumption that everyone submitting an image will also want to submit it at FP. But FP is only for the finest images. Perhaps 1/1000 images at WLM/WLM are good enough to reach FP. Many countries run WLM, get thousands of entries, and achieve absolutely no FPs at all. So I think you need to work out whether you are aiming this competition only at highly talented photographers who stand a chance at FP, or at anybody with a camera who wants to help out. If the latter, you really need to change the approach to be more like WLM where users help screen entries and only the best images go forward for a prize or a nomination at FP. There's a risk that your Twitter post will just cause a dozen folk to spam the en:Gay pride article with snapshots and make FP nominations that lead to article protection and a hostile reaction from forum members who still have not been asked for their help/advice. -- Colin (talk) 09:28, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

@Funcrunch: I'll add it in shortly, cribbing from the WMF blog posts way of doing these. --Fæ (talk) 11:05, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Also, if you add an image to the landing page, it should show up in Twitter and Facebook posts automatically. Funcrunch (talk) 14:16, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Central notice

After an email prompt a few days ago due to there being no feedback a month after the central notice request was posted, both Itzike and Seddon_(WMF) have provided some feedback in their roles as central notice admins. Joseph raised a number of issues which I'll respond to here to keep comments together. Please keep in mind this is a small competition with a very limited amount of volunteer time to run it, I'd estimate this as a few hours a month, less than 1 day/month. Though we may be able to attract volunteers to help with specific small tasks, such as the translations of the CN, unlike other campaigns we have no employees and no volunteers with this competition as their central focus of volunteering effort. It was a deliberate choice to run this as a small individual grant under the nominal WM-LGBT+ umbrella, rather than it being a chapter driven competition.

Four points were made, it would be handy if @Seddon (WMF): were able to provide some feedback if the suggested actions are sufficient:

1. We cannot have a banner asking users/readers o email a private email address like we have on the page. For a case like this we should use the campaign functionality in the upload wizard. This will need to be set up and requested on commons.

   Removing the email is not a problem. I suggest a simpler solution, users can contact me via the on-wiki email this user function or leave a comment on a devoted competition talk page. As I have only been on the periphery of running campaigns, I am unsure how complex this would be. I imagine it would add several hours of working out how to do it, and take additional time to set up and manage it.

2. The landing page needs to be beautified a little. Simple clear set of instructions with a distinct button taking them to the upload form.

   We have been discussing some beautification, and the instructions can be improved. The upload form will remain the standard wizard. It's probably easiest for me to finish this off over the next few weeks.

3. Currently we have no ability to set targeting using wikidata. The list of countries would need to be set manually but given we are covering english we should consider this to be all them.

   The wikidata link is just a way of listing the 34 Wikipedia projects. I do not understand the point being made, as there seems no need to target using Wikidata, as the list can be extracted. There are many non-English projects that have FP processes and there are English-language projects with no FP processes, so the list is necessary. If making the notice available on all 34 projects is unrealistic, feedback on what would be pragmatic would be helpful. If we cannot put out notices on 34 projects, the competition may be criticised for not being open to all relevant projects.

4. A notice will need to be placed on the village pumps of the 34 language wiki's prior to the campaign going up linking to the central notice request and explaining it's purpose. We don't need a full blown discussion on all the wiki's individually but for such a large campaign the wiki's must be notified in advance.

   I'm unaware of this being a requirement for other competitions, it effectively becomes a pre-notice post as a requirement for the central notice. As a requirement this is of concern as it would appear to require far more volunteer hours and language skills than we have access to, if WM-LGBT+ volunteers are expected to provide translations and make the postings.

In terms of schedule, the revised start date for the grant was 1st November 2016. This originally allowed for 2 weeks to get the central notice agreed in October. In the light of the grant request being started back in June 2016, questions being raised at this late stage, and the unexpected procedural delays experienced in working with the central notice process, the most likely schedule is that the competition will start in 2017.

Thanks --Fæ (talk) 16:16, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

@Fae:

1. If you are content with this only being shown to logged in users then I am fine with this. The latter option of leaving a comment on a competition talk page would be the preferred method. If however you want this banner to be shown to readers/anonymous users as well then I would have to insist that you seek out on using the campaign feature with the upload wizard. I would recommend speaking to one of these individuals to assist in setting it up.
2. Works for me.
3. Yeah that's fine. There is no issue technically on targeting the 34 languages. It's just a point that this won't be done with geo targetting.
4. Most competitions with as large a catchment as you have proposed typically have international teams and are supported by geographic affiliates. When campaigns are not limited by geography the local projects need to be notified because the use of Central Notice shouldn't preclude situations where a projects site notice and could be used. I recently asked the same of the AfricaDeStubathon request although that was just in English. Worst case scenario just post in English but it shouldn't be that difficult to get translations for a village pump notice for at least the top 10 languages. Seddon (WMF) (talk) 16:32, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. As we are looking for a path with low volunteer hours, it makes sense to take the minimal options where possible. Fortunately schedule is not critical here. We'll investigate how translation requests might work in a timely way, along with any questions this may raise. However this pans out in practice, it will be helpful to write up unexpected challenges in the required final project report, certainly it was imagined that the CN request would be easier. --Fæ (talk) 16:52, 11 November 2016 (UTC)