[Wiki Loves Monuments] Increasing participation in WLM

[Alex Wang]

Hi All,

I recently joined the Wikimedia Foundation as Program Officer for the Project
and Event Grants Program
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG>(PEG). One of my main
duties is to review grant proposals and reports. Many
PEG grantees participate in WLM and I have noticed a trend in their
reporting on WLM activities -- there is a decrease in volunteer
participants year-on-year and a desire to strategize on how to address this
issue.

It would be great to start a discussion around new strategies for engaging
WLM participants. The proposed session at Wikimania on "What can we learn
from the WLM participants' survey"
<https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/What_can_we_learn_from_the_Wiki_Loves_Monuments_participants%27_survey%3F>will
be a great place to discuss this issue, but please also feel free to share
ideas on this email thread. If there is a better place to have this
conversation - perhaps on the WLM 2014 page -- please feel free to move it
there!

One idea that some grantees have been implementing is to organize *photo
expeditions* to places that are under-represented. These photo expeditions
have two benefits -- (1) they allow people to travel to places they may not
normally have the chance to visit due to transportation issues and (2) they
travel to places where monuments have not been photographed. They also
promote community!

Another interesting strategy is to introduce *photography workshops*.
Skills training can definitely be appealing to participants and will
increase the quality of photos on wiki projects. We are encouraging
grantees who have organized photography workshops to share their materials.

Excited to hear your ideas!

Thanks,

Alex

-- 
Alex Wang
Program Officer
Project & Event Grants
Wikimedia Foundation <http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home>
+1 415-839-6885
Skype: alexvwang
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