Wiki From Above

Wiki From Above LOGO 2015

The 2015 Wiki From Above winning photograph by SkyPixels

Wiki From Above is a aerial photographic and video media competition for Wikipedia.

Wikimedia ZA will be hosting the 2nd Wiki From Above aerial photographic competition to help encourage people to contribute aerial video and photographic content to Wikimedia Commons for use on Wikipedia.

The focus of this project is to increase the quality and quantity of aerial photographs and video media of important public landmarks and scenery around the world and in Africa in particular. Participants are encouraged to also edit Wikipedia by adding their pictures, or media to relevant Wikipedia pages.

You can see the web page of the first Wiki From Above competition in 2015 here archive copy at the Wayback Machine.

Winners

The awards will be handed out at the Cape Town Maker Fair on the 27 August 2016 at the Cape Town Science Centre. The best use on Wikipedia category will be announced in November 2016.

Best video

• 1st prize - Waterfall Bluff by Soaring Heights Imagery
• 2nd prize - Loonse en Drunense Duinen by Wdejager

Best photograph

• 
  1st prize - Katse Dam by SkyPixels
• 
  2nd prize - Kolmanskop Ghost Town by SkyPixels

Best use on Wikipedia

• 1st prize- Bollenvelden bij De Zilk for its use to illustrate agriculture of the Netherlands on multiple different language Wikipedias.
• 2nd prize - Loonse en Drunense Duinen for its use to illustrate the Nationaal Park De Loonse en Drunense Duinen article on Dutch Wikipedia.

Date of Competition

24 April - 1 August 2016

Connect

Wiki from Above Facebook page

Wiki From Above 2016 Category on Commons

Prizes

There will be over US$800 worth of Prizes up for grabs with the following prize categories:

• Best aerial photograph - US$150
• 2nd best aerial photograph - US$100
• Best aerial video - US$250
• 2nd best aerial video - US$150
• Best use on Wikipedia - US$100
• 2nd best use on Wikipedia. - US$50

The 'Best Use on Wikipedia' prizes will be awarded for the best use of a submitted photograph or video on a Wikipedia page. This is judged by:

• the relevancy of the submitted media to the page's topic
• how much the submitted media improves the overall quality of the Wikipedia page
• additional information given about the image on both Wikimedia Commons, and the Wikipedia page
• any additional edits to the Wikipedia page that are judged to greatly enhance its overall quality
• the number of other pages the submitted media can be used on

All prizes will be given in the form of gift vouchers from Action Gear.

Wiki from Above Workshops

We will be hosting a number of workshops in South Africa to show people how to submit their entries onto Commons, what the CC-BY-SA licence is all about and how to use their entries on Wikipedia.

Please contact Discott for more information.

Details

• Photographs and video can be taken from on top of airplanes, drones, hot-air-balloons, helicopters, or any other type of flying craft.

• All submitted images and video content must comply with local privacy and aeronautical laws and regulations.
  • If you live in South Africa you can check-out a list of 12 important things and regulations to keep in mind when flying a drone in that country here.
  • You can find a list of places in South Africa where drone pilots are not allowed to fly here.

• All content is donated to Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons License (CC-BY-SA) so it can be freely used on Wikipedia and by the general public.

• When submitting a video it must be submitted as a ".ogg" or ".ogv" or ".webm" format.

• Participants are encouraged to submit video media that is less than 2 min in length, and does not contain any captains within the video itself. We want to be able to use the media on other language Wikipedia pages.

• Media with no audio or original audio is encouraged, please do not add music to the clips.

• Photographs that are very small (less than 1 megabyte) and/or that have a watermark will be penalised during the judging process. Participants are encouraged to upload images in their original size (the larger the better). Watermarked photographs are strongly discouraged.

What should I shoot?

Photographs and videos of the following are most desired for use on Wikipedia:

Best things to photograph

Aerial recording of Piz Surgonda mountain in Switzerland. One of last year's winning entries.

The easiest things to photograph due to both their need on Wikipedia but also safety and privacy regulations are:

• Mountains, valleys, rivers, bays, cliffs and other such geological landmarks: aerial photography is particularly good at capturing these, there is also a great need for such content on Wikipedia.
• Plants and animals: awesome aerial photographs and video of these would be very useful in illustrating wildlife on Wikipedia and also tend to look spectacular.
  • Keep in mind however that in South Africa all National Parks do not allow any aircraft to fly below 1500 feet above the ground level.

Other things that can be submitted

An aerial shot of a church in Graff-Reinet. Isometric shots of builds such as these are particularly striking. Please do be mindful of local regulations when taking pictures in populated areas.

These categories are also greatly needed on Wikipedia but might (depending on context) be more difficult to capture due to recently imposed privicy and safety regulations. When taking pictures of these please be causious.

• Towns, Neighbourhoods and Settlements
• Beaches & Parks
• Monuments
• Important/Notable events

What pages should I edit?

You can edit any pages on Wikipedia.

How to enter

All entries will need to be submitted to Wikimedia Commons under the category tag "WFA 2016". See below for more detailed directions. Please feel free to contact Wikimedia ZA if you have any other questions.

Step 1

Sign up and create a Wikimedia Commons account

Step 2

Click the "Upload File" option on the left hand side of the screen under "Participate" on the Wikimedia Commons website. Then select the images you want to upload.

Step 3

Submit file in the following formats (if a video):

• .ogg
• .ogv
• .webm

Due to complex intellectual property rights issues, Wikimedia Commons can not accept video content submitted in any other format. A helpful 'how to' guide on how to convert video media into these formats can be found here on Wikimedia or here archive copy at the Wayback Machine if you are using VLC Media Player. It is suggested that you upload video content one video at a time.

If you are submitting a photograph, simply select the photographs you want to upload. It is suggested that you upload no more than ten photographs at a time.

Step 4

Select the Creative Commons license you want to donate your photograph/video under. The default license is CC-BY-SA which means that people must cite you as the author, and must share your media in the same way you have shared it with the world.

Step 5

Write a description about the submitted photograph/video. The more information given the better. Please add categories that it might fall under such as "Table Mountain" if it is an image or video of Table Mountain.

Step 6

Very important: please add the category "WFA 2015" "WFA 2016". If you do not enter this category we will have no way of knowing if or what you are submitting to the competition. Once you have done that then click "Next" to finish.

Judges

Douglas Scott

Douglas is the current president of Wikimedia South Africa. He is also the organiser of the South African component of Wiki Loves Monuments, the largest photographic competition in the world, in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015. He has been an editor of Wikipedia since 2006 and a member of the South African chapter of the Wikimedia volunteer society since 2011/12. He is always interested in projects that encourage more people to edit Wikipedia and contribute to Wikimedia Commons.

He currently lives in Cape Town, South Africa and in his day job works in technology, data collection, and crime reduction.

Victor Grigas

Victor has been a Wikipedian for over 10 years and professionally works as a video producer for the Wikimedia Foundation in San Francisco. He has produced many photos and videos in both roles.

He currently lives in Acton, Massachusetts.

Past winners

• 
  Winner (SkyPixels - person on the right) of the 'Best Photograph' prize for the 2015 Wiki From Above competition receiving his prize in Stellenbosch during the FPV Fest drone festal.
• Winner of the 2015 "Best use on Wikipedia" prize for its use on the Roman Rock Lighthouse as well as being used on 5 other Wikipedia pages in 3 different languages.
• 
  First prize winning photograph from the 2015 competition
• Fist prize winning video from the 2015 competition

Results

84 aerial images were submitted in the 2016 Wiki From Above competition with most entries either coming from South Africa or the Netherlands. As of the 26 December 2016 (when the results in the table were pulled from the Glamorous tool) a total 49 distinct images were used on 81 different pages on Wikipedia in multiple different languages. This means that 58.33% of all submitted images were used on Wikipedia.

Site	Images used
en.wikipedia	55
nl.wikipedia	8
de.wikipediauk.wikipedia	2
wikidata.wikipedia	2
pt.wikipedia	2
zh.wikipedia	1
ckb.wikipedia	1
es.wikipedia	1
af.wikipedia	1
sl.wikipedia	1
it.wikipedia	1
cs.wikipedia	1
el.wikipedia	1
fr.wikipedia	1
tr.wikipedia	1
Total image usages	81
Distinct images used	49 (58.33% of all images of category)