How to Participate in the Wiki Loves Earth 2022 Competition
Are you a photographer? Do you love taking pictures? Yes? This is for you!
You know Wikipedia. An unrivalled encyclopedia and one of the most reputable sources for finding information about anyone or anything. Or simply put, the world’s number one ITK.
Yes, you know Wikipedia, and if, for some strange reasons, you did not know Wikipedia before, now you do.
What many people do not know about Wikipedia is that it is one out of many projects run by a foundation called Wikimedia Foundation. So Wikipedia is just like that one child in the family that becomes popular everywhere; it feels like he’s an only child. But that’s not a discussion for today.
One of Wikimedia Foundation’s children — Wikimedia Commons — is organizing a competition (Wiki Loves Earth 2022), and people who live in or have been to the Southwestern part of Nigeria are allowed to participate.
The context is easy to grasp and can be done with a smartphone. Basically, you take a picture, edit and upload it, and stand a chance to win amazing prizes.
Interested? Yes? Let’s dive in.
What is Wiki Loves Earth?
Wikimedia Commons, like the name suggests, is an encyclopedia like Wikipedia, but for media files — pictures, videos, sounds, you name it!
Wiki Loves Earth is an annual competition organized in different countries by Wikimedia groups and local Wikipedia volunteers.
The primary aim of this competition is to stockpile images of natural heritage sites and use them to support content on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation projects.
According to the website:
The focus is not only on sites of national importance, but also on those protected at the regional level, and on the widest variety of natural sites possible: forests, parks, gardens, rocks, caves, or whatever part of nature is protected in your country. This means that most users will be able to find several natural heritage sites close to them.
Wiki Loves Earth 2022
The Wiki Loves Earth competition has been in existence since 2013, and this year, Southwest Nigeria happens to be one of the focus zones. Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to submit pictures of natural heritage sites in the Southwest.
To provide more context on the kind of pictures to be uploaded, the winners will be selected from two categories;
- Landscapes (including individual trees, if it’s a nature monument)
- Macro/close-up (animals, plants, fungi)
They believe, I believe, and I believe that you believe that we have many heritage sites in Nigeria that need worldwide exposure. Here is our chance to show Nigeria (and yourself) to the world.
How Can I Participate in Wiki Loves Earth 2022?
If you’re here, then you must be interested in participating in this year’s competition. At the time of writing, over 600 pictures have been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Sounds like a lot, but if you see the submissions, you’ll know you have a good chance at winning. Not like they’re not good. It’s just that I know you can do better.
So let’s get to it. You can participate in these five easy steps.
- Create a Wikimedia Commons account: Use this link to open an account. Ensure to add your email to the signup form so the team can contact you if when you win.
- Find Locations: You need to find nice spots and crazy angles to take world-class pictures. Your destination should be protected sites or areas, national parks, waterfalls, amusement parks, etc. Remember, these pictures are supposed to be Wikipedia standard, so give it your best shots (literally and figuratively).
- Snap: Take as many pictures as you can. Keep clicking. Click, click, click, Click, click, click, till you run out of inspiration. Click, click, click, click, Click, click, click, till inspiration comes running back to you. For every click you refuse to take, you give other opponents a chance to overtake.
- Add Description: Safe to say, this is the easiest thing to do. Write something to describe the picture you have taken. You can use the captions in the images in this article as an example.
- Upload: When you are done describing your picture, upload immediately. That’s it! If you have been to any natural heritage sites in the past and you took pictures there, you can upload those pictures too.
But I don’t know any natural heritage site…
Gotcha. For clarity’s sake, the organizers have created a list of sites where participants should take pictures. Here;
- Old Oyo National Park, Oyo, Oyo State.
- Akure Forest Reserve, Akure, Ondo State.
- Akure Ofosu Forest Reserve, Akure, Ondo State.
- Idanre Forest Reserve, Omifunfun, Idanre, Ondo State
- Ise Forest Reserve, Ekiti, Ekiti State
- Oba Hills Forest Reserve, Iwo, Osun State
- Okeluse Forest Reserve, Ondo, Ondo State
- Okomu Forest Reserve, Benin City, Edo
- Oluwa Forest Reserve, Ore, Ondo State
- Omo Forest Reserve, Ijebu Ode, Ogun State
- Emure forest reserve, Emure Ekiti, Ekiti State
- Sungbo’s Eredo, Ijebu Ode, Ogun State
The sites listed above are recommended sites to take pictures for the contest. But there are natural heritage sites in the Southwest. You can use this link to check a list of all the natural heritage sites in Nigeria and find other SW locations, or you can check for SW locations in the image below.
If you feel like you know a heritage site not included in these lists but meets the criteria quoted from the site, at the beginning of the article, you can give it a shot.
When is the deadline?
Submissions for this competition began on the 15th of July, and it will end on the 30th of August, 2022. So you have one week from when this article is published to get things done.
How to Win
Pictures submitted for this competition will be judged based on three primary criteria;
- Technical quality (sharpness, use of light, perspective, etc.);
- Originality and;
- Usefulness of the image for Wikipedia.
See this page for more information about what your picture needs to look like.
A few rules before you start…
You probably already have ideas that you can’t wait to explore. Well, that’s good. But please wait to acquaint yourself with the following rules.
- Your pictures must be taken and uploaded by You and You alone.
- You can upload as many pictures as possible. Even if you don’t win, some people get rewarded for having the highest number of valid uploads.
- By uploading these picture(s), you permit Wikimedia Foundation, with a license, to re-use the image(s) on Wikipedia and for other educational purposes.
- As you take your pictures, try as much as possible not to destroy plants, disturb animals, or disobey any local laws. If you had to get special permission to fly a drone for this competition, kindly indicate that when uploading the picture.
- Although it is not compulsory, adding coordinates will be appreciated. Coordinates make it easy to assign the picture to a place on the map. So if you can, give accurate coordinates or an approximate location on the map.
So all these for what?
Not for eba! Or garri! Or beans!
After submission closes, a jury will examine all the pictures and select the top three.
Winner gets a new phone.
1st & 2nd runner-ups each get photography equipment
Prizes may also be given to people in the top 20.
All winners will be contacted through email. For fairness to all competitors, everyone on the jury are all Yorubas with vast knowledge of the culture.
This competition was organized by The Yoruba WikiMedians Group, and I took the pain and pleasure to bring it to you.
All the pictures attached to this article are winning images from 2019. That’s the existing standard. Can you beat it?
Now, go shoot your shot!
