Wikimedia Commons has more than 17 million freely licensed media files available for anyone’s use in practically any way, so long as the terms of the license are upheld. The ever growing database speaks to the passion that Wikimedians have for sharing free media to the benefit of anyone around the world.

Making sense of this massive amount of uploaded images, video and audio files, however, hasn’t always been so easy or straightforward. One of the challenges, as Commons contributor Brian Wolff can attest, is that metadata isn’t well integrated into the database, which is the standard with most image databases. On-wiki descriptions generally aren’t included in the file’s internal metadata, which can result in loss of important information when the file is reused outside of Wikimedia sites. Additionally the data that is in the file’s internal metadata is ignored by search, and cannot be programmatically used inside the wiki.

Screenshot of the new tiled gallery view that Wolff is testing

When a media file is uploaded to Commons today, a table is added to the file page with some information like EXIF values for aperture and shutter speed, for example, but Wolff believes a lot more can be done with the metadata. In the long term, he expects people will use Wikimedia Commons search to find files only with a certain license, taken with a certain camera, or on a certain date, etc.

“Editing file metadata in our current setup is a not happening as well as it should at the moment, which is sad,” Wolff said. Currently people need to download the file, edit the metadata, and re-upload the file, if they want the metadata to be included in the file. “But one approach that’s been suggested is just to use one of the existing program like ExifTool and put an interface on top of it in MediaWiki.”

Wolff thinks this shouldn’t be hard to accomplish, as he doesn’t see any major technical challenges that couldn’t be surmounted. This would let the updated metadata stick with the file, instead of just being on a wiki page. Since files rarely stay within the wiki, if the metadata is not included inside the file, it gets lost as soon as the file leaves the website.

Wolff first became interested in Commons during a Google’s Summer of Code internship with the Wikimedia Foundation in 2010. He had been a regular Wikinewsie since 2004, but he said he it had been difficult to make the jump from Wikinews contributor to MediaWiki developer.

“Google’s Summer of Code 2010 seemed like a good opportunity to actually become a member of the MediaWiki community, so to speak.” he said. “Before that, I was kind of a bit on, well not the outskirts, but I was very much a newbie and I was kind of stumbling around. It served as an opportunity to become integrated in the community.”

Wolff’s computer skills have grown from the days of his first Winnie-the-Pooh computer game his parents gave him to learn to read. In May, he completed an undergraduate degree in computer science, with a math minor, at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This summer, he’s going to be back at the Wikimedia Foundation working on Commons. Wolff will explore a number of issues that should make the database more useful and user friendly.

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This post is available in 4 languages:

English  • Svenska • Deutsch • 中文

English

I got an idea in May, 2012, as the Eurovision Song Contest was ending and Loreen had just been named the 2012 winner, with her song Euphoria. Because Loreen represented Sweden, the 2013 contest would be held in my country. This would create an exciting opportunity for me and Wikipedia, because my home is in Gothenburg, and I could take really good photos for the Wikimedia Commons database.

Loreen after she won in 2012.

Photo: Vugarİbadov

Licence: CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported.

Eurovision Song Contest is well documented on Wikipedia. The contest was started in 1956, and currently has Wikipedia articles in 91 languages^[1], many including information on artists and their songs, statistics, voting history, the rules and points awarded. My idea started here because there are not many photos and the quality varies; occasionally someone sitting in the audience at the show manages to take a photo with their phone, but there were not many quality images. Using the CC-BY-SA-3.0 license, anyone would be free to copy, distribute and edit my photos, as long as I am attributed and new versions of the photos have the same license.

The most common use of photos on Wikimedia Commons is in Wikipedia articles, and photos enhance the articles. My goal was to make it possible to have really good, professional photos of every artist in the Eurovision Song Contest 2013. Newspapers, magazines, websites and other media outlets that did not send a photographer to Malmö could also use my photos from the database.

I applied for photo accreditation and, at first, my application was denied because the Head of Delegation saw me as a fan and not as a serious photographer. Then some members of Wikimedia Sverige managed to explain my intentions and the purpose of my application. When I was finally approved, it meant that I had the same rights as all the other 1700 photographers and journalists at the contest.

Emmelie de Forest after winning the Eurovision Song Contest 2013.

Photo: Albin Olsson

License: CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported

It has been an amazing week, and a very successful project. I took thousands of photos and right now over 500 are uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. They are categorized under: contestants, countries, rehearsals and/or press conferences. All of them are also under the category Photos taken by Albin Olsson during the Eurovision Song Contest 2013. There are close-ups of almost all of the artists, photos of the artists performing their songs on stage, and also videos I filmed.

The 2013 Eurovision Song contest winner was Emmelie de Forest, from Denmark, with her song “Only Teardrops.” My photograph of de Forest has already been used in 36 different languages on Wikipedia, including Japanese and Chinese.

Since non-freely licensed material is not permitted on Wikimedia Commons, I couldn’t upload the songs or videos containing the songs, but I filmed more than 32 clips where 12 of the artists present themselves. All in English, but 11 of them in at least one other language (you can find the videos in the commons category Videos from Eurovision Song Contest 2013 and I might add a few more). It feels really cool that the Wikipedia articles don’t just have a nice photo at the top of their infoboxes, but a short video too.

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This post is available in 2 languages:

Español  • English

English

Login screen on the Commons app for Android.

Love taking photos on your smartphone? Now you don’t need to wait to get home to upload your high quality educational photos to Wikimedia Commons, the free image repository used by Wikipedia and many other projects.

The official Wikimedia Commons app for iOS and Android allows you to quickly and easily upload your photos to Commons. You can also upload multiple files and add categories (Android only so far) and share your uploads through your favorite image sharing sites. Your contributions to Commons can help illustrate the world’s largest encyclopedia and make knowledge come to life for millions of readers around the globe.

The “my uploads” view on the Commons app for iOS.

In the future, we hope to add more features and make it easier to browse and discover all the great content Commons has to offer. We also look forward to being able to run more campaigns like Wiki Loves Monuments, encouraging expert Commons users and people new to Wikimedia projects alike to contribute to high-need content areas.

As always, we need your help and input to make these apps better. Take the apps for a test drive and let us know if you encounter bugs, or if you have great ideas for features we should add in the future.

And if you don’t have an iOS or Android device, don’t feel left out! Uploads to Commons for a wider selection of phones and browsers are supported on the mobile version of all Wikimedia projects.

Maryana Pinchuk, Associate Product Manager, Wikimedia Foundation

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(This is a guest post by User:Mono.)

Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2012: “Pair of Merops apiaster feeding”, by Pierre Dalous (User:Kookaburra 81)

3990 votes were cast by Wikimedians to determine the seventh Picture of the Year in this yearly competition on Wikimedia Commons. A total of 988 pictures promoted to featured picture status in the previous year were included in the competition. The organizing committee is pleased to announce the results, and would like to congratulate our winners.

The complete results are visible on the POTY 2012 results page. The competition consisted of two voting rounds—the top images from Round 1 continued to Round 2, which ended on February 14th.

The Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year contest is an annual volunteer-led contest, running since 2006. This year, about 4,000 Wikimedians voted in the competition, a record turnout that shattered projected targets.

The support of the Wikimedia community made this incredible contest possible, and the organizers would like to thank everyone who participated.

Wikimedia Commons is a media repository hosting content that anyone can freely share, reuse, and remix. Wikimedia Commons editors nominate the best media for featured status in an ongoing project, and all featured pictures from the previous year are included in the annual Picture of the Year contest.

The contest is a fun and enjoyable event that not only celebrates our excellent photographers and illustrators, but everyone who contributes to Wikimedia. You are encouraged to donate your own work to the Wikimedia Commons as our library of freely licensed media files grows past 16 million files.

You can upload them yourself (details here) or email info-commons@wikimedia.org if you are the copyright-holder or maintainer of a freely-licensed media collection that you would like to donate to the Commons.

Mono, Wikimedia Commons contributor

This post is available in 2 languages:

Greek  • English

In English

The Argostoli Evening High School in Kefalonia, Greece has been active on Wikimedia projects since 2007. It is one of the few schools in Greece to have its own article on Greek Wikipedia (after “surviving” a heated deletion debate). For the school year 2012-13, we decided to embark on two ambitious journeys: First Grade of Upper Secondary is studying the edible species of wild flora on the island, while Second Grade is investigating a local legend that says there are 365 villages on the island, one for each day of the year. What better place to publish the material we are gathering than a Wikimedia Commons gallery!

The Wild Flora of Kefalonia: Survival and Relish

Kefalonia is an island with bountiful natural assets. The wild flora of the island is mostly typical to regions of the Mediterranean basin, however with certain species that are particular to the Kefalonian flora (e.g. the black fir abies cephalonica). It is only logical that the locals turned to the flora in times of difficulty for their mere sustenance: older senior citizens in their late seventies, eighties and nineties have tales to tell of their survival “off the fruit of the land” during World War II.

But that’s not all: many of the native species are gastronomic delicacies in their own right! Greek chefs can often be found rummaging through open-market stalls, on the lookout for freshly cut pot-herbs and other wild flora ingredients for their recipes. In the larger cities, they will often pay dearly for such treats… while here in Kefalonia, they’re growing all around us. We decided to document as many edible species as possible, and started a gallery on Commons with the designation: photo 1 is a view of the tree, shrub or plant – photo 2 is a view of the edible part(s) – photo 3 is the species processed as food, with emphasis on preservation methods where applicable (pickled – preserves – dried etc.). For each species we will find the botanical name to use as a title for the photos, while also mentioning English and Greek common names in the descriptions (as well as local names, where applicable). Have a look at our ongoing work here.

365 Villages in Kefalonia: Myth or Reality?

Ask any native in Kefalonia “How many villages are there on your island?” and he/she will proudly respond “365! One for each day of the year”. Sounds interesting… but no-one has ever actually written a book or essay, or so much as made a list to prove it. The idea had been lingering in my mind for a couple of years, and this year I introduced it to my pupils. They were excited, so we embarked on the project.

Less than a month had passed when we identified major obstacles: Greece has been subject to numerous administrative reforms over the course of modern history, the latest being “Kallikratis,” by which many municipalities were “fused” into larger ones. This is what happened on our island: the long-standing seven municipalities — shaped in the previous “Kapodistrias” reform, but closely tied to the history of the island dating back to Ancient times — were pooled into one, the Municipality of Kefalonia. So, we figured, imagine how many villages were “usurped” during each of the previous reforms. How could we find a valid scientific method to document these currently non-existent villages, as each of them carried its own history, culture and ancestry? The answer was to visit the General State Archives’ local offices. The director was kind enough to open the premises in the evening (our school is for working pupils and adults aged 14 upwards) and talk to us about the research that she could help us carry out there. She also told us that we would have to look up the Government Gazette issues pertaining to each of the past reforms to find the now-obsolete villages.

OK, so now we have a method. Why not get started with the “easy stuff”, and leave the research for later? Pupils were broken down into groups, and each was handed a map and assigned a former municipality to cover with photos under the general designation: view OF village – view FROM village – landmark (church, ancient ruins or other point of interest). They grabbed their cameras and brought back their material, which we are continually uploading to our gallery in Commons.

Where does the local community step in?

Kefalonia is quite a large island: it’s the sixth largest in Greece. To reach either the northernmost or southernmost tip from the capital (Argostoli), you need to drive around 50km. In times of financial crisis, this is not affordable. One group of pupils set out in the early afternoon (17-year-old Kostas and 26-year-old Giorgos both work on weekends) to a distant location in late autumn, only to find that they could not cover the entire area, as the sun was setting and they couldn’t take any more pictures. It’s not easy for them to repeat the process. So where do we get the copyright-free, original material we need for our galleries? The answer: get the local community involved.

Kefalonians are proud of their rich history and culture, and eager to hear about projects illuminating aspects of their heritage: for example, there is ongoing excavation work with interesting finds that may prove that Homer’s Ithaca was not on the neighbouring island bearing the same name, but in southern Kefalonia. I believe that they will be intrigued to participate in proving the villages’ legend, and willing to share their photos; others may want to share knowledge on the edible wild flora (it’s amazing how many plants around us are edible, and we don’t even know it!)

The event is planned for mid-March. Apart from presenting the work we have already carried out, we intend to include a mini-lecture on Creative Commons licenses (so they know how the material they contribute will be shared). I will suggest that the material either be sent to me by e-mail, or brought to the school in person, or… why not engage the locals themselves in editing? That would mean an extra seminar on the basics of Wikimedia editing, which I would be happy to organise, if there are enough interested participants.

Notes

Project instructors: Mina Theofilatou (Saintfevrier), Vasiliki Karadimou. Video footage from school visit to General State Archives (Kefalonia) here In video: Ms Paraskevi Kroussou (replaced by V. Karadimou in 2nd semester), Ms Dora Zafiratou (Director of State Archives Kefalonia), myself and pupils Fodasnos7, Mixalispapadatos, Giorgos, Maria and Kostas.

Press release on wild flora project (with video from WWII-survivor interview and “teaser” for upcoming event) published in the local news portal here. School blog: http://esperinogymnasioargostoliou.blogspot.gr (sorry, no English translations/subtitles available yet)

MinaTheofilatou

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Pancratium Zeylanicum flower, indigenous to India and islands in the Indian Ocean.

Muhammad Mahdi Karim is an avid contributor to Wikimedia Commons and his beautiful photographs have been Featured Pictures and Pictures of the Day, regarded as some of the finest images on the database. Karim describes his motivation for contributing to Wikipedia as the opportunity to share a memory with others.

“If I see something that others may never get to see or be in a place that some may never visit, it would be wasteful of me not to preserve these memories and share them with those who wish to experience them but are unable to do so,” he said. “Photographs help preserve these and Wikipedia provides a platform to share them.”

Karim was born in Moshi, Tanzania, a small town near the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro. Now, he studies computer science full time in Bangalore, India.

Karim discovered Wikipedia years ago when he mistakenly erased the contents of an entry. However, this simple accident led him back to the online encyclopedia. “I was inspired by seeing pictures of nature on Wikipedia, ” he said. Soon, Karim began uploading his own photos to forums.

Not all feedback was positive, however. “I was not very well-versed with photographic techniques, but after criticism from users, I have improved my skills to both my and Wikipedia’s benefit.”

This ability to change and grow through the use of Wikipedia is, as Karim put it, redefining what it means to be an encyclopedia. “It‘s a community of dedicated users who help one another to improve the content and in the process improve themselves. Today, I have in turn taken a few good pictures and helped to preserve a small part of our world. If others can take inspiration from my work to preserve, protect or improve out world, I will take great pleasure in that.”

Karim said that he’ll continue to contribute to Wikipedia, because, “apart from Google, it’s the only other site I can’t live without anymore. I can do without Youtube and Facebook, but take away Wikipedia and you’ve left me stranded.”

(View more of Karim’s images at his user page here.)

Interview and Profile by Zoe Bernard, Communications Intern

Trithemis Annulata

The Ideal City, attributed to Fra Carnevale, created between circa 1480 and 1484.This was the first image contributed to Commons by the Walters Art Museum.

This blog post originally appeared via the OpenGLAM Blog.

The Walters Art Museum, located in Baltimore  Maryland, is a model OpenGLAM institution. With a forward thinking staff aimed at opening their collections in unique and innovative ways, and a collection consisting of over 35,000 objects that are public domain, the Walters is prime real estate when it comes to OpenGLAM.

In early 2012, the Walters started partnering with volunteers from the Wikimedia community. The idea for the partnership was hatched out of GLAM Baltimore 2011; a series of events that brought volunteers from the Wikimedia community to the Walters to present about GLAM-Wiki projects. GLAM-Wiki is a project that focuses on fostering relationships between cultural institutions and the Wikimedia community, the community that maintains websites like Wikipedia.

This case study, written by myself and Dylan Kinnett, Manager of Web and Social Media at the Walters, showcases the projects that evolved out of this ongoing partnership. It summarizes key aspects of this partnership:

• The image donation of over 18,000 images to Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository that supplies websites like Wikipedia with images. These images are used in thousands of Wikipedia articles in over 40 languages. They have been viewed on Wikipedia over 10 million times and additional metrics are included.
• The changing of licenses on the Walters website to be more open, allowing the public to utilize the Walters website, or Wikimedia Commons, as locations to collect media and curatorial descriptions without copyright restriction.
• An internship modeled after the Wikipedian in Residence concept. This internship is structured for museum studies students interested in new media and open culture. The first Wikipedia intern wrote numerous articles about artworks in the museum, and learned skills focused around art history research, Wikipedia mark-up and policies, collaborative editing and other skills.
• The importance of outreach events in bringing together GLAMs and OpenGLAM community members. Without the GLAM Baltimore event, this partnership may have been delayed or not have happened.

The case study will be expanded to include coverage about the newly developed transcription project, which has the Walters working with Wikimedia community members to transcribe and translate rare Latin documents in the museum collection. These documents will then be shared via Wikisource, a free online library.

We hope that this case study will inspire and engage others to develop open sharing projects and programs. Please forward, share, and brainstorm how your GLAM can share its collections and knowledge holdings to provide further access to the public through OpenGLAM and GLAM-Wiki.

–Sarah Stierch, Wikipedian and US OpenGLAM Coordinator for the Open Knowledge Foundation

(This is a guest post by User:Mono.)

Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2011

Round 1 of the seventh annual Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year contest began on January 16, 2013. Wikimedians are invited to help select the most compelling image from the freely-licensed database from 2012. All 988 images that reached Featured Picture status in 2012 are in the running.

As a volunteer-led contest, Picture of the Year is run by an organizing committee of Wikimedians. Since its inception in 2006, thousands of photos from all over the world have been selected as Featured Pictures, and all of them are free for anyone in the world to reuse, remix and share. Volunteers like Rillke prepared the voting script and interface, while others like Beria Lima and Miya worked to compile the contest galleries and translate contest materials.

The first round of votes will conclude January 30, 2013 at 11:59PM UTC, and the top photo in each category in addition to the top ten photos across the board will advance to Round 2 of the competition. We encourage Wikimedians from all backgrounds and parts of the world to join our appreciation of some of the finest images on Wikimedia Commons. If you created an account before January 1, 2013 and have made at least 75 edits to any Wikimedia project, then you’re eligible to vote for your favorite pictures.

The Picture of the Year Contest is just as much about celebrating talented photographers and beautiful images as it is about celebrating those who have contributed to the cultural commons and have inspired more people to do the same. If you missed the deadline this year, please consider contributing your work today so you can participate next year.

Mono, Wikimedia Commons contributor

Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2009

(This is a guest post from Petr Broz, a member of Wikimedia Czech Republic)

This post is available in 2 languages:

Česky • English

Česky

Snímek byl pořízen během workshopu “Fotografický workshop v Botanické zahradě Fata Morgana,” Praha.

Občanské sdružení Wikimedia Česká republika připravilo ve spolupráci s WikiProjektem Chráněná území a Portálem Fotografie další z řady odborných workshopů zaměřených na fotografování živé přírody kolem nás. Oproti předchozímu setkání, kdy se wikipedisté a další zájemci z řad široké veřejnosti učili v přírodě jednotlivé rostliny poznávat a fotografovat ty nejlepší části pro pozdější poznání, tentokrát bylo cílem vysvětlit teorii fotografování, následně si tyto teoretické dovednosti hned vyzkoušet v praxi a po skončení fotografování společně fotografie zhodnotit. Patronací nad vedením setkání převzal Topi Pigula, významný český fotograf, který často publikuje své fotografie v prestižních časopisech.

I přesto, že tento odborný seminář proběhl v zimě, rozhodně bylo co fotografovat. A to díky navázání spolupráce s Botanickou zahradou hlavního města Prahy, která nám umožnila navštívit skleník Fata Morgana, fotografovat a následně fotografie uvolnit pod svobodnou licencí. Před samotnou návštěvou zahrady jsme se setkali u počítače, kde jsme společně procházeli zásady zlatého řezu, kompozice, používání externího blesku, stativu a dalších teoretických předpokladů pro pořizování kvalitních fotografií. Po teoretické přípravě se zájemci přesunuli do skleníku. Zatímco venku panoval prosincový mráz a silnice pokrývala silná vrstvy ledovky, zájemci o fotografování se namísto toho potili v tropickém klimatu, kde teploty přesahovaly i 25 °C. A nepotili se jen fotografové, mnohem více tato náhlá změna teploty a vysoká vlhkost vzduchu neseděla přinesené technice. Ta se záhy po vybalení obalila do nepříjemného oparu mlhy kondenzující na fotoaparátech. Snaha čistit čočky a otírat vysráženou vodu byla marná. První půlhodinu praktické části fotografování jsme kvůli tomu museli strávit čekáním, až se technika zahřeje a přestane se rosit. Naštěstí v budově byl sušák na ruce, který vhodně posloužil i pro sušení objektivů. A tak jsme se nakonec mohli vrhnout na fotografování krás tropické přírody.

V průběhu fotografování měli všichni účastníci možnost si samostatně vyzkoušet své dovednosti a nově získané znalosti. Mezi nimi průběžně procházel zkušený lektor – fotograf Topi Pigula, se kterým měli možnost konzultovat nastavení fotoaparátu či se jen poradit o kompozici nebo vhodnosti nasvícení. Během tří hodin ve skleníku vznikly stovky fotografií, ze kterých účastníci následně po skončení vybrali několik nejzajímavějších snímků. Nad nimi pak proběhla mezi všemi diskuse, během které se účastníci snažili vzájemně upozornit na případné chyby a přednosti snímků. Všichni tak měli možnost vyslechnout si zpětnou vazbu k výsledkům celodenního workshopu.

Celkově se na akci přihlásilo 13 lidí, z čehož pouhých 5 bylo zkušených wikipedistů. Zbytek představovali zájemci z řad široké veřejnosti, kteří neměli s editováním žádné, či jen velmi malé zkušenosti. K přilákání pozornosti k této události jsme využili jak fanouškovskou stránku o chráněných územích na Facebooku, tak i osobní výzvy mezi své známé. Tohoto úspěchu, kdy podíl zájemců z prostředí mimo Wikipedii byl takto vysoký, si obzvláště ceníme, jelikož nám to dalo možnost hovořit s lidmi o Wikipedii, představit její myšlenku a fungování a případně pro její tvorbu zaujmout nové editory. Výsledkem tedy nebylo jen zlepšení našich dovedností, pořízení desítek zajímavých fotografií, ale i probuzení zájmu mezi newikipedisty. To, jestli se někdo z nich rozhodne podílet na tvorbě v budoucnu, ukáže až čas. Nicméně i tak se nám určitě povedlo zlepšit povědomí a jméno Wikipedie.

Akce byla financována skrze grantový projekt Mediagrant Wikimedia Česká republika při celkových nákladech 3069 Kč. Pevně věříme, že se brzy podaří podobnou akci opět zorganizovat pro další zájemce. Organizačně akci připravil wikipedista Svajcr, kterému tímto patří velké díky od všech, co se workshopu zúčastnili!

Petr Brož aka Chmee2, člen občanského sdružení Wikimedia Česká republika

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(This is a guest post from Petr Broz, a member of Wikimedia Czech Republic)

This post is available in 2 languages:

Česky • English

Česky

Eva Sykova

V říjnu 2012 proběhly na území České republiky doplňující senátní volby, v jejichž rámci byla zvolena třetina zákonodárců do horní komory parlamentu, konkrétně 27 zástupců z celkových 81. Tito zástupci budou po dobu 6 let reprezentovat své voliče a dle svého uvážení schvalovat, zamítat či navracet dolní komoře parlamentu předkládané návrhy zákonů. Zvolení zástupci tedy představují významné osobnosti českého veřejného života, které budou mít značný dopad na zdejší dění. Díky této moci se zvolené osobnosti dostávají do popředí zájmu veřejnosti a není divu, že o nich editoři Wikipedie zakládají biografické články. Již dávno ale není Wikipedie pouze o textech. Pro většinu hesel se snaží wikipedisté získat i multimediální materiál, který by ilustroval předmět článku. A co může být u biografického článku více ilustrativní než fotografie osobnosti, o které článek pojednává? Vyvstává tedy otázka, kde získat fotografie významných osobností v dobré kvalitě pod svobodnou licencí.Podobnou otázku si již dávno položili členové Wikimedia Deutschland (WMDE), kterým se povedlo rozběhnout naprosto dechberoucí a skvělý projekt. Během něho navazují spolupráci s jednotlivými zemskými sněmy a na jejich půdě následně fotografují jednotlivé členy. Tímto úspěšným projektem jsme se rádi nechali ve Wikimedia Česká republika (WMCZ) inspirovat. Naše současné aktivity tudíž přímo navazují na německou myšlenku. Proto jsme iniciovali se Senátem ČR jednání, zda by bylo možné senátory vyfotografovat vlastními silami či rovnou získat existující snímky pod licencí kompatibilní s politikou projektů Wikimedia.

A co jsme museli během jednání překonat? Za prvé stud a ostych. Bylo potřeba si uvědomit, že pokud si člověk bude klást malé cíle, nikdy neprorazí. A proč si tedy nedat hned na začátek jako cíl téměř to nejvyšší? Senát České republiky. Čím je totiž cíl odvážnější, tím lépe pak bude sloužit jako vzor pro další příležitosti. Co nejhorší by se nám mohlo stát kromě odmítnutí? A tak zástupce WMCZ překonal ostych a prostřednictvím e-mailu oslovil tiskovou mluvčí Kanceláře Senátu ČR se žádostí o poskytnutí fotografií anebo prostor, ve kterých by bylo možné senátory a senátorky vyfotografovat. Dopis byl doprovázen vysvětlením, proč je vhodné, aby fotografie byly volně dostupné a tedy využitelné pro Wikipedii, a byl zastřešen občanským sdružením WMCZ. Co bylo hlavním argumentem pro úspěch žádosti? Nepřekvapíme, ale byla to právě masová využívanost Wikipedie všemi generacemi. Wikipedie se již dávno stala naprosto nedílnou součástí všedního života a současně prvním (a často i posledním) místem, kde uživatelé internetu hledají informace. Postupně se tak dostáváme do situace, že co není na Wikipedii, přestává s trochou nadsázky existovat. Tento závěr si začíná uvědomovat stále více lidí i mimo wikipedistické hnutí.

Přestože se nám nepovedlo získat fotografie všech 81 senátorů a senátorek kvůli složitým autorsko-právním vztahům u starších fotografií, jak jsme si na začátku vytyčili, můžeme i tak oslavovat úspěch. WMCZ se povedlo získat 23 fotografií nově zvolených zástupců a hlavně příslib pro další roky, že i v případě další volby za 2 roky budou fotografie opět uvolněny pod svobodnou licencí. WMCZ se tak podařilo navázat dlouhodobou spolupráci s významnou státní institucí, což bude možné v budoucnu dobře zhodnotit. Spolupráce se Senátem České republiky může fungovat jako inspirativní odrazový můstek pro navazování spolupráce s dalšími institucemi a partnery ze státní i nestátní sféry, ať už mimo organizované projekty či v rámci celosvětově úspěšných projektů GLAM.

Dovolte nám, abychom jménem WMCZ tímto poděkovali ochotě zástupců Senátu České republiky. Velmi si ceníme Vaší pomoci a chuti uvolnit fotografie a tím pomáhat šířit svobodně informace celosvětově. Budeme se těšit na další spolupráci!

Petr Brož aka Chmee2, člen občanského sdružení Wikimedia Česká republika

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