Grants talk:PEG/WM PH/Photo by demand

Some questions

Thanks for the submission Roel. I like the idea for this project, especially because it deals with providing material for regions from the Philippines that lack it and because you also plan to provide videos. My questions are the following:

1. How many participants will take part as photographs?
2. Do you have any initial information on whether the photographs from Wiki Loves Monuments 2012 will be interested to participate in this initiative and accept the conditions you offer? What is the compensation that each of them will receive and who is going to cover it?
3. Can you detail the number of 100 items to specify the number of photographs and the number of videos that will be produced?

Best regards.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 14:37, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Kiril,

1. So far, I have solicited the help of two photographers one of it is the winner of Wiki Loves Monuments, who himself has won a lot of photography awards. The other is a WMPH member who is a professional photographer. I'm not limiting it to them, as I am expecting at least three more, when this project is officially cascaded.
2. The winner of Wiki Loves Monuments Philippines is already very eager since the idea was introduced to him when I met him post-WLM. I would like to send an invitation to the other winners when the project is cascaded. The conditions offered would be just to cover their expense, I don't want to leave an impression that we are buying photographs. The agreement is that they have to upload their photos to Commons with a CC-BY-SA 3.0 license, and we'll reimburse their expenses after it. I'm in the process in coming up a with a formal agreement once they sign up to be a "photographer-by-demand".
3. I can't determine at the moment. The project will be introduced in the Philippine notice board, to entice editors to check which among the Philippine related articles need to be complemented by a media. -- Namayan (talk) 15:04, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 12:51, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Please provide the numbers in USD... As I calculated ₱ 60,000 is around 1500 USD. Is it correct? In general the project seems to be interesting although I am just wondering if it would be possible to ask any local wikipedians to take pictures of the objects which are near their homes. This is what we usually do if someone from Wikipedia needs to have picture of specific object. But maybe, we have more dense network of Wikipedians... Polimerek (talk) 17:32, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I have added USD conversion. Yes, your conversion is correct. We would still like to have some sort of "quality control" on who would be tasked to take the photos. Our objective to produce quality media about the Philippines would be compromised if just about anyone who has a camera will be asked to take photos. As photographers here would say it "not because you have a DSLR, you're already a photographer". We'll be making announcements about the project once approved, just like what we did in Wiki Loves Monuments Philippines when we promoted it in Facebook photography groups in the Philippines, normally every large city in the country would have their own photography group. We're thinking of making them contribute some quality photos first (without identifying watermarks) in Wikimedia Commons to assess if they would be in our pool of photographers. -- Roel (talk) 01:16, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

No Comments

I am finding many similarities of this request with our successful Mediagrant Project, so I am big fan of your Philippine Photo by Demand. I also appreciate your measures of success are tangible. --Packa (talk) 19:17, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your support. -- Roel (talk) 05:30, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Reasons for re-thinking the project

Hi, I know it's rare for GAC members to express serious second thoughts. But I do, though it may be from my lack of understanding of your local situation. Usually, we in WM-IL, do not offer "general reimbursements" to volunteers for performing actions that would otherwise be part of the volunteering effort. This is not the case when we hold specific events, and want to reimburse people to encourage them to come, for example. My own (very strong) opinion is that if you have skilled photographers, that want to take photographs of interesting places and upload them to the Commons, they should do so regardless of any of their costs being covered. After all, how can you differentiate between gas, and lenses for example? It's a slippery slope...

I would, however, consider out forms of accomplishing the same thing, such as photography competitions (like WLM...) or others, where people get credit by photographing "desirable" locations.

I don't want to sound rude, but if it were up to me I would reject the offer in its current state. Sorry... and I'd love to hear why I'm wrong! NLIGuy (talk) 21:36, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate the incisive input. If I have to say, the concept of free-license is not so popular in the Philippines especially among photographers who would always leave identifiable watermarks on their photos before they share and upload it online. When we were promoting WLM Philippines last year and we reached out and talked to Pinoy Photography Club (Pinoy is slang for Filipinos), a 6,000-member strong photography club, they voiced their concern on copyrights of their image. Normally if they join photo contests the organizers can use only the winning photos and for only two years. That's how local photography contests are done and even Canon the largest contest organizer abide with their demands/terms. Nevertheless they promoted WLM in their website and Facebook group page, where only admins can post. If you have the time to go through our Wiki Loves Monuments Philippines 2012 report, you'd see that they were "amazed" that there were as much as 300 who were willing to release the copyright of their photos forever. Their statement stuck in my mind because if I were to "abide with their terms" I will not be able to accomplish the goal of promoting free license images and have quality Philippine photos/media in Wikimedia Commons. This is our solution for now until the concept and use of free-license becomes extensive and widespread among photographers that they will voluntarily turn in their quality photos. -- Roel (talk) 23:43, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Photo by demand?

I see a lot of similarities with other projects like wiki-expeditions. In Switzerland we offer something similar but we are speaking about specific events which may require also "accreditation". What is unclear, and a little bit strange to me, is the request. The project may be good but is the management of the request not really clear in my opinion. --Ilario (talk) 19:07, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

There is a dormant page in the regional notice board for the Philippines where Wikipedia editors used to request images. It is dormant because no one is actually providing media. We will revive this because we see the value of providing more Philippine content in the Wikipedia projects which is lacking. Right now it is mostly text, graphs and inaccurate maps. To sum up the plan:

• Editors would be encourage to request for media to complement respective Philippine-related articles.
• Project lead will announce in the mailing-list or project coordination page or portal about the request. But ideally we will wait for requests to pile so we can group them per location.
• "Accredited" photographers gets an assignment to take the requested media.
• Photographers upload the media to Wikimedia Commons (among other conditions, no watermarks and under CC-BY-SA 3.0 license)
• Once uploaded they can reimburse for the expense they incurred.-- Roel (talk) 22:06, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Terms for approval

Perhaps like NLIGuy, I am concerned about the proliferation of photo acquisition reimbursement programs, and I consider it lop-sided that so many Wikimedia entities regularly reimburse photographers for expenses like travel, but not article writers.

That said, I find Namayan's background persuasive, and can see this relatively modest program might help kickstart a free-license photography culture in the Philippines. I am therefore willing to approve this, as an experiment, with the following conditions:

1. The plan is publicized at the Tambayan, and at least five active contributors endorse it.
2. The committee running the program (and approving reimbursements) shall include at least one WMPH board member and at least two active ENWP or Commons contributors, and no more than two additional members (i.e. no more than five in total). To be perfectly clear, the committee will serve at the pleasure of the WMPH board, which will remain free to determine member selection or replacement.
3. As described in the proposal, requests for photos should be allowed to accumulate (either up to N requests or no more than M months, with 10<=N<=40 and 2<=M<=4).

If these terms are acceptable (and once evidence of endorsement is demonstrated on the Tambayan page), I will approve this proposal. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 01:44, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

After reading the reply, as well as the WLM report, I conclude that this is indeed a worthy cause, and agree with Asaf (don't know if it's necessary after his word, but still think a good luck blessing is in place). So, Good luck ;-) NLIGuy (talk) 20:06, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

The terms proposed by Asaf are acceptable to me. I have posted it in the Tambayan and I'll introduce it in a session at our WikiConference on June 15 to gather support, at the same time I'll solicit the help of those interested to be part of the committee. I'm sorry if I tend to be persuasive, I just believe in the value of the project that we are proposing, because we believe the chapter already needs to intervene to produce quality content about the Philippines, I believe that's what we are here for too. As for article writers in ENWP (90% of edits from the Philippines are in ENWP), we find that they are self-sustaining but we won't neglect them if they need assistance from us, our efforts are geared towards the development of local language Wikipedias. -- Roel (talk) 04:04, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

I do agree with Asaf and NLIGuy, is too risk to get that approved now without community consensus. Béria Lima ^msg 01:36, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Decision

Since the first condition above -- community support -- was not met, this grant proposal is declined. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 18:40, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

If in the future the active contributors community becomes interested in this initiative, it will be welcome as a grant proposal and you'd be welcome to re-submit it. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 18:42, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Few suggestions

I liked the project goal and i planed long time ago to start a similar project in Bangladesh. Regarding this project i have a few suggestions which might be helpful to achieve the project goal.

In the brief description it is mentioned that the photographer members will join this project and by reading the full proposal and the comments i understand that the total number of participants are not that big. So what you can do is ask to join the local photography groups. Every university should have its own photography community, you can find the local photography groups in Flickr, Google Plus , Facebook and so on. You should ask them to join and there is chance that a good number of photographers will join the project and submit photos. In the worst case if no one join the project then at least a big number of people are informed that something big is happening and you will get better response in your next session of the project.--Nasir Khan Saikat (talk) 06:04, 21 June 2013 (UTC)