Wiki Loves Monuments—winners announced
Amid great anticipation, the international prize winners have just been announced for the fourth annual Wiki Loves Monuments, now the world's largest photographic competition and one of the biggest events on the Wikimedia movement's calendar. The competition is held throughout each September, for which there are three selection criteria: technical quality (sharpness, use of light, perspective etc.); originality; and usefulness of the image for Wikipedia. To be eligible for the international finals, each photograph must (i) be self-taken, (ii) be self-uploaded during September 2013, (iii) be freely licensed, (iv) contain an identified monument, and (v) be nominated through one of the national contests.
These rules and criteria are mostly adopted for the national contests as well, which each send up to 10 images to compete at the international level. This year, 52 countries took part, up from 35 last year; an unexpected bonus was the inclusion of Antarctica, supported by Wikimedia Argentina. Many of these national competitions were made possible by Wikimedia chapters, which offered them help in promotion, legal issues, finding sponsors and partners, and the funding of prizes.