Of all of the millions of subjects you can read about on Wikipedia, subjects relating to Africa have the least coverage. This is due to a number of reasons, but mainly because many people do not know that they can donate their images, videos and audio to Wikipedia.
We need your help to visually celebrate the richness, diversity and beauty of Africa.
Working or Rare, Fading or Threatened Traditional Crafts, Styles or Way of Working.
What is Wiki Loves Africa?
Wiki Loves Africa is an annual contest where anyone across Africa can contribute media that relates to that year’s theme to Wikimedia Commons for use on Wikipedia and other project websites of the Wikimedia Foundation. Wiki Loves Africa encourages participants to contribute media (photographs, video and audio) that illustrate the specific theme for that year. Each year the theme changes and is chosen by the community from universal, visually-rich and culturally-specific topics (for example, markets, rites of passage, festivals, public art, cuisine, natural history, urbanity, daily life, notable persons, etc).
When does it take place
The competition starts on 1st October 2017 and closes on 30th November 2017.
Winners will be announced around February 2018.
What prizes are up for grabs?
- 1st prize: US$600
- 2nd prize: US$400
- 3rd prize: US$200
- Organizer price: US$200
- Photo Essay Prizes : Women Working US$200
- Photo Essay Prizes : Rare, Fading or Threatened Traditional Craft, Style or Way of Working[1] US$200
Additional prizes in each category: a Wiki Loves Africa powerpack + t-shirt
Competition scope : examples to get inspired
The theme calls for photographs, videos and audio files that document all manner of occupations undertaken across the continent – formal and informal, contemporary and ancient, business-oriented and creative.
Competition rules
Images submitted to the Wiki Loves Africa contest may win prizes! There are a few rules to respect for the images to be eligible.
- Rule 1: All photos must be taken by the person submitting them. They can be either self-uploaded or uploaded during a registered mass upload session.
- Rule 2: Uploads can only be done from the 1st of October 2017 to 30th of November 2017. You can enter media that was taken at any time, even historical photographs (as long as you own the copyright on these photographs), but they must be uploaded during those dates.
- Rule 3: Images must be free of watermarks or embedded signatures to be eligible. All entries will automatically be submitted under a free licence such as Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 (CC-BY-SA 4.0) (or in the public domain). Read more about the cc-by-sa license here.
- Rule 4: All eligible pictures will be categorised under Images from Wiki Loves Africa 2017, this will be automatically assigned during the upload process. (Feel free to add other relevant category descriptions to make the images more usable.)
- Rule 5: Participants must enable e-mail on Wikimedia Commons so they can be contacted should their image be chosen for a prize.
Notes on video
Other files, such as audio and video, are welcome. For videos, please submit files in the following formats:
- .ogg
- .ogv
- .webm
Due to complex intellectual property rights issues, Wikimedia Commons can not accept video content that is 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. It is suggested that you upload video content one video at a time.
