Wikimedia looking for your photos of Oz

[bobt]

Wikimedia needs your photographs to build pictorial archive of Australia's cultural heritage.

Australia has for the first time been included in the Wikimedia Foundation's annual photography competition that seeks images for its online encyclopaedia.

Wiki Loves Monuments is the largest photography competition in the world.

Last year's event led to more than 275,000 images of historic buildings, monuments and cultural heritage sites being added to the Wikimedia Commons library.

All entrants agree to add their images to the library under a creative commons licence, which means they can be freely used and shared by others as long as the photographer is credited.

"It is creating a visual archive," said Gideon Digby, president of Wikimedia Australia.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-07/wikimedia-photo-competition-launches-in-australia/8878500

[Tannin]

Be warned:

(1) You are giving up your copyright. (Technically, you still hold the rights, but anyone can use your image without payment.)

(2) Wikimedia is not a charity. It pretends to be one and pretends to be a non-profit, but the reality is that they have a huge income from suckers donors all over the world, which piles up in vast and murky cash reserves. Most of what they actually do spend goes to overpaid insiders. Contributors get nothing. It cost $3 million to run the web servers - but Wikimedia sucks in more than $70 million a year from well-meaning individuals, and from some of the massive corporations that it "just happens" to support.


On Wikipedia's own donations page we learn of a moving story of a student in Agnam-Goly, a Sahelian village in north-eastern Senegal with a population of 3,143 inhabitants, who expresses how he'd love to give money to the foundation.
"I wish I had money to donate to Wikipedia," writes Adama Diop. Does he know wealthy Westerners are using the donations to buy cameras and travel to pop concerts? Or that the foundation has more cash than it knows what to do with?


(3) A prominent example is the infamous monkey picture copyright disgrace. Wikimedia went gonzo on trying to justify its outright theft of a copyright image from a photographer, pretending that a monkey was the real owner of the copyright. (But did we see Wikimedia offering to pay the monkey? Take a guess.) But why would they do that? Who stands to gain more than anyone else from yet further weakening of photographers' copyright? Well, Google, of course. Google makes billions - yes, literally billions - from playing fast and loose with other people's copyrighted work. And guess who slipped the Wikimedia scamfest charity two million US as a bribe donation to overpay Wikimedia insiders for boondoggles important work like going to pop concerts? Google. You join the dots.


Wikipedia won't stop begging for cash - despite sitting on $60m https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/01/penniless_and_desperate_wikipedia_sits_on_60m_cash/


Wikipedia Foundation exec: Yes, we've been wasting your money http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/10/08/wikipedia_foundation_money_in_wrong_place/


Wikipedia doesn't need your money - so why does it keep pestering you? https://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/20/cash_rich_wikipedia_chugging/

[ameerat42]

Whatever happens, DON'T EAT Tannin!!

Ta for the head-ups.

They certainly won't be gettin' any of my (poor-as-they-might-be) pics from the wide brown land
(or any other shape and colour place).

[Tannin]

By crikey, you'd have to be hard up for a meal.

Serving suggestion: boil for three weeks with a lump of scrap iron and a pinch of salt. When cool, discard the Tannin and eat the scrap iron.

[Steve Axford]

Be warned:

(1) You are giving up your copyright. (Technically, you still hold the rights, but anyone can use your image without payment.)

(2) Wikimedia is not a charity. It pretends to be one and pretends to be a non-profit, but the reality is that they have a huge income from suckers donors all over the world, which piles up in vast and murky cash reserves. Most of what they actually do spend goes to overpaid insiders. Contributors get nothing. It cost $3 million to run the web servers - but Wikimedia sucks in more than $70 million a year from well-meaning individuals, and from some of the massive corporations that it "just happens" to support.




(3) A prominent example is the infamous monkey picture copyright disgrace. Wikimedia went gonzo on trying to justify its outright theft of a copyright image from a photographer, pretending that a monkey was the real owner of the copyright. (But did we see Wikimedia offering to pay the monkey? Take a guess.) But why would they do that? Who stands to gain more than anyone else from yet further weakening of photographers' copyright? Well, Google, of course. Google makes billions - yes, literally billions - from playing fast and loose with other people's copyrighted work. And guess who slipped the Wikimedia scamfest charity two million US as a bribe donation to overpay Wikimedia insiders for boondoggles important work like going to pop concerts? Google. You join the dots.


Wikipedia won't stop begging for cash - despite sitting on $60m https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/01/penniless_and_desperate_wikipedia_sits_on_60m_cash/


Wikipedia Foundation exec: Yes, we've been wasting your money http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/10/08/wikipedia_foundation_money_in_wrong_place/


Wikipedia doesn't need your money - so why does it keep pestering you? https://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/20/cash_rich_wikipedia_chugging/
I hope you never use Wiki as a reference.
I will put my fungi photos up under a Creative Commons license and that doesn't allow magazines or other profit making organisations to use them. I've had NatGeo pay for Creative Commons pictures, so what you say is totally wrong.

[Tannin]

Not so Steve, two different ways.

(1) There are several different CC licences, you have chosen the non-commercial one. Good for you.

(2) Wikimedia is not a non-profit. They make a fortune, and spend it on themselves. The contributors who actually create the content (i.e., you) don't get a stale cracker.

Use it as a reference? Hell no, not without some careful checking. Some of their stuff (the chemistry pages for example) is generally excellent. And a lot of it is deeply tendentious and badly slanted. Use with extreme care, and always check.

[Steve Axford]

I always try to check everything, no matter what the source, but Wicki is very good for the non-contentious stuff. I don't begrudge those who run it from making a living, I just wish there were more people who tried to spread knowledge for free.

[Tannin]

Steve, read up on the cabals and the cliques and - especially - the rorts. Seriously, we are talking multi-million dollar rorts here. Read up on it for yourself. You know what gets to me: these holier-than-though scum trick people like my elderly father into giving them money as if they were a non-profit "helping spread knowledge". How would he feel if he knew that money - money he would otherwise have donated to a real charity that actually spends it doing good works - was being p*ssed up against the wall? These scumbags beg for and get 21 times more money than they actually use to run the encyclopedia. 21 times. Again, check the facts for yourself - and I don't mean believe whatever you read about it on Wikipedia.

[Steve Axford]

So, you don't think Wiki does any great service to the world? Did your elderly father give them money he couldn't afford?
I find it amazing that you can get so incensed about an organisation that clearly does lots of good by providing you and I and anyone who wants it with high quality information for free. They ask for a donation occasionally, but with no high pressure phone calls, and apparently, quite a few people respond because they want Wiki to continue. Would you like to see their demise? Can you think of any other source of general information that is as wide ranging or as generally accurate?

- - - Updated - - -

A note on giving away your copyright. While the Wiki photo contest does insist on you giving a complete Creative Commons licence, which means anyone, anywhere can use the photo, they do have to give you credit and you still have the right to sell any higher res versions. You have to ask yourself, is my photo ever going to be sold to anyone? Or would I like the chance that it would be spread across the internet for all to see? If I had a nice photo of the MCG, I know that I wouldn't be worried that I'd be sacrificing a large income for exposure. Some of my photos make quite a bit of money, but they would still make the same even if the low res versions were donated with a full Creative Commons license.