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The Wikipedia Takes The City events have been successful in getting new images for the encyclopedia. However the were a few issues that should be adjusted for future events.
Image quality
editSome issues I noticed with some images from the event were:
- Crooked images
- Out-of-focus images
- Dirty lenses
- Poorly framed shots
These issues could be addressed by simply mentioning them in the participants' instruction packets. Nobody wants to take a batch of useless photos because they had a thumbprint on their camera lens and I'm sure they wouldn't mind a simple reminder. If there is time before the event, participants could be directed to a page on basic photography tips. They should also be instructed to review the operation of their camera (for example, how to retrieve file names — see reason below)
Procedural/record keeping
edit- Images of notecards
- Participants in images
- Descriptive names of images
There were complaints on Wikimedia Commons regarding the many images of notecards with the codes of the goals, and I have to agree that it's rather cluttering of the team categories. Also the instructions to include photos of the notecards seemed to confuse some participants who simply took a single photo of a subject with one of the team members standing in frame holding one of the notecards.
I believe a better solution would be for each team to be issued a clipboard where they would record their camera's image file name followed by the goal code. They could include additional information such as coordinates if they have a GPS unit and they could add images not on the Goal list that they might consider worthy. The paper from the clipboard would be scanned in and added to their team category as an index.
Participants should also be instructed to avoid placing themselves in the images.
The image names as they are currently being recorded are not very descriptive. I propose that in the future the format for image names should be Goal name — team name — file number. This way every every image would have the subject's name in the file name.