Meetups (Kopdar) are always highly anticipated moments for Wikimedia volunteers. Aside from being a space to connect, meetups often spark extraordinary collaborations. Not too long ago, I had the opportunity to participate in a very unique meetup event titled WikiRempah in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia on Sunday, August 9, 2026.

True to its name, this event highlighted the richness of spices and culture, but with an interesting cross-cultural twist: we documented the culinary and cultural heritage of Eastern Indonesia, yet channeled it into Sundanese-language Wikimedia projects and other global platforms. This activity was not just about editing; it was a contribution marathon involving four Wikimedia projects simultaneously.

Crafting Recipes and Visualizing Flavors

The first session, which was highly memorable for me, was culinary documentation. Eastern Indonesian cuisine, famous for its rich herbs and spices, was the main star. We went to an authentic Eastern Indonesian restaurant, photographed, and documented these signature dishes, then uploaded the best visuals to the Wikimedia Commons repository so they could be freely used by anyone. One example I uploaded was a photo of a Ayam Woku Khas Sulawesi.

Pijri Paijar, Ayam Woku khas Sulawesi, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

We then moved on to the Sundanese Wikibooks project, which is currently still in the incubator. There, we worked together to write down these authentic Eastern recipes in Sundanese. Translating the spice measurements, cooking methods, and ingredient names into our mother tongue offered a unique sensation, as if we were serving Eastern Indonesian flavors right in the kitchens of the Sundanese people. On that occasion, I tried writing down the recipe for grilled skipjack tuna (ikan cakalang bakar).

Bridging Cultural Heritage to the Sundanese Wikipedia

After being satisfied with crafting recipes, the meetup’s focus shifted from the dining table to historical sites. Eastern Indonesia has an abundance of cultural heritage sites whose histories are vital to the civilization of the archipelago. Unfortunately, information regarding these sites is still very minimal, especially in regional languages.

This is where we contributed through the Sundanese Wikipedia. We wrote and expanded new articles discussing cultural heritage in the eastern part of Indonesia. Writing about geographically distant topics in Sundanese is a tangible manifestation of Wikimedia’s mission: freeing knowledge for everyone, in the language closest to them. I wrote several titles, including Bénténg Middelburg (Middelburg Fort), Bénténg Amsterdam (Amsterdam Fort), and Bénténg Barneveld (Barneveld Fort).

Bringing the Dictionary to Life with the Sounds of Spices

The highlight of this WikiRempah Meetup, and in my opinion the most interactive activity, was the voice recording session. Since the overarching theme was “Spices,” we compiled a long list of vocabulary related to spices and typical Indonesian cooking ingredients.

Using the Lingua Libre software, we took turns recording the pronunciation of this spice vocabulary one by one. The atmosphere became very lively and fun as we had to ensure our Sundanese articulation sounded clear and precise. After the recording process was complete, the audio files were not just left there. We immediately embedded them into the existing entries in the Sundanese Wiktionary.

Now, the digital dictionary does not only present text but also “speaks.” Anyone looking for entries about spices in the Sundanese Wiktionary can instantly hear how the word is pronounced orally by a native speaker. Some of the recorded words included lauk (fish), sagu (sago), and sampeu (cassava).

A Comprehensive Contribution Experience

Oceanmuse, Kopdar WikiRempah Bandung, Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY 4.0

Participating in the WikiRempah Meetup gave me a new perspective on how the Wikimedia ecosystem works. From a culinary dish and a historical story, we could unpack them into photos on Wikimedia Commons, recipes on Wikibooks, encyclopedic articles on Wikipedia, to audio pronunciation recordings on Wiktionary and Lingua Libre.

This activity proves that contributing to the Wikimedia movement is never boring. There is always room for creativity, cross-cultural collaboration, and new ways to preserve the richness of the archipelago in the digital realm. Endless thanks to the organizing committee for this incredibly valuable and memorable opportunity. My hope is that a multi-contribution meetup model like WikiRempah can inspire other communities to keep exploring!

As we get closer to the next Wiki Loves Monuments competition in Iran, we wanted to take a moment to look back at the 2025 edition.

A year has passed since photographers across Iran once again took part in Wiki Loves Monuments Iran. The 2025 edition was organized by the Iranian Wikimedians User Group, with the help of volunteers and members of the Wikimedia community. The competition invited people to photograph Iran’s registered cultural and historical monuments and share their images freely on Wikimedia Commons.

We now have some distance from the competition and its results. This gives us a good chance to look at what happened, what we learned, and what we want to take with us into the next edition.

Wiki Loves Monuments Iran 2025

The Iranian competition ran from 1 to 31 October 2025.

During that month, participants contributed 2,513 eligible photographs. In comparison, the 2024 competition received 2,722 eligible photographs.

This was a small decrease, but the number of uploads tells only part of the story.

Iran has more than 33,000 registered monuments, spread across the country. Some are famous and already have many photographs. Others are much less known, and many still need better documentation on Wikimedia projects.

The goal of Wiki Loves Monuments is not simply to collect as many photographs as possible. We want to create a useful and freely available visual record of cultural heritage. A good photograph can illustrate a Wikipedia article, help people learn about a monument, or preserve a view of a place that may change in the future.

This was also an important lesson from our 2024 competition. Each edition helps us understand a little better how we can improve the contest and how we can encourage people to document more of Iran’s cultural heritage.

Selecting Iran’s finalists

After the competition ended, the national jury reviewed the photographs and selected the ten images that would represent Iran in the international round.

The first-place photograph showed Dayr-e Gachin Caravanserai, photographed by Hossein Pourakbarian.

Second place went to Mohammad Ataei for a photograph of the historic district of Gorgan, and third place went to Hadi Dehghanpour for a photograph of Arak Bazaar.

The ten selected photographs covered different parts of Iran’s heritage. They included caravanserais, historic urban areas, mosques, a bazaar, a castle, a monastery and other monuments.

These ten photographs then moved on to the international stage of Wiki Loves Monuments.

An exceptional international result

The 2025 international competition brought together photographs from 56 national contests. In total, almost 228,000 images were contributed by around 4,000 photographers around the world. Each national competition could send up to ten photographs to the international round.

The final result was especially memorable for Iran.

Four photographs from Iran were selected among the international winners, including both first and second place.

The Iranian winners were:

• 1st place: Dayr-e Gachin Caravanserai, by Hossein pourakbarian
• 2nd place: Mehmandust Tower, by Mehdi Akbari
• 5th place: Arak Bazaar, by Hadi Dehghanpour
• 22nd place: Seyyed Mosque in Isfahan, by Siavash Banaei

The full international results are available on Wikimedia Commons.

Seeing an Iranian photograph take first place was already something to celebrate. Having photographs from Iran in both first and second place made the result even more special.

The first-place photograph of Dayr-e Gachin Caravanserai had also won first place in the Iranian competition. It was chosen as the best image first by the national jury and later by the international jury.

But another result was just as interesting for us.

The photograph of Mehmandust Tower, which finished second internationally, had been ranked sixth in the Iranian competition.

This is a good example of why each country sends ten photographs to the international round instead of only its national winner. Different juries can see different strengths in a photograph. An image that places sixth in one jury may become one of the strongest photographs in the international competition.

The same happened, to a smaller degree, with other Iranian finalists. The photograph of Arak Bazaar was third nationally and fifth internationally. The photograph of Seyyed Mosque was fourth nationally and later finished 22nd in the international results.

For us, this showed the strength of the national top ten as a group, not only the strength of the first-place photograph.

More than the winning photographs

The international results were a great achievement for the photographers and for Wiki Loves Monuments Iran. But the winning images are only a small part of what the competition produced.

The 2,513 eligible photographs from the Iranian competition are now part of Wikimedia Commons.

They are freely licensed. They can be used on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. They can also be reused outside Wikimedia by anyone who follows the terms of their licenses.

Many of these photographs will never win an award, but that does not make them less useful.

A clear photograph of a little-known monument can be more valuable to Wikipedia than another beautiful photograph of a landmark that already has hundreds of images. A photograph can also document a building, detail, landscape or condition that may not look the same ten or twenty years from now.

This is one of the reasons Wiki Loves Monuments continues to matter.

What we learned from 2025

Looking back, one lesson is clear: the success of Wiki Loves Monuments cannot be measured only by the number of uploads.

Iran received fewer eligible photographs in 2025 than in 2024, with 2,513 compared with 2,722. At the same time, the photographs selected by the national jury had an exceptional result internationally.

This does not mean that the number of contributions is unimportant. We still want more people to take part, and we want to document more monuments. But we also want to help participants create photographs that are useful for Wikimedia projects.

The international results also reminded us of the importance of having a strong and varied national selection. The ten photographs sent to the international round should represent different photographers, places, styles and ways of looking at cultural heritage.

Another important goal is to encourage more photography of less-documented monuments.

With more than 33,000 registered monuments in Iran, there is still a great deal of work to do. Famous places naturally attract photographers, but Wiki Loves Monuments can have an even greater long-term impact when participants visit places that have few photographs or no useful images on Wikimedia Commons.

We also want to keep making the connection between photography and open knowledge clearer.

Uploading a photograph is an important first step. Correctly identifying the monument, adding useful information, using the right monument ID, and eventually adding the photograph to Wikipedia articles can make that contribution much more useful.

Looking toward the next edition

As the next Wiki Loves Monuments Iran approaches, we want to build on what we learned from both 2024 and 2025.

We want to reach new photographers while welcoming returning participants. We want to encourage people to explore monuments that receive less attention. We want more high-quality photographs, but also more photographs that fill real gaps in Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia.

Most of all, we want to continue building a free visual record of Iran’s cultural heritage.

The international success of the 2025 competition gave us something special to celebrate. Four Iranian photographs were among the international winners. Two of them took the first and second places in the world.

But the lasting result of the competition is much bigger than four photographs.

It is the thousands of freely licensed images that are now available to everyone.

The Iranian Wikimedians User Group would like to thank every photographer who participated, the members of the national jury, the volunteers who helped organize the competition, and the international Wiki Loves Monuments community.

As we prepare for the next edition, we hope even more people will join us in photographing, documenting and sharing Iran’s cultural heritage.

There are more than 33,000 monuments to document.

There is still a lot to photograph.

Every August 19, the world celebrates the camera as a tool of connection — and for the free knowledge movement, it’s also a reminder of what a single photograph can unlock. On Wikimedia Commons, a well-lit image of a market stall, a sacred hill, or a rare frog isn’t just decoration. It’s the visual backbone that lets millions of Wikipedia readers actually see the subject they came to learn about.

Copyleft was never a synonym for “low quality”

There’s a persistent myth that free-licensed photography is a compromise, that the “good” images live behind stock-photo paywalls, and Commons gets the leftovers. Our community’s work says otherwise. Across campaigns like Wiki Loves Africa, Wiki Loves Earth, and Wiki Loves Monuments, Malagasy wikimedia contributors have uploaded more than 7,000 photographs to Wikimedia Commons; many shot with the same care, composition, and technical rigor as a commissioned assignment. Free licensing describes who can use an image, not how well it was made.

The real ROI of a free photograph

For a professional photographer, “return on investment” usually means a sale. But contributing to free knowledge pays out differently and almost certainly further. A single well-tagged image uploaded once can illustrate an article read in dozens of languages, get pulled into news graphics, textbooks, museum panels, and other Wikimedia projects, and keep circulating indefinitely without another transaction. For our Malagasy contributors, individual campaign contributions have gone on to be reused across as many as 46 different language editions of Wikipedia and its sister projects: a reach no single print sale or stock license could match in a such tight timeframe, and without any marketing budget. That’s the ROI that matters here: not one payment, but compounding, borderless visibility and most importantly a meaningful added value to the global knowledge.

That’s the ROI that matters here: meaningful added value to the world’s shared knowledge.

A two-way exchange, not a donation

Framing this as simple generosity undersells it. Contributing quality images to Commons is a genuine exchange:

• The global community gains verifiable, freely reusable visual documentation of places, cultures, and species that were previously invisible or poorly represented online, closing real gaps in the world’s shared reference library.
• The contributor gains a public, permanent portfolio with real analytics of reuse and reach, skill-building through structured campaigns and peer feedback, and a credited body of work that follows their name across every project it touches.

It’s less a donation and more a long-term investment both sides keep drawing value from.

Madagascar is bringing professional-level work to the table

What stands out in our community’s activity isn’t just volume: it’s intent. Wiki Loves Earth contributors documented Madagascar’s biodiversity with the eye of field photographers. Wiki Loves Folklore campaigns paired careful photography with multilingual article-writing, treating imagery as genuine documentation tool, not an afterthought.

Then comes the real richness of being part of a community. With proper support, new contributors gain lasting skills on composition, licensing, and metadata: the fundamentals that separate a snapshot from a usable, professional-grade Commons file.

This World Photography Day, We want to remind that free knowledge photos never had license to be anything less than good. It never was.

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Wikimedia Community User Group Madagascar contributes to Wikipedia and its sister projects.
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Commons Quality Images (COM:QI) was created during June 2006. The purpose of COM:QI was to identify high quality photographs taken by Wikimedians and made freely available to the community at large through Commons. As of 14 June 2026 over 450,000 media files, mostly photographs, have been recognised through this process. Alongside photographs, QI has Microscopic images, animated GIF’s, and graphical works including our own QI seal (pictured).

From the Beginning

In September 2005 Commons became live, just 6 months later I was encouraged over by User:Pfctdayelise who had been there from the first month. In June 2006 User:Pfctdayelise was searching to put together collections of images created by Commons users as rotating background images, or calendars to help promote the project. I tried to help, we could not even find a common subject matter consisting of reasonably sized and quality printable images. Wikimedia Commons had some great photos, some of which had been featured, but a substantial portion were images scraped from other sites like NASA and Flickr.

That started me thinking about how we raise the profile of community uploaded images and encourage efforts to improve them. Having already contributed to some Good Articles over on en.Wikipedia I thought we could create a similar project but for photographs.

Creating the project I saw some key necessities: it needed to be efficient with clear standards, while not taking weeks to decide the outcome. Most importantly it needed to focus only on images that had been taken by members of the Commons Community and that once recognised it could not be taken away. From there working with User:Wikimol and others we built the project. We also created image guidelines which would enable consistent reviewing of nominations.

The image guidelines started out as;

1. Photographic images
   1. Low resolution / thumbnail. Photographic QP has to have at least 1.92 megapixels (=1600×1200, for example)
   2. JPEG problems. Too much compressed, too low JPEG quality settings in camera / when saving. Visible jpeg artifacts. => Use better quality settings (e.g. set JPEG “superfine”, shoot RAW, save in photoshop with max. quality)
   3. Noise problems, too much noise. Be it chroma noise, luminance noise, visible grain, scratches in scans… QP should not have distracting amount of noise when viewed in 100%
   4. Bad exposure. Overexposure, blown out highlights, underexposure, shadows details replaced by jpeg maps… In incorrectly exposed images, significant details in a significant part are lost.
   5. Color problems. Bad white balance. Distracting (typically purple) hazing at 100%. Color aberration. QP must have reasonable colors (which does not necessarily mean natural colors).
   6. Improper or undefined focus, insufficient depth of field. QP should have clearly defined focus, e.g. main subject in focus, foreground and background out of focus. Or the whole scene in focus. Counterexample – main subject blurry, foreground even more blurry, focus is somewhere between main subject and background. DOF could be low on purpose.
   7. Blur. Images blurred just because of shaking hand or subject moving too fast. Motion blur in QP has to have purpose.
   8. Poor lighting. Including: distracting reflections (usual problem with built-in flash), unintended vignetting, distracting harsh shadows. Generally bad lighting makes scenes with space look flat.
   9. Overfiltered. There are so many PS/Gimp filters. Rarely a better image is created just by applying more and more filters…
   10. Bad or nonexistent composition, unclear or nonexistent subject. QP should have subject and composition of the image should support depiction of that subject, not distract from it.
   11. Bad perspective, tilt, and other distortions. An eye (or, more precisely, a brain) is a sensitive detector capable of spotting even a small tilt … falling trees, churches, inclined water surfaces,… Images of architecture should usually be rectilinear and without too much perspective distortion.
2. Stitched images, panoramas.
   1. Panoramatic QP has to have a height of 800px min.
   2. Stitching problems. Stitched images should be without artifacts, colors and lightness should be the same across the image.

All of these may look familiar to many of you as they are still present as Commons:Image guidelines, the very same guidelines that every WikiLoves or similar competition uses as their rules. 

Now we had a process with guides, we approached User:LadyofHats who was known for the drawings she was uploading at that time. LOH was asked to create a seal which we could use to help identify successful photos, that seal is the one we continue to use. Some time during this the QI seal itself got recognised as a Quality Image.

In those early months every image was reviewed and the pages manually updated, a time consuming process that would occasionally be interspersed with edit conflicts. The community embraced QI and a new project called Valued Image emerged for recognising sets of image rather than individual images. It was the efforts of User:Dschwen, who had also taken on maintenance tasks, decided to create a bot that would do most of the work for us. Mike Peel continues to maintain the QICbot and has been invaluable at keeping it working, as of 16 June 2026 QICbot has performed 922,000 edits looking after QI tasks.

QI grew fast once the QICbot came on board. I stepped into the background watching the community grow QI. Over time many contributors have made QI. Like User:Poco a poco who presented at Wikimania in London on how QI helped him improve his contributions. For the curious there is an opt-in unaudited list of QI by photographers. Whether it’s one successful image or 20,000 of them they all make QI what it is. 

The future

I think some of QI’s potential still hasn’t been realised. I saw it as a historical record of the growth of photography, of something researchers could look back over and see how it has matured. Perhaps more could be done to integrate QI images in content on other projects as they are recognised as our better works. Maybe a bot could triage nominations to identify the more regular issues that cause images to be rejected, though the human touch should always remain the final judge. 

In the future, QICbot will reach 1 million edits, QI will reach 500,000 very soon. QI carries within itself a lot of untapped potential. 

Could it be time to consider creating a sister project for Quality Videos? I know one thing: there will always be enough high quality images created by Wikimedians to make a calendar for any subject. The challenge will be in choosing just 12.

I would must take a moment to acknowledge everyone who has already helped Commons Quality Images along it’s 20 year journey there has been so many as well as everyone who joins the efforts in future. It’ll always be nice to reflect and be able to say I was able to open the door to something so special. The future of Quality Images is now a journey the Wikimedia Commons Community will decide. 

QI’s prosperity comes from the collective effort of everyone! Perhaps this will encourage you to join the QI club.

For close to two years, my involvement in the Wikimedia ecosystem was mostly technical. I contributed through code during hackathons as a member of Wiki Mentor Africa. I understood the connections among platforms such as Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Wikimedia Commons. I knew their importance, but I also felt there was more I could do. Something was missing in how I was contributing.

That changed when I joined Africa Wiki Women and was introduced to the On-Wiki Skills Mentorship Program.

Entering Wikimedia Beyond the Technical Layer

I came into the program with one clear goal: to gain a deeper, practical understanding of how to contribute beyond the technical side of Wikimedia. I wanted to move from simply supporting the ecosystem to actively building knowledge within it.

The training opened my eyes to the structure and responsibility behind Wikimedia contributions. I learned that every Wikimedia project is guided by strong principles that protect the quality and reliability of information.

On Wikipedia, content must be notable, verifiable, and supported by reliable sources. On Wikidata, data must be structured, accurate, and referenced. On Wikimedia Commons, files must follow copyright and licensing policies.

These are not just guidelines; they are what make Wikimedia a trusted global knowledge resource.

Learning Through Practice

One of the strongest aspects of the mentorship program was its practical training. The program did not simply explain policies and standards; it required us to apply them through real contributions.

I learned how to properly reference articles, structure content, improve neutrality, and contribute according to Wikimedia standards. At first, this process was challenging. Finding reliable sources, understanding notability requirements, and writing neutrally required patience and attention to detail.

However, through continuous practice and guidance from the trainers, these concepts gradually became clearer and easier to apply.

The trainers also played a major role in making the experience impactful. Complex policies and technical concepts were broken down into simple, understandable steps, making the learning process accessible and encouraging.

Milestones That Changed My Confidence

One major milestone for me during the program was creating two articles and receiving a barnstar in recognition of my contributions.

That moment shifted my confidence completely.

For the first time, I felt that I was no longer just observing how open knowledge is built behind the scenes. I was actively contributing to the preservation and sharing of knowledge myself.

The experience helped me see Wikimedia differently. It became more than a technical ecosystem I contributed to during hackathons. It became a collaborative space where I could directly improve content, document knowledge, and support representation online.

Growing Beyond the Program

Beyond technical editing skills, the mentorship program also changed my perspective on community contribution and leadership.

Looking ahead, I plan to share what I have learned with my community and support the onboarding of new contributors. I am also stepping into a new role as a trainer for an April editathon, which reflects how much this experience has shaped my growth within the Wikimedia movement.

This journey has been both challenging and rewarding. It pushed me to learn, adapt, and contribute more meaningfully.

Wikimedia is more than a platform. It is a collective effort to make knowledge accessible to everyone.

And now, I am fully part of that effort.

Happy editing.