Now you can help Wikipedia love UAE
Online encyclopedia launches photography campaign to enrich entries on country
Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia, is running a monthlong photography campaign “Wiki Loves Emirates” in the UAE this month.
If you have used the Wikipedia in the past few days, you might have noticed a banner at the top of every Wikipedia page mentioning “Wiki Loves Emirates”. The Wiki Loves UAE campaign has been launched to improve one of the world’s most popular website’s coverage of the UAE, said Saqib Qayyum, a volunteer with the Wikipedia help desk.
15b page views monthly
The prominent Wikipedia editor hailing from Pakistan said the online photography campaign is conducted through a website that can be accessed at wluae.com According to the site, Wikipedia, which receives over 15 billion page views each month, doesn’t cover subjects on the UAE nearly as well as it does on all other parts of the world.
“Of all of the millions of subjects you can read about on Wikipedia, subjects relating to the UAE 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 photographs to Wikipedia,” the website says.
“Wiki Loves Emirates is a fun way to change that. This photography campaign is aimed at documenting the UAE through illustrations on Wikipedia.”
The website is calling people across the country to grab a camera and click photographs showcasing the country and upload them to crowdsourced Wikipedia, throughout the month of April.
Diversity of UAE
“We need your help to visually celebrate the richness, diversity and beauty of the UAE. We want to encourage more people and groups to get involved with Wikipedia and help us to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of the UAE.”
Qayyum said the photo campaign is themed around the cultural heritage of the country, both tangible and intangible.
The campaign is seeking photographs of the UAE’s cultural heritage in its broadest sense, such as historical buildings, ancient monuments such as castles and forts, archaeological sites, archaeological artefacts, traditional dishes, outfit, crafts and other related objects.
Photographs of traditional street life including souqs are also welcome.
Photographs of local social practices such as rituals, festivals, celebrations and images of performing arts such as local dances are also eligible for the campaign.