MONTREAL – Amateur photographers will be out in droves in Montreal on Sunday as they compete to capture local landmarks in a contest organized by online giant Wikipedia.
The event, called Wikipedia Takes Montreal, is designed to increase the number of free-use photos to illustrate the city’s encyclopedia entries.
Organizers say Montreal is the first Canadian city to be targeted for a Wikipedia photo scavenger hunt, although similar events have taken place in cities around the world since 1998.
“A lot of the Wikipedia articles about Montreal aren’t properly illustrated,” said Benoit Rochon of Wikimedia Canada, a division of Wikipedia and one of the event’s organizers. “They either don’t have a picture, or don’t have a good one.”
That should change this weekend, since Rochon expects the event to produce more than 10,000 photos.
The contest is simple. Organizers have put out a list of nearly 400 Montreal targets, ranging from the well-known to the obscure.
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Each one is given a point value, with faraway and lesser-known targets worth more.
For example, a shot of the oft-photographed Olympic Stadium is worth a single point, whereas an elusive picture of a surfer on the Lachine Rapids or of the ecomuseum in the distant suburb of Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue will net the lucky shutterbug a cool 100 points.
Individuals and teams have five hours to capture as many landmarks as they can. Prizes are awarded to the three teams with the most points and also to the photographer with the best overall photo.
All of the photos must be free-use and be available online for all to see and use.
Rochon said the interest has been “way above expectation.” As of Friday morning, he had 225 registered participants, making Montreal’s photo hunt event the most popular in Wikipedia’s history.
In comparison, New York and Berlin each had about 60 or 70 participants.
“We are far, far above what any other city has done,” Rochon said.
Katherine Houle, a 28-year old Montrealer, will participate in the event with her partner, Kelley.
They are planning to take their car and concentrate on some of the more remote areas to the east and west of the city in order to get more points.
Although she says she’d love to win, the contest for her is mostly about contributing to Wikipedia and learning a little more about Montreal.
“It’s really a way to make the city new and exciting again,” she said.
“It’s a way of looking at it through new eyes and discovering areas that I’ve never explored before.”
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