Commons:Wiki Loves Africa 2023/jury

Wiki Loves Africa 2023

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Wiki Loves Africa’s Winner selection process

The Jury process for the Wiki Loves Africa competition is elaborate and complex, as with all international photographic competitions. The process is sectioned into the efforts that are explained below. Please note that there are two separate, unrelated judging elements

The national juries, and
The international jury.

The national juries select images from their country categories to review and reward. The international jury process is entirely separate, with all images being reviewed, and a select few making the short list and final cut. We do not rely on the national teams or juries for their selections. This is intentional and due to the fact that not every country that contributes has a national team or jury process.

Image Checking

First, there is an initial effort during the competition timeframe and the month after to ensure that all images are categorized properly and are vetted for copyvios and other issues. This process (still ongoing) is undertaken by a few dedicated and tireless Wikimedia Commons contributors who are incredible (thank you Wilson, Anthere, Ceslause and Mermoze). You can see the extent of the work at this year's Image checking page.

National jury process

National organising teams select their own juries. Guidance with regards to this process is supplied in the National Judging Charter, however the management and organisation - and final results - are entirely independent of the International team. You can view the national winners here.

International Jury process

International Photography Jury

This year’s jury was compiled and arranged by Wilson and Nonny Ntlahla. The process is conducted on Montage and has four specific sequential parts: a yes/no round, a rating round, a ranking round and a final ranking discussion.

Juror	Biography	Photo
Eric Chidom, Nigeria	Eric Chidom is a documentary photographer and filmmaker, based in Enugu State, Nigeria, with 3 years of professional experience. Eric is all about creating lasting memories and capturing them for generations to come. His main focus is documenting culture, especially in South-Eastern Nigeria, as a way to learn more about my own culture but also showcase it to the world. Eric is a partner and Head of Productions at Ònye Ijé Productions, which specialises in producing research-based documentaries focused on Nigerian stories and culture. He is also the Lead Creative at Dorick Productions, a media company focused on event photography and videography, including weddings and conferences.
Musa Umar, Nigeria	Musa Umar is a graduate of mass communication degree from Hassan Usman Katsina Polytechnic. He's a co-founder of Nigerian Commons Photographers User Group. He's a photographer with mostly light skills and composure. He has more experience in in-depth pictures, action pictures and pictures that tell stories. He believes pictures tell stories better!
Michael Maggs, United Kingdom	Michael Maggs is a photographer, a former chair of Wikimedia UK and a former bureaucrat on Commons. In 2013 he set up the Wiki Loves Monuments contest in the UK, and led the UK efforts to 2019. Michael's contributions to Commons can be found here.
Benoît Prieur, France	Benoît Prieur has been a Wikimedian for almost 13 years. He loves contributing to Wikidata, OpenStreetMap and Wikimedia Commons where he has already uploaded more than 41.000 personal photographs. Professionally he's a Computer Engineer and writes Technical Books about Programming.
Nadine Le Lirzin, France	Nadine Le Lirzin has been contributing to Wikimedia projects since April 2008. Mainly on the French version of Wikipedia (creation or correction of articles, addition of references or wikiification), with some modest incursions into other language versions of the encyclopedia, as well as Wikimedia Commons. Nadine is a board member of Wikimédia France, and she is also an amateur photographer. Nadine's Flickr channel can be found here
Yazeed Kamaldien, South Africa	Yazeed Kamaldien is a a journalist who has worked in print, radio, television and documentary filmmaking. He has reported from various countries, including conflict zones such as Yemen, Sudan, Syria and the Gaza Strip. He is a founding member of the International Association of Religion Journalists (IARJ) aimed at promoting accuracy and fairness in religion reporting. He was born in Cape Town, South Africa.
Wilfredo Rodríguez, Venezuela, Brazil, Canada	Wilfredo Rodríguez is from Venezuela and Brazil, but currently lives in Quebec, Canada. Rodríguez joined the Wikimedia movement over a decade ago, during which time he has contributed over 40,000 images (many of them Quality Images or Featured Images) to Wikimedia Commons. His photos have been displayed in some of the world’s largest exhibitions. More about his journey as a Commonist can be found at this Diff article.
Nicky Newman, South Africa	Nicky Newman is a photographer and documentary filmmaker who studied Journalism & Media and Psychology at Rhodes University in the late 1980s. She established a documentary production company, See Thru Media, producing, directing, shooting, and editing award-winning documentary films for the broadcast industry and developmental sector for over 20 years with a focus on arts and culture. Newman is focusing on stills photography, was a finalist in the Hopper Art Prize 2020, and shortlisted for the Zeiss Photography Award in 2017. She is working on her first photography book, developing a number of new photographic bodies of work, is completing a feature length documentary on theatre playwright and director Brett Bailey, and is currently completing the RMB Talent Unlocked program for artists for 2021. Nicky's website can be found here
Bouba Kam's, Côte d'Ivoire	Aboubacar Kamaté is an Ivorian videographer and video director. He won the Best video quality prizes for Wiki Loves Africa 2020 and Wiki Loves Africa 2021.
Summer KamalEldeen, Egypt	Summer Kamal Eldeen Mohamed Farag is an amateur photographer who retired as a teacher a year after joining the Wiki Competition Team in November 2019. She started photographing in 2016 and made many photography trips inside and outside Egypt, such as Kenya, India, Vietnam and Morocco. Summer has won many local and international awards, the most important of which were: Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Africa, the European Union,Hipa, El Sawy Culturewheel, Alexandria Governorate, revitalization of tourism, the Library of Alexandria, and the Academy of Scientific Research, Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum International Photography Award 2023 Hipa for the month of February, A gold medal in the Photo Society competition in Sweden 2023. Summer has also organized the Wiki Loves Africa 2019, 2020 local contest,and organized the Wiki Loves Earth 2022 local contest and participated in judge of the Wiki Loves Earth 2021 contest.
Rachel Zadok, South Africa	Rachel Zadok is an editor, writer and designer from South Africa. She is the managing editor of Short Story Day Africa, a project to promote and develop African writers. She is the communications oversight manager for Wiki In Africa, and has also acted as a member of the Wiki in Africa board for six years.

International Video Jury

This year’s is the first time a video jury has been arranged. It was compiled and arranged by Wilson and Isla Haddow-Flood. The process is conducted via Google forms and has three specific sequential parts: a yes/no round, a rating round, and a final ranking discussion.

Juror	Biography	Photo
Rumbi Katedza, Zimbabwe	Rumbi Katedza is a filmmaker and writer, who produces independent fiction and documentary content through her production company, Mai Jai Films. She has produced films, TV series and music videos, and has also directedsegments for broadcasters that include BBC, Al Jazeera and Apple TV. In 2022 she released her first feature documentary, the award-winning Transactions, which was nominated for the German Grimme Prize and for Best Documentary at the Africa Movie Academy Awards. Rumbi is a former Festival Director of the Zimbabwe International Film Festival. From 2019-2020 she was the JMD Manyika Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research and an Honorary Fellow at the Film Study Center at Harvard University. She holds an MA in Filmmaking from Goldsmiths College, University of London.
Muhammed Amine Benloulou, Algeria	Muhammed Amine Benloulou is a Wikimedian from Algeria, as well as an artistic manager, film director, and hip-hop culture researcher. He is the artistic director of the WikiGhonya project and served as a community liaison in the MENA region for the Wikimedia Foundation Sound Logo team. Notably, he was the project manager for the Wiki For Climate Change 2023: Right to a Healthy Environment campaign in the Maghreb Region, where he oversaw the production of the promotional video. In 2023, he released "The Black Panthers of Algeria: A Story of Struggle in the Land of Revolutions," a short documentary film that examines the relationship between the African American liberation movement and the Algerian revolution.
Rachel Zadok, South Africa	Rachel Zadok is an editor, writer and designer from South Africa. She is the managing editor of Short Story Day Africa, a project to promote and develop African writers. She is the communications oversight manager for Wiki In Africa, and has also acted as a member of the Wiki in Africa board for six years.
Fayçal Rezkallah, Algeria	Fayçal Rezkallah is a photographer and director of a photography agency in Oran, Algeria. in 2012, he created ISOCLUB, a photography club which organizes an international photo festival called Les journées de la photo d'Oran. Fayçal exhibits his work in Algeria, but also in South Africa, Germany, France, Tunisia, London and is often a jury for international photography contests.
Gaye Mapote, Senegal	Gaye is a journalist and publication director of the infomedia27 site. He is also a lecturer in institutes in Dakar.

First review 2023

This year, we again asked the community to participate in a clean up of the images submitted to Wiki Loves Africa 2023. The community members who participated were:

This First Review round is to reduce submitted images to a manageable number for a more in-depth selection by the international jury. The First Review Team chose yes (to keep) or no (to drop) each image assigned to them according to the following criteria:

Images must be relevant to the theme.
The obvious quality of the image - is it obviously blurred, pixellated, etc.
The deletion of any selfies, very small images or blurred and unclear works.

Thank you so much for their work on this first round!