Wiki Loves Monuments 2011: experiencia en España y reflexiones desde la difusión del patrimonio cultural

Wikipedia came into being in cyberspace. Its early years were marked by asynchronous work by users located all over the world who hardly ever related on a personal level outside the net. With time, some of the volunteers met at what were called wikimeetups, encounters initially aimed at tightening bonds which did not bring about any direct improvement to the project content. Face-to-face initiatives later took place that involved not just volunteers but also cultural entities. The most recent event and the one with the greatest impact was Wiki Loves Monuments 2011, a competition to photograph monuments in 18 European countries, including Spain. The high level of participation led to 160,000 photographs of monuments being taken, with Spain occupying the third place in terms of number of photographs. In this paper we explore the origins, implementation, development and results of Wiki Loves Monuments. The success of the 2011 edition and requests from other countries has led to organization of Wiki Loves Monuments 2012, which will be held at the global level.