La Manchuela de Albacete, 2017 Activity report 1 General concept Within the communities that form Wikimedia, there has been for years the figure of Wiki Takes. It consists on taking pictures of a place to be used in all wikimedia projects, uploading them to Wikimeia Commons and then using them in the Wikipedias, Wikivoyage and other projects. To this activity of taking images can be added the one of editing in the projects themselves. Spanish local chapter, Wikimedia España, has carried out several of these activities in different places of the Spanish geography. Until now we had limited ourselves to small places, sometimes as small as a building, in other cases extended to an entire municipality. On the other hand, Wikimedia España supports the initiative No Municipality of Spain without a Photo, which seeks to have at least one representative image of each municipality in the state. When it started almost 25% of the municipalities were not visible in Commons. The figure has been reduced to 15% but still high. In addition, these missing municipalities tend to be Carcelén had just two pictures in Commons. concentrated in specific comarcas. It is therefore appropriate to propose activities at the regional level. This activity combines the Wiki Takes structure with the comarcal scope.. Why la Manchuela La Manchuela de Albacete comprises an area of 1750 km2, populated over 28 000 people in 24 municipalities. Its geographic definition is recent and its administrative reflection -Mancomunidad de la Manchuela- includes El Herrumblar, a Cuenca municipality which we have left out of the activity due to simplification needs. There is also the Denomination of Origin La Manchuela, for wine, whose geography is somewhat more extensive. Of its 24 municipalities, seven did not have - as of January 21, 2017 – any representative photographs in Commons. In fact six of them had none at all, while the seventh -Mahora- had only one picture of Our Lady of Grace. Five municipalities had a single photo and another five only two photos each. In addition to this, even municipalities with many photos -Casas-Ibáñez being The Manchuelan plain in Golosalvo, one of the the most pointed case- suffered from municipalities with n photo in Wikimedia the lack of images of some or even Commons. many of its most significant places. Although la Manchuela de Albacete was not the worst represented comarca in Commons, it lacked enough images to raise our interest in going there and taking them. In addition, the land is generally flat and has an easy access from both 2 Valencia and Madrid. The number of municipalities is manageable. It should be remembered that we had never tried an activity of this extension before, so it was not only a question of executing, but also of learning in order to engage more complex areas. La Manchuela de Albacete and its municipalities The municipalities that form the comarca are as follows: Photos (Commons Municipality Area (km2) Population 21/01/17) Abengibre 30,77 782 0 Alatoz 63,86 610 1 Alborea 72,05 754 2 Alcalá del Júcar 146,82 1250 169 Balsa de Ves 76,35 172 0 Carcelén 75,36 546 2 Casas de Juan Núñez 88,98 1382 2 Casas de Ves 125,09 666 13 Casas-Ibáñez 103,22 4658 700 (aprox) Cenizate 63,26 1174 1 Fuentealbilla 108,29 1901 0 Golosalvo 69,18 114 0 Jorquera 67,97 400 1 La Recueja 29,74 275 0 Madrigueras 73,31 4724 145 Mahora 108,14 1422 0 Motilleja 23,82 555 1 Navas de Jorquera 42,26 524 0 Pozo-Lorente 80,96 415 2 Valdeganga 70,76 1991 1 Villa de Ves 57,54 59 28 Villamalea 127,99 4106 74 Villatoya 18,82 115 2 Villavaliente 34,84 238 7 Total 1759,38 28833 1151 The comarca is a plain on the northeastern corner of the province of Albacete. It also comprises two deep valleys; the Hoces del Cabriel the make the limit with the Land of Valencia, and the very narrow Júcar river valley, that crosses the comarca west to east from Valdeganga. National road N-322, which links Requena with Albacete, crosses the plain north of Júcar river, from Villatoya to Mahora, passing through Alborea, Casas-Ibáñez, Fuentealbilla and Golosalvo. Between this road and the province of Cuenca are Motilleja, Madrigueras, Navas de Jorquera, Cenizate and Villamalea. Regional road CM-332, which connects Ayora with Albacete, serves the southern part of the comarca: Carcelén, Alatoz, Villavaliente, Pozo-Lorente and Casas de Juan Núñez are on this route or its immediate vicinity. 3 The central part of the territory is marked by the Júcar river canyon. On the western part of the river route is where Valdeganga, Jorquera, La Recueja and Alcalá del Júcar are placed, all four by the river bank, while Abengibre lays few kilometers to the north. The eastern part is known as Tierra de Ves –which includes the present municipalities of Balsa de Ves, Casas de Ves and Villa de Ves- whose administrative centers are on the northern plain but with their municipal territories crossing the valley. Elements of interest As a norm, we make lists of the things we find interesting to photograph. Those lists include some items that are found on all municipalities, but also things that can only be found in some places or that are unique to a given location. Some of the things we wanted photographed were monuments –both architectural and natural- but also items that were not monumental in any sense, in some cases they weren’t even beautiful. Among the things we wanted to photograph in all cases there were town halls, churches, schools, Guardia Civil barracks, bullrings, theaters, washhouses, bridges, and agricultural cooperatives. As usual, we also looked for manhole covers -sewer, water or electricity supplies and the like- as long as they bear the name or coat of arms of the population. Construction of the railway line from Baeza to Utiel was started but never Cubas is a hamlet in the municipality of Jorquera. It is on a narrow sector of the Júcar valley, which finished. It would have crossed the is a listed natural protection area. territory and there are many remnants of it scattered along several Manchuelan municipalities. Castles were a particular problem in this event. At first we were interested in all of them, but in Manchuela there is a castle –the one in Alcalá del Júcar- that had already been extensively photographed. As we were trying to focus on the unrepresented parts of the comarca, we assigned this castle a very low priority. Another peculiar case was Casas- Ibáñez. There were already more than 700 images in Commons, mostly from s Panoramio. Although many of these photographs are interesting for various reasons, they posed serious classification problems and somethimes did not represent all the elements that were sought. So in Casas- Ibáñez there were some elements that were sought and others that were not. La Gila. There were many photos of Alcalá del Júcar The same thing happened with but none at all from this part of the municipality. 4 Villamalea and Madrigueras, where we were looking for more specific pictures. In general terms, items that were already well represented in Wikimedia Commons were not the target of this activity or some conditions were asked (for instance, there were pictures of the exterior of the church of Alcalá del Júcar, so we asked for photos of the inside). With all of these premises in mind, a list of 247 items was made. Municipality Proposed targets Assigned points Abengibre 9 48 Alatoz 9 22 Alborea 11 24 Alcalá del Júcar 19 39 Balsa de Ves 8 42 Carcelén 13 33 Casas de Juan Núñez 8 21 Casas de Ves 12 27 Casas-Ibáñez 12 17 Cenizate 11 23 Fuentealbilla 17 70 Golosalvo 9 42 Jorquera 15 41 La Recueja 9 42 Madrigueras 9 18 Mahora 11 52 Motilleja 4 10 Navas de Jorquera 7 32 Pozo-Lorente 5 11 Valdeganga 12 29 Villa de Ves 7 13 Villamalea 11 20 Villatoya 10 24 Villavaliente 9 15 Total 247 715 Preparation Contest concept The idea of the contest was to distribute the whole lot of target among three teams, so each one would have to take care of only a part of the job. As some things were more difficult to find and access than others, a point system was put in place. Most activities were measured in terms of points rather than number of items, and contestants took points quite seriously, so that many of the spots that seamed difficult in the beginning where in finally done. Making a list of objectives distributing them La Manchuela is not the kind of region that fills pages in the tourist guides. Its main attractions are natural areas along the Cabriel and Júcar rivers and Alcalá del Júcar, hanging on the canyon side and with a very photogenic castle. 5 On the other hand the event was meant mainly with municipalities with no or few pictures in Commons. Based on these data, we began a list that was subsecuently expanded. We included churches, town halls, schools, cooperatives, hermitages, washhouses, bridges, cemeteries and Civil Guard barracks, as far as we could locate them. Some elements that appeared in the search process were incorporated, such as the constructions of the unfinished Baeza-Utiel railway, houses of culture, some theater... or things as local as a street named after Andres Our secret plans explained on a whiteboard. Iniesta in his hometown, Fuentealbilla. Also included were pedanías -it is a region with few of them- which are small hamlets that do not constitute a municipality on their own, and some places depopulated by emigration.