International Wikinews Writing Contest
The 2005 International Wikinews Writing Contest (IWWC) is intended to be the first Wikinews contest spanning multiple editions of the project. It will hopefully lead to a higher overall output of stories, and better cooperation across languages. It is inspired by the first writing contest on the English edition of Wikinews, with some modifications to increase the duration of the contest.
Please translate the rules and instructions into other languages. The log and registration section should remain on this central page.
Translations: /Bg /De /Es /Fr /It /Ja /Nl /Pl /Pt /Ro /Sr /Sv /Uk
The rules
- Contestants can sign up until September 1, 2005 for early entry.
- Every contestant has to write a minimum of one article per day of at least paragraphs of their own writing.
- Articles that are copyright violations or deleted through community processes for other reasons are disqualified.
- For this contest, "every day" means one article for each day of the week in your timezone (i.e. a submission on 00:01 on Thursday and 23:59 on Friday would still count).
- Every contestant receives 3 initial "jokers". These can be used to skip a day.
- Contestants can earn new jokers (see below).
- When a contestant doesn't submit an article for a day, and has no jokers left, they drop out of the race.
- The contest runs until only three contestants remain, at which point the prizes are distributed.
Jokers
Writing a story every single day can be hard work. Wikinewsies have families, lives, and accidents. Jokers can be used to "take a break" and not write a story for a single day. In order to use a joker, simply fill the dayslot by saying "First joker-~~~~", "Second joker", etc. If you do not submit an article, someone else may spend your joker for you to prevent you from dropping out. If you wish to drop out, you should explicitly say so.
You start with three jokers and can earn new ones. There are two ways to earn additional jokers:
- Submit more than one article on a given day. For every additional article you publish, you receive one joker. Of course, the same standards apply for these articles as for any other: three paragraphs of your own writing, no violation of community policies.
- Submit an article which contains original reporting, such as a quote, an exclusive photograph, an interview, or the results of investigative research (this should be documented on the talk page of the article).
Late entry: article debt
It is possible to join the contest after September 1, but you will have accumulated an article debt for the days you have not participated. For example, if you join on September 15, you have an article debt of 14 articles. This debt can be worked off over time, but while you still have it, you have to write at least 2 articles per day instead of just 1.
Contestants
Please note your time zone or location. Register before September 1 to avoid article debt!
Either use your account on Meta to sign, or link to your local user page, e.g. n:en:User:Eloquence.
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Log
Link to the articles you have written here in the form [[n:language code:Article title]].
September 1
Judges
Any Wikinewsie who is not a contestant can register here to be a judge. If you object to a particular registration, please note so in the appropriate section. Judges mediate in case of disputes, hand out jokers (by commenting below the submission in the log), cross out contestants, and decide which article submissions should be rejected.
There must be at least one judge speaking a language before members of that language edition can participate.
English
Prizes
Feel free to submit prizes here. These will be shared by the three remaining contestants (if they can reach no consensus on how the prizes should be distributed, they can continue the contest until only one contestant remains).