International writing contest

ja +/-

The International writing contest is a contest that takes place in different languages of the Wikipedia Universe. It will start at March 1st (2005) and will run the whole month.

Report on the Single Contests

German Wikipedia: Schreibwettbewerb

Currently (October 2007) the seventh Contest at the German Wikipedia is over (105 nominations in 4 categories [1st: Natural Science and Mathematics; 2nd: Humanities and Social Science; 3rd: Technics, Informatics and Sports; 4th: History). The winning article was Virushülle, followed by Max Brauer and Der General (1926). This was the first time the contest was split into 4 sections (previously, there were 3). Every section had two Judges. Seven of them met in person at the Judging Meeting in Berlin, the last judge joined in via a chat.

The 8th Writing Contest was hold in Spring 2008. The article about the Theatrophon won the first prize.

Japanese Wikipedia: 執筆コンテスト

On Japanese Wikipedia, six judges have been elected. This will be:

• Kasuga
• Azu
• 竹麦魚(Houbou)
• Safkan
• Auf
• 燈馬想

And the winners of the Japanese contests are:

1. 染色体説 - Chromosome theory (of inheritance).
2. 転炉 - Steel converter.
3. レオシュ・ヤナーチェク - Leos Janacek (Czech composer).
4. インフルエンザウイルス - Influenzavirus, flu virus.
5. 委任統治 - League of Nations Mandate.

The details of the contest, the nominees and the winners can be found at ja:Wikipedia:執筆コンテスト.

Dutch Wikipedia: Schrijfwedstrijd

In the Dutch Wikipedia the Judges are elected. This will be:

• André Engels
• Elly
• Fransvannes

The winning article is: History of the Dutch Spelling by Pepíček. The next best article, also very good, is Invar by Johan Lont. On 19 April 2005 the Jury published the winner and the jury report (in Dutch of course).

Apollo 8 patch, emblazoned with the names of its crew

English Wikipedia: International writing contest

Timeline: As above, any article started during the month of March (or at most 2000 chars at the beginning of the month); the contest was only announced in mid-March, however.

Judges: sj, sannse, dysprosia, jmabel

Winners:

1. Apollo 8 (Evil Monkey) [far and away the winner]
2. Reformation in Switzerland (Lupo)
3. Spring Heeled Jack (Shauri)
4. Kreutz Sungrazers (Worldtraveller)
5. Oakland Cemetery (uberpenguin)
6. Automatic number plate recognition (violetriga)

Honorable mention goes to w:Diamond (It had well over 2000 chars at the start of the month; but was torn down and rewritten by three main contributors (Bantman, Jasper and Hadal). It was also the only real collaborative effort among the submissions.)

Arabic Wikipedia: حملة إنشاء و تطوير المقالات

A writing contest has been held in Arabic Wikipedia for one day in 28 August 2006 , this Event has been called : "Arabic Wikipedia's day" and it is associated with advertisments in arabic blogs and some arabic newspapers like Alriyad newspaper in order to increase the wiki popularity and spreading the wiki culture in the Arabic world .The logo of the Contest was : "Share your Knowledge" and "Contribute with your Knowledge" .

It is supposed that the second Ar_Wikipedia's day will happen in 30 September , and there is primary agreement to make it at last Saturday of every month .

The Idea

I would like to introduce the idea of an international writing contest as a parallel event of all interested Wikipedias.

The Background

In Berlin in December 2004 the critique arose that there was not enough connection between the work done in the different Wikipedias in their different languages. I think that an international writing contest (linking all wikipedias) could be a chance to cooperate and work together. The second writing contest on the German Wikipedia will start on March 1st, so I thought we could start an international project. There have been contests on the Dutch Wikipedia nl:Wikipedia:Schrijfwedstrijd, the German Wikipedia de:Wikipedia:Schreibwettbewerb and the English one en:Wikipedia:Danny's contest and as far as I can see they worked really well.

The Idea of the Contest

The writing contest is a way to merge the fun of writing articles with the effect of getting high quality works for Wikipedia, and to increase the number of featured or excellent articles. The best nominees will be selected by a group of judges for each of the different languages. An international writing contest would take place over the same time scale on all the different Wikipedias, but I think the individual Wikipedias should have their own specific "rules" for the contest. I'll give the rules of the German contest as an example (see below), but those of the Dutch and the English Wikipedias differed in detail. There should hopefully be no problems and the first rule for all should be "Have fun"!

At the End there will be a Top 10 of every language which joins the contest. We don´t want to find the "Article of the World" (I think nobody is able to do this), but we want to find the best articles joining the contest in the different languages.

"The Rules": A German example

Judges

In the German Wikipedia the writing contest starts with a nomination of the judges through an "election". Some Wikipedians will be nominated and everyone who is interested is allowed to vote for three of those candidates for a month. Once the five nominees with the highest votes say OK to their election the contest can start.

On the Dutch wikipedia 3 judges have been selected, including the winner of last years contest.

Rules

1. All articles nominated during the nomination period of one month will be part of the contest.
2. The leadership of the contest is totally placed in the hands of the jury. All nominators have to "sign" that they will accept decisions and votes from the jury without trolling or sulking in the 'virtual corner' (!).
3. All articles can be nominated if they are newly written or are based on a short article (stub) with less than 2000 letters (without tables, navigations etc. - the jury will set the rules).
4. Self nominations and more than one nomination from the same author are allowed. Teams of authors can also nominate their projects. The nomination of articles by a judge is forbidden.
5. All themes are allowed and there are no restrictions about the topic of the article as long as the topic fits in the Wikipedia.
6. For new Wikipedians there was a page with some help links and a short description of how the idea and Wikipedia work (de:Wikipedia:Schreibwettbewerb/Hilfe)
7. All nominated articles will be listed on a review page, that will be put in place to help the author(s) with their articles (de:Wikipedia:Review/Schreibwettbewerb). On this page, all interested users can help the authors with tips and critical questions. The judges are excluded from participating to the review process.
8. The judges decide after the nomination period on a 'top 10 articles' and have to explain their decisions in short summaries. They should announce the decision 14 days after the nomination period has ended.

Prizes

There are actually no prizes for the contest because the fun and the nomination as a winner is of course the best prize to get. In the German contest however, some users, on a personal basis, offered to give the winners prizes, like CD-ROMs, books or T-Shirts. This will be of course handled by the individual Wikipedias.

Time Scale

Independent from the decision here and in other Wikipedias the German writing contest will follow the shown schedule:

• 1st February 2005: Nomination of judges begins
• 20th February 2005 (roughly): First press release
• 1st of March 2005: Nomination of the articles begins
• 31st of March 2005: Nomination period ends
• 15th of April 2005: Judges announce the decision on the top 10 articles. The second press release shall be made then too.

Joining Wikipedias

I hope a lot of Wikipedias will join the project. Please put a link to the writing contest in your Wikipedia on this list:

1. German: de:Wikipedia:Schreibwettbewerb -- Necrophorus 08:26, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
2. Dutch language (Belgium and the Netherlands): nl:Wikipedia:Schrijfwedstrijd oscar 17:52, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
3. Japanese ja:Wikipedia:執筆コンテスト --Aphaia | WQ2翻訳中 | talk 14:01, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
4. English: en:Wikipedia:International writing contest. Neutrality 00:17, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
5. Romanian: ro:Wikipedia:Concurs de scriere --Emily007 15:57, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Nominated articles

• • The Dutch jury has decided that 10 articles will be considered. Ellywa 17:30, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)