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<< Writing contests

The International writing contest is a simultaneous contest held on many language Wikipedias. The English contest was shorter than the others, running for only a week at the end of the month, but the basic rules are the same. Please see the meta page about the contests for the combined results in all languages.

1. Articles must nominated before the end of March 31 (PST).
2. Any article can be nominated if it has been newly written in March, or if it had fewer than 2000 characters on the revision before the start of the month.
3. Self nominations and more than one nomination from the same author are allowed. Teams of authors can also nominate their projects; collaboration is encouraged!
4. All themes are allowed. There are no restrictions about the topic of the article. But no copyvios, please.
5. Contest observers: please feel free to comment on the articles below.
6. The judges will decide on a list of top articles. A final list will be released on Monday, April 18.

Judges

+sj +, Dysprosia, Jmabel, sannse

Judging

• Wikipedia:International writing contest/Judges' comments

Winning articles

The top six articles have been announced. They are:

1. Apollo 8
2. Reformation in Switzerland
3. Spring Heeled Jack
4. Kreutz Sungrazers
5. Oakland Cemetery
6. Automatic number plate recognition

Honorable mention:

• Diamond (excellent work; didn't quite meet the qualifications)

Thank you to everyone who participated in the contest!

Nominated articles are listed below. Link to the title, and list date significant work was started and primary authors (if appropriate). Note: relevant dates/times are PST.

Oyama v. California

• Initial version: Mar 5, last eligible version: Mar 28
• Main contributors: Rid G

Discussion of a Supreme Court case.

Oakland Cemetery

• Initial version: March 1, last eligible version March 13:
• Main contributors: Uberpenguin

My my... I'm quite flattered by this nomination since this article was just something I viewed as of local interest and a nice thing to write in my spare time one week. I just wanted to comment on the obvious lack of images in my article. I realize that this contest is more about the prose than the media content, but I'm the first to recognize the value of some well-placed photos. I've talked to a local photographer Wikipedian who thereafter took several photos at Oakland. He then dropped off Wikipedia for a couple of weeks but seems to be back now, so I'm just waiting for him to ready the results. The related dialogue can be found on User_talk:Autiger -- uberpenguin 00:46, 2005 Apr 4 (UTC)

Just got in contact with Autiger again and am working on the images now -- uberpenguin 05:07, 2005 Apr 10 (UTC)

Military budget in the United States

• Initial version: March 20, last eligible version March 31:
• Main contributors: Aratuk

Terri Schiavo

Article too long as of March 1.

Moorgate

• Initial version: March 11, last eligible version March 31:
• Main contributor: Juntung

2005_Britannica_takeover_of_Wikimedia

• Initial version: lost through history moves, only salvaged eligible version March 31
• Main contributors: many.

Drought

No significant change this month

Spring Heeled Jack

• Initial version: March 6; last eligible version: March 31
• Main contributor: Shauri

The Old Man and the Sea

under 2000 chars as of March 1; now well developed.

• Initial version: March 1?; last eligible version: March 31
• Main contributor: DanielNuyu

Xanadu House

• Initial version: March 12; last eligible version: March 31
• Main contributor: Wackymacs

Kreutz Sungrazers

created March 23.

• Initial version: March 23; last eligible version: March 29
• Main contributor: Worldtraveller

Apollo 8

Lots of tabular/template data; right around 2000 chars as of March 1; totally changed since then.

• Initial version: March 4, last eligible version March 31
• Main contributor: Evil Monkey

Reformation in Switzerland

1925 characters before March 7, 2005

• Initial version: March 7; last eligible version: March 31
• Main contributor: Lupo

Lansdowne portrait

• Initial version: March 18; last eligible version: March 20
• Main contributors: Neutrality

Franklin B. Gowen

• Initial version: March 2; last eligible version: March 19
• Main contributors: Slambo

Tooth enamel

• Initial version: as of Mar 8; last eligible version: March 30
• Main contributors: Dozenist

significant rewrite (to say the least) on March 20 by Dozenist

Nancy Ward

Was a one-sentence stub until completely rewritten on March 27. (self nomination)

• Initial version: March 14; last eligible version: March 28
• Main contributors: Rick K 08:24, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

Automatic number plate recognition

• Initial version: March 27, last eligible version March 31
• Main contributors: violetriga

New article (27th/28th) with newly created images. Self nomination. violet/riga (t) 18:06, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Exploding whale

Interesting article, well written. (self-nomination - you work out who I am) 203.35.154.254 23:59, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

sadly disqualified. <explodes>

Diamond

• Initial version: on March 1, rewritten starting March 3, last eligible version March 31
• Main contributors: Bantman , Jasper , Hadal

Was large before, but was totally rewritten over the last month beginning March 3 [1]. I don't believe 2000 characters remain from that version of the article we started with. Partial self-nom; significant contributions also from Jasper and Hadal. - Bantman 00:26, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC) (<-- still Mar 31 PST)