The DAL Writers' Challenge

Day 1,160, 18:00 Published in Canada Canada by Dominik

The quality of journalism is generally bad. Let's face it: vote buying, one-picture articles and all-around poorly-thought-out stuff. Historically, the DAL has been supportive of the arts and culture and I want to bring that aspect back. Hence, I am proud to reveal.... the DAL Writers' Challenge.

How it works: we announce a topic and anybody who has a newspaper in Canada can write on said topic. So long as they put the [WC] tag anywhere into the title of their article (e.g. "[WC] Why Vote-buying degrades journalism"). All articles appearing with that tag until the deadline (two or three days from when the contest opens) will be graded by our multipartisan panel of judges. At the moment, this consists of:

Plugson (head judge)
Dominik
Addy Lawrence
Acacia Mason
Banach


The averages of the grades will be taken and the winner will recieve all the prize money (funded by the DAL). Normally, the prize money will be 10 GOLD. However, since this is the first edition and we need to attract writers, the prize will be a whopping 15 GOLD! This will all go to the top writer.


So, let's get on with this week's contest. As has been mentioned, the winner will recieve 15 GOLD. The contest opens at midnight today (Sunday) and will close at midnight on Wednesday. Anything written on the topic with the [WC] tag will be graded and entered into the contest. No need to contact any of us, just write away.

This week, we will have 4 topics to choose from since it's the first week.

1. "Multi-working general managers"

2. "A time of peace, a time of inner-conflict"

3. "Ad module lost, a better world?"

4. "Election platforms - better than spam"


There are a few basic rules to keep in min😛


-There is a semi-strict 700 word limit. Going over is not a huge deal, but if you go too far to embellish your article, it will cost you.
-No leniency on the deadlines.
-Plagiarism will result in disqualification and most likely a life-time ban from the contest.
-We make the topics open-ended enough to allow creativity to grow. However, if the panel unanimously decides that you are completely off-topic, your article will not be judged.
-Not encouraging you to break eRepublik's rules. Not that we care, but if the article gets taken down, we probably won't be able to judge it.


So start writing away as soon as that clock hits midnight, eRep time (Pacific). The winner of the 15 GOLD will be announced sometime Thursday.


Good luck!