Announcing the 2008 OSNews Article Contest
Linked by David Adams on Fri 18th Apr 2008 17:38 UTC
OSNews, Generic OSes Regular OSNews readers will notice we've had a drop-off in original articles over the past year or so. That's something we'd like to change. We'd like to encourage OSNews readers to submit articles by staging a contest wherein the best articles will be judged by OSNews staff and readers, and the winners will receive valuable prizes. All submitted articles that meet our submission guidelines will be published at OSNews. In addition to wanting articles to publish, this is also a talent search of sorts. We're hoping to identify talented OSNews readers to fill the ranks as editors and regular contributors. If you think you have the skills and desire to be a part of OSNews, please enter the contest, or just contact us. Read more for details on the contest.
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Comment by Kroc
by Kroc on Mon 21st Apr 2008 08:45 UTC
Kroc
Member since:
2005-11-10

I think this competition is flawed, in that what you are asking for is too broad; not in allowed topics, but content-structure.

It's like asking everybody to go away and choose their favourite thing ever, and at the end see which one is best. There's no "best", it's all a general sort of mish-mash.

You need to have one thing consistent between the entries so that some metric of quality can be judged. I would say that there should be a three point outline, or a limit on the number of words (something between one to three thousand) or some unifying quality between entries.

Reply Score: 2

RE: Comment by Kroc
by David on Tue 22nd Apr 2008 02:58 in reply to "Comment by Kroc"
David Member since:
1997-10-01

I can see your point. However, to extend your analogy, I'd say that this is like a "pick your favorite thing ever" contest wherein we will judge it on a common standard, for example, usefulness or beauty.

We'll be judging these articles on a pretty simple (though certainly subjective) set of criteria: interestingness, quality of research, appropriateness or topicality with the OSNews mission, and overall technical quality of the writing. A longer article may gain points for research, but if it's too rambling, it will lose points for interestingness or writing quality.

Last time we did a contest we restricted the topic a bit more. I wanted to give people a freer hand this time. We'll see how it turns out.

Reply Parent Score: 1