Đặng Thu Trang (second from left) a participant from Hà Nội, won the first prize of VNĐ10,000,000 for her 120 articles. Photo courtesy of Polish Embassy in Hà Nội

Bảo Ngọc

HÀ NỘI — Nine outstanding contestants of this year's Wikipedia writing contest have been recognised by the Polish Embassy in Hà Nội for their efforts in boosting understanding of Poland.

The awards ceremony took place on Thursday, and Đặng Thu Trang, from Hà Nội, won the first prize of VNĐ10 million for her 120 pieces about Poland and its people.

Trần Minh Đức received the second prize of VNĐ5 million for his 87 articles, and Nguyễn Hồng Nam received the third prize of VNĐ3 million for his 48 articles.

In addition, the Embassy gave out six consolation prizes, each worth VNĐ1 million.

Contest winners posed for photos with the event's organisers. Photo courtesy of Polish Embassy in Hà Nội

Third Secretary of Economic Affairs of the Polish Embassy in Việt Nam, Alexander Nowakowski, said: "Chopin, Marie Curie, the "Kazik" architect in Việt Nam – all Poles – are well-known, yet many more Poles remain unnoticed. Thanks to the contest, more Poles are known, increasing the friendship between Poland and Việt Nam." 

The contest's head judge, Hoàng Viết Giao, was delighted with the contest's great outcomes and applauded the excellent submissions this year.

Giao revealed that, based on past competition experiences, the regulations for this year's contest had been modified and improved significantly.

He said: "This year's contest prioritises high-quality writing over quantity of entries. To this end, the panel has established a scoring scheme that gives high-quality articles ten times the points of low-quality articles and limits submissions to ten per day per participant.

"Participants are prohibited from utilising automatic translation tools to generate a flood of low-quality articles with the intention that the combined scores of all of these articles will outweigh those of the few high-scoring pieces," he added. 

The Polish Embassy in Hà Nội has been hosting the Wikipedia writing contest since 2019.

Participants write their own articles on Wikipedia and upload them in accordance with the guidelines to the contest's website, balan.vn. The person with the most points wins, which implies they have the most high-quality entries.

This year's contest drew 85 entrants from all over the country, including Hà Nội, Thái Nguyên, Nghệ An, HCM City, Lâm Đồng, and others, bringing in 407 entries on Wikipedia under the theme "Famous and Unknown Poles." VNS