Vietnamese writers honoured for understanding of Poland

ABO/NDO- Nine outstanding contestants of this year's Wikipedia writing contest have been recognised by the Polish Embassy in Hanoi for their efforts in boosting understanding of Poland.

The awards ceremony took place on December 15, and Dang Thu Trang, from Hanoi, won the first prize of 10 million VND for her 120 pieces about Poland and its people.

Tran Minh Duc received the second prize of 5 million VND for his 87 articles, and Nguyen Hong Nam received the third prize of 3 million VND for his 48 articles.

In addition, the Embassy gave out six consolation prizes, each worth 1 million VND.

Third Secretary of Economic Affairs of the Polish Embassy in Vietnam Alexander Nowakowski said: "Chopin, Marie Curie, the "Kazik" architect in Vietnam – 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 Vietnam."

Dang Thu Trang (second from left) wins first prize (Photo: Polish Embassy in Hanoi)

The contest's head judge Hoang Viet 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 Hanoi 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 Hanoi, Thai Nguyen, Nghe An, Ho Chi Minh City, Lam Dong, and others, bringing in 407 entries on Wikipedia under the theme "Famous and Unknown Poles.".

(Source: NDO)