One contest I thought about is superscrieri (superwritings). That got me thinking of other contests, such as fiction in Canada or the US Visa Lottery.

The reason why I could never participate in Superwritings (although there’s a party of me that would love to) is a small clause in their rules:

poți fi descalificat dacă nu te înscrii cu datele personale complete şi reale

..meaning..

you can be disqualified if you don’t register with your complete and real personal data

It’s as if the rules were drafted by Google bots, isn’t it?

(btw, did you know that I had just added rel=”author” to all my blogs, pointing to my InBonobo Google Plus account, and within days Google cancelled its authorship program? Had they not, my monkey photo would’ve shown as author of my articles, fulfilling the homo fictus premise : ) –see  seo-author

This is particularly painful to me, since back in high school, Iosif Sever Georgescu, my physics teacher, failed me in his course hoping to get me to take private classes with him (for money). Fortunately, within months of passing with 5 or 6 despite answering perfectly, we all had to write a major exam (the last generation to do so), where I got well over 90%. The only reason I was able to pull that off was that the names were sealed, stamped and signed and whoever was correcting my paper did so without having known my name, for my name was mud (lyrics) with most teachers (Cruceru excepted) due to reasons that had nothing to do with my scholastic ability.

Much has changed since. We have Google insisting on real names (and look how popular that made Google+), NSA is collecting everything and silly, uninformed individuals, who should know better (yes, you, FFFF) falling into the “real name trap” as well. Most importantly, we have a plagiarizing prime-minister who has never done anything relevant or of substance. He’s never come up with ideas worth remembering (except for being paranoid) and he wins elections only because disadvantaged, uninformed people have come to recognize his name and the name of his party, despite his lack of positive achievements, and associate them with handouts.

It seems to me that if the Superwritings contest organizers really want to gain respectability among people who think, they should REQUIRE anonymity (which includes, to my mind, pseudonymous publishing). Unless, of course, journalism has never meant powerful ideas, “decat” (only) resonating names. Such as, for instance, testimonialERs or Elena Stancu, from Teleleu.eu, who will sell you Unicorns (alright, I haven’t listened to her, but that’s the feeling I got looking at the static photo).

LE: Do I really need to know her name, listen to her voice or know what she looks like in order to appreciate her? What about journalists with facial deformities, with funny names or speech impediments - do they have an equal chance of winning?!?
Moreover, with such examples of “deontology” is there any wonder that Mircea Badea was voted the best Romanian journalist?

So how would you indulge your writing bug and competitive spirit simultaneously if Superwritings wants only people they already know? For once, you could write a novel in NaNoWriMo or CBC’s Canada Writes. Or play the US Visa Lottery (PDF, Wiki, USCIS, dvlottery), though this is hard even for the “creme de la creme” (/procesul-obtinere-vizei-colectie-umilinte/).

Whatever you do, good luck!

Sources / More info: ffff-register, #nymwars, ss-testimonials, seo-author