Introducing the Monthly International WikiLeaks Central Essay Competition. Brilliance equals payola.

Welcome to the first monthly WikiLeaks Central Essay Competition 2011.

WikiLeaks is a disruptive innovation in the field of publishing. Both a new kind of institution and an idea, Wikileaks and 'scientific journalism' have emerged from, and are created for, the information age.

A donor, who wishes to remain anonymous, approached WLC and offered to fund a monthly essay competition to elucidate foundational concepts and currents that underpin and run through the shifting boundaries of our social, economic, and political landscapes. They hope that this competition will inspire discourse about the 'most important things' regarding 'human matters'. Their objective is to help the public examine, discover, and understand the topography of life and civilization in the modern era. They are especially keen to hear the essayist write on and about the fundamental threads of thought woven through the WikiLeaks phenomenon.

THEME

How can individuals and societies protect themselves against the encroachment and abuse of government power in the modern age?

HOW TO ENTER

1.) If you do not already have one, register for a WLC account.

2.) Send an email to admin@wlcentral.org with the header: Competition: TITLE OF ESSAY by WLC ACCOUNT NAME. Insert your essay into the body of the email.

3.) See submission guidelines and rules below.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES AND RULES

1. Eligibility/topics. The Monthly WLC Competition is open to (i) any registered member of wlcentral.org except editors and WLC essay competition judges. Regular WL Central contributors, who are not editors or judges, may enter.

a. Submitted essays must focus primarily on the topic or theme of the month and can be any length. Essays must be text based (we prefer html) and emailed to admin@wlcentral.org.

b. WL Central will have the right to publish the essay submission without payment to the author but with attribution to the author under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Please clearly indicate that your material is for publication and indicate the name you would like to appear as author. We will edit for spelling and grammar, but not content. Submissions are allowed one hyperlink under the name of the author.

c. Essay submissions previously submitted to an earlier monthly WLC essay competition may not be again submitted for a subsequent competitions.

d. Any quotations or copyrighted material used in the essay must be identified properly. Failure to identify non-original material will result in disqualification. Each registered wlcentral.org account may enter only one essay. The essay must have a title.

e. Essays can be written in any language.

2. Selection of winners. The winning essay will be selected by WL Central's editors based on, among other factors, (i) newsworthiness; (ii) supporting research; and (iii) organization and writing style. (iv) We will consider the essay's capacity to engender online discourse in the form of comments and retweets. The competition finalists will be published on WLC prior to the final selection. The competition winner will be notified on or about July 15, 2011, and an announcement of the winner will be sent via email to the winning entrant shortly thereafter and published on the WL Central.

3. Prize. A cash prize will be awarded for the winning essay ($US 100 US). WL Central may, in its discretion, decide to split prizes or award additional prizes.

4. Deadline for submission. All essays submitted for the competition must be received by WL Central by no later than 11:59 p.m. GMT, June 30, 2011.

5. In the event that none of the essay submissions are judged to be of suitable merit or unforeseen technical difficulties, WLC retains the right to roll the award to the next month's competition prize.