FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions

  • May I submit multiple research entries in this competition?
    Yes, but we strongly advise participants to not spread their efforts too thin, since producing one or two strong entries is probably a better idea than producing three or four much weaker ones.
  • May multiple individuals collaborate in this competition?
    This is informally permitted.  However, each entry must be submitted by a single registered participant, who will receive any UNZ.org communications, will be the sole recipient of any prizes or recognition, and will be responsible for any allocations of awards to his collaborators.  UNZ.org will not be responsible for any disputes that may arise, so participants should be sure to make their own arrangements before hand.
  • Doesn’t Wikipedia prohibit original research?
    Yes, but that’s not what is required under this competition. UNZ.org contains a vast quantity of the already published high-quality articles and books which Wikipedia considers the most appropriate citations for its articles. The “research” involved in this competition consists of locating interesting and important facts in those previously-published materials and using these to extend or expand Wikipedia. As a simple example, UNZ.org contains the near-complete archives of many dozens of once-prominent publications whose current Wikipedia entries are minimal or even just “stubs.” Using these archives to greatly enhance the details of those articles would certainly increase the usefulness of their system. The same thing is true for a large fraction of the hundreds of thousands of individual authors found in UNZ.org.
  • How do I submit my entries?
    You email them to [email protected] as described on the Rules page.
  • Do I need to produce any Wikipedia material before I register?
    No.  You can register now, and only need to produce your Wikipedia research before you submit the related entry to this competition, since your entry should reference the Wikipedia additions.

 

Regarding the Website

  • The PDFs don’t seem to appear—what’s the problem?
    It’s probably your browser, or its PDF-reader add-on.  Chrome and most versions of other browsers seem to work fine, but a particular recent version of Firefox reportedly has problems reading PDF files.
  • How do I extract text from the PDFs?
    For Chrome and various other browsers, you simply position your mouse over the PDF, highlight the desired text, then copy-and-paste it into some other system.  Due to OCR errors, you will probably need to proof read and slightly correct the extracted text.
  • Am I allowed to use the text of the PDFs?
    Under the 2001 Supreme Court decision Tasini v. New York Times, a distinction is made between the copyright status of the particular displayed copy of an article, such as a magazine page, and the underlying text of the article.  Although the particular periodical pages displayed on UNZ.org have either been licensed or are copyright-expired, this may or may not also be the case for the underlying text, and republishing that text in some other form may be prohibited under copyright law.  However, limited portions of such text may generally be used elsewhere under the “Fair Use” exception to copyright requirements.
  • How do I print PDF pages?
    For Chrome and various other browsers with built-in or plug-in PDF readers this can be done fairly easily.  Just right-click directly on the PDF page to be printed, select the “print” option, and send the page to the printer.  Note that this method requires each page to be printed separately.

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