>I would think that in such a contest...
>where the subject matter spans all continents yet the contestants are limited to regional areas, the winners would not be recognized by the community as real winners. Rather, I would think these "winners" would be seen by the community as those who were perhaps in the right place at the right time.

You mean the lucky ones.

>It should also be noted that in such a contest as this, the name of the contest would be all important. If the name and promotion for such a contest is described as applying to the world community, then I would think that the majority of the comunity (including myself) would see this contest as a farce.

The name is not representing a local contest. I think most of the people see it as a top contest in its domain, in fact, the biggest so far and that is excluding most of the planet to participate in.

I made a reference to another contest before where it was world wide. I went at that contest in 1993 and there was no restriction at all. There, the winners were winner. But, this is not what I am mostly involved into. It's mostly the fact that most of us can't participate.

>I also think it would be more appropriate for a contest limited to only certain regions to be broken down into multiple contests, one for each region allowed to participate. Then your winners would be seen as real winners for that region. But I guess that would be to expensive ;)

Yes, it would be. However, a big company would have been able to handle that kind of manpower required for that.