>OK, Michel. But if you decided to enforce one rule (#7), should not the same be done to other rules too? One of the rules (#1) says that each team has to be composed by four members. However, as we know from a discussion that took place here at Universal Thread, other than four team members people worked on tournament assignments for the Hussars team. Does this correspond to the rules from your point of view? And if it does (i.e. if teams could be composed by more than four members), should not all those extra team members be excluded from voting process too?
That rule states that a team is composed by four members. Those four members are the only ones recognized and eligible to receive the awards, assuming finishing in the top two standing. I don't see anything else that forbided a team to request external help, if they wished to. Of course, we assumed that if such a team would have requested some external help, it wouldn't have been that much at there advantage, as due to the short timeframe, the management of four members per team was already more than enough and any other additional involvement would have probably just made it more difficult to manage.
There was no need to try to make other rules to be enforced as we wouldn't have had any mechanism to verify that. As everything was remotely, it was a trust relationship with each team to ensure they enter in this tournament in good terms. We didn't have the tools, time, effort and resources to enforce such a restriction. We assumed teams would have followed the rules as stated.
If you assume or believe one or more teams or one or more participants have worked around some of the established rules, it would just diminished your POV in regards to such an individual/entity thus, in your regards, you would probably feel more comfortable that your team remained as close as possible to the actual set of rules without trying to gain advantage of a little of this and there in order to empower your structure to finish in the top two standing - and, this is certainly appreciated by all, I would say.
In overall, this tournament could be seen as a charity structure to allow something new in this community. There was no commercial gain in it for any party involved. If you calculate the value of the prizes awarded and the time and effort to structure, announce, development, maintain and support this tournament, you could easily end up in the 5 digits in expense. So, in such a situation, it is sad that we had to face such comments/situations that occured during the tournament as I figure that those involved in it already have done more than enough for the good running of the tournament.
