If this is your first BAs, then you may find this thread shocking and scary. If you're a veteran of this event, then you know these discussions are par for the course.
But I think the end result had a positive outcome. We have fantastic new categories because people took the time to suggest them: Shocked, Embarrassed, Outfit, Animated Sequence, Insanity and others. We have a wider variety of entries this year because of all the wonderful brainstorming you guys did.
This event is the direct result of you guys. Your ideas, suggestions and input made this event come together. So if you took the time to help the organizers this year by posting an idea in this thread, I want to personally thank you. That includes complaints because we were able to address problems with the event and fix them:
People complained about their entries being rejected in previous BAs due to numerical caps, so we abolished those caps this year. There were complaints about image display and compression, so dimension restrictions were made to be more liberating. Zerospace tackled the website slowness issue some people were experiencing, so we included the main link on the first post of this thread. Some misplaced hankens were pointed out to us, so we removed those entries from the contest. A few people thought Harmonies were in wrong categories and I investigated these concerns (turns out there are no Harmonies outside the Harmony category). As a result, no specialty entries are in the wrong categories. Some people mentioned having to use notepad to vote, so Sajora added tiny images to the ballot to assist voters.
Basically whatever you guys asked for, we did or tried to do. So, I think the end result is a fair representation of what Beta wanted. That's why posting in this thread is very important. It shapes the entire event.
Deadly Whispers and Magician have made betaawards.com an affiliate link and it will always point to where ever the most current awards site is located. Thank you DW and M for that!
Just a quick reminder, voting is compulsory for entrants. If you submitted art, then you have to vote. Otherwise, your entries will be disqualified. The deadline is November 24th.
It's unfortunate someone cheated, but it did prove our system works because we caught the culprit. This person's entries were removed and votes were deleted. If you voted for these entries, then your votes are lost. It's really no different than someone entering art and being disqualified for not voting. Votes for disqualified entries are a loss, regardless of why the entries were disqualified.
Amazing how stories quickly change when you are caught. Kinda fits what I said about "lying." Gets you absolutely nowhere, except maybe further down in the hole you dug.
Thanks for letting me know, NSP. Sorry, EoP, I didn't have all the facts straight. 
