woody: things that are insulting that need to be said still need to be said; you cant have democracy without it. quit trying to silence the most vitriolic of the complainers and address the complaints, please.
{arie's tone is not the important issue; what he, creamy, zogg, me, etc are saying is the important issue}

my list of grievances for this contest:
1) strange criteria {a prize, not to better the community, but to say thank you to individuals}
2) vague criteria {anyone who has ever done anything cool however many years ago fits the bill. it should be more rigid and well-defined. the people who were eliminated after the first pass, and second pass, would probably like to know WHY.}
3) opaque, mysterious fulfillment of criteria {closed doors arent nice in a community}
4) abuse of power {judges cant win contests in ANY fair system; impartiality is the most important prerequisite to my idea of 'fairness'}

please note:
im NOT saying that anyone who got one doesnt deserve it. im saying that the system that selected them was not designed in such a way as to select some reasonably accurate most-deserving-subset.

which necessarily means that i AM saying that there are probably people who deserve them MORE {but not definitely; i am just not convinced this contest was fair}. saying 'it was rigged' does not seem unreasonable to me.