We are aware of this situation and once we are ready, we’ll be issuing a statement on the matter. We’d appreciate an exercise of patience in the meantime. Thank you.
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I 100% agree with this.
The people that are complaining about Dag complaining are literally just as bad as those people complaining about Dag complaining.
If you don’t like what he has to say, and you don’t want to discuss this issue further, then why even bother continuing to engage it with him? It makes no sense. People are complaining about Dag, but then they reply to him which is resulting in the conversation continuing. Evidently the people complaining about Dag must not hate this conversation too badly then, seeing as they keep wanting to discuss it with him…
Like Kini said, if you don’t like it, ignore it. I understand that both you all and Dag are obviously entitled to your own opinions, but the people discussing this are all about as bad as each other when doing so.
Also Dag, I think we get your point. You don’t have to repeat the point you’ve brought up over and over again. If Eljay and Meso aren’t here, then wait patiently like the rest of us.
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That’s a massive overstatement. I only said something about it today because of the very extended silence from TTV when this was first brought up. All I wanted was at least some acknowledgement, and now we have it thanks to Eljay.
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I was mainly referring to your replies. The amount of times you brought it up wasn’t overly terrible, but I could definitely see why some people were getting frustrated.
Again, what I said isn’t at just you. It’s kind of more so towards anyone in regards to the situation. I wanted to clarify this so you didn’t feel like I was just picking on you, because I wasn’t.
Ah yes, the floor here is made of floor.
(I know what you mean, just found the unintended redundancy funny)
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For starters: Those who know us and know how we operate our contests would know, by now, that we usually stay silent about overly controversial things during the entry/voting periods unless we need to make distinct intervention. Then, when the contest is over, we conduct an in-depth podcast, speak about the proceedings openly and candidly, and address feedback on how things went down. This contest is no different, and you can expect our full opinions on everything that happened after the art portion concludes. We planned to follow that precedent and discuss it at the end, but since it’s a discussion topic… here we go.
We have a lot to say on this, so this will by no means be the last we speak about it, but for the purpose of a statement: To be completely blunt, Double’s MoC being allowed through was an oversight on our behalf that we did not notice, and was not brought to our attention, until after the voting period had concluded.
That’s really the long and short of it. There’s no great conspiracy, there’s no secret behind the scenes reason, there’s no hidden agenda… it was a mistake, plain and simple. When looking at his entry picture, our eyes gravitated towards other aspects of the design and we didn’t notice the fingers peeking through the shield at the bottom. This might be an unsatisfying answer for some, but it is what it is. We’re not happy about it, trust me, but we’re humans and we made a mistake.
So, you may ask: why not take action against it? Aren’t the rules meant to be enforced? Yes, yes they are. We have no issue disqualifying entries that break the rules, and have done so in the past. We would have mandated this be changed if we had caught it before it won, and if it hadn’t been changed, it would’ve been disqualified. However… it won. People liked it and voted for it on the MoC’s merits. Ultimately, you could say it’s Double’s fault for breaking the rules, but to be honest, the responsibility lies with us for not noticing it. As such, we don’t feel comfortable rescinding the MoC’s rightful victory because of an oversight on our part. That wouldn’t be right, and would just serve as a much larger source of controversy for the majority who supported it.
Does the MoC actually break the rules? Yes… but also, not really. Let me explain. Honestly, @vootcaboot puts it way more succinctly than I can:
This is our stance, in a nutshell. Yes, Double’s MoC violated a rule that we put in place, and as such, had we not made a mistake, it should have been disqualified. However, when considering why we put the rule in place, Double’s MoC doesn’t violate those principles. We didn’t want people incorporating the shields in ways that didn’t suit their intended purpose, and to keep as much parity as possible with the way that Norik and Iruini wield them. We felt like the simplest way to do that would be to restrict people wielding the shields in odd or abstract ways (I saw a lot of people wanting to mount them on shoulders, use them as a surfboard, etc.). As such, while Double’s MoC breaks the rule on a technical level… ultimately, we’re happy with the result and it’s perfectly suitable for the spirit of both the contest and the Toa Hagah.
What about the size comparison? We’ve seen people discuss that too, how Double didn’t provide a proper size comparison between Whenua and Iruini… Once again, spirit of the rule vs. the letter of the rule. We didn’t want people entering weirdly tall Hagah or super short MoCs, so we implemented a rough spectrum of Hagah sizes to ensure an accurate representation. As such, even if he were slightly shorter than Whenua or slightly taller than Iruini… it’s not a problem in our eyes, as it would still be within the general spectrum. However! We do take note of the fact that Double was pretty blatantly messing around and not taking the guidelines seriously, using a height comparison picture between Turaga Whenua and Rahaga Iruini. That hasn’t escaped us, and we’re gonna be discussing that going forward.
You guys need to take responsibility! You have to treat the rules of these contests seriously and uphold an even standard! You’re right, and we are taking responsibility for this; it was our bad, at the end of the day. Ultimately, some of you will probably find this response unsatisfactory, and there really isn’t anything I can do about that. Double’s Bomonga is a good representation of the character and people clearly enjoy it, so we ultimately feel that’s what matters most. However, we do understand the concern. Ultimately, no matter our own feelings on the rules, or how tiny and insignificant the rule violations are, the fact is that Double did violate multiple rules and still ended up allowed through regardless. Whether people agree or disagree with our rules, whether they think they’re justified or stupid, we did spend months deliberating them for a reason. Often times, our rules are designed to serve a greater purpose, and are deliberately very specifically worded to prevent loopholes. As such, we agree that what happened here isn’t the ideal situation. It’s pretty frustrating for us, and we’re going to be taking steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again going forward. My initial idea is to greatly expand our contest operational staff, to have more eyes actively reviewing each entry to make sure rule compliance is in full order.
To anybody who feels… idk, inconvenienced or whatever by this outcome, I’m sorry. In the end, I feel very satisfied by the winners of the contest and I’m happy with our final designs. I look forward to seeing what everybody creates in the art portion, and you can look forward to our more detailed thoughts on the events of this contest in our post-poll discussions and our Nak & Jay episode.
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FYI, Bomonga isn’t shorter than Metru Whenua. They’re surprisingly the same size. Pic (Whenua stand-in) to compare.
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Well there you go! The people who were saying that weren’t even right, lol
Thanks for that. I’ve reworded the statement. 
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A variation of this disclaimer may be worth adding to the initial posts of future contest topics, if just to avoid people crying out “*Why don’t Meso/Eljay/the mods say anything about X happening!”
I was going to specifically ask about this, so I’m glad you partly addressed it here. From an outsider’s perspective, it seems like it’s just you and Eljay enforcing the contest rules, while the rest of the mods are enforcing the board rules, though I fully admit I could be way off base with this. That wouldn’t necessarily be a problem if not for the large amount of entries in these contests, and the massive amount of replies that can generate in the main canon contest thread that need to be kept an eye on. So giving the mods more authority in the contests I think would be a good thing.
If you guys are looking for alternatives though, I do recall how when BZP ran their contests they would ask members of the community to volunteer to be judges/officials and check entries to make sure they were compliant with the rules. I’m not sure how feasible that is here and now, but it might be worth thinking about.
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One of the main problem for some people wasn’t directly the shield’s placement, but rather the fact that it doesn’t even have a Rhotuka Launcher in the first place, even though the shield name is “Rhotuka Launching Shield” and every other entry had the launcher and the two rhotuka inserted on the shields.
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This is easily resolved by adding those items into the artwork. As it wasn’t something mandated by the rules, it’s gonna end up being more of a personal issue for people.
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Just to be clear, I understood and fully expected that there was going to be retrospective commentary from Meso and Eljay, but why I (and presumably others) wanted a statement about Double’s Bomonga as soon as possible was because this was something that could’ve thrown a huge wrench into the contest, and it would’ve been easier to nip it in the bud sooner than later, so I appreciate the response.
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That’s perfectly feasible; there were already many cases in this contest and past ones where people questioned the legality of entries, including the Bomonga in question:
All it takes is for someone to say “Hey Eljay and/or Meso, this doesn’t seem right”.
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Yes, I know that, it’s an easy fix, but it shouldn’t be a fix at the first place honestly. I don’t mind adding them, I’ve already done that, but it’s not something Double couldn’t do on his own to preserve the shield’s and the overall 2005 year’s launcher function. It’s just lazy.
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he can’t keep getting away with this
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Why not?
It’s no different than the Helryx moc having a Pakari and the artwork giving a unique shape to the mask of Psychometry; no different from recoloring Artakha to sand green; no different from if an entry without the official shield piece had won, as many mocs used placeholder shields. These are things the rules allow the art to fix.
Yes, it’s something he could have done, but it wasn’t mandated in the rules.
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Yes, sorry, that wasn’t meant to be directed at you specifically (and frankly I thought it was a valid concern to bring up). I was thinking more in the future, should some controversy pop up that Eljay/Meso don’t want to specifically discuss then-and-there, they could just copy-paste that disclaimer and be done with it.
That’s very true. My concern was more about, if Eljay and Meso officially endorse that idea, then bad actors might abuse the system and flag otherwise innocuous entries. Of course, that’s also rather dependent on how that idea would be endorsed.
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Here’s my thought based on what you said: basically, Meselj approve certain people to be “official” entry checkers. That’s the important part; so you don’t have just anyone flagging an entry they dislike. The admins still have the final word to approve/DQ/ask for changes, of course.
Using my own post as an example (since it’s already been brought up on the matter)
Now, since I’m nobody important, Eljso aren’t obligated to read my posts before making any decision. But if I were an “official” entry checker, then this post would carry the weight of “Jaynak should read this before approving the entry”. They can still approve/DQ/ask for changes as they see fit, but there’s less chance of missing a detail like this.
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I really appreciate this response. It might be hard for somebody to say that they’ve made a mistake in front of others by owning up to it, but I think that’s really what makes me respect TTV a lot more.
Nobody is perfect, and even TTV makes mistakes. I know that I myself have made mistakes on here before, particularly when I kept asking Eljay over and over again about whether or not he dislikes me, when we know that he already read my post the first time and I was being overly obnoxious by asking time and time again when I didn’t need to as asking once was already enough. (In which, I would like to apologize, TTV already has enough on their plates, and them having to hear hear me ask time and time again was admittedly and understandably a bit tiresome to many people).
I understand why this slipped, and don’t understand why some people would’ve thought that TTV had bad intentions on this. It was a simple mistake to look over, and wasn’t taken into account as soon as it should’ve as it wasn’t near as noticeable as other things that have been counted for disqualification prior.
Overall I’m glad that Meso took the time to respond to the situation as soon as he did. Hopefully now we can just look forward to the brighter future for the canon contests instead of stressing out over some of the minor mess-ups.
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I was thinking along very similar lines to this as well. The key is giving the contest checkers some level of officiality for what they’d be doing, assuming they’re relative randos taken from the boards as opposed to being the existing mods/admins.
Also, depending on the amount of people chosen to be contest checkers, perhaps a minimum of 1 to 3 contest checkers would need to give their approval/disapproval on a given entry (again, based on how I recall BZP doing their contests back in the day)? Once more there is the question of feasibility in that regard though.