I’m probably just shouting into the void here, but I might as well put down my thoughts in the hope that somebody in a position of authority agrees with me -
I voted for the contests to happen, and despite the negatives, they’ve undeniably brought a lot of positives to the community. We’re getting good MOCs and good art for characters that most fans have completely forgotten about, and it’s breathing life back into appreciation of minor story elements that only arch lorenerds cared about for a long time. That’s undeniably a good thing. I had a set of Hagah MOCs for years, but I never bothered to show them to anyone else until the Hagah contests rolled around. My Gaaki even managed to make it to the second-to-last round. When the winners came out, I liked them better than my own, so I’ve begun ordering parts to improve my own builds, and making them even more enjoyable to have on my shelf. As a collector, this has only served to make collecting Bonk characters a better hobby, and I appreciate it for that.
So, I would like the contests to continue, or at least a version of the contests. The fact that the winners are inducted into BS01 irks me a bit, because that means that any further improvements onto the builds of the winning models become retroactively “wrong” in some way. For example, my original Pouks entry wore a Kaukau, and despite the fact that I’ve rebuilt him to be almost totally identical to the winning Pouks, I still display him on my shelf with a Kaukau. However, I now do so in violation of canon, which is… just a bit annoying for me personally.
As a lot of people have said above, the real problem is with the people involved here, not the contests themselves. I notice a lot of people, from all factions and subgroups and cliques within the fandom, including ones I’m a part of, taking things that may genuinely irk them, and using them as fuel to pointlessly bicker and harass and accuse others. I’m not saying that no one has valid points, I’m saying that the level of vitriol and Discourse™ surrounding these is something that belongs in a dumpster-fire-tier political spat on Twitter, not a fandom community gathering. Maybe it says something about modern internet culture that that’s all people know how to do these days, I don’t know.
I understand Eljay and Meso taking an extended break from the contests; I’m taking a break from my own particiation in a well-known fan project for similar reasons. I quit all of social media to get away from perpetual perma-bickering on the internet, and now it’s followed me into the place where I engage in escapist fantasies about magic robot knights. The people who try to “sabotage” the contests because the fandom “doesn’t deserve it” are just part of the problem; being a jerk to other jerks still makes you a jerk. I genuinely don’t know what to do about this other than to just weakly suggest that people “kinda shut up or whatever,” since what am I going to do, police people’s emotions on the internet? I don’t think this half of the equation can be solved.
On the other hand, the management side of things is one that can be changed. I’m glad that Eljay and Meso are open to new people assisting them. I get the argument that they should have asked for help a long time ago, and I do wholeheartedly agree with this. However, I genuinely just want to see the best magic robot knight win here! We’re all in this dumb hobby together. This stupid bickering serves no one and the only prize is empty clout and a net decrease in the amount of happiness in the world. I say let the contests go on, with a more robust, healthy, self-supporting mod team. I say listen to community complaints about the rules and the management and failures to apply rules and apply that new manpower towards fixing them. I say work to make this something everyone can enjoy! I would wholeheartedly support some kind of effort to share authority on this with other community figures, so the burden is more evenly shared.
In conclusion, because apparently this is an essay or something, let’s all just work together to make some cool dumb magic robots, because that’s why we’re all here in the first place.
