OK, First let me thank wruehl, for introducing me to a new term. I hereby declare "blamethrower" to be the latest word that I shall add to my vernacular and use on a daily basis.
(I wish there was a thumbs-up guy in the smiley section.) Next let me say that this is a really good, thought-provoking thread. Let's take a close look at direct quotes from the rules for the contest.
"Any entrant making bogus or spamming posts to increase or “up” his/her post count will be disqualified. Any entrant having his posts removed by the moderator due to discourteous or inappropriate comments will also be disqualified."
Nowhere do I see a clear definition of "spamming", but as a guy of average intelligence, I know what it is. That same average intelligence now has me genuinely concerned, as I have given one-liners, sometimes due to time constraints, including once in this thread, but I thought it was truly funny
. I hope that by "will be disqualified" they refer to the individual post, not the entire entrant, unless said entrant is only engaged in that type of behavior. If they were to disqualify every entrant based on that rule, then the majority of entrants are already out of the game (yes, I actually spend a good amount of time on this forum, and no, most of us are not perfect).
"Entrants are strongly encouraged to start threads of interest that they think are a value to others and post helpful and relevant information in existing threads as well."
I would hope that this includes commentary, and questions on older threads as well, one of the people posting on this thread resurrected a thread on Mark's Bar B QUE that had been dead for 10 months. In spite of the fact that it was old, it was great info on a really neat project that has inspired me to re-start a project that I have had laying dormant for years. A new thread could have been started, but hey, quality of content was already there.
"General chat posts concerning any activity, especially welding, discussion of other products or work related are welcome as well."
This would lead one to believe that it should be ok to give feedback on a particular subject no matter how eloquent one happens to be. Also to start threads relevant to whatever interests one. This would encourage one to become more engaged in this forum, which I believe is the whole point of this exercise.
So, there's my take on it, I hope the mods/admin clarify things a little, as I am concerned a little on how this will shake out. I convinced my brother to join this forum and as of today, he has 48 freaking posts to go in the next 2 weeks or so to qualify. I gave him a ration of u-know-what and he promised me he'd get r done, but the guy works his behind off, so I'm sure he would want to know what the criteria are, so he doesn't waste his time.
I still think this is one of the best contests I have seen in a long time, and I can see that the primary goal is to grow this forum and to expand the reach of the EVERLAST line of products. The size of the pool of contestants is really pretty small for such a sizable prize, and I would like to win as much as the next guy. I really do trust that the moderators will clarify this for all of us.