Tamla Kahn 'Hammeron' McMahon wrote
No, you are absolutely right that Rene cannot be expected to go thru them, least of all make decisions as to whether they should or should not go up I agree...
But it should be up to the voters to not vote for something that does not fit the criterion, otherwise you lose the legitimacy of the whole procedure. In fact, because I take it quite seriously, I'll be the first one that won't enter again if it feels to me that the rules don't really matter. ☹
This is a thorny issue.
For a start there is the maximum length issue. The default one minute has been overriden here, so less of an issue, and that rule is generally interpreted in a soft way so that "one minute" is accepted as "closer to one minute than two". In the past I've taken the decision to not vote for entries that pay no heed to the time constraint - though I don't think I've actively campaigned against them.
More sticky are stylistic issues. I remember one competition where the theme was "celtic", the idea was to come up with something Irish sounding. Petem came up with a great entry that sounded authentically celtic, but the winning entry wasn't Celtic at all. It was in a style played by somebody Irish, but then you might as well say that the Blues are Celtic by virtue of being played by Rory Gallagher. So I had problems with that particular competition, and whilst I understand that it's friendly and for self-betterment, it seems to me that if the rules and the challenge itself are ignored then it becomes pointless.
Competitions based on a genre are always potentially contentious. Where do you draw the line on "celtic"? On traditional Irish folk music? On more modern artists with a strong celtic influence? The lines are often vague. But sometimes there are entries that are clearly not what is being asked for, and personally I wouldn't vote for such an entry (I did vote for Petem in my example above, but I was in a minority unfortunately).
