AngelDragoon wrote:Somehow I had a feeling something like this was going to happen...
I'm sure most people, including myself, understand the reasoning behind checking appropriateness with the higher ups. A parent who doesn't understand conventions, let alone the content that could be in amvs, and becomes irate over their children seeing things he or she didn't want them to is a lot more important to said convention than a few frustrated editors being unable to show their work. An angry parent can affect sales and future attendance of others who may have wanted to participate in the event. Considering you had issues with a coordinator showing things before, I'm not surprised by the con erring on the side of caution. It's better to do this than to not have a contest at all.
That being said,
communication is key, whether between the editors and the department or the department and the convention itself. Unless you didn't know about this 'passing it along for questionable content' rule, it should have been stated in the very beginning this would be procedure and what grading to go by, (G, PG, PG-13, etc). Even if it wasn't made apparent, videos should have been screened at least within a week or two of receiving them and if they seemed the slightest bit questionable, the editor should have been made aware that they might need to make a censored version available or risk disqualification, (or even had the option of sending something else). Granted, you may not have even known the issue with the last coordinator, but some kind of standard should have been set by the convention from the get-go to avoid these kinds of problems. What if all you had were those 30 entries? Or what if all 90 of those videos were questionable in some form or another? Stuff like that should be thought of in advanced. Furthermore, for almost a third of videos to be potentially disqualified – after the editors spent the time and energy not only making the entry, but deciding to send it to this particular convention – appears inconsiderate and, frankly, disrespectful to everyone that entered, whether these were thought of as consequences or not. (I'm not saying this is true, but it could look like this to some).
Please don't take this as a personal attack, because it isn't. Everyone has slip ups, especially when one has a life and had one too many things on their plate at a time. I'm not going to sit here and condemn you for mistakes made when you're new to running this particular contest and dealing with the head staff and rules you may not have been aware of until now. (Though not everyone has to be so forgiving). However, learn from it and note what parts of the contest needs fixing in the future. One person's idea of acceptable content may not be someone else's, and it's better to be on the safe side than to have this devolve into...well, this.
Hope all goes well for you guys regardless, though.
