There was nothing in the original rules that allowed you to reply to me during the contest.

Any ‘rule’ that I added after the contest began was not a valid rule, especially considering how many revisions you forced me to make to my first set of rules. The fact that you were so involved with setting the rules in the first place is more than sufficient to indicate that the rule set was critically important to you. There is no way you would have allowed me to have the authority to change any rules after the beginning of the contest.

Therefore, it is clear that my ‘rule change’, which came after the contest had started, was not a legal rule.

Therefore, rule #2 was still in place, unmodified, and you replied to a TSB member’s post before the deadline was up.

Had you waited until the five days was up, you would have been 100% free and clear.

You can’t hid behind a ‘rule’ that wasn’t part of the original rule set.

If I had said instead that ‘Oh, by the way, if Wild-**** makes any posts in any forum, that disqualifies him’, then would you have allowed me the authority in that case to make the rule change?

Of course not. Only because the ‘rule change’ benefited you did you accept it. I wasn’t expecting you to fall for that. I figured it was a pretty lame attempt to trip you up, and since you didn’t post anything for almost four days, I figured that you’d realized I was trying to trick you. And at first, I thought you’d posted your ‘rules dispute posts’ AFTER the deadline.

Imagine my surprise when you actually took the bait?

But again, in the interest of fairness, even though I think I executed a clbumic misdirection tactic on you, I’ll defer to Evil Trout’s decision.

I think basic logic works in my favor though.