Criteria for the Interior Design Contest?

[HyoMinPark]

I think it's safe to disqualify the people who have submitting entries that use gpose, other alterations to the screenshots, and not submitting the correct number of screenshots. There have been winning entries who have modified their houses during the judging period as well, but since we never got a clarification about what exactly counts as "modifying the house" (i.e. does modifying parts of the house that are not included in the screenshots count?) and because there's no way to procure evidence on our end except for maybe admission of the act by the player, it will have to be left to the GMs' discretion.

For what it’s worth, this footnote was added yesterday to the Lodestone post announcing the winners:

* You are now free to make changes to your estate decor. Thank you for your patience.
* Updated Monday, October 29 at 3:00 a.m. (PDT)

Considering the contest was about Interior Design, it can be assumed that any changes to the interior of your estate (adding furniture, removing furniture, changing floors/walls/lighting, completely redecorating, demolishing your estate, relocating your estate, etc.) were things you were not allowed to do. Small things like planting/unplanting seeds in flower pots I do not think they would consider significant, but adding in new furnishings, removing furnishings, or moving things around could have been interpreted as strictly prohibited as per the contest rules:

Do not make any changes to your estate until after Sponsor reveals the winning entries.

All things digital leave a digital trail. I’m 100% certain there are change logs that GMs could easily have access to, to see any changes made to a particular estate, including the interiors. Everything leaves a mark somewhere when it comes to programming.

[nranola]

Small things like planting/unplanting seeds in flower pots I do not think they would consider significant,

I'd argue that using flower pots may still be considered as breaking the rules because I've seen many people (myself included) use the flowers still in the pots as part of the decor. This was one of the things I was wondering about myself and wanted clarification on, but unfortunately we didn't get any official response on it.

I also believe that the GMs would be able to know which entrants modified their houses within the judging period if they took the time to look at their logs. I suppose that considering how many rule violators made it into the winners list, and some comments on the reddit thread from people who had knowingly forfeited the contest by modifying their interiors and shockingly still won, my expectations on them doing so is quite low. That said, I think they should at least disqualify the winners who had violated the no gpose/alteration rule and other clear violations that we can see via the screenshots. This is how they "do better".

I do appreciate them hosting the contest and I imagine it must be a huge undertaking going through as many entries as they do, but I hope they make this right. I would be perfectly fine losing contest after contest if the rules are implemented properly. The way things stands right now joining the contests feel like wasted time and effort.