Responding to Odder (below) I was quite surprised any controversy happened on this. My strict reading of the rules is that, in any case of confusion, the local contest organizers should decide, since this is a federal style organization. The only reason I know of that any controversy could exist is that people started uploading before the deadline (time marked on their upload) but it didn't finish uploading until after the deadline, so the bot didn't mark it WLM. We probably should have expected this (but I certainly didn't). In the case of the US, I certainly didn't expect many uploaders in the very early morning (6:01 New York time) or the middle of the night (3 AM LA time) but it made sense to go until midnight Hawaii time. There were 2 photos which started uploading on time, but got cutoff - and I didn't see any real reason to exclude them. Perhaps we could re-jigger the bot for next year, but it hardly seems to matter for this rare case. Probably more important is the case where somebody starts uploading hundreds of photos just before the deadline (Did this actually happen somewhere?) To me that suggests something wrong, but not with the bot or even the rules of the contest. I'm not sure I would know how to fix that behavior. As a start, perhaps we can move toward a greater emphasis on quality over quantity for next year. This question won't be solved here and now, so can wait until the results come out before tackling it. But that's the best I can suggest about the general case. All the best, Pete User:Smallbones Message: 2 Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2012 22:46:41 +0200 From: Tomasz W. Koz?owski <odder.wiki(a)gmail.com> To: Wiki Loves Monuments Photograph Competition <wikilovesmonuments(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Subject: [Wiki Loves Monuments] Why deadlines exist Message-ID: <CAHr62s=EyPNCfWzDU0Q3b-St0Ndaa-SXP4FtdYq-2JVDTtudXA(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Hello there, it came to my attention today that several users have been reverting Platonides' Wiki-Bot, contesting it's "decision" about disqualifying pictures uploaded to Wikimedia Commons after midnight local time. I am aware of the fact that there have been probably hundreds of files uploaded in the night of September 30/October 1, and plenty of those did not make it before midnight. I am also aware that in the perspective of a month, 2, 5, or even 20 minutes do not make any difference, but we have all agreed to have this competition running for exactly a month -- from midnight local time on September 1 until 23:59:59 local time on September 30 (while taking into consideration the needs of countries with multiple timezones, too.) There is an English saying that you shouldn't change the rules in the middle of the game; I think it would apply for changing the rules /after the end/ of the game, too. What is more, it isn't fair for people from other countries that put a lot of effort into making it before the deadline if you decide to accept photos uploaded in October in your country, for whatever reason. Having said so, I would urge every local team to give this some consideration, and try to explain to your participants' why pictures uploaded after midnight do not participate in the competition. Thanks in advance, -- Tomasz W. Koz?owski a.k.a. [[user:odder]] ------------------------------