attn: Mappers who want prizes
I'm not against entering contests at all, I think they are great (and important) for the community, I just wish they were more mapper-friendly.
Like I said in our PM-fest, the point of the contests is to put your skill against other mappers, not take suggestions on how you can do better. I don't see what is so hard to understand about that.
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I really am sorry for being a PITA but I what it comes down is I don't understand why I can PM the map to the entire world for feedback, but I can't make a thread. Is there something magical about a thread that gets me different feedback that other mappers get on their contest entries through private channels/friends?
Yeah, it's the difference between public and private playtesting. Private playtests are allowed. Public playtests are not.
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Alright. I don't understand why that's a rule or how it makes a lick of sense, but I'll stop bothering you with questions about it either way.
Actually not having a contest map open for early critique has a couple of advantages.
First, it's not prejudged by everyone. There's a lot to be said for first impressions.
Second it keeps the judges impartial. I mean, what if you released a half done map and I gave you a critique. Then you released that map in a contest and I see you made changes I recommended you make. So now I'm biased for your map because you've taken my obviously good advice and put it to good use.
Third, you're not giving away ideas until the contest has started. That way no one can use your ideas in their map unless they're really fast, but then those people don't usually need the help.
It might be interesting to... no, I'll save the contest topic suggestion for another thread. 
I can't agree. I can map "superfast", and make a test chamber in a day or two, but I don't have any fu**ing idea.. ^^
What it comes down is that PMing it to the entire world would be public playtesting, and therefore outside the rules.
The idea of the deadline and playtesting period is to put all of the maps on even footing. For example, a map released that gains positive feedback makes people more likely to think of it positively.
What it comes down to is that, sort of like our voting system, there are a number of different ways of doing things. None of them are perfect, or perfectly fair, and so we have to choose a certain way of doing things. We're just trying to be fair in the contests. Sorry if things don't always seem that way.
I'm really thinking of how another forum I visit votes on maps:
Basically, everybody votes on everything, giving each map a score from 0 to 10. Votes are usually accompanied by a a short description, with the goods and the bads. After voting ends, all the scores are averaged. If the mapper has voted on all the other maps, the lowest score on hisher map is droppped.
That's not a bad idea, but I prefer automated couting methods and that sounds like a colossial pain in the ass to program.
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You're not programming it. You're counting the votes yourself.