This whole issue is being blown out of proportion in my opinion and is not doing anyone any favours. Just remember, we volunteered to do this, we don't get paid and we are trying to be fair to ALL teams.

To address your first point, at no point in any of the posts from Sascha has he requested a change to the rules. Neither have I. We have expressed a preference for how entries are delivered at this stage of the competition. A preference, nothing more.

You have to remember that we will be installing (if stage 2 is anything to go by) 18 different sets of software. Its a matter of convenience for us. The more convenient it is, the quicker we can get things done.

The entry itself wasn't bashed in the initial post, just its delivery. One of the requirements of this stage is a readme file (two of the three goals depend on it). Unfortunately, the readme in this case contains no useful information (it is IIRC 3 lines long). Its not until you've actually run the game do you get anything that even begins to tell you how its played. I tried translating it as jdarling suggested last night and didn't get very far. Now if we can't read these files (or translate them), then what are we supposed to do?

The only real option is to give the entry 0 points for the sections that require the presence of (or reference to) the readme. With this in mind, Sascha has actually given this entry a chance to fix the problem BEFORE the deadline. He could have kept his mouth shut, but since we are both testing stuff for people before the deadlines (something which didn't happen last year), he has in my opinion done the right thing by raising this as an issue.

Agreed, the rules do not state that entries should be in english, BUT, trying to translate the kind of stuff thats in a readme with an on-line tool, as my efforts have so far proven, is difficult at best and more likely to be impossible. This is a stumbling block, because if we can't translate an entry, what are we supposed to do?

With regards to contacting teams by email, we have no access to the teams email addresses... Sascha pointed out that he would have contacted him but couldn't find any contact details, so he did what is fair and raised the issue publicly, giving the team time to resolve the problem.

So to recap, we aren't trying to change the rules, we are merely expressing a preference for the method of delivery of competition entries at this stage of the competition. And, by raising this Sascha has been fair to this team by giving them the chance to fix a problem BEFORE the deadline.