Have I mistakenly gotten the notion that IFComp authors have been recently allowed to participate in the judging? I just noticed that a phrase on the IFComp website says, in reference to judging, “authors excluded.” Which is it? I was convinced that I read or heard something that made me think I was going to be able to judge (as one of the authors/participants) this year…
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Rule 4 for Judging:
Authors may also participate as judges, but may not rate their own entries. Authors’ votes will be tallied as part of the competition results, as well as for the “Miss Congeniality” side contest (where authors vote on one another’s games).
IIRC the voting form doesn’t allow you to leave a rating for your own entry/entries…
I’ve voted last year, and even reviewed games in the Author’s corner. 
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From the Comp rules:
“For 2022, we have decided to keep the rule change that was explored in 2021 with respect to Judge Rule 4. Judge Rule 4 previously stated that authors could not judge the entries. For 2022 and going forward, authors may additionally participate as judges, but cannot rate their own entries. Thank you to those of you who provided feedback to help us evaluate this rule change.”
So yeah, last year was the first time authors’ votes counted in the main contest and looks like that will carry forward. The Miss Congeniality side-contest still runs entirely on the authors’ votes.
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Looks like line you’re referencing just got missed when the change happened:
Judging is open to the public (competition authors and organizers excluded); becoming a judge simply means creating an account on this website, and proceeding to submit scores for at least five entries during the judging period.
Like the others said, this line is incorrect as authors can now be judges.
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Thanks @manonamora , @DeusIrae , and @mathbrush … I was just previewing my entry, and happened to click on a couple links, and the first thing I saw was the line that @mathbrush referenced. I was really confused because I was sure there had been a rule change about that, but there was the ban right on the Comp website… glad to have that straightened out. Maybe someone should be notified that that line needs to be updated…
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The IFComp site source is on Github:
The line you’re talking about is here.
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Look away, Hanon is splitting hairs and arguing technicality!
It sounds like an electoral college thing? (it’s totally not an electoral college thing)
Authors are voting in a different competition (M. Congeniality - not open to the public) so technically true authors are not mainline judges in the same sense. They’re voting in a different competition with a different pool: “all games minus theirs” and then later their votes after processing may also count in the main Comp per the rule change?
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I submitted a trivial pull request just now. Thanks for pointing to the line in question!
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I’m confused again… authors’ votes do, or don’t count towards the “real” comp winner? Or only for the congeniality award?
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They count towards both.
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Cool…
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They count towards both, and we appreciate the catch that we apparently missed two years ago! If anyone finds any other issues like that, please let us know by way of an email to ifcomp@ifcomp.org - thank you, @aschultz !
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No problem! Zarf did the detective work, and Mark Musante merged it quickly. These things slip by.
Like after sending in the fix, I found some places in my WIP where I had “They sees” because I changed an NPC to be gender-neutral. There are so many moving parts.
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