Well, I thought that statement was supposed to be something like “That’s how I felt at first… but I reject that sentiment.” It was part of the “bitterness here and there that I didn’t like seeing.”
I definitely agree that there has in the past been too much gatekeeping (in the sense of trying to draw boundaries so as exclude stuff, Peter) against choice IF. But I didn’t think Jeremy was endorsing the gatekeeping. I do think that some parser fans may feel as though the parser won’t be preserved and developed if we don’t try to make a space for parser games; but I think, and I think Jeremy thought, the place to make that space is not IFComp but perhaps in parser-oriented events like ParserComp. Though one might fairly point out that the winner has always been a parser game.
By the way, Jeremy, the reason you hadn’t heard of ParserComp before was that it only has happened the one time! I think that it was a lot of work for Carolyn and that if someone wants to pick it up that’d be cool. I have a great idea for a theme: Terminators.
Tia–looking at the graph here (under the first spoiler) there was a huge peak in the number of parser entries in 2011, which dropped pretty rapidly in 2012-3 and held steady in 2014. I think this year the number of parser entries was back up, though.