And Now, Back to the Show

Okay, I must confess, I have been taking just a tiny bit of amusement over the fact that the Passage to the Pacific event still hasn’t sold out yet, in spite of all the breathless speculation beforehand that it’d sell out in "hours".

Get a grip, people. The fact that it hasn’t sold out (yet) has very little to do with the state of the national economy, and much more to do with personal economies. Just because we’re all in the same hobby together doesn’t mean we all share the same socioeconomic class.

To those of you who can spend the money, good for you. Just realize that there is a goodly number of us in the hobby that have to prioritize a little more rigorously, and get a little annoyed that you have to be reminded of that.

Anyway, back to the CheaterFest thing.

One of the videos featuring the model in question has surfaced; I don’t know if it’s the one that had been referred to in online discussions of the model before, but I have been assured that it is the model in question:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqwrc1v_0Qg&list=UUyyFXBAnA0bARJEJyX0xYQQ&index=6&feature=plcp

(Warning: the video itself is extremely typical of the kind of youth-originated videos I was ranting about a week ago. Also, the artist in question is dyslexic, so if you have a low tolerance for spelling errors, you may want to take a deep breath first before diving in.)

And more details, too. (My apologies for any repetition. Just doing it for clarity's sake.)

The child in question was not the only entrant suspected of cheating, but the only one who got away with it, however briefly. There were questions raised prior to judging. Attempts to locate the videos in question were made, but proved unsuccessful initially. Since the evidence could not be found within a reasonable amount of time, and the answers provided by the entrant seemed otherwise convincing, the entry was not disallowed. The judge was not made aware of the specific nature of the controversy, so it would not affect her decisions.

When the (very clear!) evidence of cheating was found afterwards, it was forwarded to Reeves. Reeves requested that the entrant return the prize model awarded to her, a Regular Run Pokerjoe. (There were not enough of the original prize model supplied, so other Regular Run models were substituted.) A UPS call tag was provided to her, and the model will be awarded to the second place entry once it is returned.

The show staff is currently reviewing the rules and regulations for the show to make changes that would discourage this sort of thing from happening again, though the efficacy of those changes, like all the changes before, will probably be limited. Because cheaters gotta cheat.

(In spite of the repeated clarifications on the Yahoo-Groups list, and in the show packet, some of the entrants were still unaware of the change in the awards program. So maybe now they’ll read the rules a little more carefully, at least.)

The suggestion was made to disqualify the entrant from entering any Breyer-sponsored shows for a year, but Reeves decided against that. Reeves is also aware of the shenanigans going on in all of the BreyerFest shows, and that the existence of the award model program may be partly to blame, but do not appear to be willing to pull the plug on the award models.

I suppose if the show staff/volunteers were able to come up with a solution that would mitigate the cheating, Reeves would, at least, consider it. They have done so before.

There were a few other details made available to me, but that’s the extent I am comfortable revealing for the time being. I’ve included everything here I think is relevant, anyway.

Up next: another treasure from the Pit.