Yeah, same here.  I'd have no trouble standing up about it.  But I'm nowhere near SanDiego.  And after this, I'm not willing to spend money on cons for Star Wars, either.

Subscribers can always get a refund for the unused portion of their subscription.  That's the law.  All they'd have to do is call and cancel.  Of course, they would not get the magazine or online access to Hyperspace for free at that point.

I'm not sure if they were prepared for what to do about someone who say, got a second person to subscribe and got their tee shirt, but then the referral cancelled after the tee shirt was awarded.  Or, if even worse, if so many people demanded refunds after the winner was announced that it would somehow affect the standings if those votes were deducted.  None of that came to pass, but I think those are all huge holes in this contest plan.

Yeah, that's been up since April.  I can't tell if that's all that's left of his blog, or if he put that up after his blog was pulled by sw.com.  Apparantly, he wrote something horrible there that got his blog deleted at some point.  This was either what they left of it, or something he put up afterwards.  I tend to think it was there before the deletion, because of the date.  He cannot have been told he was disqualified that early because he kept up strong getting refferals right until 5/15/06.

I think you might be taking the definition of "distribution" a little too far.  By your definition anyone in the press, anyone that ever wrote a blog or did a podcast or, potentially, any one that quoted them during a forum discussion could possibly be disqualified.  Now, if RS was an officially sponsored public relations firm for IDG and/or Lucasfilm then maybe that part of it would apply.

However, I think some of your other arguments still stand.  If you work for a company that in some way is an affiliate of those running the contest, you might be out. That would seemingly include web sites that are affiliates, meaning you make money through sales when people click ad banners on your site. I also think OfficialPix would qualify. 

But that part about distribution, no.  I have my own blog but I don't have advertisement banners or any affiliate links on my site and I don't think I'd be counted out if I quoted their press release and discussed it.

   E...

Nice try, but I think he's still pinched.  The point that Phil freaked out and closed the thread about this on RS was the point right after which he admitted that RS is (his words) an "affiliate" of starwarsshop.com and that anyone that voted for Dustin by clicking through RS to there, triggered a cash kickback to RS for that vote under the starwarsshop.com affiliate program.  So, yeah, affiliate then.  That seemed to lock it in for me, and Phil.  Because when I called him out after saying that, he deleted the thread and put up what you see there now.

Your blog is safe.  But yes, according to the way these rules are written, they DO seem to exclude anyone who is a staff writer on any major site that passes on unedited promotional material for IDG, LFL or any of their affiliates.  This even means that technically, Dustin would be disqualified just for promoting RS on TF.N or somesuch, since RS is an "affiliate".  These rules are written broadly on purpose to prevent anything like this from happening.

These are THEIR rules.  If they wanted it to be different, they could have written them any way they want.  But once they publish these rules and run a contest under them, involving the public in purchases based on these rules, they are bound to follow them, or be open to claims of fraud.

As for USCWANNABE, his disqualification (while very interesting as juicy gossip to the rest of us) is protected overtly from disclosure under these rules because they say that IDG reserves the right to disqualify anyone for any violation of the rules or for failing (at IDG's sole discretion) IDG's background check and that all of IDG's decisions are final.  So, it would be hard (if not legally nearly impossible) to compell a comment out of IDG on that disqualification.

Do you think their status as an official LF licensee is a conflict of interest in regards to the contest rules?

... rebelscum calls itself an "affiliate" of starwarshop.com.  ... as a person who distributes promotional material for IDG, Dustin is clearly ineligible to participate in the contest according to the rules as written.  ...  There's still hope that IDG can be made aware of this and everyone's distaste for these results.  I'm thinking that an email/phone campaign is gonna begin pretty soon.  So, stay tuned.

Yeah, it seems that Dustin's activities on TF.N and RS make him very clearly ineligible under the rules as published.  The question is why is no one at IDG or LFL answering inquiries pointing that out?

... what kind of power does Phil have in the hobby?

I'm not sure it's limited to just the hobby, but the one thing that makes him a pain is that rebelscum is a busy site, with busy forums.  But more annoyingly, he also lourds over tf.n and those forums are tyrranical and disgusting and with their Fanforce baloney, they do have an affect on fandom worldwide.  There was a point there in 2002, when StarWars.com was lending officiality to Fanforce events surrounding the IMAX release of AOTC with a literal seal of approval.  Remember that?  It was right after Paul Ens went over from tf.n to working for the official site.  When discussion is censored, it's bad. Already at tf.n, the months-old, neglected thread about this "election" was mysteriously locked the minute I brought this stuff up there.  No coincidence, to be sure.

So, beyond just collecting, Phil is very bad for Star Wars overall.

I think this is USCWANNABE's MySpace page.  I can't seem to tell which one he is in his photos and there's not really much of anything there having to do with the contest at fist glance.

EDIT:  WHOA, big warning:  There's a pretty hardcore Star Wars-themed porn drawing in the second page of his comments (albeit not posted by him).  That can't have gone over well with anyone at LFL or IDG.

... I find it hard to belive that your just this good semeritain whos running around trying to right this precived wrong. So whats in it for you? I have found in this world that No one goes to this much trouble without something to gain.

I think this is a very valid question to answer that alot of people should have asked befor joining this crusade of yours

Well, right now, it doesn't feel like anyone's much "joined a crusade".  I don't see anyone really doing much of anything but discussing it.   It is valid for you to wonder who I am.  I'm new to all these forums and I've registered from one to the next as I discovered people talking about this.  What I am, is just a normie fan who doesn't usually get involved in fan stuff at all.  But I do read a few of the main sites casually and I was following the contest after renewing my own subscription and a getting a friend to do so in order to get the tee shirt.  Then the other day, I saw the story announcing the win on Rebelscum and I was totally surprised.  So, I decided to click on the little thing that said "forum" to see if there was more information about the whole thing.  That's where it all began for me.

I joined in on that thread and within a few hours, Phil was smacking people around and shutting down and erasing the discussion.  After being mistreated like that just for asking a few questions, I didn't want to just let it drop.  That was totally rude, and this is totally wrong.  Beyond that I don't have anything to gain.  I just hate that I caused $80 to go to this contest just to see that fans get dismissed and hoodwinked.  And just talking about it on a few boards, I'm also seeing what I always suspected: that fandom is kind of insane and there's a lot of incoherent babble to wade through from people who can often barely speak English and may be 12 years old.

So, sorry if I come on too strong, but I can't be the only "silent" fan who doesn't normally post that is offended by how this went.  I'm hoping for the sake of fairness that something like this won't be allowed to happen with so many people looking.  Both Dustin and USCWANNABE are strangers to me.  And Phil is just some guy that treated me like crap on the Internet that seems like a lot of people agree is consistently difficult and unfair on his websites.  That's my story.  I woudn't even be caught ridiculing his physical appearance and such and has gone on earlier in this thread.  I just think he was obnoxious and the whole matter is wrong.