About those Darn Rules

I know there is some frustration over the timing of the fifth challenge posting and I do understand it. I know everyone has gotten pretty used to challenges being posted closer to the midnight Saturday going into Sunday time frame. I also know that everyone understands that the rules merely state that it will be posted on Sunday.

We really are a very international site. We have designers, creative team members, scrappers and customers from all over the world, in nearly every conceivable time zone. But, for the sake of OUR convenience, being a pacific coast time zone company, we based our official days on the eastern time zone of the United States. So Sunday officially begins and ends, for the purposes of this race, at 12:00 AM EST and 11:59 PM respectively.

That said, I know and get the frustration over the timing of the posting of this particular challenge. Because of our international presence, we have sites participating from other parts of the world too. And they are aware of the Sunday posting requirement. They were not contractually obligated to post at midnight eastern US time, just between the hours of 12:00 AM and 11:59 PM EST.

With an international presence, this likely can and will happen again; where the challenge isn't posted exactly at midnight, or even by noon. But it will always be posted on Sunday. Just as you must have your layouts in by Sunday before midnight, we promise we will give you the full 24 hours on Sunday to do so!

And, as long as we're talking about international time zones, I thought I'd throw in a little trivia... Did you know that Australia only has three official time zones, but those time zones are offset by only 30 minutes instead of an hour? So if it's noon in the west, it's 11:30 in the central and 11:00 in the east. They also have some unofficial timezones that are offset by 15 minutes. Talk about trying to figure out what time it is somewhere else!

Now that we have the pesky rules out of the way, I wanted to address something else. I know some people feel that our staff haven't addressed their concerns in the most polite manner possible. Our staff are volunteers and working their tails off to help everyone, but we're also cognizant that the apparent tone of the written word can and does come across more harsh sometimes than intended. So, we're reminding everyone to take deep breaths after reading and before answering posts. Stressed out racers who have been scrapping their little hearts out and meeting deadlines while changing diapers, working two jobs and dealing with sick family members need a little extra TLC and that's what we're here for.

So, know we've heard you and understand your frustrations and we'll do what we can, within the rules of course. We can always reevaluate our rules for next season. We always take your suggestions into consideration. It's really helped shape our race so far and made it the best little digi race on the net!