[QUOTE=wolf_meister]
I have 2 points to make here:
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Why should there be a penalty for posting late? Let’s take it to the extreme and say that severus posted his list at 0000 hours on Dec 31, 2007. How many points is he going to get in those 24 hours?
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I don’t like the idea of including friends, relatives, etc of celebrities. It seems posting on time is more important than allowing SDMB members to select obscure people with fatal diseases. I’m still a little miffed about a 2005 selection - somebody chose a golfer’s caddy because he had ALS. I had never even heard of the golfer !!!
If Reese Witherspoon’s gardener had a cousin whose roommate’s ex-husband has a terminal disease, should this selection be allowed? I think you know what my answer is.
[/QUOTE]
I think the main reason there needs to be cutoff time is for the scorekeeper. I don’t think it would be fair to her to have to keep looking for new players and adding them in. After the cutoff, she knows who to keep track of. I am guessing at midnight she wasn’t sitting at her computer finalizing the players, but celebrating somewhere. So his being two minutes late probably won’t make a difference to her.
Keeping with the spirit of that, I don’t think it is a problem for serevus to join us. I don’t think it could be argued that he had any advantage over the rest of with those two extra minutes. The only reason not to include him is that he technically didn’t meet the deadline. He was so close, and we know the problem with losing posts, so to me it would be silly to not have him play because he had techinical difficulties.
That was sort of my point about “penalizing” him, so that if he did win he only got half of the huge cash prize. Since there is no money at stake, and we are all just playing this because we are sick individuals that enjoy a chance to laugh, HA HA, at death, why not let him play?
I do have friends who are even more twisted than I, and do play this for money. They put $100 up each year, winner takes all. If you put up a financial stake in the outcome, then yes, the deadline matters. You don’t get in, sorry 'bout your luck. But we are just doing this for fun ( sick, twisted, macbre fun, but still fun), so why not have one more to join us in hell?
And I add this not to argue, but to educate. That caddy you mentioned, Bruce Edwards, worked for Tom Watson. I wasn’t the one who chose him, but I do remember the details. It was a huge story in the golf world. After Jack Nicklaus, and before Tiger Woods, Watson was the most dominant player in the world. He was well respected and a fan favorite. So when his long time caddy was diagnosed with ALS, Tom Watson used his celebrity to raise awareness and money for ALS research. Millions of dollars were raised at various fundraisers, and a book was written about Bruce, all before he died. Not an interview went by that Watson didn’t talk about his caddy, and ALS.
So in that case, I do feel Bruce Edwards had earned celebrity on his own. He first gained national attention because he caddied for a top golfer and had ALS, but his fundraising efforts and interviews and guest appearances educating people about ALS led him to win national awards and he did get quite a bit of national coverage. And I am sure his death was covered by all the major news sources, because the story had taken on a life of its own.
So don’t mean to argue your point. I am sure I couldn’t name the top Tennis player during that time, but anyone who followed golf would have known Tom Watson, and would have likely heard about Bruce Edwards.
