It is somewhat mindboggling to me (in a good way) how your stance on this summarizes many of the arguments made AGAINST telling editors who want to enter Anime Expo's competition that they should hide their videos away until after the con.jingoro wrote: I think, and yes, I am seriously considering your opinion, that making the contest exclusive to new content will diminish the value of the award in that respect. In that good videos couldn't compete for the sole reason that their creator would rather have their hard work exhibited in a variety of venues, rather than keep it under wraps.
Please remember that the end-product of this process, aside from your trophy, is an awards show for hundreds of AMV fans who might not have seen content at all these other conventions. They don't know a video was sent around for a year, they just know it was a good video, and are glad for the opportunity to see it on a huge screen with hundreds of their friends.
Please, enjoy the videos for what they are, not where they've been. Your audience does.


That said, while I do not participate very heavily in competitions, AWA Pro has always first and foremost been associated (in my mind) with exclusivity and anonymity. That was not only the fun of it, that was a big part of the whole "judged by your peers, without the popularity contest factor" thing that made this contest (in theory) different and special. I haven't ever managed to make an AWA Pro video, but if I ever did, this is the kind of contest I'd like to enter, not one that's basically just like any other, except it's an odd mashup of online peer voting and con exposure.
It seems fairly clear that the intent of this contest needs to be made much clearer, with so much fuss this year going on about what's a new video and what's not. If AWA is A-OK with non-exclusive videos being entered into the Pro contest, then make that crystal clear, don't drop any verbage about encouraging people to treat it as an exclusive contest, if that's not what it turns out as. If you don't make it clear, then you're kind of putting the rules into the hands of the judges, who are entirely capable of making up their own rules if they don't like yours vague ones (i.e. boycotting non-exclusive videos).