I am reminded of when I submitted my 2,008 essay entry. FQXi contacted me to say that my one page essay wasn`t quite what was expected. My problem had been that I was working a few days straight at my sales job at leons.
I said I appreciated the warning of impending humiliation.
I thanked them.
How could it happen that one page essay, on the their first essay contest was ignored? I haven`t timed it, but a serious read couldn`t be more than 15 minutes. They went to great lengths to express the professional rollout of such August minds!
The worst example I can vouch for, was the essay contest with 150 entry`s, had all FQXi member winners! How could they conceive of doing such a thing? It`s wrong to allow FQXi members to participate. But, if you do, to make every menber a winner, and every other essay writer a loser, is unfair!