Don’t mind me much, but I was going through mark ups.
Was there a rule about using the text in copy.txt as is, w/o changing the order? Many have break this rule, and the winner Candygirl is one of them.
Also, some added content too, not just mark up. Sadly, Pikacsu81 did so. I think there was a rule about it too.
Again, don’t mind me much. I may have understood wrong about the rules.
It’s not reflected in the rules, this resolving you talk about.
The rules (http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/news-announcements-38/spf-pure-html-css-competition-730215.html#post4797969) state:
Copy is supplied, which can be re-arranged as needed, however no additions or omissions are allowed. […] Doing so will disqualify the offending contestant’s entry!
If you want to “play” the rules, I can easily do so too.
In the rules, there are conflicting statements with what you said (about decorative) and
Any mark-up may be added to the copy
which let’s you add…
Well, when I see this, I think of SVG. For both decorative purpose allowed, and added mark up allowed.
Yet, the rules state:
No SVG.
SVG decoration is no worse nor better than adding symbols in the mark up or content with CSS content. Yet I love my SVG better! 
As I’ve said before, don’t mind me much. I know it was hard for the staff, and each and everyone of the contestants can interpret a rule according to its morning coffee strength. 
But we should be honest about it so that future contests will not have the same situations stand in the way.
You can’t alter the text, but you can rearrange as much as you want.
Yes exactly
Yes, Μitică as you will have noticed several entries rearranged large ‘text blocks’ or sections, which was permissible. For example:
HTML/CSS [h3]
Once you’ve decided on a design, we will convert that design to HTML and CSS. HTML is the language used on the Internet to mark up websites, whereas CSS is used to define how the website looks.
Plus one or two added or removed or forgot main ‘copy.txt’ as in ‘textual words’, which strictly speaking wasn’t allowed. Obviously ‘title’ attributes were allowed.
Hmmm… I must’ve missed that bit about rearranging.
How about added content:
Copy is supplied, which can be re-arranged as needed, however no additions or omissions are allowed.
This includes using CSS to permanently style copy away (eg. by using display:none; ). Doing so will disqualify the offending contestant’s entry!
Some winning entiries have :before and :after adding content, others have extra content added directly in the mark up.
Don’t fret we dealt with it as we deemed appropriate.
JUDGEcoder
I’m not.
Just some inconsistencies.
Candygirl has this:
h1:before {
content:"\\2653";
and some more like this:
#twitter a:before {
content:"t";
When discussing the rules:
Originally Posted by YuriKolovsky
what about text that can be added with CSS “content:”?
Originally Posted by ScallioXTX
Adding text is adding text, the means doesn’t matter. So, no.
Pikacsu87 has this:
<span class="minifish8" title="My name is Twitty.">
<span class="fishbody">•</span>
<span class="fishtail">•</span>
<span class="fishtailin">•</span>
<span class="fishtailend">•</span>
<span class="fisheyebg">•</span>
<span class="fisheye">•</span>
<span class="fisheyeref">•</span>
</span>
and when talking about the rules:
Originally Posted by YuriKolovsky
Is it allowed to edit the text to add harmless humor?
Originally Posted by xhtmlcoder
You can add comments to the CSS /* I am a comment */ and HTML source code <!-- Hello World –> like in the ‘terminal emulation’ example.
Though NOT really any additional hard-copy text other than in that seen in the *.txt file.
The post explaining the rules stated this:
http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/news-announcements-38/spf-pure-html-css-competition-730215.html#post4797969
Copy is supplied, which can be re-arranged as needed, however no additions or omissions are allowed. […] Doing so will disqualify the offending contestant’s entry!
Previously I examined the design part of the entries, and pointed out to some very good ones, that I liked very much. I wanted to also see who’s mark up and/or CSS stands out, and the above are just some thoughts I had looking at the pages. That’s all. No other hidden purpose. And don’t blame me, I didn’t make the rules!
Yes, you made some interesting observations and we thank you for your in-depth interest in the competition entries and their code, etc. It shows you have enjoyed yourself studying how different people tackled the subject matter.
Luckily the Judges took such things into consideration.
I am sure you have your favourites for semantic markup are there any of them you particularity though did very well or liked on the markup front?
Yes I did.
It would be poor taste to discuss mine, but others have had some interesting approaches.
scout1idf is one of the few that had correctly wrapped embedded style in an XHTML doc:
<style type="text/css">
/*<
Hm. I was not here during the month of Feb so I missed most of that thread about the rules but… Noonope’s comments and quotes bother me.
If anyone had bothered to let ME know that added content via CSS was not allowed, I would not have used such techniques in my own example. To have examples for a contest and then say “but you can’t do that” is AT BEST confusing and at worst, unfair.
I also had added a legend, because a form deserves a fieldset and a fieldset demands a legend… which should not be empty of text.
In any case, I guess I’ll leave it at that.
Hi poes,
I’m a little in the wild here. Which one is yours?
I also added a fieldset. And a legend. You could have added titles. Or comments. Those are not the ones questioned.
On the other hand, if someone had bothered to tell ALL the contestants that adding chars in content (like • or }) is OK, even though the rules said NO, or that you can use CSS content to add “t” or some other chars, even though the rules said NO, that would’ve been fair. For ALL the contestants.
As of consequence, some added extra content to help them gain an advantage. It helped them or not, it’s not relevant.
I’m also a little confused when you say you are bothered by “Noonope’s comments and quotes”. Do you feel I did a bad thing?
Now that you mention it… “unfair” is quite right… especially considering:
It’s unfair specifically because it was not treated the same way as other “disallowed” content. Had the contest been fair, the additional content should have been stripped out, too, and those submissions judged sans-augmentation rather than just being a deduction of points.
Just my 2 cents… I happened to break the “no content” rule, too… so I don’t feel burned by it at all, but I feel it was a silly rule. The contest runners should think about their rules carefully for future contests… don’t say something is “not allowed” if it’s merely a negative… say it’s “frowned upon”.
In all, I feel like the rules were too restrictive in some areas and too loose in others, and ultimately forced people to go make their own fonts in order to place better. Typography flexibility in CSS3 is not about making your own fonts to circumvent the use of graphics… that’s in my opinion not the spirit of the contest, and those who did that shouldn’t have been awarded points for it… only a few entries that I can think of used typography well, the way it was intended - mine (in my logo and tag line) Hueij’s (logo and titles) and Yuri’s (throughout his design, minus the fb and twitter logos which I feel were a hack). The point of the contest (in my opinion) was to see how attractive a website could be created sans-images. An image of a fish made using fonts is still an image. Get me? Again, not complaining… I just feel the spirit of the contest was lost in focus on markup and circumvention of the rules with the single hole allowed.
I also feel that more weight should have been put on aesthetics… a “markup” contest where design has some weight has not nearly as much real-world significance as a “design” contest where markup has some weight. I think it’s a tragedy that some of the best designed submissions were not in the top 5 - bad markup or not… if they followed the spirit of the contest and didn’t completely hack things up, they deserved to place. Also, I think it’s a tragedy that Pikacsu placed… even though I feel it’s the best designed entry in the whole contest and is my favorite overall, it circumvented the rules and didn’t follow the spirit of the contest, ultimately using images in a no-images contest.
Again, just my 2 cents…
Cheers.
Your confusing everyone now :S
The initial rules might not have been 100% clear, but they got cleared up.
Due to the fact that it was me who asked all those content related questions, If you continue reading they eventually got resolved, allowing to add “decorative content” like for example a large secondary letter behind the first letter of a paragraph would be allowed, also the rules applied to html, so I played it safe and added all the “only decorative” content with CSS, which won’t affect the search engine indexing in any way and leaves the copy.txt intact.
Also like me, english is not your first language, so make sure to check, check and double check the slightest misconceptions there might be with the rules involved, you will be surprised by how many problems will disappear.
@Stomme poes wb! yes the CSS “content:” was allowed, so it’s all fair. Also your comment about fieldset’s in your entry and the lack of it in the links above, revealed it for me 
+1 Using custom fonts and symbols (or even divs as shapes to create imagery) like SVG is against the spirit of the contest. The “no SVG” rule reinforces that. The judges should have been less strict about judging based on a formula, and more open-minded about what was the spirit of the contest.
But as I saw it, it was a markup/design quiz that wanted to avoid images (which SVG is part of, images as in custom content that is not part of the existing content), but still allow styling of existing content with CSS.
I agree that rules need a couple more days of refining and yes the rule clarification was never added to the front post.
[OT]
which is why I don’t drink coffee :)[/OT]
I’m not the one confusing anybody, you are. You say that there are rules and amendments to the rules hidden in the posts following the rules, that don’t reflect in the rules.
As for SVG, your every day char, like the letter A, is nothing more than a SVG. SVG is not image, though you may draw this conclusion.
Me neither! Maybe that’s why?
SVG is an image, it’s a vector image.
I didn’t write the rules (none of the Judges did). I know there was conflicting statements in there (I stated that several dozen times during the running of the competition) that the wording should have been better worded.
The three key points were fairly evenly distributed. The ‘Attractiveness’ had a lot more weight than ‘HTML’ as it happened. Though you’d need high in both; as all in the top 10 were very close.
The [Judges] were open minded or at least tolerated a lot of mistakes due to the confusion at the start.
To Err Is Human, To Forgive Divine.
If this thread gets locked soon don’t be surprised.
To be honest I am not going to waste my time re-listening to how the rules were ‘misinterpreted’ or not.
All I will say is next time the Rules will be worded clearer as a result of the previous feedback we already have in the archives.
It need not be dragged back up as now we are just ‘flogging a dead horse’ purely for the sake of debate in this thread.