For the sake of transparency, we must highlight the fact that the previous ruling for the original rule was made under strong bias for the ROM hack category.

The way the rule was enforced could have posed harsh consequences against open-source entries, which would impose strict moderation towards commits made to publicly available repositories as "updates".

Had the ruling been rejected, a multitude of ROM Hacks would have been disqualified, under the assumption that the strictest moderation was applied. Examples of entries specifically affected by these circumstances include:

• Sonic ERaZor 7
• Sonic 1 Mega CD Port

We'd like to note that Sonic 1: South Island Expedition was also potentially subject to disqualification under this rule, due to an accidental, very minor post-deadline update that was pushed without the knowledge of even the developers.

The verdict nullifying Rule 7 was pushed prematurely, with insufficient review from the 3D and Modern 2D Judges. The incident was internally reviewed, the verdict was subsequently approved, and internal measures will be put in place to prevent future occurrences of similar incidents.