"Well, we're never going to agree here" I agree with that statement " but to me it's an achievement for a guy who (a) won AOM and (b) was actually in the lead when the AOY voting was pulled, to be given the title." Not the way it was done, not to mention it might have been illegal according to Postal Regulations concerning Sweepstakes and contest, and tennessee law. " It's not as if he'd previously had no chance and his name was picked out of a hat". That actually may have been more fair but that is neither here nor there. " There would have been just the same amount of uproar (if not more) if Legume had won, amongst allegations of vote fixing, etc, so would his victory have been equally scorned?" Actually it would have been scorned more. If utter fairness were a criterion for acceptance of the validity for a title We are talking about legalities here- Were tennessee contest rules and reg violated? Were Postal regulations concerning contests and sweepstakes violated? Kinda looks that way... (lot of long words, there) thats ok- you may use them, i will understand them in spite of your implied view that i would not. then how many presidents or prime ministers or councillors would there be whose positions were respected and recognised? (Hint, the answer is none). Don't even go there- I work for campain managers grinding out political ads.There wasn't a day that went by that one campaign manager was not calling up the next threatening lawsuits for inflammation of char, slandser, libel etc and in the end we did nothing illegal. It was ugly and the ads made the papers but it was still legal. "he himself said he did not want to win this way?" " But because the way AOY works" The way AOY works is whicherver the admins want it to work at any given moment, which is the issue not Legume vs Toxic Angel. " he'll never get another chance at it and to tarnish this unique achievement" It's not unique and see above he will of course get another chance.See above " because of the failings of others is, in my eyes, plain mean. " Instead of considering it mean, why not try to get it changed for the better so it doesn't happen again- How many people have to go thru this charade befor enough is enough? Some of us ARE trying to make this a tad more fair and trying to get admins to be a tad more responsive, accountable , but it seems to be a losing battle.