FYI Got an IM from Shoshana with regards to this. It reads:

Hi Folded,
The question of whether or not to permit contests to be > run in the galleries is one which the admins have been
considering for a while.
They seem to have decided that they can't be held,
without even bothering to tell us Mods :-(

I'm trying to find out what is going on.
Shoshanna

Communications seems to not have worked out well here...