By all means - everyone is welcome. But you are still expected to follow the same rules and guidelines as those members who are participating in the contest. This includes adhering to word count minimums, ensuring that your blog topics are progressive, and following anti-spam-posting guidelines. In a nutshell, even if you are not participating in the contest, you are being held to the same standard as our contest participants. Why? Because we cannot justify unpublishing a post made by a contestent and not unpublishing a similar post made by a non-contestent.
The excuse "But I'm not in the contest" or "I don't even want to win the contest" has been overused when we try to moderate a post made by someone who is not in the contest and does not want their post to be moderated... therefore we are forced to make an official ruling on this.
If you are posting to this site - regardless if you're doing so in an attempt to win the scholarship money or if you just like to write - you absolutely must follow the Terms of Service you agreed to upon joining this site, the posting rules and regulations specified within the contest rules, and the guidelines contained within the Frequently Asked Questions section of this site. These three areas, along with our editorial policy and privacy policy, are reigning documents over our posting guidelines and all should be considered official rules when it comes to posting.
