Quote from: Bitcoin SV on Today at 09:02:05 AM

1) Merit-sourcers do not have the right to hand out merit to their electorate voted for them in contest topics and derivative discussions.

Although this makes some sense, I'm not in favour of a hard rule for it. Merit sources are free to send Merit the way they want. I wouldn't Merit people just for making a certain vote.
In this topic, I wanted to Merit all qualifying posts, but I didn't want to encourage people to post there just for Merit. So I waited several weeks, then Merited all posts. I didn't do this anymore for posts made after this.
If you'd want to Merit votes for the Award, you could just wait for the award to be over before you do it. But: I also know I've Merited contributions to contests on the Services board before, just like I Merited posts in the 10th anniversary art contest. In that contest theymos even used community Merit in judging:

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In judging consensus, I will be substantially but not entirely influenced by the total amount of merit your art received.

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The usage of their powers by meritsourcers for their own purposes is a dishonest game. If merit-sourcer violates this rule, he should be redtagged as "Voting manupulator".

Theymos seems to disagree:

Quote from: theymos on October 21, 2018, 02:28:55 PM

If a DT member tags you for something stupid involving merit (ie. probably anything less than selling merit), then they're not going to be a DT member for much longer.

(click for full context, this quote has nothing to do with any award)

Quote from: Bitcoin SV on Today at 09:30:20 AM

I have not yet figured out whether to trust icopress.

I've seen no reason not to trust icopress in this. Also: most of the prize money was offered only after he started the topic.

Quote from: Bitcoin SV on Today at 09:53:30 AM

I'm ready to start trusting to icopress if he sets the rule №1 of proposed "Unified Rules of Bitcointalk Contests"

It's not up to icopress to decide where anyone can spend his sMerit.

Quote from: The Pharmacist on Today at 09:57:58 AM

Contests such as the one you linked to (or at least your discussion of the Bitcointalk Community Awards) aren't official as far as I know, i.e., they're not being sanctioned by Theymos--please correct me if I'm wrong--

It's not official, but the fact that it shows up as News on top of this page makes me believe it is at least endorsed. Let me put it this way: promoting the use of a custom Trust list never made it to that level (although I believe it should).

Quote from: Bitcoin SV on Today at 10:06:31 AM

Now everything is clear to me. Ratimov will win and it's inevitable because the sponsors of this contest are its patrons. Honest people will never win there.

Have you considered that people can change their vote after they've been Merited by Ratimov? Could it be he's actually been very active in the past year, and people remember his name because of that?