18 June: rewards put on hold
Season 3 reached its deadline on 18 June 2026, but the rewards would have to wait. The leaderboard was frozen and the organizer announced an additional review. First place was still provisional.
By then, the chat had already spent days arguing about what MetaL rewarded.
A title for the comments section
On 13 June, a participant had thanked BB for a “Critic Award.” Nine days later, they called themselves a “BB Critic” while challenging the season’s fairness and asking whether penalties could catch innocent people.
The organizer’s stated line was that criticism of the platform was allowed, while personal attacks were not. On 25 June, they thanked the participant for more criticism.
What if the fake traffic targets someone else?
On 22 June, the organizer put the awkward part to the community. Removing artificial traffic might leave little reason not to try again. Harsh penalties could hurt a competitor who had been targeted by somebody else. An inflated score alone could not answer every question.
One participant suggested looking beyond a bot’s /start command and considering whether people actually used it. The discussion had moved from who was winning to what a better competition might count.
First place is removed
On 24 June, the organizer said the review had found strong signs of artificial traffic. They removed the provisional leader and disabled MetaL rewards for the Active AD format. A further update on 26 June confirmed the disqualification.
Suspicion also reached an administrator, who was temporarily removed from the team. The organizer said the administrator’s involvement could not be established. That pause in the role was not proof of guilt.
The detailed report attached to the review is missing from the archive. These are the organizer’s reported findings and decisions.
28 June: seventeen reward entries
The closing announcement reported $570 in rewards across seventeen listed entries, headed by anu*, kri* and mhd*. One participant thanked the organizer for working through the review; the final post acknowledged that the season had exposed things to improve.
The competition had run until 18 June. Its final reward list arrived ten days later, with a different entry at the top.
