I wouldn't put it past the spammers to be doing that to legitimate entries.
Still gonna submit mine, though, once it's done. Like the lottery lady says, you can't win if you don't play.
By the way, has anyone been able to determine if there is any ryme or reason to the size at which images are displayed? At first I thought they were all limited to a certain pixel height but that seems to vary as well. I've seen some that, when you click on them, actually display
smaller than their thumbnails! I'd really hate to do all this work on my submission only to have it show up the size of a postage stamp, especially when there's no chance to resubmit without violating the contest rules.
EDIT - I think I actually just answered my own question. It looks like the thumbnails in the ribbon at the bottom are all fixed at 103x88 pixels. The preview image in the top center appears to allow image sizes up to 999x247 pixels. Finally, when you click a preview image to get the (usually) larger windowed image, it seems to max out at 700x335 pixels.
So, what's the best image size to submit? Well, from what I understand, the upload tool limits you on file size but not image size, so I presume the images are being dynamically resized for display in the gallery. Therefore, what really matters is the aspect ratio. If you want your image to display as big as possible in the preview, though slightly smaller in the pop-up window, use a width/height ratio of 4.04:1. If you want to use all the available space in the pop-up window, use 2.09:1.
That's my best estimate, anyway.