... a question about the wording—who organized the OFB4 tournament? The TC, the AC, or does it have some kind of official status?...

A great question from a member of the Tournament Committee who has been an Org for an official tournament for over a year now...

... sometimes it's hard to determine whether a particular tournament was organized under the aegis of the TC or not...

It's not hard, just ask me...

History.

After the birth of our forum and the formation of its sections, an organizational structure gradually began to take shape.
Since the main focus of the forum is the game Heroes, issues regarding the development of the game were addressed first. From simple communication and offline meetups, it moved first toward rating tournaments, and then to serious themed online tournaments.
Draft Tournament Rules were developed. Adelaide started working on this. Cheating, whether you like it or not, is prohibited on our resource (for those unaware, everything is permitted on some gaming resources). And 2 years ago, the question of whether a cheater would play in a tournament simply couldn't arise. It was taken for granted that cheating meant immediate removal from the tournament and a ban.
Additionally, in each section (Heroes version), a tournament Curator was appointed/elected from among the most active and competent users. In our section, Evgeny became the curator. He organized several successfully completed tournaments. A year and a half ago, he began running 3 tournaments, which circumstances of real life did not allow him to finish.

At that time, the tournament movement was developing very successfully on HP. I was playing in 8-10 tournaments simultaneously across three resources. And then our tournaments started to die. Since personally it seems to me that playing tournaments is more interesting than just playing for rating, I took over finishing Zhenya's tournaments. And almost automatically, this title—Curator of Tournaments for the third game—passed to me by inheritance.

Tournaments are already sporting events, and sport is a combination of strict discipline, excellent organization, and qualified officiating.

Therefore, I saw and still see my duties as curator as follows:

- attracting new orgs from guys who love HW, not Новичок, who have a non-zero skill level, are fair and respect other players, as well as helping them in unusual situations. I don't interfere in other orgs' tournaments unless help is requested. I have never placed obstacles in the way of other proactive guys conducting small tournaments.
To run even one tournament well requires quite a lot of time. Therefore, the idea to create a collective of like-minded tournament orgs seemed good to me, so that 5-10 tournaments could run simultaneously and players would have an interesting choice. We discussed this on the forum and conventionally named such a collective the Tournament Committee (TC). This is an informal association of all those who participate in organizing tournaments. Some leave, temporarily or permanently, new orgs appear, so I don't keep a strict list. General issues are handled by sending PMs to the active orgs at that time.

- creating an approximate tournament schedule, so it doesn't happen that there is either nothing at all or way too much

- developing Tournament Rules, gauging the forum's opinion on regularly recurring disputed issues—this is to make it easier for orgs to resolve disputes

- creating a kind of independent staff of judges from among the most respected and qualified players to assist orgs in matters they cannot resolve independently or due to their own participation in the tournament. During discussions, the AC—the Appeals Commission, simply put, the judges—was formed. Any player or org can turn to them—to any one of them or all at once—if they cannot handle a situation themselves.

- communication with the Forum Administration
Let's not forget where we are. This forum is private property; money is paid for its maintenance, note that annoying ads are absent here, changes happen constantly, and additional software is written. None of us participate in these organizational forum matters or contribute our own labor. "Users" is a very accurate word (even if I don't like it)—we only use the results of other people's work.
We are guests here and are obliged to follow the rules introduced by the owners.
Official tournaments are tournaments whose conduct has been coordinated with the Creator. I also coordinate every medal award under an avatar with the Creator.
Currently, official ones include—FB, OFB, Favorites, Rating, TC-3, Seasons, Новичок, 3 Nominations, Best Report Contest... (maybe I forgot something). Just a few days ago, I coordinated official status for team tournaments with the Creator.
Also, on an individual basis, awards in Roman's tournaments—at Jebus Cross and 2010—were coordinated. Permission was also obtained for the World Championship tournament, the use of the HW logo in its branding, and our team's official participation in it.
There were negotiations with Loi regarding the official status of his "Sergeant" tournament; Valery thought about it and declined.
The creation of the Tournament Committee and the Appeals Commission was also coordinated with the Creator and received official approval and official status.

- and the most unpleasant part—bringing to a close tournaments abandoned by orgs. Fortunately, this is not a common occurrence now. Thanks to Viktor for seeing the Team tournament through to the end.

If the forum considers my work as tournament curator poor, let's elect another Curator. But someone must do all this work.

... Leave Jed alone. It's quite doubtful they banned without investigation and gave awards; calm down at least about that...

Vit, is this trolling or profound ignorance?
Probably the loudest scandal in the entire history of our forum, nearly hundreds of pages written, discussions in at least 3 threads, three of our respected players ended up banned, some practically disappeared after the scandal, and one of the coordinators left the forum—this is "without investigation"? What then do you consider an investigation?
Doubtful? 100% proof of cheating was presented to the entire forum; Jed admitted their save and even tried to explain something incoherent. If that's doubtful to you, how do you judge your own tournaments?

... if I disagree with the decision on a Black Mark, why should I remove a participant?

All Black Marks given to players in our section were issued with the approval of our entire forum. Moreover, half of the cheating cases that ended in a Black Mark were handled before the creation of the AC.
Including a cheater in a tournament where those who are sure of their dishonest play are competing is the height of disrespect to the tournament participants. The result is obvious—players withdrawing and the org's reputation falling.

In general, there is a clear correlation between how the forum votes and what decision the AC makes.
Therefore, an issued Black Mark is the attitude of the forum as a whole toward this player, not just the opinion of the AC or a single organizer.

/Apparently, the procedure for handling cheating cases needs to be changed slightly. I would suggest this:
First, the AC filters out unfounded claims, and there are quite a few of those. Then it posts them for general discussion. After the discussion, a mandatory vote is held on the forum (a "threshold" must be determined), and based on this vote, the AC then confirms or denies the issuance of a Black Mark. Knowing the loyalty of our judges, one can say with certainty that an innocent person will not suffer.
A rehabilitation mechanism also needs to be thought through. I don't know how to handle that here; maybe organizing some matches.../

In accordance with all the above, current Tournament Rules, AC regulations, and forum rules, no tournament in which a Black Mark holder plays can have official status. There can be no official awards or other carrots.

Regarding the current situation. Kostya informed me that he wants to hold a tournament for everyone who played for rating in the spring and asked if he could promise the winner a spot in FB. In the spring, there were no Black Mark holders in the rating. Since the tournament was expected to be large, I didn't mind. Including a player with a Black Mark in a tournament—which I found out about later—contradicts existing rules, makes the tournament unofficial, and automatically leads to the cancellation of this promise.

This all refers to what existed before the start of this discussion and what exists now.

I've finally reached the question under discussion. I'm tired of writing, and there's still a lot more... I'll continue when I have time...