[conrail]

Indeed, the original press release (https://scale.com/blog/humanitys-last-exam) makes clear that "People who submit successful questions will be invited as coauthors on the paper for the dataset and have a chance to win money from a $500,000 prize pool."

Successful questions would be interpreted as being included in the dataset corresponding to the public publication of the benchmark and results. "Have a chance" would be interpreted as "have a non-zero probability".

Essentially, the press release promised that contributors of "successful questions" would be coauthors on the dataset paper and have a chance to win from a $500,000 prize pool. Excluding questions deemed "successful" because they were submitted after a deadline—when the terms did not clearly disqualify them and all public communication in fact encouraged them to submit—violates the implied agreement and would constitute bad faith, misrepresentation, and breach of contract.