Thank you, that is much more clear. I might still hold off apping for a cycle like some of the others are doing just to see how things go, but I don't feel nearly as horrified about it as I did when this post first went up.

it would be a pretty brazen applicant to have your 'balls busted' for offering your help when you're certainly not required to.
This is the internet. It's totally possible.

There was one other thing. I was talking to another player and they mentioned maybe letting us see some numbers from this cycle would be a good idea, and I happen to agree with that. It could be more comforting to see how many applied versus how many got in. I can crunch my own relevant statistics from there, I just think it would be nice to see or maybe track for a few app cycles. /shrug