It's a shame that this bombed so badly. Rejectedlink didn't take enough initiative in organizing this, instead deciding to learn new games, but that seemed partly due to deadlines not having come around for releasing gamelist/schedule-which wouldn't have been an issue of Softman had just left quietly or said "For X reason, I will no longer be assisting". I see the main reason this failed as him deleting the signups, something there was literally no justification to do.
That being said, I think there's a lot that can be learned from how this failed. Organizers should have a more active role, even if there's no deadline. Even popping in to say "we've reached X game submissions" would be sufficient. If you have to back out of helping organize, do it like Chewy did, not like Softman did taking the entire event with him. To prevent this sort of thing in the future, make backups of everything. You'd think nothing would happen to the game submissions doc if it's private, but if someone turns out to be untrustworthy or stupid, well, you still have the document and it goes from event killing to mild annoyance.
This thing was dead right after Softman and Chewey left. Rejected is a child who thought he was mature enough to create a marathon and probably gain popularity while doing so. The guy was always streaming. How can you even attempt to work on a marathon if you are streaming instead of taking iniative. Take your games elsewhere folks. This one has not one clue of responsibility.