I know for a fact that some of the judges are judging because they want to see what it’s like to actually be an official judge. I am one of those people. It’s been fun, but I think now the fun seems to be over.
I have never judged before, but I know what I am judging. I am judging 2A and 3A, that I can not do any of, but I have watched people like Elliot Ogawa, Alex Hattori, Patrick Borgerding, Yusuki Tachibana, and Hank Freeman. As for 2A, I have watched and studied Shu Takada, Takuma Yamamoto, Grant Johnson, and Joseph Harris. I have also watched to tutorials and stuff for these divisions so I can learn how it works and whatnot. I did all of this so I could be a good judge for those divisions.
In 4A, I can do a decent amount, I have watched tons of tutorials as well as scored freestyles by Stuart and Philip White (who are on these forums), Ben Conde, Michael Nakamura, Bryan Figueroa, and Rei Iwakura.
I think the problem is that this competition is out-growing it’s shoes a bit. I mean we’ve gone from people saying “oh come on Zorro, another contest?” to having a flipping world and national champion judging the thing with prizes put up by Andre, with a contest-level judging system… I don’t think any of us was expecting that… Zorro included.
That being said if I knew it was going to blow up like this I probably would have entered myself…
Heres a genuine question RE: Judging:
Have all the judges been advised to use clickers and/or count string hits per Pallis guidelines? Even if inexperienced judges are having a go at it, they should make sure that they follow the official system for judging. Don’t want to risk people saying “yeh, there was loads of sweet tech, I’ll give them a 50/60 for it.” because they don’t fully understand the judging system.
Taking criticism and suggestions on board without getting defensive is a sign of growth and maturity. I don’t think it’s fair for anyone to suggest you are instantly perfect at handling those things.
But I do think it would be very much to your benefit to see everyone’s intent which is to be helpful. You seem concerned about “feelings” but the example I gave you is about the competitors’ feelings. The suggestion given is to make sure the competitors all walk away feeling fairly judged. Frankly, if you are hosting a contest, this aspect should be WAY more important to you than you or your brother’s possible hurt feelings over being told you’re possibly not qualified to be judging a serious contest.
TL;DR – you are organizing a contest. I think many of us applaud you for it. However, it is your responsibility to make sure the competitors are judged in a fair and consistent manner. Suggestings helping you reach that goal should be met graciously, not with anger and indignation. And excluding a judge or two if you are gracious about why their application is denied… is part of that.
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If the would-be judges are truly interested in learning, there’s no good reason they can’t follow Jake’s suggestion and fill out their scores to compare with the official judges to “see how they do”. That doesn’t interfere with their ability to learn and have fun at all. It would be fun to see how their score stacks up/compares to Palli’s or Jake’s.
Yeah, I definitely didn’t expect this. If this is the first time, I plan on doing this every year as an annual contest. It’s been fun so far, why not continue the fun every year and make this a big contest. And, who knows, maybe we can turn it into the Player of the Year of the YYE Forums kinda thing.
I plan on PMing or Emailing the judges before the contest with the judging system and answering questions regarding it. So, not yet, but it will happen. I think most judges read the judging section before signing up, but if not, I will make sure they do so.
Also, purely as a suggestion from an outside observers point of view, it would be really handy if the judges put the freestyles in descending order according to their scores, as is done in proper contests:
Checked out the YouTube channel for 1a prelims. Nice job everyone. Some had smooth flow and some crazy speed. Kdallaz nice job. Keep the vids coming guys.
I have to say the music wasn’t as good in these videos than they were in the last contest. Maybe it’s just my ipad. And also I couldn’t watch the 3,4,5 videos because they weren’t formatted for mobile devices. I’ll check em out later tho.
i didn’t put any effort into my music. i wasn’t even playing music during my prelim (i overlayed it on later). this is because it is only prelims. finals i will put more effort into.
Probably because you saw it on the contestant list, but not the judge list and you (along with several other people) were confused because of the two lists.
