Defensive judging to avoid retaliation. Are you guilty?

[John Ferrell]

You have a decision to make:
Do you want to be part of the problem or do you want to be part of the solution?

When the biggest bully wins, the end of the game is near...

John Ferrell    
http://DixieNC.US

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: mike mueller 
  To: discussion at nsrca.org 
  Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2004 12:39 PM
  Subject: Defensive judging to avoid retaliation. Are you guilty? 


  Ok, this is the worst part of the problem with judging snaps, if you take a stand and decide to be the "snap policeman" then you run the risk of judges retaliation. Say your Bob the relatively new Advanced flyer and your judging Joe superstar FAI guy. He executes a snap that's thought by most to be pretty good because Joe performed it. You know better and think it didn't show a proper break in pitch, so you 0 the maneuver. Dude are you kidding me? Word get's out that you gave Joe superstar a 0 and you have a bullseye on your back that may effect how others are going to judge you. Your stuck in the middle of a tough competition with your arch rival and can't afford the inevitable results. Who wants a reputation as a so called jerky judge especially one that can't fly nearly as well as "Joe"?
   Don't think for a second that this doesn't happen and happen all the time. Thus you get the guys that take the "SAFE" route and scores 7 and 8's on everything even though you know better. Then there's the guy that's competing against you judging in a defensive manner. Very few guys are willing to step on toes because they are worried about the consequences. 
   I hate contestant judging because it's vanilla. Back when pattern was King we didn't allow it. When you held a contest you provided judges that didn't fly. In so many ways it was better. Given all that were stuck with it and it ain't changing anytime soon because we lack the numbers that we used to have. 
   Houston we have a problem!!!!!!!!
   PS: This is not meant to hurt Joe's feelings, so don't take it too personally please. This is what makes judging snaps too hard for most of us.
   Oh ya am I guilty? In the past I would admit that it has played in to my thinking process. I wonder how many of you would admit to this fault.
                                      Have a nice day!! Mike



------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Do you Yahoo!?
  Yahoo! Tax Center - File online by April 15th
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.f3a.us/pipermail/nsrca-discussion/attachments/20040414/137866c7/attachment.html