Defensive judging to avoid retaliation. Are you guilty?

[seefo at san.rr.com]

Actually.. I've had someone 'get me back' for judging fairly. I had one 
pilot who consistently did part of a snap and finished with aileron. I 
zeroed him both snaps I saw. He was incensed since the other judges gave 
him good scores (meaning of course I couldn't possibly be correct), and 
vowed to 'get me back'. He even bragged about it when he later judged my 
flight saying 'payback is a bitch'. 

It can work both ways. Fortunately.. I compete more for personal 
accomplishment than for a trophy so I just laughed it off.. but it DOES 
happen.

Doug Cronkhite




On Wed, 14 Apr 2004, george kennie wrote:

> This is an interesting perspective, but I don't think I agree with it's
> conclusion. Makes me think about all the times I've heard guys talk
> about "it's the journey not the destination". I feel that contestant
> judging is an improvement over club judges and recognize that there is
> some personality bias involved, but I think it's quite limited.The
> reason I say this is that when a contest ends I make it a point to
> acquire my score sheets and I can usually remember who the judges were
> for any given round and my experience has been that I usually find the
> scores remarkably similar between guys that I feel probably don't like
> me all that much and those that are friendly toward me.
>     I don't know if everybody does what I do or not, but when that
> aircraft starts to roll, and I'm in the chair, I immediately go into a
> mode where I become concious of the airplane and whoever is flying it is
> the farthest thing from my mind.I have the feeling that almost everybody
> does this, but then I've been known to be wrong.
>     As far as a stream of eights go, I score what the maneuver earns
> according to my understanding of the regulations. Just as an example, at
> last years Nats I was called upon to judge Advanced and on one
> particular maneuver (I can't remember which) I awarded Charlie Rock a 2
> and Charlie's wife was scribing for me.That's a terrific way to make two
> enemies at one time.  Further, every time I sit in the chair at local
> contests I insist that my initials be written on the bottom of the score
> sheet so that the guy that checks his score sheets knows exactly who it
> was that gave him that paltry 3&1/2 for the humpty. All that being said,
> I also award high scores if they are deserved. I remember giving Dave
> Elsner a 10 for the 6 sided outside, and it was a K4 maneuver, but he
> nailed it and there weren't many guys that were "on" on the timing on
> that one.
>   I kinda feel like, if guys are going to hate me because of what I
> score them it's probably not worth getting all that upset over it as I
> only have a few more years to live anyhow and I think I would rather
> enjoy what I've been given without a retaliatory mindset.There's just
> too many guys in this hobby that are really great to waste energy on
> those that are not.
> G.
> 
> 
> mike mueller wrote:
> 
> >  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
> 

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