Defensive judging to avoid retaliation. Are you guilty?

[george kennie]

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
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.f3a.us/pipermail/nsrca-discussion/attachments/20040414/6f56b11e/attachment.html