Defensive judging to avoid retaliation. Are you guilty?

Thu Apr 15 09:36:05 AKDT 2004

G              I like the fact that you sign your initials on the score 
sheets. That is something that is very important. You will NOT find it at all 
contest.  I request that the judges at  any of my events sign there name on the 
score sheet.     Yes, and then it happens. A question comes up and guess what. It 
just happens to be the unsigned sheet? Who was the judge?

Defensive judging. I have sat with judges that gave out the same scores to 
just about everyone in the contest. That was not the true picture of the day.

 Some judges do not want to be responsible for the scores. They do not want 
to deal with the pilots reactions at a contest.

 I think they want to avoid the controversy and that's it!  I would hope the 
reason is not so they would obtain better scores when they fly.  That would be 
even more of a problem.

  Lets face it we are all spending a lot of time and money at these contest. 
Why bother at all if we are all going to play games with the scores.  Any 
pilot who wants better scores from a friend is just wasting everyone's time.

I like the idea of flash cards held up for the scribes. I have always thought 
that is the better way to go. We should really try it and see what the 
results would be. I admit there could be problems with this but we cant work them 
out till we try it.
See you at the contest
Marguerite

In a message dated 4/14/2004 4:30:21 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
seefo at san.rr.com writes:
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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