Judging issues

[Keith Black]

OK, I'll jump in on the judging band wagon and say what I've been resisting through this entire discussion.

1. Quality of Judges: It's great that we have judge certification, from what I hear this has GREATLY improved things and I applaud those dedicated members that made this possible. However, it's surprising to me that judges are being certified without being tested. I've been involved in other sports as an official and in every case there was a requirement to take a class, then PASS a test. With our current system one could sleep through the class and still walk out a certified judge. Our downgrade system is complex and it takes quite a bit of memorizing to remember everything and truly understand everything. This requires judges reading and studying on their own in addition to the class. 

I understand we have a catch-22 in that we need all contestants to be certified so we'll have enough judges. If it's too difficult to become certified we won't have enough judges. However, if we want to resolve our problems we MUST make sure judges in the chairs are knowledgeable. 

Think about it, can you imagine even at the youth level going to a baseball, soccer, football, or any other game where the officials weren't tested to see if they knew the rules? This just doesn't happen, why should we allow this when deciding a National Champion?.

When I was involved in fencing we used contestant judging at the local contests and judges were not required to be certified, but at NATS you would never have an uncertified judge. In fact, there were different levels of certification required for different level events (Nationals, Circuit Events, International, etc.), and only the top level judges would ever officiate at finals.

So how do we get people to "want" to pass the certification. 1) Pay the judges, not just for extra duty, but for all judging. If necessary raise the entrance fees a few bucks. 2) Those who are not certified get double duty on other jobs and no pay. In other words, the primo duty is judging. Non-certified pilots (i.e. those who have not passed the test) get the grunt work.  "BUT WAIT!!!!", Sputter, stammer, turn red in the face, "that's not fair, that's showing bias towards the certified judges, that's just not right!!!!".  Too bad, pass the test!

If we wish to slowly transition into this new system require only finals judges to pass a test and pay only tested judges. The first year or two allow judges with the current certification system to judge prelims but pay any judge that is tested, even in prelims. This would be a good incentive for people to get tested, especially since they'd have to judge prelims anyways. 

2. Specificity of the Rules: As a software developer I live my daily life based on rules. Maybe it's this perspective that makes me scratch my head when reading our rule book. Much of it is very good, but other portions are way too nebulous. For example, "Flying so far out as to make evaluation of a maneuver difficult should be severely downgraded. ... Maneuvers performed on a line greater than approximately 175 meters in front of the pilot should be downgraded under any circumstances..."  Hum... If you were designing a scoring machine how would you interpret these rules? Exactly what does "severely" mean? And exactly how many points would you have the scoring machine deduct for flying beyond 175 meters?  The rule book is full of this type of language.

If the rules don't say specifically then how can we expect even tested judges to all score the same?

Now on to the Smoothness and Gracefulness issue. I don't think our rule book does a good job at quantifying how Smoothness and Gracefulness pertain to scoring. I do believe this is a portion of the sport that is extremely important, but I've not yet been able to nail anyone down on exactly how to work this into the scoring.  Each maneuver begins as a 10 correct? So if a pilot flies a technically perfect maneuver, but all corners, rolls, etc. are quick and not very graceful should we deduct points? I don't think the rules are clear here. Then let's say another pilot flies the maneuver perfect but gracefully, how should that pilot be rewarded? If we couldn't find defects in the first pilot's maneuver wouldn't he have a ten? Let's say on another maneuver a pilot has defects totaling two points, but the maneuver was very graceful, should he be credited back points because it was smooth and graceful? I don't think the rule book is clear here and I know I couldn't program the scoring machine with the current rules.

Just my two cents,
Keith Black

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