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| Contest Judging With the spring season of model contests over, it is time to make everyone's favorite complaint: the judging. Usually the first topic on the drive home from any show is how the judges were biased, stupid, lazy, plain ignorant, and probably guilty of unspeakable beastiality. These conversations can happen even when everyone in the car volunteered to judge. Of course then we are bitching about the other judges. But two recent events got me thinking. The first was the AMPS show in Hubbard, Ohio. The drive home was seven hours, with five of us in a jam-packed van. Everyone was tired. Yet no one complained about the judging we had just been through (and worked on oursleves). The conditions - the stress of the ride, the fact that we had spent an entire wekeend together eating terirble chow, and everyone's general fatigue - were just right for a bitchfest, but it didn't happen. The second event was a ride home from another show. The ride was only a couple hours, and no one was particularly tired or crabby. Again everyone in the car had judged. Conditions for bitching were not looking good but it happened anyway. Why the difference? I don't think it was about errors or bias - that can happen in any show. I don't think it was about open (AMPS-style) judging vs. closed (1st-2nd-3rd-style) judging. I think the key difference is feedback. I love the AMPS system of judging every model and providing feedback to the builder. On the seven-hour ride home from Hubbard, the judging conversation was mostly about that feedback. It was not a complaint session, it was a serious review of what was written, how points were lost or made, and whether the scoring was legit. Everyone mostly agreed it was. Everyone left the show knowing why they placed where they did, and what to improve next time. In closed judging systems, there is no feedback. The entrant has no idea if they placed 4th or 40th in a category, nor why they placed where they did. There is no rational way to improve other than guiesswork or asking friends - in other words, nothing in the judging system helps the modeler improve. In an open judging show, if an entrant wants to discuss results with a judge there is a basis for a rational conversation. In a closed system, there isn't. Asking a judge "Why did I lose points on the suspension?" is the beginning of a very different conversation than "Why didn't my model place?" And asking your friends whether your paint finish sucked is very different from asking why the judging team were such idiots. By the way, this is not a bash of any organization or group of individuals. IPMS still puts on the majority of shows we armor modelers enter. There is a ton of work involved in any show. Lots of AMPS members contribute to making IPMS shows happen and vice/versa. We are all equally good - and bad - at judging. Feedback is a key factor that may make open judging more conducive to modelers trying to improve. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By the way..... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you don't like the judging at a show, get in there and do something about it. Volunteer and make it better. As Peter Drucker said, either hang back and wait for a miracle, or take action. We do not take ourselves, our hobby, or anyone else very seriously. - The Central Committee |
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