Re: Judging Quantitativeness?

[krandall@world.std.com]

At 07:52 AM 7/15/99 -0700, you wrote:

>One thing I've seen in home shows and local annual shows is a score card
>kept by each judge.  For fish, these cards have something like 100 total
>possible points, and they divy up the points in several categories (like
>0-10 based on fin quality, 0-10 for appropriate size, 0-5 for
>deportmant, etc).  We could develop some form of "scorecard" for the
>judges based on the different aspects we think are important for the
>contest, and weight the point values accordingly.  This makes it easy to
>pick a first, 2nd and 3rd from all the judges' cards.

This works well for judging fish because you judge fish against a definable
standard... Perfect, undamaged finnage, perfect undamaged body, maximum
attainable size for the species.  There is a little wiggle room on
deportment and color, but all the other marks should be pretty much the
same on all judges cards.  (deportment and color should be close, as again,
judges should be well versed in optimum deportment and color for the
species in question.  This type of rating system also has merit for a Dutch
type or Home Show type competition, where besides aquascaping, up-close
observation of plant and animal compatibility, health and size, cleanliness
and maintenance can be assessed.  

I think it works less well if we are truly looking at the "art" of
aquascaping.  This becomes _very_ subjective, and probably always will be.
How many time have you seen an art or photo contest where you _totally_
disagree with the judging?  The nice thing is, that it doesn't mean you're
wrong... it only means you and the judge don't agree!<g>

I think our guidelines for the judges should tell them what _we_ feel is a
strict rule.  (i.e., no fake plants or plastic treasure chests)  and from
there let them make their own choices based on their personal aesthetic.  

The one guideline that I'd like to see personally, is that as far as can be
determined via this media, the aquascape is one that, with proper
maintenance shows promise as being able to stand the test of time.  (in
other words, a garden rather than a flower arrangement)

>This can also be used to pick some specialty prizes like "most original"
>or "best of show".  At the home shows, the judges often get together at
>the end as well, to award some unusual prizes based on standouts that
>could not be recorded on the card.

But this is also partly because judges rarely see all the entries until it
gets to the "Best in Show" or "Best New World Cichlid" stage.  At most fish
shows, different judges judge different classes.  Then they all get
together to decide which are the best of the best.  This actually is an
interesting stage, because as the judge of Characins, you might have to
present why you think the 2" long pencil fish that you named "Best
Characin" deserves to Best of Show over some 12" long Cichlid.  Sometimes
the discussions get pretty heated!<g>  (I'm waiting for the day that
someone brings in a really excellent plant for the aquatic plants class,
and I have a strong case for making a plant Best in Show... hasn't happened
yet though :-(

>So what would we use as the factors?  Some possibilities might be
>"artistry things" (maybe some of you have a better way to subdivide this;
>I'm not an artist, I'm a tech nerd!), "originality", "use of appropriate
>plants", "biotopically correct" (?), "quality of photo/text presentation"
>(maybe only give a couple of points for this, as we don't want it to be a
>photo contest), "balance with fish".
>
>So this kills our other problem of how to deal with non-aquatics.  I'm not
>a fan of disqualifying people outright for using bog plants, but they
>could get zero "appropriate plants" points for doing this.

We have to be really careful on the bog plant issue too, since every time I
peg a plant as a non-aquatic, I find someone, somewhere who has grown it
for ages, and actually propagated it submersed.  Still, there _are_ plants
(like princess pine and hemigraphis) that are not even marginal aquatics,
and have no place in the aquarium.

Another issue is, will we allow paludariums?  If so, will they have their
own division or be mixed with other tanks of the same size?

Karen
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