Criteria

["James Purchase" <jpurch@interlog.com>]

I think that the discussion on Criteria is moving along, and I'd like to
keep it moving along. I have absolutely NO problems with the "group"
deciding upon the tone, content or wording of the actual Judging Guidelines
we ultimately use for the Contest portion of this event. I will not insist
on _my_ vision, or _Amano's_ vision as being the correct one. This is
hopefully becoming not _my_ project, so much as _our_ project and the more
input and involvement I see from the people here, the better that feels for
me.

Justin disagrees wthin my suggestion that we leave, at least for right now,
the subjct of "weighting" of the various critera until we actually have a
concencus on what criteria we are going to use and the wording of those
criteria. That's fine, but I still think that we are only asking for trouble
if we have two topics under discussion at the same time.

I've thought a lot about what Karen has said about the issue of
Theme/Concept and I can now see her point that it probably is not necessary
to use it as one of our Criteria. The concept behind it could quite easily
be better accomplished by having any aquascapes which their owners claim as
being "biotopes" or "theme tanks" being grouped together in a Category
(numbers warranted, of course) and maybe being judged by someone who is a
recognized "expert" in this sort of tank (Dr. Ted Coletti, who writes the
"Aquarium Geographic" column in FAMA comes to mind as a possibility). But
this is something which can be discussed later, once we finish with the
Judging Guidelines issue.

When we DO settle on the basic Criteria, and have agreed on the wording of
them so that they are clearly understood by all (yes, I can also agree with
Olga that they should not contain words that few people understand), then I
think that it probably might be best left to someone who HAS judging
experience and who HAS seen a wide variety of tanks, to work out the actual
"weighting" or "points" value of each Criteria. As near as I can tell, that
would put it in Karen's camp. My personal experience with "judging" anything
is limited to the evaluation and selection of staff - I know what qualities
and qualifications are required and I know which are more important through
years of actually doing the various jobs I have to fill with people. But
when it comes to judging aquariums, and deciding upon which criteria are
more or less important, I think that we need to bow to someone who has
actually _done_ it.

James Purchase
Toronto

  ------------------
  To unsubscribe from this list, e-mail majordomo@aquatic-gardeners.org
  with "unsubscribe aga-contest" in the body of the message.
  To subscribe to the digest version, add "subscribe aga-contest-digest"
  in the same message.
  Old messages are available at http://lists.thekrib.com/aga-contest