Honorable Mention Awards

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

Regarding equal value for prize rankings in the different categories, here
are the facts:

Class            Category   #Prizes:   Odds of
                            #Entrants  Winning
                                       a Prize

Aquatic Garden  - Small  -   3:8        37.5%
Aquatic Garden  - Medium -   3:26       11.5%
Aquatic Garden  - Large  -   3:28       10.7%
Natural/Biotope -            3:4        75.0%
Artificial      -            3:5        60.0%
Paludarium      -            3:7        42.8%

It is quite easy to see that anyone who entered certain classes/categories
stands a much better chance of winning something that others.

There isn't anything further we can (or should) do about lessening or
improving on these odds. These are the entries that we have received. My
suggestion (insistence?) that the value of the prizes we award in the
various categories should have at least some relation to the entrant's odds
of actually winning one of them remains on the table. (And I remain equally
insisteant.)

We appreciate _all_ of the entrants. And we are awarding the win, place and
show winners in all four Classes. Since the numbers in the Aquatic Garden
Class merit further division, we are awarding prizes in the Small, Medium
and Large Categories within the Aquatic Garden Class. As I pointed out and
Erik agrees, it is impossible for us to fairly further subdivide any of
those Categories at this point in time.

I had broached the possibility of awarding "Honorary Mention" prizes
earlier, when it became clear that we would probably have more individual
prizes than we actually needed (if we were awarding ONE item as a prize to
each winner. At the time, it was my idea that WE could do the picking and
choosing for those.

However, when I look over the archives, I see the following statements:

Tue. Sept 26 - Karen wrote:
Just something you might want to consider, if you are having numerous
different voting bodies, one of two things will happen.  Either the same
tanks will get multiple prizes, or you are essentially saying, "we don't
agree with the judges we chose for this contest... here are the tanks WE
think should have won."  I don't have any problem with a "people's choice",
but I think if you split it too many ways, you might as well just hand out
prizes to everyone and let them vote for themselves.

Mon. Oct 2 - Karen wrote:
BUT, here's something you could do that would help spread the wealth, and
sooth any hurt feelings over combining the categories.  You could decided to
give small "honorable mention" prizes to a couple more placings.  Don't give
them ribbons, but give them a goodie.

So, if we "spread the wealth" further than our initial classification scheme
provided for, we risk second guessing the judges or offending entrants who
don't get selected in either scheme. That is true if WE do the selection of
those additional (and optional) awards.

I'm not adverse to the awarding of Honorable Mention prizes, but I don't
want to offend our judging panel nor to give the public the idea that I/we
on this committee think that we disagree with their decisions. If we DO
ultimately decide to go that route, I think that the issue of WHO actually
gets those Honorable Mention awards would have to be entirely in the hands
of the Judges and NOT able to be influenced by this committee. In other
words, we would have to instruct the Judging Panel that in addition to the
"win, place and show" awards, they have the ability to award "x" number of
Honorable Mentions as well, each of which would get a merchandise prize. The
judges would have to be entirely free to decide which aquascapes (if any)
actually merit such a distinction. With the "win, place and show" awards,
the Judges have no such discretion - there are 3 awards per category and
they HAVE to be awarded. With the "Honorable Mention" type of award, it is
left the the collective discretion of the judging panel to decide, based
upon the qualities of the aquascapes they are presented with.

It would be up to US to decide on the number of those optional awards and
their value. I think that if we selected a number of items of equal value
and set them aside for this particular use, this would make sense.

What do you folks think about us allowing/requesting the Judges to award a
discretionary number of "Honorary Mention" awards? If we agree to this, how
many such awards should we allow for - 3, 4, 5, 6?

James

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