Re: [AGA Contest] judge scoring...

["Phil Edwards" <biotypical@hotmail.com>]

Well, I go trodding through a swamp for a few days and I come back to a 
swamped mail box.  You guys have been active!

I like Roger's suggestion of a harmonic mean calculation myself.  I'm 
generally in favor of straight arithmetic calculation, and as long as each 
judge is generally consistent in their scoring it works, but Roger's brought 
up a good point.  However, I think Best of Show should be strictly 
arithmetic.  The difference in scores at that level is going to be very 
small.  Being able to say that it was decided from raw score data only could 
go a long way toward covering our butts if such is needed.  :)

I think it's important to use the raw scores of each tank in their placement 
calculation rather than a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, ranking.  The foremost reason for 
this is it allows the judges to take each individual tank as an individual 
and score it accordingly.  It's much easier to be objective in a case like 
this than if one had to decide between two potentially tied (raw score wise) 
aquascapes as far as placement goes.  Picking one over the other on a 
character as potentially trivial as one tank having a slightly better 
trimmed bunch of Java Moss than the other just so two aquascapes can be 
distinguished could be problematic.  Given a sufficient number of judges any 
ties should work themselves out, even if it's in the area of a 0.1 point 
difference.  With the increased quality of the aquascapes this becomes more 
and more important, in my opinion.

I also think that each judge should be given one Honorable Mention per 
category to place how he/she sees fit after the scoring has been resolved.  
I thought it was a great thing last year and I see it going a long way 
toward smoothing ruffled feathers.

As far as judges goes it's going to be hard not to pick either the same old 
same old or get someone who's not been a judge in one of the other 
forum-based contests.  Who do we have so far?  Diana W. and Christel K. 
might be good people to ask.

Best,
Phil

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