Re: [AGA Contest] various replies, incl judging...

[Erik Olson <erik@thekrib.com>]

On Sun, 23 May 2004, Phil Edwards wrote:

> Rather than having Best of Show be determined from a selection of many 
> choices why not take the design that's got the most points?  

It will be obvious which one is the winner when it comes down to it.  I
beleive that in the four years so far, it's always BEEN the one with the
most overall points.  But we need to have the judges discuss and decide
the winner as a last verification step.  The reason why it's inappropriate
to make a decision solely based on overall rankings or overall scoring
alone at this point is that we'd be using category-specific scoring in a
cross-category manner!  The judges are required only to judge each
aquascape against the others WITHIN THE SAME CATEGORY.  So, just to bring
this back around to an earlier rousing debate this month, It's not
appropriate to compare a judge's biotope scores directly with, say, their
paludarium scores.

To use an actual example, there was one and ONLY one entry last year in
which all judges bestowed a first-place award.  That was the Biotope tank!
Now based on the "number of first placings", one could say that the
biotope tank should have won best of show because it got the most number
of 1st places.  Hmm, that's not right, is it?  (In fact, using that
Harmonic thingy on it, it comes in 3rd best of show! That's definitely 
not right!)  

So what has worked (very well so far, I will add) has been to present to
the judges the best of each category, possibly 2nd as well, as well as the
top overall points (with the disclaimer that these are sort of bogus being
cross-category), as well as unrestricted access to the raw scores on the
site... and the understanding that they can also suggest or vote on ANY
aquascape in case my list is not inclusive enough.

It works.  

Seriously, once the judges see what they each thought, they always seem to
agree that the particular winner should be the winner based on everyone's
scores.  They aren't all happy about it at first, i.e., last year, the two
that didn't like all-red tanks had their say, presented their case for
their preferred alternate (a different entry for each, I might add),
debated it a little bit, but all agreed that based on each judges'
preferences that the particular tank should be the winner.

I'm still trying to remember my old password so I can go in and check the
2002 and earlier entries, because I think it was the same way...  but
seriously, DON'T WORRY.  There'll be enough of that once the judging is
complete and you get harrassed by all the people who didn't like the
decisions.

  - Erik

-- 
Erik Olson
erik at thekrib dot com

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