Enough Judging Conspiracy Theories

[Jeff Ream]

1 minute ago, ContraFart said:

I think geography has something to do with it.

i think thinking like a business long before it was fashionable had a lot to do with it

[cixelsyd]

On 8/19/2017 at 7:55 PM, DeusExGreenMachina said:

 

Thanks for considering reading this wall of text.

tl;dr No there are no conspiracies.  There is virtually no herd mentality on the national level.  Money nor reputation matters.  Become a judge if you aren't already.  Also--thank you if you're a fan of any of the pageantry activities.

Not meant to be a dissertation, but a reflection of my many years of experience as a judge on the field and indoor.  No I am not a DCI judge but I have been judging with DCI, WGI, and BOA national judges and have had many discussions with said men and women who are actively making these tough decisions.  There appear to be several of us on here willing to share information so any input is very much appreciated.  I am not speaking for every judge or even any group of judges but SPECIFICALLY to my experience.

I'll be available for follow-up questions and concerns for a few days until this account and thread dies--if that's the case.

-------------

1) Herd Mentality

Does not exist barring very few situations*.  We judge the sheets.  Particular to our caption, a unit can hit the sheets according to our eyeballs and our ears or it cannot.  Sometimes there are difficult decisions that we have to make on the spot.  We all see different things even within the same caption.  Some judges are good enough to judge multiple captions.  Ranks and ratings change for the same judge because they're judging a new caption.  Also, when panels change, numbers will change as you have probably experienced in the past.  It's absolutely unavoidable.  Please also remember that there are separate numbers in what we see the designers intended to do and what the performers executed on that particular day/evening; i.e. vocabulary vs. excellence.  It's the LEFT side and the RIGHT side respectively.  It's not rocket science.  We all have to trial judge for this and prove we can focus on our own caption and defend our numbers at critique and thereafter.

*Note: Interestingly enough, every few shows a newer judge or trial judge will ask where I put a unit at any given point.  I give them the neighborhood, e.g. high box 3, mid box 4, etc. but I'm very averse to providing an actual number as is anyone I have spoken with.  Remember that we have fans only a few feet away from us in virtually every direction that can hear our conversations and are probably recording us on their smartphones.  Why would we be idiots and mimic each other's scores?  That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.  These days we can typically change our numbers for all units at the end of a round due to the mechanics of Competition Suite.  It's a magical thing and it makes numbers management so much easier and more equitable.

Regarding "herd mentality"... 

You say you are a judge, but not a DCI judge.  Your point of view, therefore, makes sense.  Generally speaking, judges enter into their jobs with the best of intentions, and perform much as you describe.  But DCI is not like any other pageantry circuit.  In DCI, a comparatively small number of judges assess a comparatively small number of corps who compete a comparatively large number of times against each other.  There are several social and political forces affecting DCI judging that cannot be replicated in other places where there are so many more judges, so many more groups, and so many less shows.

Here is one example.  As I understand it, there is a significant pressure within DCI to create scores that ascend as the season progresses.  Much fuss was made over time by corps who felt they were making significant improvements on the field from one day to the next, but not seeing any improvement in their score.  When groups only compete on weekends, this is not as hard to accomplish.  But when groups are touring, competing as often as daily, that is different.  If you do the math, you notice that before they made the half-tenth change recently, it was barely possible to give continually increasing scores to a corps who competed 35 times a summer.  The emphasis on this issue, I am sure, gave many judges an additional reason to "know their neighborhood" when scoring a performance.  And in this case, the "neighborhood" would be the most recent previous scores.

[barigirl78]

14 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

i dont know the specifics, but I'm sure in season evaluation plays a part as well as quality of work from prior seasons. availability helps too. Some judges may say "hey I cant work that week". 

So, the selection of the judges for the biggest shows is a fairly secretive process that the general public is not informed about.  Isn't that a situation ripe for conspiracy theories?

Do the corps staffs even know how it's done?

[MikeRapp]

8 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

their budget is more than just staff costs you know. housing, feeding, transporting and insurance aint cheap

I certainly do understand this, as it aplies to all corps.

[Fred Windish]

12 minutes ago, barigirl78 said:

So, the selection of the judges for the biggest shows is a fairly secretive process that the general public is not informed about.  Isn't that a situation ripe for conspiracy theories?

Do the corps staffs even know how it's done?

Here's my guess about judge selection for Championship Weekend. Repeat, my guess.

A couple weeks before Indy, every Corps Director receives a listing of all available judges. The weekend assignments will only come from this list. Each Corps Director is given an opportunity to object to any name on that list. The weekend panel is then made up by people with the least amount of objections. Are objections by certain Corps Directors given more relevance than objections by some other Corps Directors? I believe, yes.

Edited August 22, 2017 by Fred Windish

[ContraFart]

8 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

i think thinking like a business long before it was fashionable had a lot to do with it

I dont disagree with your premise. BD has a very smart and thriving organization, but its not like they exist in a vacuum. Other corps I am sure have tried to emulate their success without the same success. There are factors that make BD unique that cannot be replicated and geography is one of them. Do you think the Colts can support the same business model in the middle of IA?

[Stu]

10 hours ago, ContraFart said:

I don't expect absolute perfection, I just want to be able to trust the number that I am seeing is not subject to bias or favoritism. Why are you dead against consistency being a goal, even if absolute consistency is unattainable?

A shift in one position from Fri to Sat 'is consistent', a .5 shift in number from Fri to Sat 'is consistent'. It falls within the human subjective +/- tolerance level based on many, many, many factors. What You want is 'perfect consistency' from both the performers and judges. That is not possible.

Edited August 22, 2017 by Stu

[Stu]

12 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

my preference is well performed. when i'm paid to do a job, like and dislike means nothing because i'm there to do a job. highest score i've ever awarded was to a show that as a fan, i'd have probably hated....but I've yet to go back and watch the show that way. I'm afraid it'll make me second guess myself.

 

and yes he did say many. But DCi has been adding a LOT of new blood the last few years, and don't seem to be letting up in that regard. Maybe the OP knows something you don't.

His claim is that many of the more experienced judges in DCI are not rewarding newer designs properly. However, the scores and rankings, and audio judge recordings that I have heard and asked staff about, show the opposite; that the newer designs are being well rewarded. And when I pressed him on if he has direct knowledge of proof to his claim, at least one response from him was, 'don't know', and the other responses were only based on that he can read the critera on the rubric sheets, and does not have direct proof, or that he does not want to name names. I even gave him the option to redact names and just show scoring ranking proof, but he said that was even too close to naming names.

Edited August 22, 2017 by Stu

[luv4corps]

On 8/19/2017 at 6:20 PM, MikeRapp said:

Maybe I am misreading you. But it seems as if you are explaining why the current judging community is above reproach and questioning, and then you say most of the judges should retire because in essence they just don't get what's going on out there.

I never gleaned from OP's original post that he was trying to say that judges are beyond reproach.  What I got out of it was simply a report on the state of things - what is going on, what isn't going on, what could be better - followed by a very kind request for folks to stop criticizing and become judges already.

My singular take on the post, FWIW.

 

Edited August 22, 2017 by luv4corps

[Stu]

1 hour ago, ContraFart said:

I dont disagree with your premise. BD has a very smart and thriving organization, but its not like they exist in a vacuum. Other corps I am sure have tried to emulate their success without the same success. There are factors that make BD unique that cannot be replicated and geography is one of them. Do you think the Colts can support the same business model in the middle of IA?

Same business 'types', no to maybe. Same business 'model' beyond Yes! The structure, mindset, and implementation of the 'model' can certainly be emulated. Colts could use the model to target things that are geographically relevant not only to Dubuque, but to Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, and the Quad Cities.

Edited August 22, 2017 by Stu