Scoring and judging discussion

**Pokemon Trainer Sarah** · 05-19-2017, 10:36 PM

As someone who it is not summer time for, I always disliked that war wouldn't give you the weekend to work on stuff (the only time I had free). xD I always ended up rushing to enter things on the Saturday, hoping judging would be late haha. So I like your plan Neo, but personally I'd rather the event was posted on Sunday (which is Monday for me) and didn't close until midnight Saturday (which is around midday Sunday for me) and then judges can have Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to judge. That way purple in different timezone will still get some weekend time to enter.

And yeah I think judges need points especially since they can't enter the section themselves.

**Soups** · 05-20-2017, 06:49 AM

Originally Posted by Neo Emolga

I'd say go with Morzone's plan. 20 points if you do everything on time. 10 points if you're late, and nothing if you're super-late or don't post results at all.

I would say the deadline is Midnight on Monday night (we just need to decide on the timezone we're going with but usually it's EST). Results have to be in before then to get the full amount of judging points. I like Morzone's plan where if you're late but not by 24 hours, you can still get half the amount for 10. After that, you get zip (and risk having your judging hijacked by a PXFIRE leader who can declare winners and set the next week's theme AND/OR possibly get replaced).

In the past, I set a judging plan where it goes like this:

MONDAY-FRIDAY: Standard time for submissions. There will definitely be no judging here.

SATURDAY: Last minute submissions. If you submit something before the section is judged, it counts. However, judging CAN happen on this day as well, and if the judge posts results before you submit, boom, you're too late.

SUNDAY: Submissions for the week are over. Judging now happens, but once judging for the week is done and the judge has posted the next theme, it's open season for submissions again.

This gives plenty of time for submissions and gives judges the weekend to get results up. We've used it before and I feel it's a pretty solid and fair system.

For things like RP where posting never really stops, the judge can decide where the cutoff is between what counts for last week and what counts for the next week.

I like it. I would say that we shouldn't allow last minute submissions (considering the fact that judges may already be in the process of judging on Saturday), but eh... why not? xD

**Caite-chan** · 05-20-2017, 01:11 PM

So this got me thinking while I was replying to one of the other threads. We know we get people who join teams and then don't even do anything throughout the whole event. Do you think we could take points away from teams for people who don't do anything? This could be an incentive to make sure all team members participate in at least one event each week. I mean come on if you can't even do Humor then why even bother to join. That is the easiest event of all and takes little to no effort to do. Everyone should be able to do that.

**Neo Emolga** · 05-20-2017, 01:44 PM

Originally Posted by Pokemon Trainer Sarah

As someone who it is not summer time for, I always disliked that war wouldn't give you the weekend to work on stuff (the only time I had free). xD I always ended up rushing to enter things on the Saturday, hoping judging would be late haha. So I like your plan Neo, but personally I'd rather the event was posted on Sunday (which is Monday for me) and didn't close until midnight Saturday (which is around midday Sunday for me) and then judges can have Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to judge. That way purple in different timezone will still get some weekend time to enter.

And yeah I think judges need points especially since they can't enter the section themselves.

Hmm, I guess we could do that instead. As long as judges get at least two days to do things. Otherwise I think only having one day to do it would be hard if they just happen to be busy on that date.

Originally Posted by Caite-chan

So this got me thinking while I was replying to one of the other threads. We know we get people who join teams and then don't even do anything throughout the whole event. Do you think we could take points away from teams for people who don't do anything? This could be an incentive to make sure all team members participate in at least one event each week. I mean come on if you can't even do Humor then why even bother to join. That is the easiest event of all and takes little to no effort to do. Everyone should be able to do that.

I'm... not too crazy about that idea. Because I think you'll still have people not doing anything and that makes it even worse for the team that keeps losing points because they have inactive members. Imagine being a team leader, PMing and VMing the same inactive people to do something and they still don't even though the rest of the team gave it their all and tried to motivate the inactive people? And now you're getting points taken away. Teammates becoming inactive is usually never the rest of the team's fault, that's just other people getting distracted by other things. But by taking points away from them, you're punishing them for something that was beyond their control. They're already taking a blow by having some people not doing anything and not you're taking points away from the people that are.

On top of that, people could have a good reason for going inactive. Family emergencies, vacations, sickness, and many other reasons could prevent them from taking part. It's really meant to be a fun community game, not something people have to give up their own summer for.

**Caite-chan** · 05-20-2017, 02:15 PM

I guess it could be a question we add to the sign up sheet. I always hated when people would sign up and then do absolutely nothing and taking up a spot someone else could have. Especially if we're going to try to make the teams even.

**Neo Emolga** · 05-20-2017, 02:36 PM

Originally Posted by Caite-chan

I guess it could be a question we add to the sign up sheet. I always hated when people would sign up and then do absolutely nothing and taking up a spot someone else could have. Especially if we're going to try to make the teams even.

It is a pain, I won't deny that, but it's the nature of the beast. You can't really punish someone who just isn't there.

Asking about possible absence time in advance seems like a good idea, though. It's fair and reasonable. Team Leaders may factor that in when making their draft choices, also. I know I would if I were a Team Leader and this was how we were handling member recruitment.

**Soups** · 05-21-2017, 06:18 AM

Originally Posted by Caite-chan

So this got me thinking while I was replying to one of the other threads. We know we get people who join teams and then don't even do anything throughout the whole event. Do you think we could take points away from teams for people who don't do anything? This could be an incentive to make sure all team members participate in at least one event each week. I mean come on if you can't even do Humor then why even bother to join. That is the easiest event of all and takes little to no effort to do. Everyone should be able to do that.

While I understand where you're coming from, I don't necessarily think we should take the route... It's impossible to predict who will actually participate. It shouldn't be a team's fault that a member isn't participating, especially when the teams WON'T be selecting its own members. They have to take whoever is drafted to them, so they shouldn't be punished for it if those that are drafted don't participate.

Maybe we can give out an award to a team that has the most members participate though. Nothing that will effect the actual PXFIRE results, but a fun, quirky award or something.

**Pokemon Trainer Sarah** · 05-21-2017, 11:49 PM

Yeah I don't think it's right to punish people who don't participate. The team is already kinda punished sadly as they will have one less active person than other teams (as the numbers will be even). But we should still encourage everyone to join in even if they only participate in a couple events or whatever.

And yeah I wanna give the judges plenty of time to score things. It doesn't even matter if they have 3-4 days IMO, as long as the next challenge is posted on the sunday. (We can ensure this by making sure the judges submit their schedules ahead of time, so if they can't be on for some reason, someone else can post the challenge).

**Soups** · 05-21-2017, 11:58 PM

Originally Posted by Pokemon Trainer Sarah

Yeah I don't think it's right to punish people who don't participate. The team is already kinda punished sadly as they will have one less active person than other teams (as the numbers will be even). But we should still encourage everyone to join in even if they only participate in a couple events or whatever.

And yeah I wanna give the judges plenty of time to score things. It doesn't even matter if they have 3-4 days IMO, as long as the next challenge is posted on the sunday. (We can ensure this by making sure the judges submit their schedules ahead of time, so if they can't be on for some reason, someone else can post the challenge).

Hell, even if they only participate in one. While it is a competition, having fun is still the most important aspect and we can't forget that.

**Pokemon Trainer Sarah** · 05-24-2017, 04:56 AM

Okay I made a draft Judge Applications thread. Let me know what you guys think!

[PXFIRE] Judge Applications

Hi everyone! The PXFIRE planning team have been finalising details for the big event and we are now ready to open judge applications! Here's what you need to know!

Sections and events!
PXFIRE will run over 4 weeks. We are hoping to be ready to start by July! During that time there will be 8 main events: drawing, graphic art, spriting, roleplaying, creative writing, comics, showdown battling, humour. Each section will run a number of events of a certain duration. For example, sprite art might run three events each over one week, while creative writing runs two events, each over two weeks (to give people more time to enter). It will be up to the judges to come up with their own schedule and events (to be approved by the PXFIRE leaders)!

How judging works!
At the end of each event, the judge will be required to grade each entry and give feedback. The judge will then distribute points so that each entry gets at least 1 point, with the "best" entries recieving a larger share of points. We expect judges will embrace the central tenet of PXFIRE, that participation and effort should be rewarded, when distributing points. These points go toward your team total! Judges will need to complete the grading within a limited time (usually 2-3 days) and if submitted on time will also earn points for their team!

Judge duties!
As a judge you will need to have the time to grade entries in a limited time and be sure that you will be around for the duration of the event (July 2nd to July 30th at this stage). If something comes up or you know in advance that you will be away for one or more of those weeks we can possibly have two judges, so if you are very interested in judging you may still apply, just let us know your availability. Please be honest about this as judging is probably the most important part of the event and if we have people just drop out it will be very disruptive. :(

Before the event starts, we will require all judges to submit their plan for their section, so you will need to have some time before July to get this sorted! This includes the timeline (how many challenges and how long they go for) and the theme and rules for each challenge. You will also need to have your section thread written up and ready to go before the event begins. We would like to have all of this information before PXFIRE starts so if a judge can't be online for some reason, we can still make sure the challenges are posted on time!

For an example of how judging can be done and the kinds of themes/challenges, you can check out some of the old WAR threads, links to which can be found by clicking here.

The details on sections and judging can be found in the spoiler below.

Spoiler:

How to apply!
To apply to judge, just fill out this form and post it here. :) The PXFIRE leaders will select judges. If you want to apply for multiple sections then you may but keep in mind we will only allow each individual to judge one section as it is a lot of work!

Code:

Username:

Which section would you like to judge?:

What is your availability like from now until July?

Please note any experience you have with judging/grading things or with giving constructive criticism that would help your judging:

Please outline an example challenge for your section (You don't have to use this if selected). 
Include the rules and duration of the challenge. 3-5 sentences is fine!

JUDGE APPLICATIONS CLOSE MAY 31ST