Divineskulls
Veteran
Thank you for apologizing, Aaron. I sincerely mean that, I respect that you would do this in such an open way. There are a few things I'd like to say, however:
Ishmam mentioned to me that during one (or more, I don't know) of his solves, you were trying to make conversation with him. I didn't see this, so I didn't make too big of a deal out of it. I just talked to you privately at the end of one of the days. This talk was not meant to make you feel bad at all, I just wanted to call it to your attention that what you were doing was distracting competitors from their solves. Also, I did not do this solely because Ishmam is my friend. I inferred that if you were doing this with one person, it was likely that it happened multiple times.
The big thing that bothered me about you was that you abandoned your duties to judge to go out to lunch. You did get someone to cover for you, which I guess is the next best thing (although in my opinion, you made a commitment and should have stuck to it). But when the person who covered you realized that they were competing in that round, which is partially their fault that they didn't know, we were left with one less judge.
The part about standing up to bullies, though, is kind of ridiculous in my opinion. When people bully you, it is not always best to fight back. Standing up to them is great, but it is definitely not the same as fighting back.
Ishmam mentioned to me that during one (or more, I don't know) of his solves, you were trying to make conversation with him. I didn't see this, so I didn't make too big of a deal out of it. I just talked to you privately at the end of one of the days. This talk was not meant to make you feel bad at all, I just wanted to call it to your attention that what you were doing was distracting competitors from their solves. Also, I did not do this solely because Ishmam is my friend. I inferred that if you were doing this with one person, it was likely that it happened multiple times.
The big thing that bothered me about you was that you abandoned your duties to judge to go out to lunch. You did get someone to cover for you, which I guess is the next best thing (although in my opinion, you made a commitment and should have stuck to it). But when the person who covered you realized that they were competing in that round, which is partially their fault that they didn't know, we were left with one less judge.
The part about standing up to bullies, though, is kind of ridiculous in my opinion. When people bully you, it is not always best to fight back. Standing up to them is great, but it is definitely not the same as fighting back.
