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We need better judges.

Do you agree?

  • Strongly disagree

    Votes: 8 4.7%
  • Disagree

    Votes: 25 14.5%
  • Don't care

    Votes: 31 18.0%
  • Agree

    Votes: 71 41.3%
  • Strongly agree.

    Votes: 37 21.5%

  • Total voters
    172
I remember volunteering to judge at my first comp after all my events. I tried really hard not to mess anything up, but I forgot to reset the time once. Led to me giving the next solver an E1.
 
I'm sure this has happened to all of us.

You finish a solve and the cube will be like marginally unsolved, like 15 degrees off and clearly not a +2, but the judge calls the delegate over anyway. Or when the judge calls your solve a DNF even though it's a U2 away. Stuff like this. This needs to stop. I had a kid come up to me complaining that his judge marked his solve as a DNF because it was a 180 degree turn away and that it was 'two' moves away from being solved.

Can't we have it such that only cubers who are old enough and/or have been to a certain number of competitions can judge; similar to how we assign scramblers?
I understand there may not be sufficient judges but I think it's worth it to have more accurate jurisdiction.
 
I'm sure this has happened to all of us.

You finish a solve and the cube will be like marginally unsolved, like 15 degrees off and clearly not a +2, but the judge calls the delegate over anyway. Or when the judge calls your solve a DNF even though it's a U2 away. Stuff like this. This needs to stop. I had a kid come up to me complaining that his judge marked his solve as a DNF because it was a 180 degree turn away and that it was 'two' moves away from being solved.

Can't we have it such that only cubers who are old enough and/or have been to a certain number of competitions can judge; similar to how we assign scramblers?
I understand there may not be sufficient judges but I think it's worth it to have more accurate jurisdiction.
In the Netherlands, there is a judging training at every competition. There is also a system in place where newcomers have a white/green ribbon, people with 1-2 comps get a yellow ribbon and experienced competitors get a blue ribbon. Runners know not to match newbies with newbies, so these problems almost never occur. In fact, I've had the opposite where I told the judge I was fine with the +2 she gave me, but she called the delegate because it was such a minute difference. All in all most competitors are also very honest and even if the judge misses something, which happens once in a while, the competitor will almost always call out the situation. Someone at the last comp even said he got a miss scramble and had to redo a solve, which cost him about half a second on his average in Skewb.
 
Same in Australia, we do a judging tutorial, but this doesn't stop kids from talking during solves, counting by seconds during inspection and this judge even knocked my friends $50 gopro stand off the table, breaking it and not even saying sorry. There is literally no way of stopping this unless they force people to be good
 
If judges got quickly tested for easy mistakes to make maybe this situation would be fixed.
 
There was a post a few months back talking about how in Norway or somewhere, they use a banding system. I agree with this 100% and would prob like it as a wca reg


@ProStar
 
There was a post a few months back talking about how in Norway or somewhere, they use a banding system. I agree with this 100% and would prob like it as a wca reg


@ProStar
Here's the post:
In the Netherlands, there is a judging training at every competition. There is also a system in place where newcomers have a white/green ribbon, people with 1-2 comps get a yellow ribbon and experienced competitors get a blue ribbon. Runners know not to match newbies with newbies, so these problems almost never occur. In fact, I've had the opposite where I told the judge I was fine with the +2 she gave me, but she called the delegate because it was such a minute difference. All in all most competitors are also very honest and even if the judge misses something, which happens once in a while, the competitor will almost always call out the situation. Someone at the last comp even said he got a miss scramble and had to redo a solve, which cost him about half a second on his average in Skewb.
 
At one of the competitions I went to we had experienced people staff for the first 3 groups of an event and then the experienced people would compete in the 4th and 5th with newcomers or inexperienced cubers as our staff (aside from scrambling). We did that for all of the events but if we only did it for the first round of 2-4 then it would have worked by giving the new/inexperienced guys a look at what a good judge is. I think that competitor tutorials help a lot and in my area whenever we do comps there is usually a delegate, organizer, or whoever is willing to help is designated to teach people how to judge. I staff a ton so I have done this before and it works well to have someone teach people how to judge when they are new. This is not perfect though. One time during 6x6, my judge was doing skewb U perms for the entirety of my centers, until one of our organizers told him to stop. If any of you guys are helping out with the competitor tutorials make sure that you point out that you should not be talking, solving, or just giving a general distraction during a solve while you judge.
 
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