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I see it all the time at my regionals - feel like i could probably be a better judge.

Fact is there are some BADDDDD judges at my regional, and probably at a lot of other regionals. Maybe even at states, and as for nats...well i've never been there but id assume based on hearing what other people have to say.

Share your experiences, and i have 1 final question to conclude. How can i deal with a bad judge for something like an event clarification?

For your question: Tell them to use a <censored> computer, and to actually look at the God-<censored> clarifications.
OR you could do what I do and sheepishly say "Oh, okay" and listen to them despite the fact that they are wrong.

lllazar wrote:Share your experiences, and i have 1 final question to conclude. How can i deal with a bad judge for something like an event clarification?

I'd suggest having a copy of the rules handy, as well as all the official clarifications printed out from soinc.org. It will be harder for a judge or event sup to rule against you (if you're right) if you have proof. Also, make friends with the other teams...if they also have the same problem, and there's a large group of people that complain, the judge may be forced to give in.

lllazar wrote:I see it all the time at my regionals - feel like i could probably be a better judge.

Fact is there are some BADDDDD judges at my regional, and probably at a lot of other regionals. Maybe even at states, and as for nats...well i've never been there but id assume based on hearing what other people have to say.

Share your experiences, and i have 1 final question to conclude. How can i deal with a bad judge for something like an event clarification?

You should never argue with the event coordinator, it will always end up badly for you. Make sure you have a copy of the rules and politely ask if they can explain the clarification. If you still think they are wrong you should not argue with them. Thank them for explaining it to you, and then as soon as the event gets out tell your coach, who can then decide whether or not it is worth making an appeal. Often it isn't worth arguing as long as you were not DQed, and even then arguing will usually just make the situation worse.

Remember, most event coordinators are volunteers.

rocketman1555 wrote:

lllazar wrote:I see it all the time at my regionals - feel like i could probably be a better judge.

Remember, most event coordinators are volunteers.

And this is the long term solution for Science Olympiad. To have people who were very active in and love Science Olympiad to graduate and then volunteer their time to run events. Most site coordinators would probably love to have people, with experience and passion, offer to run events rather than force people into judging who really don't want to or don't feel knowledgable enough to.

At the regional competition, many event coordinators *are* volunteers. I remember walking into a Road Scholar test and having the adjudicator tell everyone, "don't ask any questions about the test, I don't know anything about maps."

At the state level, it's a different matter- you all know how I got ripped off out of a trip to nats because of an event coordinator at state. The people at state should know what they are doing. The JYC judge last year... well, let's just say were disappointing. They should also have new tests- the DyPlan test was the same as the last year, giving an unfair advantage to teams that did the event the previous year. Didn't matter though- I beat them anyway. Bad event coordinators are something you just have to endure- and overcome- if you want to keep proceeding towards nationals. Because if you tick off a judge- they can do a lot worse things to you.

That's terrible Z, from my experience the proctors at Illinois state were fine for me last year - The fossils lady had a degree in paleontology, experimental design folks had degrees in the area of the experiment which involved touch and sensation, the bridge proctors were all kind, experienced people who knew wat they were doing, and there honestly isn't much proctoring to be done for Disease, but the test was decent.

I think the judges should have certification to a certain level, even though they are volunteers. I'd love to volunteer as a judge if i were a grad, but i'd make sure i knew wat i was getting in to.

Yeah, at Nationals, Junkyard wasn't run very well. I was watching the event and the judge didn't even time them properly. Apparently, he just had a general idea of the time, and not exactly. There were 3 or 4 other teams going at the same time, but it's Nationals and you would expect a higher level of strictness. The people on my team who did the event were kind of annoyed since they wanted to know exactly how much time they had since they had some repairs to fix, but the proctor just gave them a general time. But other than that, the proctors were very good.

I've personally had two bad experiences with this: once was Elevated Bridge at Regionals, and the other time was Anatomy at States.

For Elevated Bridge, our bridge held 14.86 kg when tested, almost perfect in terms of efficiency. What we didn't know was that the person(s) running the event was/were ranking all the bridges that held the full 15 kg a tier above all the ones that didn't (like ours) even though they were supposed to be ranked by efficiency. We weren't told of this until about an hour later, after we had removed our bridge from the testing area. So we couldn't appeal it because 1) it was past the hour allowed for arbitrations, and 2) we had gathered up the pieces of bridge and taken them back with us.

For Anatomy, the issue was that there was National material on the State test. One of the teams appealed for the results to be thrown out, but the appeal was shot down because "all the teams were at the same disadvantage". However, the teams that already knew they were likely to go to Nationals had already studied the material and therefore had an advantage over the rest of us. I take issue with this not because of messed-up rankings (we did horribly anyways) but because of the reason they denied the appeal. All the teams were not at the same disadvantage...you can't expect the schools that have gone to Nationals year after year to wait until after States to start studying for Nationals. And you can't expect the schools that have never gone to Nationals to study the National material.

Alright, rant over.

Those idiots can't do anything right
The judges for Crime Busters @ regionals last time sucked
and the road scholar ones need to learn how to read a god <censored>
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