Discussion about a reform on LDCs

[Supershroom]

Hello, folks. As you may have already guessed by the title, this is where I wish the following idea of mine to be factually discussed.

For every LDC, mini-LDC and duel, we have 6 judges, or at least 5, and for every contestant/duelant, his highest and his lowest rating are excluded for his overall score, while the others still have the same weight each.

What I'm gonna say now may sound non-credible, but I swear, this idea has ripened in me before the 27th LDC has ended. It has ripened by seeing many other controversial judgings in the past - Killswitch in the 9th and 10th, lordpat in the 21st, and probably many more I'm not willed to seach for right now. It has also ripened by seeing some judges being obviously downrating for their own personal gain (please search for an example if you want. I'm not willed to call out any names for obvious reasons).

Seeing the arguments already brought up in the LDC topic, yes, it brings bias against judges who tend to be very generous or very critical. But in fact, that's not the matter, it's the matter how much bias it brings or removes for the contestants. Even if a judge may fall out many times, his ratings still have an impact for the overall results. But looking through the topic about judging styles, you can see that all judges to have posted there have similar standards and it's only slight "pennies" that make the difference. This means: Whenever two judge's ratings have a large difference, let's say at least 6 points or so, then it's at least one judging to be odd, or maybe even both. When excluding them, we can save a lot of arguing and bad aftertaste as they're not valid anymore.

Maybe it's also good to make the comparison with ski-jumping. Although differences between ratings are much, much lower here, they still use this rule. Some judges may be subliminally biased to jumpers from their own country and so they give them an extra +0.5. Similar if judges here may be subliminally biased to higher tier list designers, newcomers etc. (Please don't get me wrong. We've come to the conclusion that it's wrong to say it would happen systematically. Yet it could still happen subliminally and rather slightly.)

That's basically all I want to say for the present. Now it's your turn. But please stay objective.

[MessengerOfDreams]

Again, no.

For one, it denigrates the judge's role. If you don't give everyone happy perfect scores or you've really been wowed then you're thrown our, and your judgings are nothing.

Secondably, it rewards levels with lower scores. Of two levels get scores of 14, 15, 16, and 17, then the last judging could be for one an 17-20, and another anything from 0-14, and the worse level win.

This feeds into biases against "mean" judges who dare to be harsh or "biased" nice judges who like peoples' levels, and acts like theyre either biased ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ or asskissers for daring to honestly do their job. This is also literally biased against the better levels of the contest where they will literally get punished for having a high score. I could go through literally every LDC and I bet you most of them would have a changed winner because of this "be nice" rule, feeding into the idea that good designers should be punished because some people can't win over them. It's quite frankly more unfair than someone justly earning a low score for screwing up or earning a high score for wowing someone a little more than the rest.It will leave us with winners who truly didnt win and if this even gets suggested to be the new rule I'm gonna protest it until the end, and you bet I'm never gonna design under biased rules designed to make designers that shouldn't win purely by technicalities feel better about themselves like its kindergarten

Also I'm being as objective as possible

[-BY]

Again, no.

For one, it denigrates the judge's role. If you don't give everyone happy perfect scores or you've really been wowed then you're thrown our, and your judgings are nothing.

Secondably, it rewards levels with lower scores. Of two levels get scores of 14, 15, 16, and 17, then the last judging could be for one an 17-20, and another anything from 0-14, and the worse level win.

This feeds into biases against "mean" judges who dare to be harsh or "biased" nice judges who like peoples' levels, and acts like theyre either biased ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ or asskissers for daring to honestly do their job. This is also literally biased against the better levels of the contest where they will literally get punished for having a high score. I could go through literally every LDC and I bet you most of them would have a changed winner because of this "be nice" rule, feeding into the idea that good designers should be punished because some people can't win over them. It's quite frankly more unfair than someone justly earning a low score for screwing up or earning a high score for wowing someone a little more than the rest.It will leave us with winners who truly win and if this even gets suggested to be the new rule I'm gonna protest it until the end, and you bet I'm never gonna design under biased rules designed to make designers that shouldn't win purely by technicalities feel better about themselves like its kindergarten

Also I'm being as objective as possible

Listen to this man, though.

And you still don't seem to get the whole LDC stuff. I know there are some judges, which might need more knowledge about LDing and judging stuffz. But the LDC's are mostly fine, regarding the placements and scores. This concept you're talking about may be an alternative, but I'll honestly say that it's a pretty bad one. Anything about disregarding judgings is more than pointless to me. (If we'd even gather that much of those actually)

Shake of the dust and carry on. See them as a possibility to get an average recognition of your level and some free judgings.
That's what they mainly are in the end.

Sigh. I'm disliking these pointless arguments over nothing.

[Chaukai]

This post by Chaukai was thumbed up by: 2

Killswitch (September 12th, 2014, 9:30 am) • nin10mode (September 12th, 2014, 9:58 am)

[-BY]

This post by -BY was thumbed up by:

1018peter (September 12th, 2014, 5:08 pm)

[Chaukai]

This post by Chaukai was thumbed up by:

-BY (September 12th, 2014, 9:18 am)

[MessengerOfDreams]

I do like the idea of having judges being not from the LDC. I threw my hat into the ring last LDC cause I was worried about a lack of judges but it's best to have judges who have no stake in the LDC.

[Killswitch]

Why not just do it so judges can't participate in an LDC. Or, levels are submitted to a third party, who then gives all the levels to the judges without any username, so the judges do not know whose level is whose. Just have a masterlist of all the levels instead of each person submitting their own

This.
Also, maybe we should care less about winning; these "reviews" are subjective anyway.

[Supershroom]

Gathering 4 judges who don't compete in the LDC seems harder to me than gathering 5 or 6 in total.

Anyways, I don't see a big sense in going through history and finding out what the rule would have affected on the overall results, as 4 judges aren't enough for it, as the results would be composed of only 2 ratings.

Secondably, it rewards levels with lower scores. Of two levels get scores of 14, 15, 16, and 17, then the last judging could be for one an 17-20, and another anything from 0-14, and the worse level win.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding it right now, but assuming there are five judges in total, and there are two levels with get 14, 15, 16, 17 from four judges, then the fifth judge (doesn't need to be the same apparently) gives more than 17 for the first level and less than 14 for the second. Then he falls out twice, and in the first level it's the 14 to fall out, while in the second level it's the 17. So the first level has the scores 15, 16, 17 to be valid, while for the second one it's the 14, 15, 16, and the first level is still better than the second one.

I'd fully agree with MoD if the levels were judged by gods who don't make any mistakes at all. But judging isn't easy. Mistakes happen ineluctably. You might be rushing or you might have not your best day and lack concentration a bit. And it's the sense of this rule to work against all kinds of mistakes, to make it almost impossible for a judge to decide an LDC in a solo attempt, make it less problematic that judges also participate, aka make the "Chau method" (sorry ) be a thing of the past.

[Chaukai]

Hey thanks guys

One concept I also had way back when that relates to the judges not being in the contest is having a rotation of the same judges. Like how most contests are on TV, there's usually the same judges every season with maybe one or two different. We could do it so that we have like, 8 people who are deemed judges, and 4 would do one LDC, then the other 4 would do the next and they would swap. This way the judges could have a break and also participate in the LDC that they are not judging. Just a concept.

You might be rushing or you might have not your best day and lack concentration a bit. And it's the sense of this rule to work against all kinds of mistakes, to make it almost impossible for a judge to decide an LDC in a solo attempt, to make the "Chau method" (sorry ) be a thing of the past.

[

Offense not taken. The reason for me thinking of having judges not in the LDC was because of that LDC I won. I don't understand why it's harder though. It's the best solution to your problem that has been suggested. It gives less bias and has less room for error. The major problem with my solution is that 4 people not judging means there's less people in the actual LDC. But hey, isn't that less competition for everyone else? And with the previously stated suggestion it would also help with making judging more reasonable.

EDIT: Having consistent judges would also give the level designers more edge since they can start understanding how the judges grade, and appeal towards the judges. This can be both a pro and a con.