[Artemisia] Harvest War classes- judging A&S (longish)

[morgan wolf]

I was contacted earlier by a close friend who happens to be a Laurel, who wanted to be sure that the judging class I'm teaching at Harvest War is not going to be a bad idea, since I've never formally taught this class before, although I have been part of teaching how to judge brewing and liquors.  Her questions were perfectly reasonable, and asked in the best interest of the people taking the class and the artisans who will later be judged by those people, so I thought it might behoove me to share our discussion (in part) with the rest of you.
 
Question- what is the main point of the class?
Answer- the main point is that any person, who can read English, can judge any entry in any category.  I say this with certainty because I quite regularly judge categories that I have no more than passing familiarity with, because I trust that the entrant will provide me all the information I need in their documentation.
 
Question- Don't you feel that people with a strong knowledge of the category make better judges?
Answer- absolutely, they'll see things that a novice such as myself will miss, and indeed part of the class is that I *strongly* encourage all Ministers of Arts and Sciences to make sure that they use the "open judging" technique, which allows the judges to discuss the entry amongst themselves before *individually* scoring it, and that there always be at least one judge for each category who is knowledgeable in the entry, for that very reason.  But the simple fact is that we don't have that many "experts" in that many categories, and we shouldn't be limiting our artisans to only the categories that we have 3 available experts in.

Question- Don't you think that the judges should make an effort to be nice in their judging?
Answer- No, I think they should be impartial, honest, polite, and judge the entry solely on it's merits, not on who the artisan is and what they've done in the past.  An example:  let's say that Lord Odfa and Mistress Casamira both enter an Scottish Stout in brewing.  Lord Odfa follows a period recipe to the letter, and makes something that he doesn't actually like, but that has the exact qualities that define a Scottish Stout.  Mistress Casamira decides to be creative and alters her recipe, coming up with something that is lighter in color and more wheaty in taste.  In this case, based on *what they documented*, Odfa scores substantially higher, because he produced exactly what he was trying to produce.  Cas, although very creative, didn't make Scottish Stout, she made Scottish Hefeweizen, which sounds really interesting, and might be very good, but *isn't what she documented she was making*.  THE IMPORTANT PART-  if you change the names to "Ryryd" and
 "Broka",or any other two people,  *the scores should be exactly the same!!!!*   I don't think judges should be required to be "nice", but an impartial, polite critique of the work shouldn't come up with anything like "I hate this" or "you can do better".  If you are judging on the merits of the work, whether or not you hate it has no bearing.  Same for whether or not the entrant has done better work in the past, you aren't judging their entire body of work, you're judging *this piece, solely on it's merits*.

Question- What qualifies you to teach this class?
Answer- I have judged at every Arts and Sciences event I have been to in the last 18 years except one, again often in categories that I have minimal knowledge of, using these techniques.  I have had one complaint about my judging, ever (and the artisan who complained was right- I scored her lower for not personalizing the scroll more, she pointed out where it was very personal and I missed it.  Would it have made a difference, I would have changed my score, but she won by a LARGE margin anyway) (by the way, in case you didn't hear it before Jaqueline, I apologize, you were right).  Part of this class is the very important lesson that judges are human, they make mistakes, miss things, and occasionally give the wrong score.  If you do so as a judge, be prepared to accept the blame for your mistake, apologize, and correct it if possible (although it seldom is).  I highly recommend that artisans take this class as well, and remember that we're judging as a
 favor *to you*, we gain nothing for judging, you may gain a Champion's Chain.

Question- Why are you, a person not known for artistic endeavors, teaching this class?  Why isn't a Laurel teaching it?
Answer- I'm teaching it because I have the knowledge, and I'm willing to share it, and Lady Flora accepted my offer to teach it.  As for the second part, there are two answers:  First, you don't have to be a Laurel to teach, anymore than you have to be a Laurel to judge, or be a Laurel to enter an Arts and Sciences Competition (except of course those limited to Laurels).  Second, that's a really good question, ask the next three Laurels you see why they aren't teaching it.  
 
In closing, I apologize for taking up so much space in your inbox, I hope I have alleviated any concerns you might have had about this class, and I hope to see many of you there.  If any of you would like to discuss the points I made here further, I'm happy to do so, I think even Sir Conrad would agree that this is a good topic (it's okay to poke our longtime friends occasionally, right?).

Morgan Blaidd Du,
mka Morgan Wolf
Damn Vicar Archery and Stuff
www.damnvicar.com
damnvicar at yahoo.com


       
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