Looking for Judges! Payload Contest

[Ravidge]

Hello. The contest build period is nearly completed, and the testing phase will begin shortly. Every major contest we have a panel of judges, made up of regular members from the community who agreed to help out.

This time is no different. Judges are needed!

What is expected of a judge: (in short)

• To play every contest entry to a degree where you feel you can make a good review of it. The amount you decide to play on each map is irrelevant.
• Review all the maps, this means typing out some text where you motivate your scoring and opinions of the map. You're free to write as much as you want, but all that is required is a paragraph or two where you motivate your scores.
• Score all the maps in the 5 different categories. Each judge is asked to take extra care to judge all maps against a certain standard of their choosing (what standard is irrelevant, just as long as all maps are judged against the same one), and use all of the 1-10 range of scores to differentiate good from bad.

Why do we need a judge panel?
To make sure we have a steady base of complete votes with motivations/reasons behind them.

I'm not good enough to be on some judge panel...
We are not looking for professional reviewing, we just need dedicated people who want to help the community.
I would like to receive as many judge applications as possible, and then leave it to me/staff to decide whether you're fit for the job!

How do I apply?
Send me (Ravidge) a forum PM!
You only really need to say: "Hello, I would like to apply for a position on the contest judge panel" or similar, it's that easy.

 

[Sel]

Can we please do 1 to 100 scoring this time?

 

[henke37]

How about putting the maps up on the server for a few days in a loop and getting some real player data to assist the judges?

 

[tyler]

We do that too. Historically the judge's ratings carry more weight, though.

 

[Ravidge]

If you've sent in a application, good, I will be going through them in the next couple days and starting to assembly a proper judge panel.

If you haven't sent a application in, WHERE IS YOUR EXCUSE!??!? (it's not too late)


Anyway, just a heads up, so you people don't feel forgotten!

 

[ics]

I'd like to reserve a right to be a judge if my entry will be dropped off from contest due to pleminary vote (which is a sucky way to do it btw). I have already ran most of these contest maps (last batch goes next friday) on my community servers so i have fair knowledge on how these maps work in-game. Just that, don't drop my entry, pl_curve_b8 off for this. Being in contest is still my 1st wish.

 

[LeSwordfish]

(which is a sucky way to do it btw).

What else is your suggestion? Complete analysis of nearly thirty maps? Try and make everyone play thirty maps before rating?

 

[ics]

It's a sucky way because none of the contestants who are new here knew about pre-ranking off some of the maps in advance. There was no mention about such thing in the rules and if there are future contests, note about this should be added to contest rules so similiar mess cannot occur again.

Those people who submitted map put work, effort and much time to their entries and some of them, perhaps even mine won't get to the main contest and the mappers won't get the feedback they deserve because pleminary votes will rank them off. They never hear detailed explanations on what is wrong and how they can learn from their mistakes. That's the most saddest part in this.

 

[LeSwordfish]

Well, they're very welcome to do the whole gameday shizzle everybody else does. But if you post a map three days bfore the contest, soley in the submission thread, and not anywhere else, you can't expect either to have a good enough map to stand up to ones that have been online and under testing for months, or to get as much feedback as them.

 

[Fruity Snacks]

It's a sucky way because none of the contestants who are new here knew about pre-ranking off some of the maps in advance. There was no mention about such thing in the rules and if there are future contests, note about this should be added to contest rules so similiar mess cannot occur again.

Those people who submitted map put work, effort and much time to their entries and some of them, perhaps even mine won't get to the main contest and the mappers won't get the feedback they deserve because pleminary votes will rank them off. They never hear detailed explanations on what is wrong and how they can learn from their mistakes. That's the most saddest part in this.

In Ravidge's defense, in the Prelim voting therad, he does say that this is NOT the norm for contests, and that this is due to the over-estimated amount of maps that entered. No one (besides ravidge) knew that a Prelim vote was going to occur until post-submission.


And Swordfish is right, if you want some detailed feedback after the contest, enter it into a gameday.

 

[Tarry H Sruman]

If elected, I will personally give detailed feedback to all of those whose maps were not accepted, because that is what Ronald Reagan would do.

SRUMAN 2012

 

[tyler]

Well, they're very welcome to do the whole gameday shizzle everybody else does. But if you post a map three days bfore the contest, soley in the submission thread, and not anywhere else, you can't expect either to have a good enough map to stand up to ones that have been online and under testing for months, or to get as much feedback as them.

There is nothing more correct than this. Sorry, ics.

 

[Tarry H Sruman]

As was said to the people who missed the submission thread, it is not our responsibility to make sure you comply with the procedures. Ravidge put out a comprehensive description of this contest over 4 months ago, and you had all that time to test it. You cannot complain about your map being eliminated because you neglected to test it. Some of the submissions we received were from very inexperienced mappers and of sub-par quality, you can't honestly expect us to give every one of them a full judging when half of them are fundamentally broken, can you?

 

[henke37]

I sure hope there were no broken entries. If a map can't be won against a dummy bot then it is broken. If the map lacks lighting, cubemaps or packed in custom content then it is broken. Anything else is just very bad.

 

[grazr]

...you can't honestly expect us to give every one of them a full judging when half of them are fundamentally broken, can you?

Still, it'll be nice.

I know some people will judge all the maps, including myself, although the maps that don't get past the preliminary vote probably wont receive particularly comprehensive judging.

It's a sucky way because none of the contestants who are new here knew about pre-ranking off some of the maps in advance. There was no mention about such thing in the rules and if there are future contests, note about this should be added to contest rules so similiar mess cannot occur again.

Those people who submitted map put work, effort and much time to their entries and some of them, perhaps even mine won't get to the main contest and the mappers won't get the feedback they deserve because pleminary votes will rank them off. They never hear detailed explanations on what is wrong and how they can learn from their mistakes. That's the most saddest part in this.

If you're worried about publicity, your map will still be featured so you're not being ignored; the only real difference is how comprehensively the map will be judged. If you don't pass preliminary then you weren't gonna win in the first place so it's not like you're being disqualified arbitrarily. The prelims are only to increase the time in which the judges can deliver their comprehensive reviews. Not passing prelims in itself is feedback and has nothing to do with being new or not.

If the people submitted maps with the intention of receiving feedback... we've been running gamedays that have been providing that service for 4 months and will continue to provide that service until the final judgements.

 

[tyler]

Not to mention we run gamedays all the time anyway, so if testing and feedback is what you want you could have gotten it regardless of the contest.

 

[ics]

If you're worried about publicity, your map will still be featured so you're not being ignored; the only real difference is how comprehensively the map will be judged. If you don't pass preliminary then you weren't gonna win in the first place so it's not like you're being disqualified arbitrarily. The prelims are only to increase the time in which the judges can deliver their comprehensive reviews. Not passing prelims in itself is feedback and has nothing to do with being new or not..

I'm not worried about publicity. I'm not trying to be famous. I do maps for fun and always have. It's my way on contributing games and to the community i run and also to other servers that might find something i do usefull.

However, this is no way directed to the mappers who did the maps and i don't want to point fingers but since there are maps in the contest which have either seethrough textures or devtextures and my map, which is basically done without any huge flaws, doesn't get through to the contest and the maps that have these things i mentioned, might get in, i'm wondering how that could be possible.

But we aren't there yet.

 

[LeSwordfish]

I'm not worried about publicity. I'm not trying to be famous. I do maps for fun and always have. It's my way on contributing games and to the community i run and also to other servers that might find something i do usefull.

However, this is no way directed to the mappers who did the maps and i don't want to point fingers but since there are maps in the contest which have either seethrough textures or devtextures and my map, which is basically done without any huge flaws, doesn't get through to the contest and the maps that have these things i mentioned, might get in, i'm wondering how that could be possible.

But we aren't there yet.

If you have a problem with an individual map, then post explaining why no-one should vote for it. Or don't vote for it yourself. Ultimately, however, this is a democratic process. It's up to the voters to choose which maps they want to go through and which they don't. Saying "But this is unfair, I'm better than those ones." isn't going to change anything. If Obama were to go on stage and say "Oh, come on now. Look at Romney. The man's an idiot." he'd not do too well out of it.

 

[ics]

If you have a problem with an individual map, then post explaining why no-one should vote for it. Or don't vote for it yourself. Ultimately, however, this is a democratic process. It's up to the voters to choose which maps they want to go through and which they don't. Saying "But this is unfair, I'm better than those ones." isn't going to change anything. If Obama were to go on stage and say "Oh, come on now. Look at Romney. The man's an idiot." he'd not do too well out of it.

Presidential race has nothing to do with TF2 mapping. Thats a very bad example. I just think its unfair if unfinished map is voted up on the contest over very much near finished one. Thats all i'm saying.

 

[Wilson]

Some of those "unfinished" maps are superior to some of those "finished" maps.
I don't care if mapper didn't reach rc before contest ended, i voted based on how good the map is, not on amount of detail etc.