Discussion: Blind Judging

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Discussion: Blind Judging

Postby Seijin_Dinger » Fri Apr 09, 2010 9:01 pm

This came up on the feedback forum, and I have been toying around with the idea for a while.

What are people's opinions on doing contest judging in a blind manner. This means for my contest all people would see on the title slate for each video would be only the Video ID, and the Video Name, but not the name of the editor who made and entered it.

The reason for this would to be to make it more fair for newer editors who end up in a category against known heavy hitters such as Vlad, Pwolf, Infinity Squared, etc.

I already do a blind screening for the pre-con panel that chooses the finalists and it seems to work well there as they have no idea who entered what, and thus they can leave any bias about editors at the door.
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Re: Discussion: Blind Judging

Postby BasharOfTheAges » Fri Apr 09, 2010 9:08 pm

Do you honestly think that people vote by who makes a video? Or that the average con goer knows who even the biggest names in our community are? I find that a bit far-fetched. Laments of "I lost because I was against XYZ" are primarily a coping mechanism and "he only won because he's XYZ" is just bad blood. If you're doing it to silence bitching, realize that's why you want to do it and leave it at that. I doubt it's a real issue or is anywhere near prevalent enough to need blind judging done to an audience.
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Re: Discussion: Blind Judging

Postby Seijin_Dinger » Fri Apr 09, 2010 9:16 pm

I do see the arguments from both sides, such as oh thats XYZ and thats why he won, but also I think its cool to see XYZ's name attached to their video in front of a large audience. Trying to find a good middle ground to keep as many happy as possible, as I already know I cant please everyone.

Also, since screening is blind I have to make 2 sets of title slates and it makes my job slightly easier, and I like being lazy LOL
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Re: Discussion: Blind Judging

Postby thundercatlord » Fri Apr 09, 2010 9:59 pm

I personally DO NOT like the idea of blind judging. As Bashar said, I also find it a bit far fetched that the creator's username is an issue. I enter my vids to contests so that a large group of people can see them and enjoy them. And.. I in turn also enjoy watching the reactions of the audience when I am at a contest. I may have won a good amount of awards these past couple of years, but I really doubt that very many people know who I am. Heck I'd be willing to bet that only a good 25% of people here on the org know who I am. So I just can't see why someone would think (in my case anyway) that the creators username has anything to do with the outcome of the contest. I mean, who's every heard of the guy who won "best in show?" Audiences are fickle and vote for what they like regardless of who made the vid. So I say let people bitch about it. They're always going to have something to bitch about.
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Re: Discussion: Blind Judging

Postby Cyanna » Fri Apr 09, 2010 10:05 pm

Blind pre-screenings are one thing. But an AMV contest is also a showcase in addition to a competition. I'm not really looking at this as a matter of fairness as I am a matter of respect. I do believe that audiences in general are not so vapid that they need to be "supervised" in this way just to make absolutely sure they are not voting for a name. Don't treat everyone with the kid gloves because of a few fragile egos.


Also...an editor should receive credit for their work.
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Re: Discussion: Blind Judging

Postby dwchang » Fri Apr 09, 2010 10:16 pm

Cyanna wrote:Also...an editor should receive credit for their work.


This.

I'm 100% behind blind judging for things such as pre-screening or if the judging is done purely by well, judges and not at the actual main showing. Basically if your only vote is an audience vote that takes place at the showing, then it's only fair to give people credit for their hard work.
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Re: Discussion: Blind Judging

Postby thundercatlord » Fri Apr 09, 2010 11:17 pm

Cyanna wrote:Also...an editor should receive credit for their work.


This is really the main point. If people aren't going to know it's my work, there's really no point in showcasing it.
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Re: Discussion: Blind Judging

Postby Seijin_Dinger » Fri Apr 09, 2010 11:33 pm

Credit and finding your videos is why your names are on the slates
I use the real name opposed to username to help keep accounts on my submission secret

Im just mainly testing the waters. This year beyond a complaint that someone felt up against alot, there have been a few claims that the contest is rigged

I try and take every complaint seriously, but when people accused me of having a rigged contest, I took that personally. And I am looking at ways to better assure that it isnt rigged, and add more transparency to the process of the audience votes
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Re: Discussion: Blind Judging

Postby Ileia » Sat Apr 10, 2010 12:55 am

I agree with Bashar, the average con-goer isn't going to know the names of editors. Avid watchers or those who create AMVs themselves might know and there are likely to be a few among the crowd but probably not enough to sway the voting one way or another. Now in a contest like AWA Pro in which the entrants are judging each other, I think blind judging is a good idea. (Mind you, I take issue with editors sending in pre-released videos to Pro, but that's a whole different discussion entirely)
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Re: Discussion: Blind Judging

Postby Phantasmagoriat » Sat Apr 10, 2010 1:01 am

I think it depends who the judges are.

If the judges are people that know stuff about amv's [which they *should* be] then I think they really *would* recognize editors names [...good judges would even be editors themselves]. It's not like AMV editors are superstars or anything, so an Audience Vote with credits would be fine. But IMO Judges Vote make more sense to be blind because the people that make up the judges are probably familiar with the AMV scene, and are the most likely to be bias.

Now if the judges were clueless about the AMV scene, credits are not a problem;
But then you start to question how good your judges are.

so,
Judges Vote should be blind
Audience Vote should be open
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Re: Discussion: Blind Judging

Postby Vlad G Pohnert » Sat Apr 10, 2010 1:23 am

The audiance will vote for what they want regardless of who makes it. That has been proven many time over so I would not worry about blind slates...

There will always be people who feel that it's unfair to them. Sadly in some cases people think winning is important and get fustrated with people who win all the time. Honestly, I've seen a LOT of new people make videos the audience likes and win with over a LOT of know creators all the time...

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Re: Discussion: Blind Judging

Postby JudgeHolden » Sat Apr 10, 2010 3:55 am

Vlad G Pohnert wrote:The audiance will vote for what they want regardless of who makes it. That has been proven many time over so I would not worry about blind slates...

There will always be people who feel that it's unfair to them. Sadly in some cases people think winning is important and get fustrated with people who win all the time. Honestly, I've seen a LOT of new people make videos the audience likes and win with over a LOT of know creators all the time...

Vlad


X2 It's not like they voted for my video because JudgeHolden made it ... Instead they voted for it because it was full of naughty bits timed to muzak. Which of course is because I made it ... hmmm, maybe we do have a dilemma? :P
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Re: Discussion: Blind Judging

Postby Athena » Sat Apr 10, 2010 5:56 am

I don't care either way, except that it's a good way of keeping MTV style credits or logos out of videos in the contest.

I personally despise audience judging, so it's kind of a moot point for me anyhow.
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Re: Discussion: Blind Judging

Postby Seijin_Dinger » Sat Apr 10, 2010 6:13 am

my first year I did MTV style titles, and I hated the look and decided never again
any embedded title like that is a DQ in the contest
what I use is a 7 second slate, 15 frames of black, 15 frame dissolve into the slate, 5 seconds of the slate, then 15 frame disolve to 15 frames of black
here is an example of the slate
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that is what the contest finalist slate looks like

Screeners get just a boring black BG with "Entry ###" and "Video Name"
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Re: Discussion: Blind Judging

Postby outlawed » Sun Apr 11, 2010 8:35 am

I have to wonder where these rigged claims are coming from...

Usually if there are major problems with a contest there is some type of bitch thread or outcry on the forums here about "who got screwed". Has the non-org community finally overtaken the big AMV contests from the org members?

I really feel sad that you guys are getting flak from anyone when the contest is based on audience judging. As Vlad said we've been here years before and I thought by now everyone knew what they are getting into when entering an audience judged contest.

If people who are used to winning in the past are now mad about an increase in the bar for competition then I think that's a positive thing. In my experience the level of competition will be decided on two major factors: venue and judging. If the venue is large or popular amongst the AMV community then the contest will get more entries. As long as there aren't habitual gripe threads about judging the community isn't turned off either. So to me an increase in the bar for competition means the Sakura con folks are doing something right.

That being said from the perspective of an AMV creator I would not send an entry to a contest that did not identify the creator. This is a creator's just reward for providing content. The con gets entertainment at a great price/performance ratio typically and the attendees get to see something that's vetted quality they can't just randomly find online.

From the perspective of an AMV contest coordinator I have always included the song and anime information in the title cards. The vid title and creator is first on the card in a larger font so that has primary focus. I include the anime and song for a two main reasons. One is that some people like to have this information and can read quickly enough or catch enough to remember. Believe it or not people have often come up to the tech area during freeplay blocks holding a notepad (or celphone these days) and asking us what was the anime in that video we showed 10 minutes ago. The other reason is that I have always personally felt strongly that these aren't just our works. We appropriated that footage and music and proper identification should be given.
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