Judging work in progress bars...

[Sulla]

My biggest issue with a progress bar would be how to quantify it into numbers. I don't know what half complete would be, because the work can vary so easily. We could come up with some arbitrary markers - finished reading it, judging action, scoring, etc - but those would be difficult to mark on the bar given every judge's different process.

Judges PMing writers, especially for full judgments, sounds like a much more sound idea. It wouldn't create the same amount of pressure as a progress bar and it would help put a face to the writing their reading, perhaps motivating them to further push it along without the same amount of stress. And, of course, it shows some availability to communicate between community and staff, and that's always a good thing, before and after judgement, in case any questions arise.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Judges PMing writers, especially for full judgments, sounds like a much more sound idea. It wouldn't create the same amount of pressure as a progress bar and it would help put a face to the writing their reading, perhaps motivating them to further push it along without the same amount of stress. And, of course, it shows some availability to communicate between community and staff, and that's always a good thing, before and after judgement, in case any questions arise.

Exactly this.

The progress bar is unworkable but if everyone is willing to support the PM idea, it will work just as well, if not better for all involved.

[Bard]

Very good idea Sulla.

[Visla Eraclaire]

I actually advocated something similar when I was a judge. While an actual progress bar or any kind of technical work is an unnecessary expenditure of resources, some level of status isn't too much to ask for.

I imagine the judge forums work much like they did years ago. When a thread is submitted, a post shows up in the forum, a judge claims it, and then they submit their judgment when they're done.

I don't think there's anything to be gained by requiring that judges give status updates or pressuring them, but at the same time, obfuscating the system entirely isn't super helpful to anyone. When I was a judge, I could at least see when my thread was claimed and how many other threads that judge had claimed.

I don't think it would hurt for a judge to post in the public thread that they have claimed a thread and what number it is in their judging queue. This would prevent one thing that I saw a lot and was myself guilty of at the time I judged, letting a thread slide behind. Threads really should be judged on a first come first served basis. A lengthy or complex thread could easily get passed over for a while in terms of people claiming it and then once claimed the judge was very likely to read a bit, take a break, judge a shorter thread, read a bit, take a break, etc. etc.

Volunteer judges don't need people policing their work habits or harassing them, but I think showing that you claimed it and giving people a "You are currently behind 2 other threads" notification is a courtesy that could go a long way in staff/poster relations.

Now, if things work differently now, this could be a bunch of nonsense, but I'll take the risk of looking stupid. It wouldn't be the first or second time.]

EDIT: The suggestion above of PMing sounds fine, but I think actually posting in the thread would give a degree of accountability and ensure that this was actually happening. Once again, not trying to be the judge police, but if you are supposed to give a PM and you don't, only one person knows. If you're supposed to post and you don't, it enforces itself.

[Logan]

It's less of a claim oriented system and more of assignment system now. There's still some layers of claiming, for sure, but it's less so than it was before.

As for the PM system, what I think might be more beneficial but would require a bit more back-end work (oh poor Dirks) would be if when a thread was assigned or claimed for a judgement (surely there's a vb hack for this type of thing), it would notify (automatically) the user who submitted the judgement with an auto-generated PM or notice stating their thread was being reviewed by "username". This would be the equivalent of the PM, but place a little less necessity on it falling to the judges to add another step to an already tedious and stressful process.

Thoughts?

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

It's less of a claim oriented system and more of assignment system now. There's still some layers of claiming, for sure, but it's less so than it was before.

As for the PM system, what I think might be more beneficial but would require a bit more back-end work (oh poor Dirks) would be if when a thread was assigned or claimed for a judgement (surely there's a vb hack for this type of thing), it would notify (automatically) the user who submitted the judgement with an auto-generated PM or notice stating their thread was being reviewed by "username". This would be the equivalent of the PM, but place a little less necessity on it falling to the judges to add another step to an already tedious and stressful process.

Thoughts?

The only problem with your idea is that it doesn't allow the judges any room for estimating a timescale based on their personal workload and outside factors, therefore affecting communication. However, as a notification system it's brilliant.

I also quite like the idea Visla posted about posting in the thread but as long as the objective is achieved it doesn't matter which method is used.

[Visla Eraclaire]

Save Dirks the backend work. If a judge is going to take a thread, they're going to spend a few hours with it. 2 minutes to say, "I'm judging this, it's behind 3 other threads, two are kinda long." is no biggie.

I don't think anyone wants to overburden judges, but we don't need to coddle them.

I'm curious how the assignment system is working. That was proposed before and I was against it then, but it had its pros and cons.

[Rayleigh]

I generally let people know via chat when I have claimed one of their threads. It takes only a second or two. I don't always provide a time-estimate (other than maybe "it is the first week of school, so I'll try to get to it next week"), but I would be happy to start doing that.

Honestly, it doesn't take a judge any time at all to send a PM or drop into chat. I would much, much rather we try to make that common practice than have some sort of bar. When I judge something, I do it on one sitting. My progress bar would say "zero progress," and an hour later, it would say "done." I don't think that it is worth the hassle. I do absolutely appreciate and support the idea of open communication between judge and writer when it comes to progress.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Thanks Sulla, Logan and Rayleigh. Good to get positive feedback on this from judges and moderators

[Logan]

What Shelby said is spot-on.

The PM process is fairly quick and painless, it is just a matter of making sure judge's are actively doing that extra step during their process.