Registration and Trial Discussion

[Isis Ixidar]

I knew that world limit would be a bastard from the start. If only we had known to screw the rules before hand.

[Ataraxis]

I have a clarification on the judgments that may relieve you: only the rough 2000 first words of the threads that exceeded the limit, plus a reasonable margin, were reviewed. Some of the judges read beyond for personal interest, but did not count those extra posts toward the score (though may have made notes on them either way). Moreover, the trials that blatantly went above the limit - and that did not sweep the judge's feet away to offset this - were indeed docked points directly from each of the three categories. In the end, had you decided to ignore the rule, you would have gotten sensibly the same score, or perhaps even lower due to the points docked.

Moreover, you were given a commendable score. If you're disappointed with it, then consider this: in the future rounds, you should easily be able to get more points if you take those trial comments to heart, instead of the score itself.

[Isis Ixidar]

Moreover, the trials that blatantly went above the limit - and that did not sweep the judge's feet away to offset this -

I think this little line wraps my case up nicely. If what they wrote happened to sweep you off your feet you would infact ignore that they went over the limit.

Meanwhile I know of my partner, myself, and at least one other team that were slashed points on storyline and character. Sections that we strained to fit into a mere 2000 words. When we could have just as easily ignored the word limit and swept you off your feet and been rewarded for it too.

Point and case. Word limits are for essays. Not for stories.

[Christoph]

Ahem. Let us keep our manners, please. Besides, I think you missed an important point. Whether the judges were swept off their feet or not, only the first 2,000 words were reviewed. Thus, you adding more writing wouldn't have made your trial any more likely to impress the judging panels, because the excess wouldn't have been considered. We just won't dock points if the first 2,000 words are particularly impressive, as a courtesy for their efforts; they didn't advantage from it in any way, though.

[Isis Ixidar]

Oh of course, silly me. I forgot that in direct contradiction to what your judge said before that he is a machine and whatever he reads will in no way positively or negatively effect how he views storyline, character developement, or general mechanics.

Also. Having a dissenting opinion was only ill-mannered in elementary school. We are, presumably, all adults here. I'm sure your judge and I can both handle a discussion just fine.

[Christoph]

This is a new thread made specifically to concerns regarding trials, so as not to clutter up other threads. Posts have been moved here.

[Ebivoulya]

Yes, Isis is right. We can discuss this rationally, and publically.

I will explain what I told Masika via PM. Whether or not you went over the word limit, the goal of these trials was a self-contained section of writing which we could judge. Thus, within that number of words, you must ration them to various things, like setting, character, story, etc. When taken in proportion, you both invested more words into description instead of explaining anything more than you were on a train in the desert that got robbed. Your scores reflected this, but I scored you both significantly higher in writing style because I was "swept off my feet," so to speak. That is also why I docked you no points for word count, even though you were closer to three thousand than two. Three from it, by my count.

I am pleased to see such good writers here for the tournament, and I'm sorry if you feel my judgement did not reflect your level of skill. Time is still a factor, though, and we couldn't finish this on time if such a large number of threads were allowed to get as big as their rpers wished. If you wish to score well on the rubric we will be using, I would recommend trying to thicken your style with more character insights and background.

If it's any consolation, I corrected a .25 error and put you at 9.5 out of 15.

[Kalar]

Ok, first off I would like to say that I can see where the judges are coming from. It would be an insurmountable task to judge the number of threads present if each and every one were allowed to get as big as it's writers pleased.

However, on the other hand I don't see how you can honestly say that the judges that read beyond the 2,000 word limit were not influenced in any way, shape, or form during their judging by the extra wording; unless of course they took the first two thousand words, C&P'd them into a word document, judged them without reading anything further, and then proceeded to read the rest of the thread. It is simply not humanly possible to read beyond the limit and not have it influence the earlier writing. I am sure that the judges had the best of interest in heart, and I'm not saying that they consciously said that the larger and longer posts were better. All I am saying is that I don't believe it to be humanly possible to completely disregard something in that manner after reading it, no matter how objective you are trying to be.

So, in essence, those of us that simplified our writing to fit the two thousand word limit and were docked points for things such as 'lack of description of surroundings' or 'lack of background detail' or 'not fleshing out character personalities' seem petty when the whole point was to get a lower word count.

Not saying that I entirely disagree with all judging that I have read, just trying to reaffirm a point made by Isis a few posts up and throwing my own two cents into it.

~Kalar

P.S. Also, I would like to thank the entire judging staff for taking the time to do this and for putting up with everything. You all are doing a fine job for the amount of work put before you, its just that there are some things I don't agree with. My apologies if this comes across in any way angry.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

Your final step on the road to the Tournament of Champions is to submit a brief combative exchange between the two characters on your team as a roleplaying trial. It is essentially a short set of posts, between 1,000 and 2,000 words in length, designed to serve as an example of your roleplaying and writing abilities.

Taken directly from the Team Registration and Qualification Trial Guide (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=17668).

I dunno, maybe I'm reading this whole thread wrong, and perhaps I'm going on a different tangent here, but the above quote seems pretty clear to me. The QT merely serves as a present a small example of your writing capabilities to the judging staff. Nowhere in that thread did I see that it had to be a completed thread--just two to four posts from each person to set the bar and get some feedback from the judges for when you actually competed.

I fail to see what all the fuss is over the 2000 word limit.

[Ataraxis]

Isis, Christoph was merely being thoughtful in reminding you that voicing an open willingness to screw over the rules of a host forum can be construed, by some, as rather distasteful. Thankfully, I’m certain you meant nothing by that, seeing as how you and I are both , as you said, reasonable adults. Also, thank you for that, Kalar. I understand your position and your worries, and I will do my best to clarify the comments on continuity, character development and so on, and how we went about scoring these categories, later in this answer. I hope this will serve to put the trials into perspective with the forthcoming battles of Round 1.

Isis, I’m very happy to see you speak of judges so humanely. We certainly do our best to bring the right measure of understanding and solicitude in otherwise objective judgments. That was of course the reason we decided to implement this rule of lenience when it came to docking points. I hope you understand, however, that lenience for all cases would defeat the very purpose of having these rules for the trials. As I have said before, the 2000-word rule was to avoid a long trial-period, as many participants would have been more inclined to write longer stories that would be substantially more time-consuming to read and judge. We would have had no choice but to push back the start of Round 1 to complete these judgments in a timely measure, and definitely not by a delay as small as only a day or two. This, I know, is something many do not desire.

For the few who did not remember the rule until it was too late, or those who simply wished for their work to be read in full, we further added two precisions: for the former, they could point the judge to a start-off and/or a cut-off point in their thread to avoid the risk of being docked; for the latter, they could do the same or leave it as is, in hope that their additional posts would be impressive enough to invoke the rule of lenience. Whether they did or did not, however, is between their judge and themselves.

Judges, however, are quite capable of considering a segment of a participant’s writing instead of the whole gamut, as that is a part of the objectivity and impartiality that a judge must strive for and that is expected of them. Though I cannot speak for all judges, our method was, as Kalar guessed, principally to score and comment as we read, and to stop reading when we feel we’ve long passed the word limit. It is no exact science and, as all people judges can stray in their work, but that does not mean we lose our wits or ability to take a step back and consider things rationally.

Story scores and Character scores as easy to score in these cases, as we simply need to consider the content of roughly the first 2000 words, while Writing Style (technique, mechanics and clarity-to-word ratios) should be consistent whether you use twice as many words or half as much. In your case, Isis, your skill and that of your teammate prevented you from being docked for writing 3049 words. Though I do not doubt your abilities, there is no guarantee that they would have been enough to warrant no penalties for a 6000 or 12000-word trial.

Additionally, all judges were informed that trials, being restrictive by choice, would be reviewed less strictly. As such, in the categories of Story and Character, participants were docked less than they would have been in actual quests or battles on Althanas. The trials were meant to introduce everyone to the rubric we will be using in the Round battles, and to help improve the scores of those who took these comments and suggestions to heart – and drastically at that since teams would no longer be restricted by the word-limit. There seems to be a misunderstanding that every comment for improvement in these judgments meant that points were docked: in many cases, the comments were said to be for future use in the round battles, so that everyone would get optimal results from the very start in those categories. It is, I believe, far better to be docked but a few decimals on 15 in trials that familiarized you with the rubric, than to be docked a hefty 20 in a battle where every point matters.

I will close my answer with this. These were, of course, never meant to be essays, as we are not academic teachers. However, these were also not meant to be masterfully completed stories, for we are neither editors nor publishers, and we are not yet faithful members of your reader base. We are merely judges and volunteer helpers, and what we did was read and review samples of your writing to prevent any unpleasant surprise during the battles that will soon come. If we have managed to do, then that will be without a doubt our greatest pride and satisfaction.

[Christoph]

Ok, first off I would like to say that I can see where the judges are coming from. It would be an insurmountable task to judge the number of threads present if each and every one were allowed to get as big as it's writers pleased.

However, on the other hand I don't see how you can honestly say that the judges that read beyond the 2,000 word limit were not influenced in any way, shape, or form during their judging by the extra wording; unless of course they took the first two thousand words, C&P'd them into a word document, judged them without reading anything further, and then proceeded to read the rest of the thread. It is simply not humanly possible to read beyond the limit and not have it influence the earlier writing. I am sure that the judges had the best of interest in heart, and I'm not saying that they consciously said that the larger and longer posts were better. All I am saying is that I don't believe it to be humanly possible to completely disregard something in that manner after reading it, no matter how objective you are trying to be.

So, in essence, those of us that simplified our writing to fit the two thousand word limit and were docked points for things such as 'lack of description of surroundings' or 'lack of background detail' or 'not fleshing out character personalities' seem petty when the whole point was to get a lower word count.

Not saying that I entirely disagree with all judging that I have read, just trying to reaffirm a point made by Isis a few posts up and throwing my own two cents into it.

~Kalar

P.S. Also, I would like to thank the entire judging staff for taking the time to do this and for putting up with everything. You all are doing a fine job for the amount of work put before you, its just that there are some things I don't agree with. My apologies if this comes across in any way angry.

I thank you for your kind words and appreciation. The staff understood that the Trial system would be a little odd from the start, especially for our guests from other forums, but it was better than the alternatives. However, there were a number of measures in place to preemptively alleviate most of the concerns expressed here.

First, judges were instructed only to read the first 2,000 words of a trial before doing their judgment. Once the judgment was complete in terms of numbers, they were free to return to the thread and finish reading it, and maybe offer some tips from the rest of the story if they felt so inclined. I understand that a judge could lose track and read beyond the word limit, and that this could potentially affect their view of the sample; this is why each trial isn’t judged by just an individual. It is also reviewed by a panel of judges to ensure the fairness, accuracy, and objectivity of the judgment.

[Petoux]

So ... when our trial runs are done being looked at ... then what exactly?

Quick ... simple question.

:p

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

Wait for the brackets for the first round to be revealed, I suppose.

[Petoux]

Ok ... a look in the future.

When round one is over and threads are being judged, what if we feel we have been judged unfairly, or don't agree with what they say?

Will there be like an appeal thread or something of that nature?

Or ... a second opinion kind of thing?

'Cuz ... no offense judges ... no one is perfect. Agreed?

[Shadowed]

Appeals bogged the ToL down into a cesspool of egotistical writers thinking themselves above any possible criticism. It weighed down the tournament, stretched it out far too long, and was one of the primary factors to its ultimate failure. I strongly hope that the ToC does not allow appeals.

[Taskmienster]

I agree with Shadowed, I was part of the ToL and it was bogged down and eventually killed the interest of a lot of people (myself included) due to appeals. I'm pretty sure that since we have multiple judges reviewing judgments that even if they're not agreed with by the people that are judged they'll be completely fair and with as minimal to no bias as possible. That's why we split the judges up into different panels.

Each panel has a couple Althanas judges, since it was inevitable with half the judges being from here, and a couple from other forums that volunteered to help out.

So, personally, I'd rather not see appeals since they'll just distract and detract. If you have a qualm with the way something was judged or more insight you can PM a mod, respectfully, and they'll explain things as they saw it. However, with multiple mods, split between multiple forums, the judgment will more than likely not be changed due to the way we have it set up.

Hopefully that helps!

[Max Dirks]

There will be no appeals except in instances of extreme prejudice and bias.

We're doing our best to ensure that judges are grading across forum lines, but with our limited pool it is inevitable that some of us will grade folks from our own forums. We currently have two panels, so at least 3 people agreed with the judgments that were made on the trials. If anyone has any particular concerns or needs clarification, please contact your judge and start a dialogue with them.

[Christoph]

So ... when our trial runs are done being looked at ... then what exactly?

Quick ... simple question.

:p

The first bracket has been selected and the players have been contacted. We will be announcing the roster once we get confirmations from everyone, and the round for Bracket One will begin on the 7th. The second bracket will be selected in a day or two, and will begin one week after Bracket One.