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ipms judging slighted?
velotrain
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Posted: Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 06:02 PM UTC

Quoted Text



Or at LEAST figure out how to better promote the display/show aspect.



Paul - you sound like a voice of reason. Earlier this evening I wrote a long response to a (older) similar thread on Armorama. While writing it I had an idea:

For those modelers seeking feedback more than medals, how about creating a comment sheet for the Display models that anyone at the show could fill in? Those seeking to improve their modeling skills would possibly/likely get more/better/diverse info than they would from the time-strapped judges. A system along these lines might also reduce the number of formal contest entries, thus allowing more time for judging each model, or even fewer judge crews. I suspect one person could handle receiving these and sorting them for each modeler with something on Display.

The responses to your suggestion of possibly doing away with contests brought up some voices saying that it wasn't viable. However, there are more than a few posts on each thread from people who would be happy to convert to, or are already doing, display only.

The only thing I would add to my idea is some sort of selection so the person writing it could indicate their background, i.e. "fellow modeler", "casual visitor", etc. This would help the person receiving the comments to put them in perspective - while I realize that to some extent this could be done solely based on the comments themselves. Name would be optional, but perhaps helpful if another modeler at the show, so the comments could be followed up for clarification, etc.

One other thought towards promotion - have a special section of work by modelers with less than say one or two years of experience, which could help encourage others by seeing what can be learned-accomplished over such a relatively short time.

Charles
velotrain
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Posted: Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 06:13 PM UTC

Quoted Text


People's choice rewards WOW factor, not excellence.



There's also the "cute" factor. The winner at last weekend's ARMORCON was a "flintstone armored vehicle". I'm not suggesting that it wasn't imaginative or well done, but more as an indication of where the "people's" minds are at. LCD (in the pre-electronic sense)
Merlin
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Posted: Wednesday, October 02, 2013 - 07:07 PM UTC

Quoted Text

We had a guy upset that his work took a first, believing there were better models in his class...


Hi again

LOL! He wasn't a Brit, was he? That kind of modesty was traditionally drummed into us from an early age.

All the best

Rowan
JackFlash
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Posted: Thursday, October 03, 2013 - 12:56 AM UTC

Quoted Text

The IPMS UK Nationals, Scale Modelworld competition is for members only, from any nation. In other smaller shows around the country, which are put on by various IPMS clubs, the competitions are open. I too get the feeling that sometimes the club members have their models judge unfairly against the rest! I have been asked to judge at some shows, but I won't do it anymore as at one show some guy came up and tried to sway my decision on the best WWII aircraft model, he was supposed to be judging another category. Judging is supposed to be unbiased, so I told him and explained the merits of the models that I was judging compared to what he wanted me to judge the best. His ultimate argument was that "well it won at every other show it has be in competitions at". Judging is a personal thing but it seems to go with trends. Since you have been able to buy detail sets where you can show every panel on an aircraft open models built this way seem to win? I don't enter competitions, I like to see the clean lines and accomplished paint work of Aircraft models, unless it is in a diorama, but then it needs figures and needs to tell a story and not be a disembodied aircraft with all the panels hanging open.


Hi Mal, I can agree with everything but the diorama class needing figures. What it requires IMHO is a very strong story line. I tire of dioramas trying to depict actual dead bodies and consider them tasteless. One of the subjects for this year's IPMS was a "diorama" of an Me109 tails up & missing wings.

JackFlash
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Posted: Thursday, October 03, 2013 - 01:01 AM UTC

Quoted Text


Quoted Text

then you hear that some tank never had that mark machine gun or some such and it gets marked way down..
That should NEVER happen under IPMS rules. Period. Accuracy is not a consideration and in every judge's meeting I've been in for the last 30 years, that is stressed. It's why I hate having an "expert"on my team. I'll redirect him forthwith. The type of mg is irrelevant as long as it's placed properly. What to look for, though lacking any points or weighting can be found on lie in the IPMS/USA competition handbook. While specifics may change from national to national, the basic book remains the same.

Again,it's the basics that control most of the winnowing in any class. There have been many times I've looked at the number of entries in a class I was assigned with trepidation. After a first close up pass, the trepidation may very well be which one is least bad? Or the top three may have very well jumped right out.


Agreed the focus on IPMS judging should be a well built model. The best way for the modeler to press accuracy issues is to show a photo for evidence.
JackFlash
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Posted: Thursday, October 03, 2013 - 01:11 AM UTC
Also on the raffle ticket issues. The problem arises when club members are allowed to purchase them ahead of anyone else. Members can pick up raffle tickets at the club level meetings immediately before the contest and naturally they get the lion's share. But as the contest wears on for a couple of days this proportionally diminishes.
AJLaFleche
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Posted: Thursday, October 03, 2013 - 02:24 AM UTC

Quoted Text

Also on the raffle ticket issues. The problem arises when club members are allowed to purchase them ahead of anyone else. Members can pick up raffle tickets at the club level meetings immediately before the contest and naturally they get the lion's share. But as the contest wears on for a couple of days this proportionally diminishes.


Huh? Really? You have some basis for this allegation? I've never seen or heard of raffle tickets going on sale before the doors open to the public. The ONLY issue I've ever heard of with a raffle occurred at a show maybe 10 years ago when club members put raffle items aside for themselves. One incident in probably 200 contests in the last 33 year. That show has been pretty much dead since. The club itself has all but folded.
pzcreations
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Posted: Thursday, October 03, 2013 - 02:38 AM UTC
Myself I wish IPMS would adopt the same system AMPS has, judging and awards based off a standard ,instead of against each other..theres still the special awards and best of to compete for
ShutterAce
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Posted: Thursday, October 03, 2013 - 06:58 PM UTC
Did you educate yourself on the rules of the contest and how it would be judged? Individual contests held by individual IPMSUSA clubs are not required to hold to a national standard set of rules or categories. It is my understanding that at this particular contest a single model from any individual was judged. You could only win a single award no matter how many entries you arrived with. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with that setup but it is the way they chose to run it. It sounds to me like you did not take the time to read the rules and had an expectation of how the contest should be run. The bottom line is it's their contest and they can run it how they wish. Perhaps the lack of consistency from one show to the next doesn't wash with the general population but that is how it works in IPMSUSA.

HTH
AJLaFleche
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Posted: Friday, October 04, 2013 - 01:12 AM UTC
While riding the bike yesterday, I gave some thought to this thread.

Mark Twain is quoted as saying there were three kinds of lies, “Lies, damned lies and statistics.” The OP has consistently maintained that 95% of the awards went to club members. If this nice even number were accurate, it would be meaningless without knowing how many entrants were club members. If 90% of the entrants were from the club, I would expect t see about 90% of the awards go to them. At our club, whenever I’ve compared the ratio between affiliations and awards, there is a very close relationship between the percentage of entrants affiliated (or not affiliated) with clubs and the awards that group gets.

More telling, however, is the issue of supposed “home cooking,” giving undeserved awards to club mates. This show was apparently judged using an open system based on Shep Paine’s system. One model from each entrant is judged, his or her best as determined by the judging team, and given (or not) an award commensurate with the work presented. Under this system, it is theoretically possible (though not probable) that every entrant earn a gold medal. It is also theoretically possible (and equally improbable) that no model warrant even a bronze. Since there is no limit to how many medals are awarded, there is no rational reason to engage in “home cooking.” A club member getting gold does not take away the gold from a non member nor push the non member to a silver or bronze or out of the awards altogether.

Based on a little bit of sleuthing, this was the Orlando show which was held last weekend and used an open system of judging. In it, the OP entered a Revell PBY/OA-10A Catalina for which he was given an average score of 90. Their website has a quite elaborate subsection on the show, including what judges are to look for and complete results with scores of each model judged. See the link below for this information.

IPMS Orlando Modelpalooza
Joel_W
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Posted: Friday, October 04, 2013 - 02:17 AM UTC
Charles alluded to promoting displays rather then contests. I can tell you flat out that once I stopped entering contests, I stopped traveling 8+ hours to a contest/convention, where I booked a hotel room for a day or two(was not an option), meals, and other misc. travel expenses, just made it financially to much of a burden for too little return.

Hand written critiques on individual pieces of paper would be nearly impossible to keep organized by model or builder. Many people just wouldn't spend the time to write enough to make it worth while (or even in complete sentences), even a simple thing like having a pen to write with would become a issue, or a place to write would be an issue, as no one would be willing to stand in line to write at a separate table, making bumping and knocking of models a real possibility. Most people would want to see what others thought before they added their comments, so a constant rifling through the piles would most likely take place.

In theory not a bad concept, but in reality, it's just not practical.

Joel
velotrain
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Posted: Friday, October 04, 2013 - 05:10 AM UTC
Joel -

> "Charles alluded to promoting displays rather then contests."

Close, but a bit off.
I wrote in reaction to the number of comments I saw in both threads from those who:
1) primarily wanted feedback
2) have stopped entering contests due to the mentioned judging issues

I was merely suggesting something that might address the first category.

No doubt there would be some issues in implementing it, but surely nothing bright people couldn't resolve.

Some specific points (you raised):

> “I can tell you flat out that once I stopped entering contests”

Do you see somewhere that I advocate eliminating contests? I’m certainly not aware of either thinking or saying that.

> “Hand written critiques on individual pieces of paper would be nearly impossible to keep organized by model or builder.”

This could be for only those display models where feedback was wanted. These could be assigned consecutive numbers, with small “tent” tabs. Instead of having a loose stack of comment forms at the display table, they would be requested at the Display Desk. Among other things, this might help see that comments are genuine, vs. spurious reactions at the display table. Obviously, there’s no way to prevent mal-adjusted people from writing whatever they want, and modelers participating in this would need to accept that.

I do think the “Display Desk” could be a one person job, and I'd be willing to do it myself at a show I planned to attend. Or – I’ll even attend any New England show (barring the northern regions of Maine, and extreme southern Connecticut) that is willing to try this over the next year. The person asking for the form would say what number they wanted to comment on, and the person staffing the desk would write it on the empty form. This means that it would be a valid number, you (hopefully) wouldn't get comments for multiple models on one sheet, and theoretically the person at the desk can read their own printing - facilitating sorting of returned forms. By using an assigned number, there’s no need for complex organization or separate stacks – simply separate those for a given number when the modeler requests them. If a modeler needs to leave early, there’s no problem with doing so – unlike a contest.

> “Many people just wouldn't spend the time to write enough to make it worth while”

Good – we probably don’t want to hear from them anyway. I’m not expecting that anyone would want to comment on all the models seeking feedback, but there might be one (or more) that they are particularly interested in – for whatever reason.

As far as “enough to make it worth while”, it looked to me that on the AMPS forms each judge only had to write a brief comment, theoretically supporting their scoring. Given this, all these comments will reflect some flaw that caused points to be deducted. I’m not sure how worthwhile this is to the model builder. I accept that the nature of the beast means that the judges can’t provide greater written feedback, although I gather at some shows the judges are available for further discussion – or haranguing, as in the case of the fellow who wasn’t satisfied with two golds; I’m amazed that the judge was willing to listen to him for 15 minutes – I think I would have told him to deal with it and walked away.

The pen and writing location issues would need to be addressed. Perhaps those with pens could take the forms wherever they wished to write, while those without would need to complete it at the Display Desk. I can’t imagine there would be so much clamoring to write feedback that it would create a stampede. This is the sort of thing that could be analyzed and revised after an initial trial.

> “making bumping and knocking of models a real possibility”
I was impressed at ARMORCON with the respect that all visitors paid to the models. I never saw anyone touching a model, and there were no dire warning signs that they would be shot if they did. I had to be careful while taking photos (album in Features), as I was generally after close-up views, and I was continuously looking around to make sure no-one bumped into me at these times.

There would be a large sign indicating that no writing should take place directly on the display table. One possibility is that the Display Desk could be located adjacent to it to facilitate all processes, including monitoring.

> ” Most people would want to see what others thought before they added their comments, so a constant rifling through the piles would most likely take place.”

I don’t know if that’s true – if I’m providing feedback, it’s going to be mine and what anyone else thinks/wrote is irrelevant to me - but in any case all sheets will be returned to the Display Desk and not available for rifling.

> “In theory not a bad concept, but in reality, it's just not practical.”

I wonder how many innovations - such as the known example of the invention of the tank - had to survive that sort of thinking. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Again: If any New England show wants to try this over the next year, I’ll provide all materials and manpower. All I’d request is that you communicate in advance (via the show flyer) that feedback will be available (not guaranteed) for Display models, and provide the Display table and a Display Desk – i.e. a chair and table space for it in the registration / contest sign-in area.

Charles
mach1revo
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Posted: Friday, October 04, 2013 - 10:11 AM UTC

Quoted Text

While riding the bike yesterday, I gave some thought to this thread.

Mark Twain is quoted as saying there were three kinds of lies, “Lies, damned lies and statistics.” The OP has consistently maintained that 95% of the awards went to club members. If this nice even number were accurate, it would be meaningless without knowing how many entrants were club members. If 90% of the entrants were from the club, I would expect t see about 90% of the awards go to them. At our club, whenever I’ve compared the ratio between affiliations and awards, there is a very close relationship between the percentage of entrants affiliated (or not affiliated) with clubs and the awards that group gets.

More telling, however, is the issue of supposed “home cooking,” giving undeserved awards to club mates. This show was apparently judged using an open system based on Shep Paine’s system. One model from each entrant is judged, his or her best as determined by the judging team, and given (or not) an award commensurate with the work presented. Under this system, it is theoretically possible (though not probable) that every entrant earn a gold medal. It is also theoretically possible (and equally improbable) that no model warrant even a bronze. Since there is no limit to how many medals are awarded, there is no rational reason to engage in “home cooking.” A club member getting gold does not take away the gold from a non member nor push the non member to a silver or bronze or out of the awards altogether.

Based on a little bit of sleuthing, this was the Orlando show which was held last weekend and used an open system of judging. In it, the OP entered a Revell PBY/OA-10A Catalina for which he was given an average score of 90. Their website has a quite elaborate subsection on the show, including what judges are to look for and complete results with scores of each model judged. See the link below for this information.

IPMS Orlando Modelpalooza




Justins score of 90 should have netted him a gold instead of the silver. While i believe the skyraider he brought up scored in the 80's and got a gold. While i did not have a plane built yet for the show i did have a few cars. My one car was judged at a 97.75 average but yet i also got silver. While cars with fewer points got gold. Just looks wierd.
velotrain
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Posted: Friday, October 04, 2013 - 10:27 AM UTC
Jason - thanks for your willingness to join the fray. It had seemed that some were suggesting Justin was imagining/fabricating the entire thing, and this should put some of that to rest.
AJLaFleche
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Posted: Friday, October 04, 2013 - 11:38 AM UTC

Quoted Text


Justins score of 90 should have netted him a gold instead of the silver. While i believe the skyraider he brought up scored in the 80's and got a gold. While i did not have a plane built yet for the show i did have a few cars. My one car was judged at a 97.75 average but yet i also got silver. While cars with fewer points got gold. Just looks wierd.


Here's a copy and paste from the website:

Justin McKraken 103 Revell PBY/OA-10A Catalina 1/48
87.06 Silver
Keeperofsouls2099
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Posted: Friday, October 04, 2013 - 12:47 PM UTC
well that's interesting considering the results I was emailed directly after say I scored a 90% lol but keep fighting the good fight sir I still have the email by the way would be happy to forward oh and if my score was 87% a non member's swordfish would have beat me.it is very interesting that the numbers have suddenly changed.
mach1revo
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Posted: Friday, October 04, 2013 - 01:07 PM UTC
Dam just looked again and yes the scores have changed!!!! I lost ten points!!! Weird for sure. Oh well. I smell a conspiracy......LOL
Keeperofsouls2099
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Posted: Friday, October 04, 2013 - 01:45 PM UTC
Very intersting indeed lol
aknific
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Posted: Saturday, October 05, 2013 - 09:39 AM UTC
Hi,

My name is Anthony, I am the Head Judge from IPMS Orlando. Some of you amy remember me, I'm the big fat guy that read out the awards.

I am sorry to hear some people were not happy with their experiences at our show last week.

Reading through the posting here I felt some responses/comments were in order:

1. Justin, I remember your Catalina and thought it was a great model. Early on I was pretty busy making sure we had a enough room for all the models flooding in and then later keeeping track of the judging... so I never personally got to take a closer personal look.

2. However the judging team assigned to your model most certainly did get a very close look and I trust their final assesments completely. Both judges have placed at IPMS USA Nationals for aircraft, and both have judged at many prior contests. They know what they are looking at. You could have come to the registration table after the show to see the raw scores and request to discuss with the judges. A few people did that (as they do every show).

3. Our scoring sheets only identify the model by Contestant ID and entry number. For 99% of the models Judges do not know whose model it was. Further, not one of the 4 aircraft judges belong to the clubs of the 3 guys whose models got gold, so there is no way any club bias was involved. The 3 golds were a BiPlane, a Jet and a WW2 prop plane. Not sure where you are seeing anti jet bias either.


4. Most times at IPMS style 1-2-3 judging its very hard/ impossible to get subject matter experts to judge in their respoective fields usually becasue they have models in the categories being judged. Using the Gold-SIlver-Bronze ("GSB") system that is not a concern as models are judges soley on the merit of the model itself - not how it compares against other models on the table.


5. This is the 3rd show we have used GSB and in every show we have been able to ensure subject matter experts as part of the juidging team. You will be hard pressed to do this at many 1-2-3 shows. Most of our judges are INVITED - they are peope whose work and judging has been consistently recognized in our region.


6. Our judging methodology is spelled out here:
http://www.ipmsorlando.com/judges.html

You can see examples by clicking the Modelpalooza menu and drilling down Judges + the respoective category.
How many clubs do this or for that matter post the scoring?
Bueller... Bueller... anyone?.

7. We judge the best model of an entrant's display in a given class (aircraft, automotive, etc) due to time constraints (I dont know how AMPS manages it but we do not have the bandwidth to judge every model. Standard IPMS 1-2-3 judging handles this by rutheless cutting). The judging team makes a determination and agrees upon the best entry if there are multiples. If all are deemed the same quality an award of the enire deisply can be given (none were this year).

8. Jason : Not sure where you feel your score got changed. There were only 3 golds in Automotive and yours was not one of them. Golds are awarded to basically perfect or nearly so models. They should be a model that would legitimately win first place and or "Best Of" in their class. We moved to GSB to get away from situations where great models placed 2 or 3 or did not even get an award because they were in an especially tough category. Have many of you have been to shows where a 3rd place in say 1/48 Prop was a better model than 1st place in 1/72 armor or the Best of Ships (not picking on ship guys)? You know what I mean.

9. Raffle: The raffle is luck of the draw. It was so busy we did not start selling them till after 10:30am on Sarturday and by the end of the day we ran out of tickets. There was just a lot of interest. Any suggestion this was a fix or the box got stuffed before hand is insulting. I'll leave it at that except to say we STILL lost money on the raffle, expectations for raffle prizes are unbelievable these days.

10. Niether myself nor the head registrar bought a damn thing on either day of the show. We got there at 7am Saturday after being there for vendors setup Friday night, and did not walk out till 8:30pm Saturday. Sunday morning was making sure the awards were correct. This is the way it is when you run a show - I am not complaining I am explaining. Try it sometime and see what I mean. This was my 10th or 11th for IPMS Orlando, plus I am the Raffle guy for another clubs show since 1999, so I have been around the block a few times.

Sorry for the long post. I think I covered what I wanted.

Best regards
Anthony






JackFlash
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Posted: Saturday, October 05, 2013 - 11:18 AM UTC

Quoted Text

Did you educate yourself on the rules of the contest and how it would be judged? Individual contests held by individual IPMSUSA clubs are not required to hold to a national standard set of rules or categories. It is my understanding that at this particular contest a single model from any individual was judged. You could only win a single award no matter how many entries you arrived with. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with that setup but it is the way they chose to run it. It sounds to me like you did not take the time to read the rules and had an expectation of how the contest should be run. The bottom line is it's their contest and they can run it how they wish. Perhaps the lack of consistency from one show to the next doesn't wash with the general population but that is how it works in IPMSUSA.

HTH


IPMS Handbook This might help for those unfamiliar with these rules.
Keeperofsouls2099
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Posted: Saturday, October 05, 2013 - 01:02 PM UTC
I had a good time at the show. Had some mixed feelings about the judging considering I brought 10 entries and the oldest of my builds was picked. When many of my others were much better in construction, paint, all my tails, ailerons, landing gear etc. are perfectly aligned how do I know? there measured and put into a jig to make sure they stay that way lol. decals clearly looked like they are painted on. I have read the book. and its surprising to me that the scores are now different and if you remember there was a 30 min delay because of difficulties with the scores. The raffle I can understand that even if your one member did win 5 times other member 3 times so on and so forth .I will chalk that up to luck of the draw. But Jason is correct your original email with after show scores plainly states a score of 90% and now your web site is in the 80's.very interesting and strange oh and if I was wrong on what planes exactly won I do apologize that's my mistake.
aknific
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Posted: Saturday, October 05, 2013 - 01:53 PM UTC

Hi Justin,

Sunday morning of the show is dedicated to a number of run throughs to ensure no mistakes. The 30 minute delay was not due to any issue with scoring, it was due to an issue with the report we use to read the results in the awards ceremony. The backup showed us the correct report, but did not include names - just contestant IDs, the model and the score. So we had to write names in next to each entry. It listed them top to bottom when I need to read bottom to top (Merit, Bronze, Silver, Gold) so it took a little extra time to prepare that for the award ceremony and then to actually do the awards.

As to the model chosen for judging, if it makes you feel better the same thing happened to me at the Atlanta Figure show 2 years ago, I aksed and was told by the judges "we thought X was your best so we judged that". So, for whatever reason the judges at our show felt the Catalina was your best work (My guess is that it was the most impressive, due to level of complexity/dificulty etc).

Normally I don't respond like I did earlier today, but I was concerned by your posts and apparent perceptions. I invite you or anyone else who feels there was an issue to please contact us diretctly by replying to the email with your score difference from the message you have referenced (or [email protected]). We work very hard to put on a good event.

Thanks
Anthony
Keeperofsouls2099
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Posted: Saturday, October 05, 2013 - 02:28 PM UTC
I sent an email its an easy question though?
http://www.ipmsorlando.com/2013-show-awards.html

here on the results on the bottom it clearly shows an average score of 90%.on the top where it shows what award I received it sais 87.06 so according to your results I should have walked away with gold? Since the p-40 got gold for 90%?the numbers are there sir sorry. Not making a stink just wondering what the difference is?
CMOT
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Posted: Saturday, October 05, 2013 - 03:54 PM UTC
I entered my first ever show this year in Salisbury, I did it because I had completed a model I was happy with and I felt it had a chance in competition. I did not however get anywhere with it. Now I am being told here that judges are biased towards home member’s entries, that is possible and to a lesser extent a given. After the result I was disappointed but not unhappy or angry with the result, I just thought I tried, I failed, better luck next time. The biggest issue here would seem to be our expectations verses another person’s opinion and they do not agree on many occasions. Is the judging of all or any competition perfect? I would say no and I suspect even Al would agree with that.

I have read here a lot of accusations about what has occurred at several events, and I am also sure that some of those accusations are factually correct and others are correct as the author sees it, the result is again expectation verses opinion. I found the post by Nigel Julian about predicting winners before arriving at an event rather concerning, however does it tell the whole story? Could it be that he knew the models concerned were of a very high standard or that the owner of the models would win for the sake of a quiet life? We may never know. This does at least prove that without all of the facts you can end up making snap decisions that may be proved wrong later.

What this thread does say to me is that if you take umbrage at losing then don’t enter competitions. I can understand anyone getting upset if they feel theirs was the better model and it lost for whatever reason, but guess what it is your opinion to which you are entitled but that does not make you right or wrong and sometimes life is not fair.

On the subject of raffles and winning here is a trick for you; instead of buying a £1 or $1 worth of tickets a week buy £20 worth or more in one hit, it usually results in a healthy return. But as with everything in life it is a gamble and does not always pay off.
mach1revo
_VISITCOMMUNITY
Florida, United States
Joined: June 08, 2013
KitMaker: 26 posts
AeroScale: 20 posts
Posted: Saturday, October 05, 2013 - 05:14 PM UTC
Al the score confusion comes from your clubs own website where the scores are posted. Many differ from the 42 page judges report to the medal summary report that was posted later. In my case on page 19 it shows 97.75 avg judges score. But the medals summary report show 87.75. Many others scores changed as well.

I did have a great time at the show and look forward to another event by your club. My only suggestion would be to let the classes spread out a bit. I realize you wanted to make sure you had enough table space but especially automotive and aircraft wound up very cramped.
 _GOTOTOP