Panel For Judging Challenges

[Hermoine Jean Granger]

There are a lot of challenges on the MNFF forums on a frequent basis. But these challenges, more often than not, are judged extremely late, and the results are posted even later. I am not a person who expects moderators to be super-fast, but sometimes, it is disappointing to submit an entry to a challenge where you won't even know the results.

What I suggest instead is a dedicated panel of MNFFers who would be able to judge the challenges that are issued. Something similar to what we have in the QSQs. This way, the moderators won't have to bear the additional burden of judging challenges as well.

Or maybe, we could have two or three moderators who only issue challenges, moderate them as well as judge. Frankly, moderating the stories on the archives, minding the forums, and judging as well as issuing challenges seems to be a really huge task, and the mods are overworked. Division of the work is so much more easier, in my opinion.

[weasleywannabe47]

I agree. Have some runners-up in the coming "mod election" do this. And only this. Things would run a lot faster and take a load off many of the mods who have other things to do.
I agree with HJ.

[Vittoria]

I quite agree with H.J. I suggest that instead of electing new mods for this purpose why not have volunteers?
Maybe two assistants-like mods for each of the Houses. They could take care of the in-house challenges and things like that. Besides we could get more creative and have a lot of inter and intra House socialising.

I would also like to suggest an assistant mod for Ritta/mugglemathdork because she single-handedly takes up modding the Three Broomsticks and it is quite a job.

[Gonz]

As a non-mod who is involved in judging a challenge (QWC) I would like to point out that panel judging may not bring about the desired result of faster judging. I would argue that it would do the opposite. The reason that the more people you have in the process the longer it takes, because you have to get everyone's opinion and everyone's RL can get in the way and slow things down. Think to your group projects in school, and how hard in can be to figure out a time to meet because everyone has different schedules and that is for something you have to do. MNFF is something extra that when life gets busy is always pushed to the side.

As an example, in the QWC there is two judges. Now, we have been as fast as three days or as slow as almost a month. It all depends all finding a time to be online at the same time. Add more people and you can see how the time could multiply. Also, the QSQs and the Gauntlet are the two challenges that use panel judging and they take the longest time to judge.

Lastly, once the new mods are announced I suspect things will speed up as the mods running multiple challenges will be able to pass some of them off to others.

[vampitude]

As a non-mod who is involved in judging a challenge (QWC) I would like to point out that panel judging may not bring about the desired result of faster judging. I would argue that it would do the opposite. The reason that the more people you have in the process the longer it takes, because you have to get everyone's opinion and everyone's RL can get in the way and slow things down.

I think what they are suggesting is that there will be many volunteers, but only about two or three to each challenge. That way the process will be faster, and each challenge would run more smoothly.

I agree with the idea that runner-up mods could take on that responsibility. That ensures that the volunteers will be prepared to take the time to judge the challenges, and it saves the mods the trouble of finding qualified volunteers.


Rose

[bertiebott12]

I'm not a mod, but I agree with Gonz. I think that it, in turn, would take longer because of possible varying opinions and having to look at everyone's POV. The runner-up mods might be a good idea, but there might be something already planned for the new mods to do something like this.

I think that, since a mod has the option of helping to run the beta boards, that this is the kind of thing that the volunteer to do. They like judging, and they are perfectly suitable for the job. So, once the new mods are announced, then I think that it will do a good job of speeding things up.

But, this is an interesting idea.

/Claire

[Hermoine Jean Granger]

As Rose already mentioned before, I really think that a small panel for each challenge would be better than a large group, which, I agree, would be very much difficult to manage.

I think that, since a mod has the option of helping to run the beta boards, that this is the kind of thing that the volunteer to do.

Exactly my opinion as well. Archive modding always takes the front seat, and hence, though the mods really don't want to postpone, the circumstances and overlong queue might do so. This is why I feel that a separate panel, consisting of non-mods, would be welcome.

And I heartily second the idea of runner-up mods heading these panels.

[babekitty_92]

The thing that makes it hard with having a panel is that when it goes through the queue, only the Mods can see it (as you would know). So by having the Mod just judge it themselves is good as they can reject it if it's not to the requirements. The problem is when you add in more people, it may become more difficult to say "yes, that's met requirements" or not.
.
Another thing that comes into it is the fact of some people may only like certain genres or may not feel comfortable reading certain things. In general, the challenges leave it open for Character usage, etc. This becomes difficult if you have a team of four and only one is prepared to read it because of content warnings.

I do think it's a great thing that there could be people willing to volunteer because it is really hard being a Mod but there are some issues that would need to be overcome first. It will definitely be brought to the table to the rest of the Mods though.

Abbi