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Re: MPJ and Accountability

	A hearty applause to Steve Woods for bringing up what is I agree is a
badly undercovered aspect of the whole MJP discussion.
	Many of the people on both sides of this discussion have made numerous
complaints about critics (rep judges, lazy judges, revenge decisions, cliquish
judges etc) and tabrooms (Favoritism, cliquishness again etc.) that seem to
pervade the activity (I agree with many when I say I don't feel these types of
things happen anywhere near as often as the discussion on the L would make it
seem).  Steve is right the only way to control such things is to increase the
level of accountability that judges and tabrooms are exposed to.
	IMO which ever system is eventually adopted at nationals, MJP, pick
20+, increaeed strikes etc the best way to increase accountability is to have
open tabs or "Reality rooms" at tournaments and to make strike sheets and/or
MJP forms public.
	Reality rooms and/or open tabs enable coaches and students to be aware
of what is happening at tournaments and severely limits the ability of an
"evil" tabroom staff to manipulate rounds or judging assignments.
	Making strikes sheets or MJP forms public makes judges accountable to
the community at large. Steve is correct in stating that judges have a
responsibilty to improve and to try in every round to make the best and
clearest decision possible.  I know that in the 2 1/2 yrs that I have been
judging my judging style has undergone changes because after every tournament I
sit back and evaluate every decision I made and why in an effort to improve
(and in all honesty there have been a couple of decsions that upon reflection I
thought I should have evaluated the round differently, which resulted in my
changing how I do things the next tournament).  If judges were aware of how the
community at large thought of them or that they were going to graded for there
performance they might a greater effort to make the best decisions.  A quick
aside, I don't mean to imply that the majority of judges in CEDA are lazier
than I am, I know a large number of critics (all three of my former coaches
come to mind) that I consider to much better critics than myself, but there are
some critics who frankly, are lazy, who don't work hard to make clear
decisions, who don't write RFD's on their ballots, who don't give oral
critiques after rounds etc. Under the present system there is no real mechanism
that makes these critics change.  If they knew they would graded and that the
results would be made public, they would have some motivation to make clearer
decisions and to be able to defend those decisions.
	If accountability is what people are after, then it is time to put in
place the mechanisms that make tabrooms and critics open to evaluation by the
community at large.
	Just one guy's opinion

		Enjoy Life

			Chris



-- 
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Chris Swanson						E-mail: chris@anthro.com
Anthro Corporation.					Direct: (503) 691-8201
10450 SW Manhasset Dr.				      Business: (503) 691-2556
Tualatin, OR 97062					   Fax: (503) 691-2409
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References:
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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