Preventing Illegible Names from Messing Up Individual Awards

[NDmock]

P1) Frankie Gustavo    STUDENT 1 P  1st  2nd  3rd  4th
P2) Victoria Harmon    STUDENT 2 P  1st  2nd  3rd  4th
P3) JeanMarie Baptiste    STUDENT 3 P  1st  2nd  3rd  4th  
D1) Jesse Sturgeon    STUDENT 4 D  1st  2nd  3rd  4th  
D2) Topaz Cash    STUDENT 5 D  1st  2nd  3rd  4th    
D3) Sandy Trienan    STUDENT 6 D  1st  2nd  3rd  4th  

Good luck proving your case with those witnesses.

[JusticeSeeker]

Think of all the character points.  Who really cares about case theory anyway?

[ogrebeck]

P1) Frankie Gustavo    STUDENT 1 P  1st  2nd  3rd  4th
P2) Victoria Harmon    STUDENT 2 P  1st  2nd  3rd  4th
P3) JeanMarie Baptiste    STUDENT 3 P  1st  2nd  3rd  4th  
D1) Jesse Sturgeon    STUDENT 4 D  1st  2nd  3rd  4th  
D2) Topaz Cash    STUDENT 5 D  1st  2nd  3rd  4th    
D3) Sandy Trienan    STUDENT 6 D  1st  2nd  3rd  4th  

Good luck proving your case with those witnesses.

We're much more about style than substance here at UC.  We may not be able to prove a thing, but our "Mr. Gustavo saw Tyler Perry cheating on his wife with Victoria Harmon - whom he met at his private golf lesson - in the wine isle at AROUND 9:45 while carrying a hockey stick - which was collected as evidence, but isn't available in court today - covered with trace elements of chloroandromine," closing is the stuff tawdry dreams are made of.

We also really like run on sentences.

[KingsfieldNot]

I think the team of PC, J27 and OB have combined to find a winning solution.  Yes, it will take a few additional minutes between Captains Meeting and Openings.  But the trade off in avoiding tab room problems seems worthwhile to this coach/host/observer-in-training.

My only suggestion for further improvement is avoiding the term "middle" when referring to the non-opening, non-closing attorney slots.  That word likely will lead some judges to assume it means the attorney sitting in the middle seat, or the second to direct, etc.  

Yes, we can instruct in the judges' meetings.  But as this thread and others have made clear, we can't force them to pay attention.   Anything on the balot itself that makes things more clear helps avoid that problem.

And OB, I hope you videotape the round that you describe.  It could quickly become an AMTA best seller.  

[MockMaster]

Are you certain you were not smoking crack for a good portion of last year, Mia dear?  

I'm fairly certain the manual requirement was the same last year, since a system of 5,4,3,1 baffles me...

Crack is possible.  I may have been thinking of two years ago when at various times over the course of the year 6, 4, or 3 were ranked.

I may be certifably insane, but my recollection is of a time when it was 5,3,2,1.  Which is no less baffling than 5,4,3,1.

Either way, I think the reason we got rid of ranking 6 (unnecessarily cruel) still remains with the current system (where people learn they are among the worst 2).  I don't understand a system of awards where we congratulate people for being in the top 2/3 of the room.  Even top half is awfully generous if we are trying to award the "best."

We moved from the traditional 5, 3, 1 to 5-4-3-2-1-0 when we started ranking 6 instead of 3.   Then we decided we wanted only four ranked (to be less cruel), but the scores were still 5-4-3-2-1... with each student not listed getting 1 point.  This was a mess since tab room officials had to determine the names of students who were not ranked in order to give them the point.  The next step in the evolution was what we currently have... 4 ranked, with scores of 5, 4, 3, 2.

[princecaspian]

The suggestion to list them in order of appearance is a good idea.  I'll take that.  The suggestion to rank only the top four is already part of the motion (did you guys read it?) and is consistent with the current scoring protocol.  Jaggers suggestion of listing ranks 1st through 4th on each line is also a good idea, but I'm not sure there's sufficient space.  I want to be sure there is room to identify characters and openers and closers for the judges because that is how they determine who is who.  I think a note just above the ranks (maybe in all caps) instructing them to rank only the top four, with one being the best, should suffice.

Kris, I think this differs from the "experimental" ballot as I recall that.  I remember that ballot being very confusing and still permitting problems to arise.  Can you remind me what it looked like and how/by whom it was completed?  I have a vague picture of it in my head.

[ogrebeck]

Understandable gripe about the word "middle."  Use "swing" instead? Or don't use a designation at all?

[Bloch]

Doesn't a 4th rank count for 2 points?  I was pretty sure it did...

Yes. At one time, we tabbed 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and 1

[gwmocker]

So, based on everything above (and the fact that I was bored at the office), I put together a mock-up of a new-style ballot (96 KB PDF).

Notice that the team numbers are now held in the score columns-- I only did that because I thought I'd run out of room up top. Turns out, they can probably be moved back with a couple tweaks.

I also changed all the fonts to sans-serif (Myriad variants to be exact) and made heavy use of bold to try to make things stand out, and changed the wording of the individual awards box (from judges "should" complete it to judges "must" complete it).

At the top I got pretty lazy-- it's not very pretty (and I don't have a high-res AMTA logo, anyway... do they even exist?). But that could be cleaned up later-- this was just designed to give something a little more "real" to look at in debating the layout changes.

[ogrebeck]

Great work GW!  Your boredom has produced impressive results.  Other than a few minor formatting changes I think this looks pretty good.

Is "No Speech" the way to go with the middle/swing attorney?  I don't have a particularly strong feeling one way or another...

[312]

GW, that template is great.

[FundamentalPrecepts]

Nice work, GW. Other than tweaking the top so it's not so tight, I really like this. The only other change I might suggest is perhaps bolding the sentence about not ranking the fifth or sixth attorneys/witnesses, though the text as is and the fact that there is no "5th" or "6th" to circle should make this pretty clear.

[JayZ]

It's so sexy. So very sexy.  

[gwmocker]

Turns out my client decided that he was happy with our project, so I've had the last hour to do some rearranging and reformatting based on suggestions so far. Here's a newer version.

Sure enough, there was enough room left to put the team numbers back at the top. I also added a line about not using decimals or fractions in scoring, and took the suggestion to bold the line about not noting fifth or sixth place in the rankings. I also stuck the 5 up at the top right (although I always felt like the score sheet should be #1, but that's another debate for another day).

Edit: Edited to correct using the word "note" way too many times in two sentences.

[KingsfieldNot]

You give us old goats too much credit.  I can assure you that, in spite of bolding the "do not rank" phrase (not to mention careful explanations in the judge meetings), a large percentage of judges will believe they must circle a number for every competitor.    The result would be a disaster!

Perhaps a solution might be to add a "5/6" or "n/a" after each set of numbers, so there is something to circle for each person?

We would also need to make sure that judges understand they are not ranking only on the opening & closing (for those who have those roles), and that this is simply a way of identifying those individuals.

Having hosted three tournaments and attended many more, I continue to be amazed at how easily our (otherwise wonderful, volunteer) judges ignore the careful explanations given to them on the ballots and during the meeting.  Any changes need to be made with an eye toward creating a document that is completely self explanatory.  That may be too much to ask, but it remains my goal.