Is the KCBS judgeing System Broken ?

I have cast my ballot.

works but could be improved, yes I answered in the poll.

Zero votes for "Yes toss it out and start over "... someone hasn't voted.

From whats been posted here lately, i'd say it's spot on! :icon_sleepy

this is a sore subject with me. yeah yeah cream rises to the top.or Did they just learn how to work the new system BUT the old system worked it just had too many ties and the kcbs platform was too antiquated to allow decimals to eliminate the ties. now they have a new platform(program) and it can do things that should have been done years ago. Starting at 9 and going down was a good way to do things for all judges. New judges cant always give points but they sure can take away. If it was a decimal judging system there would be virtually no ties. 8.3 9.0, 7.5 etc. Start at 9 and go down. Yes to answer the question its broke its been broke and will probably stay broke. Sad when a group of about 40 people changed the whole system for the masses. Should have been voted on by the whole membership. These are my opinions I realize not everyone will agree.

If I vote "It works but could be improved" does that make it sound like a want a change?

I have nothing against the current system (since taking the judging class and having a year of comp q'ing behind me) but I believe most everything can be improved on from time to time and would be open to hearing ideas.

everything can be improved. how is the real question.

Option 2&3 are really the same hair just split.

Smokin' Gnome BBQ said:

everything can be improved. how is the real question.

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Agreed. The decimal idea makes the most sense to me. Even allowing just the .5 would make a big difference.

I like the idea of fractional scoring instead of just whole #'s...

Overall I think it works pretty good.

I would just like to see some consistency. I don't feel there should be a range of four to five points in any of the three scoring groups. Yes, I realize one of six chicken pieces can be bad but if you have all 9's and a 5, probably a judge issue.

There are a lot of things they can do to improve it- mentoring at a comp, comment cards to go with scoring, give something to the judges who do the event

Buster Dog BBQ said:

I would just like to see some consistency. I don't feel there should be a range of four to five points in any of the three scoring groups. Yes, I realize one of six chicken pieces can be bad but if you have all 9's and a 5, probably a judge issue.

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Naw...You really think...! KCBS just thinks those other 5 dont know BBQ!

Thanks Steve

Consistency has been my favorite project for the past two years. In that direction, Minion and I proposed the definitions to be used with the numbers on the judging slips, which definitions are now on every judging slip.

Will that fix it? No, there will always be that "judge 5". Now I am not picking on judges by saying this. Reps are told to talk to "judge 5" when they see it.

When I talk to judges about their scores, sometimes they have a really valid reason, and I have to agree. Others, I try to suggest they may be inconsistent with the community standard.

I have seen this help some judges. I have seen other judges ignore it. I have turned in a few judges to the CBJ committee because they may be better utilized in another manner than judging.

We do not have a perfect system. I do not know what the perfect system is. When we began at 9, we had the same discussions about "judge 5". I am certain over time, there will be more changes and attempts to improve.

I think this discussion is good and often leads to new ideas.

Merl Whitebook

works for us, but there's always room for improvement I agree with Vinny, I think the decimal could work..

Here are my thoughts on the matter...

Merl brings up a good point that people forget. The KCBS has always had those rogue judges whose scores were inconsitent with the other five judges at the table. This happened under the old system and still occurs under the present system. All of us hate that low scoring judge. One thing I have suggested over the years is that a score of three or less be defended with a short written comment by that low scoring judge. This way the team might learn from their mistake.

One last comment about those rogue judges. IMHO, these type of judges are not restricted to uncertified and untrained judges. They can even be CBJs.

One thing nobody seems to complain about is the inconsitent judge who judges too high. A main for the old system being discarded were the artificially high scores. The common mindset among judges was, if you could not find anything wrong with the entry, you gave it a score of nine.

I used to run KCBS appearance surveys on Ray Basso's forum. Shortly after the change in judging instructions, I reposted an entry we had judged under the old system, using the new system. The readers were unaware they had judged this entry before. Most of the judges who had previously given scores of nine were now deeming the entry with scores of sevens and eights. There even a few scores of six.

My observation and question at the time was, if it was a nine before, why wasn't it a nine now?

I like the descriptors that accompany each possible score. I think that this is a step in the right direction. As to the idea of using decimals, we already have eight possible scores, we don't need more. A score of seven or less is going to knock you out of the top any way.

One last suggestion I would make is to track the CBJs and see if their scores are inconsitent with the other five judges at the table on a regular basis. If this occurs, then these judges should either be retrained or given volunteer duties other than sitting at the judge's table.

Beers for thought,

Juggy

Merl said:

When I talk to judges about their scores, sometimes they have a really valid reason, and I have to agree. Others, I try to suggest they may be inconsistent with the community standard.

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I think this statement in it's self is a problem. Are we to say what a "community standard" is? And does that Rep know what a standard is?
So as cooks, we should cook to the reps standards and we will score better.

I've been through the judging class and have judged but mainly compete. The contests I have judge are by my standards, which is not right or wrong, but within the paramenters that were given to me in my judging class.

I don't think we will ever get rid of that "judge 5" but if we could get more consistant scores from one contest to the other regardless of Reps, that would be a start.

As far as the poll goes, I think the KCBS judging system is fine the way it is but could use a little tweaking.

Juggy D Beerman said:

One last suggestion I would make is to track the CBJs and see if their scores are inconsitent with the other five judges at the table on a regular basis. If this occurs, then these judges should either be retrained or given volunteer duties other than sitting at the judge's table.

Beers for thought,

Juggy

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The software for that purpose would be relatively simple. The data required would be the scores, CBJ #, and table #. Depending on the current software being used it probably wouldn't be too difficult to add the new code. After each contest the Rep. could send a data file to KCBS. If the results were analyzed on a weekly basis a consistently high or low judge should appear fairly quickly when compared to their peers assuming they judge on a regular basis..... or demonstrate that there are very few consistent judges.

The difficult part in my opinion would be obtaining a consensus on how far out of the norm a judge would need to be, and how consistently for the software to alert whomever was responsible for dealing with the situation.