No more TOD

BBQchef33 said:

can you just imagine if KCBS would doing something easy and sensible, but not to cost effective.

Scantron the score cards. Bubble sheets like they do with the SATS. Scanners are a few hundred each for portable USB models. They would need one at every contest, which means the reps have to have them. Would be $$$.

It could be programmed to gather all demographics, tally scores, calculate the results and then store all the information. All information read in seconds. Contests results will be spewed out in under a minute with no data entry.

Collects all demographics and stores historical data..

Rep data
Host Data
Contest data
Judge data
team data
and all scores. Automatically tracking judge history, team history and calculating results. Statistical Trending can be done thru Business Analytics. A rookie data miner can do wonders with this level of simple.. and a judges seating chart can be created either based on their historical data trends or completely randomized.

Not difficult at all...

Generalized sheets can be custom designed for KCBS contests collecting all necessary data and all judges have to do is fill in the bubbles. Drop the completed cards into a scanner and all the rep would have to do is hit "complete" when all sheets are in. Cards are read and results come out in seconds.

hey..one can dream right?? :twitch:

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Funtimebbq said:

I like that thinking. Wonder how the machine would take to bbq sauce stains on the scantron, LOL.
Regarding the topic, I pushed in favor of the judge seating program simply because random creates more TODs and TOAs than a room full of balanced by average tables. It was not perfect but over the last year I heard only two people say they were victims of a TOD. That was far better than hearing about it constantly and blaming poor judge training or just poor judging.
I want to give the new BOD the benefit of the doubt and will try to listen to the MP3 audio of the meeting to see if there was a logical reason other than organizers did not like it. I hope organizers and our KCBS Board remembers that once the Reps report to the contest, control of the tent is no longer in the hands of the organizer. And if the Rep committee was opposed to reverting back, that should say something to our Board.

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Jorge said:

I bailed on Facebook years ago. Before I consider going back to look at that info, is there any mention of his methodology in analysis or how judges are seated?

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BBQchef33 said:

can you just imagine if KCBS would doing something easy and sensible, but not to cost effective.

Scantron the score cards. Bubble sheets like they do with the SATS. Scanners are a few hundred each for portable USB models. They would need one at every contest, which means the reps have to have them. Would be $$$.

It could be programmed to gather all demographics, tally scores, calculate the results and then store all the information. All information read in seconds. Contests results will be spewed out in under a minute with no data entry.

Collects all demographics and stores historical data..

Rep data
Host Data
Contest data
Judge data
team data
and all scores. Automatically tracking judge history, team history and calculating results. Statistical Trending can be done thru Business Analytics. A rookie data miner can do wonders with this level of simple.. and a judges seating chart can be created either based on their historical data trends or completely randomized.

Not difficult at all...

Generalized sheets can be custom designed for KCBS contests collecting all necessary data and all judges have to do is fill in the bubbles. Drop the completed cards into a scanner and all the rep would have to do is hit "complete" when all sheets are in. Cards are read and results come out in seconds.

hey..one can dream right?? :twitch:

Click to expand...

Funtimebbq said:

I pushed in favor of the judge seating program simply because random creates more TODs and TOAs than a room full of balanced by average tables.

Click to expand...

Funtimebbq said:

It was not perfect but over the last year I heard only two people say they were victims of a TOD. That was far better than hearing about it constantly and blaming poor judge training or just poor judging.

Click to expand...

BBQchef33 said:

can you just imagine if KCBS would doing something easy and sensible, but not to cost effective.

Scantron the score cards. Bubble sheets like they do with the SATS. Scanners are a few hundred each for portable USB models. They would need one at every contest, which means the reps have to have them. Would be $$$.

It could be programmed to gather all demographics, tally scores, calculate the results and then store all the information. All information read in seconds. Contests results will be spewed out in under a minute with no data entry.

Collects all demographics and stores historical data..

Rep data
Host Data
Contest data
Judge data
team data
and all scores. Automatically tracking judge history, team history and calculating results. Statistical Trending can be done thru Business Analytics. A rookie data miner can do wonders with this level of simple.. and a judges seating chart can be created either based on their historical data trends or completely randomized.

Not difficult at all...

Generalized sheets can be custom designed for KCBS contests collecting all necessary data and all judges have to do is fill in the bubbles. Drop the completed cards into a scanner and all the rep would have to do is hit "complete" when all sheets are in. Cards are read and results come out in seconds.

hey..one can dream right?? :twitch:

Click to expand...

GrillBillie_D said:

Here is the statement from Phillip Brazier (for those who aren't on FB):

In early, early 2017, Reps were using The Shuffle for seating judges. This system was very unpopular with many reps, cooks and judges, but it was an organized system. I was one of those who did not care for the system so I contacted Mark Gibbs to see if he would help me put together a presentation to carry before the board explaining how a random draw would be fairer than the shuffle system.

Mark said he would be glad to help, but he had an idea for a program using judge’s averages to build tables that would be close to the same average. This sounded good to me as I felt we needed to do something, anything, to address the TOD and TOA complaints. We both agreed that nothing we could do would ever eliminate these tables, but maybe we could help reduce their magnitude. Plus, a computerized system would remove one major component, the human factor. If run properly, the program would seat all judges with no influence by a person.

After several months of work by Mark and some nitpicking by myself, we had a program for me to present to the Board. The Board liked the path we were on, so they allowed Kathy and me to beta test the program for, I believe it was about four contests, and report back to them.

Around September/October, they had me select a couple more reps to add to the beta testing. In the November BOD meeting I reported that during all the beta testing table averages for each contest were below 1.0 points difference, with no glaring TOD or TOA’s. I say “glaring” because there were some higher scoring tables and lower scoring tables. The Board decided to utilize this program as the PRIMARY judge seating program for 2018. A SECONDARY system, should the program malfunction for any reason, would be a random chip-draw system.

The system was utilized, supposedly, by all reps in 2018, though I received whispers and comments that some reps did not like using it so they were not using it. But I could not confirm any of these comments.

By the latter part of 2018, I had fought so much to try and get all reps on the same page with the program and was losing the battle that I was ready to switch to the random chip draw. I called Mark and we discussed, and he said he, also, was tired of getting “beat up” over the program. The constant bashing on Facebook, the arguments, etc. Even some Board members were questioning its use. So, I informed Mark that I was going to recommend to the Board that we drop the computerized system and go random draw. But, before I made such a move, I brought this before the Rep Committee and they SOUNDLY, expressed that they wanted to use the system one more year before abandoning. I say soundly, because there may have been some committee members who did not agree, they just did not speak up. So, I so informed the Board and they agreed to let it continue. I contacted Mark and he said he would continue to help with the updates until the new computer platform could take over.

Last Thursday or Friday, Dennis Polson called me to discuss the computer program because he knew the new Board was going to bring it up for discussion and he wanted more info. So, I, basically, told him what I have said above. And, would be glad to answer any questions if needed.

Apparently, there were no questions as the new Board dropped the computerized system and adopted the random system. I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH THIS MOVE. Heck, it is way less work on us reps! Where I have a problem is when a new Board member gets on Facebook and, boldly states that the seating system was changed because the program did not do its job in getting rid of TOD’s and TOA’s. IT NEVER CLAIMED THAT IT WOULD! This was a huge slam on Mark and me, mainly Mark, by making it sound like we were making promises we could not keep of completely solving this issue. This is just not fair to him! Me, I don’t care!

In closing, I want to remind the new Board that it is documented in the motion in regard to this switch that the new system would be a “TRULY random” system. Not just random, but, TRULY random. Many folks are going to watch this very closely because just one decision made by a rep during the seating that changes the drawn assignment will shoot that word all to pieces and the human factor will have come into play. The written procedure for implementing this system has not been communicated, so we will see what that entails. Should be interesting. Hope it is soon as there are contests THIS weekend.

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Slamdunkpro said:

I can also cite empirical evidence of a noticeable increase of scores like:
999
999
989
998
677
678

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tduffy said:

This right here......
This was the theme of 2018. You can survive a table with one low scoring judge. These tables kill you. I can cite where I cooked several comps with these types of tables last year. Never seen so many of them until we went to a scoring system that we were told would eliminate this. I can also cite a contest I cooked last year where this seating system created a table of all women and all old people. I learned of this after a judge I am good friends with informed me of it after judging was done. Guess how those tables scored?

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Blanton said:

Saw the same exact thing, and when looking at the all the tables, you could see the other tables were the same way. Felt like all it did was was come down to where the odd number of consistent low judges got placed and if you hit that table. Will be interesting what 2019 brings

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Funtimebbq said:

The table balancing was exactly the purpose of the seating system. In past years, there might be one or two tables with low (or high) scoring judges and if a team was lucky enough to avoid the the low ones, the team usually did well.

The seating system made all the tables as close to evenly balanced as possible. As quoted above "the other tables were the same way" which is exactly what the seating system was designed to do. All teams shared both high and low scoring judges instead of hoping (not) to land on a TOD.

But it's over and done with, at least until the next time.

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tduffy said:

It didn't get rid of any TOD or TOA and was a complete joke from the beginning.

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tduffy said:

It didn't balance tables. That's subjective. That would mean the debate was settled on the opinion that the best way to balance table is by seating by scoring average only. Which is far from the truth. It factors in no other variables, age, gender etc. And how many variables should be considered?

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CBQ said:

Score is the only variable that matters. It's not important how age, gender, etc. influence a judge...it's only the outsome that's important. I don't agree with Michael that it's a "random" event with a small sample size. If a judge has a score that's 2 points below the contest mean after judging 10 contests, you are saying that maybe they just had bad luck and got terrible entries for the 60 entries they scored? Seems unlikely.

I guess with the scoring program on the scrap heap we can just go back to cooks complaining about judges making up their own rules, and judges insisting there is no problem at all with a system that has no certification standards whatsoever, and it must just be bitchy cooks that are the problem.

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tduffy said:

How can you state that age, gender etc doesn't matter but score does? Sounds pretty subjective to me. Apparently scoring averages didn't matter much as seating by them didn't eliminate any TOD's or TOA's. It might even have made more of them.

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midwest_kc said:

If age/gender/etc effect your scoring, that's baked into your averages. You don't need to double account for it.

I know you've said that you found it to be counter productive. My experience was different, and I felt there were less TODs last year than before. Different regions, different results. My experience was that it worked.

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