I know of one rep who has a blacklist of judges that he feels aren't consistent, and it isn't a secret either.
Coming at it from a different point of view, I think that it is innevitable that some judges are going to miss contests and that is a shame. It does not make them bad people worthy of punishment and torture....HOWEVER, there are two kinds of people in the world: Dependable, and unreliable. When a dependable person says he is going to be there, he is going to be there come hell or high water. He will also do everything in his power to be there on time, and if he can't be there, he will go out of his way to find a replacement. Unreliable people will not show up, be late, and if you're lucky enough to get a call from the person before he is a no-show, he'll do nothing more than say "Good Luck." While these unreliable people aren't necessarily bad people, they should not be counted on, and regardless of the reason, some one hwo has shown to be unreliable as a judge should be moved to the very bottom of a list when looking for judges to fill a contest. Call it a blacklist or backchannel communications, but it is perfectly reasonable for organizers to know whom they can trust. Obviously there are people who fall some where between dependable and unreliable, and the line is not always black and white, but I hope organizers don't have unreliable judges when I compete. What happens if they don't have enough?
Here's another way to look at it: Say you are on a comp team, you're comp team has three full time members, and you plan to compete every three weeks. Now say that every other competition, one of your teamates finds a reason to bail: His kids are sick, he forgot he has to go to his in-laws, he has a soccer game, his car broke down, and one time, you don't even know because he didn't bother to call and tell you. Now he pays his money, but every time he doesn't show up, you and your other teamate are left doing that much more work and getting that much less sleep. How much longer is that inreliable teamate going to stay on your team?
dmp