One Judges opinion

[Deacon]

To open with, I decided to rate each RP in sets, mostly in my attempt to balance everything and give some coherence to my choices as comparing that many RPs would’ve been challenging, to say the least. That gave 4 rounds w/ each competitor having 1 RP in each round. This also meant that someone could win a round, and do so handidly, while losing the affair (something that I believe happened while I rated). One other note – I did this while in my car (don’t worry, my wife was driving) and taking notes. Don’t ask me for specifics. These are what… 2 months old??? And I’m too lazy to go back and find out why I liked what I did.

Round 1

Eli - opened the first round and had great lines throughout. Add with it the bonus for going first, and he hit that gate, knocked it into the ground, and trampled it before taking off. The only weakness was the descriptive work. I tried to slow to visualize it and it just seemed silly.
Castor – Solid. Good description. However, it lacked the punch, especially following Eli. I tend to go w/ the “ewwww” responses in my head and if I don’t get those… well, ya know. He definitely garnered a positive w/ a solid angle of burying the Ultratitle though.
Flyer – Some solid lines throughout. Got Flyer over clearly, setting the tone for what he wanted to achieve and amazingly great lines on Melton!
Melton – Funny lines that cut into everyone, except Flyer, which seemed odd. I might’ve also thought some of the description seemed silly (I have an arrow pointing back at Eli’s note), but that’s just a guess on my part.

Eli 4, Flyer 3, Melton 2, Castor 1

Round 2

Eli – I’m combining his 2 RPs into one given how he attacked Melton and then went after Castor on a separate one. The one on Melton was decent but not especially memorable. Though its focus was clearly on Melton, Eli seemed to be talking a lot about him only to disregard him. It also suffered from a weak closing line. The one w/ Castor was wonderfully done. Not “the” best of the round, but it saved a lackluster opening. I enjoy it when someone will take what another person has written and riff off of it, building the story and slanting it just slightly. It saved this round for Eli.
Melton – Funny & loved how you did one simple jab at Flyer. It had me laughing in several parts, keeping you fairly even w/ Flair, only missing on a tag toward Castor.
Castor – This was an improvement from the 1st one. It attacked everyone, pushed the established angle, and garnered more of a response from me.
Flyer – Funny. Vibrant. Entertaining. Tons of great lines! Nailed everyone and was the best RP of the first 8 or so I’d read.

Round scoring: Flyer 4, Eli 3, Melton 2, Castor 1
TOTAL: Flyer – 7, Eli – 7, Melton – 4, Castor – 2

Round 3

This round was the weakest overall. It seemed like the writing meandered more, and even the strong stuff suffered from an inability to say much of anything new or build on what’d already been presented.
Castor – quick jab. I didn’t comment or rate it, given it was a one-off RP.
Eli – Not as solid as the earlier work. It was alright, but it lacked any of the earlier strength.
Melton – Funny, classic Melton who takes a glaring weakness and makes it a shining positive. The storyline, also a part of this round, seemed odd to me.
Castor – Loved the opening. REALLY loved it. It set the tone and I finally felt like Castor would take control. However, the RP seemed to drag , losing focus, and the section where the fan shouted seemed completely out of place.
Flyer – Solid enough, but it didn’t say anything new.

Round scoring: Melton – 4, Castor – 3, Flyer – 2, Eli – 1
TOTAL: Flyer – 9, Melton – 8, Eli – 8, Castor – 5

Round 4

Melton – HOME RUN! Loved the setting (Bingo parlor is CLASSIC!). Chuckled lots w/ an RP that had a good story and solid dialogue.
Eli – Nice opening bit. However, I got lost in the logic of how Eli didn’t care if he won UT. It brought him outta retirement – of COURSE he cares! Pete did a decent enough job w/ an explanation by the end, but it still seemed outta place when I read it.
Flyer – Uhm… not my favorite. The ending dropped some points w/ me. Now, this next part isn’t in my notes, but it seemed Flyer was piggy-backing this RP into Castor’s story of destroying the UT. I know Flyer is chaotic, but I didn’t like to see 2 guys who want to destroy UT (unless both started w/ it). Hurt the score… assuming my memory is correct.
Castor – Good, but I hated the rap at the end! The radio spot was fun w/ some decent work.

Round scoring: Melton 4, Eli 3, Castor 2, Harmen 1
TOTAL: Melton 12, Eli 11, Harmen 10, Castor 7

 

[User Poets]

Much appreciated feedback, Warren. Now, I know you also had some thoughts on the tournament overall that I would like to hear - whenever you have time.

Likewise for anyone/everyone else, there have been whispers and grumbles and rumors of discontent, wouldn't it be nice to get it all out in the open so we could talk about it?

 

[Colin]

Well that answers my un-asked question from EFG.

 

[Deacon]

Well that answers my un-asked question from EFG.

Which is....?

 

[Colin]

Just was curious when Pete mentioned one judge had the results basically reversed from the rest. However, seeing the breakdown, I get it.

 

[Deacon]

I noticed when I read the results to. I guess that's why we have multiple judges. It was even odd for me since, honestly, Melton was the LAST character I would've wanted to win the tournament. Storyline-wise, Castor had the best thing going and for a fed I was also in (NFW), his win provided some "credibility" to the NFW title (well, as much credibility as a game like this can give). However, when I rated each round, Melton seemed to improve while everyone else just seemed to falter (IMO). What WOULD be interesting? Why did the other judges make the choices they made? I don't mind being the bottom up, but not knowing what I missed and they caught is a bit harsh.

Of course, reality is that judging at this point is as much based on moments of being read as it was on ability or strength in writing. All 4 writers did good work, not the best I'd ever seen (especially late in the rounds), but good.

wf

 

[SpookyDoom]

Much appreciated feedback, Warren. Now, I know you also had some thoughts on the tournament overall that I would like to hear - whenever you have time.
Likewise for anyone/everyone else, there have been whispers and grumbles and rumors of discontent, wouldn't it be nice to get it all out in the open so we could talk about it?

During the second round judging, the only explanation you gave for choosing Classy Mike C over Spooky Doom was for the silly Scooby-Doo theme song. Yes I was stricken with disbelief after seeing the outcome of my following match against Orphan:

- Weak Orphan second promo; waffling over whether to treat Spooky Doom as a lil' Grim Reaper or a guy in a mask.
- A wrestling promo which was mostly composed out of reading from a book.
- I also wanted to see how he'd address the issue of finisher comparison between Doom and Orphan, and saw he never wanted to play the game.

(After a latest read-through and in all due honesty, I might be exagerating about the whole "stricken with disbelief" part. I'm re-reading the promos again and saw that Seymour's third was particularly good on it's own, but I also realize how the man never acknowledges any point coming from Spooky Doom proper, reaching only for the trash-talk to justify Orphan's motivations. I guess that's what I found so infuriating in his victory)


It's not that the judging decisions were unjust; it's that they were completely unjustifiable! Literally in this case; after the debacle from the first round, those with the responsibility of grading RPs (mostly) shirked their responsibility of explaining their decisions later on. Or rather, they've stated they had no explanations to give in the first place. So how can I accept that Orphan deserved to win his match?

There's no criticism in the results, merely opinions on who was "better", free of any context or definition of what made the work "better". When you have that, coupled with NFW boy wonder Castor Strife winning the tournament, then of course people will suppose (privately, of course) that the tournament was rigged.

Justifying your decision on clear writing principles is not an impossible ordeal. It's exactly what I did during the first rounds of the tournament while I was still active. I'm also afraid it was these opinions from those who read my critiques that've contributed to my loss more than anything I wrote in my RPs proper. It's not like I have any reason to believe otherwise. But my point was; if I could do it, and you think you're all so much better than I, then you could do it too.

I realize that no one wants to hear what I've to say at this point, even Castor pokes fun at me from the other thread. Regardless, I felt compelled to post, especially when challenged as such. My loss feels all too cheap considering how afraid people are to speak up and consequently, it's not like I have a chance to return to such a tournament considering how no one could give me any room to improve.

Would've finished writing this earlier too if I didn't have so much stuff to do over the weekend.

And yes, I do see how petulent it is to use this thread to bitch about my own loss; but understand that I won't intrude in other people's business if they don't have any issues with their own losses. I am not unaware how some participants were victims of much greater misjudgings than I, but if those concerned won't speak for themselves, it's not my place to complain for them.

 

[LQJT86C]

Why you gotta hatefuck my fed?

 

[User Poets]

Either you quoted the wrong person or you're still deciding that I'm to blame for everything that goes wrong in your life.

Regardless, we've already established that the tournament would have worked better with 3-5 (or even 7) judges that were consistently judging all of the matches and not the 850 that we had, which would have saved a ton of people losing their minds over the fact that apparently the only three of the 850 who would have voted Zero over Blaine assigned to that particular match.

That has been addressed, so I'm not sure what you're doing with your post. You're not adding anything to the conversation and you're not constructively debating anything anyone's saying.

What you're apparently posting about is "I lost and I don't accept the reasons that I lost."

Maybe that's somewhat valid in the sense that there was no singular, defined vision that all the judges had to follow and were left to their own devices to judge based on what they thought was a good promo and what wasn't, but under that criteria, isn't it possible that you lost because they liked Orphan's stuff better?

And do you have anything pertinent to the tournament and its happenings as a whole to contribute, or does your vision not extend past your own ego?

During the second round judging, the only explanation you gave for choosing Classy Mike C over Spooky Doom was for the silly Scooby-Doo theme song. Yes I was stricken with disbelief after seeing the outcome of my following match against Orphan:

- Weak Orphan second promo; waffling over whether to treat Spooky Doom as a lil' Grim Reaper or a guy in a mask.
- A wrestling promo which was mostly composed out of reading from a book.
- I also wanted to see how he'd address the issue of finisher comparison between Doom and Orphan, and saw he never wanted to play the game.

(After a latest read-through and in all due honesty, I might be exagerating about the whole "stricken with disbelief" part. I'm re-reading the promos again and saw that Seymour's third was particularly good on it's own, but I also realize how the man never acknowledges any point coming from Spooky Doom proper, reaching only for the trash-talk to justify Orphan's motivations. I guess that's what I found so infuriating in his victory)


It's not that the judging decisions were unjust; it's that they were completely unjustifiable! Literally in this case; after the debacle from the first round, those with the responsibility of grading RPs (mostly) shirked their responsibility of explaining their decisions later on. Or rather, they've stated they had no explanations to give in the first place. So how can I accept that Orphan deserved to win his match?

There's no criticism in the results, merely opinions on who was "better", free of any context or definition of what made the work "better". When you have that, coupled with NFW boy wonder Castor Strife winning the tournament, then of course people will suppose (privately, of course) that the tournament was rigged.

Justifying your decision on clear writing principles is not an impossible ordeal. It's exactly what I did during the first rounds of the tournament while I was still active. I'm also afraid it was these opinions from those who read my critiques that've contributed to my loss more than anything I wrote in my RPs proper. It's not like I have any reason to believe otherwise. But my point was; if I could do it, and you think you're all so much better than I, then you could do it too.

I realize that no one wants to hear what I've to say at this point, even Castor pokes fun at me from the other thread. Regardless, I felt compelled to post, especially when challenged as such. My loss feels all too cheap considering how afraid people are to speak up and consequently, it's not like I have a chance to return to such a tournament considering how no one could give me any room to improve.

Would've finished writing this earlier too if I didn't have so much stuff to do over the weekend.

And yes, I do see how petulent it is to use this thread to bitch about my own loss; but understand that I won't intrude in other people's business if they don't have any issues with their own losses. I am not unaware how some participants were victims of much greater misjudgings than I, but if those concerned won't speak for themselves, it's not my place to complain for them.

 

[Deacon]

It's not that the judging decisions were unjust; it's that they were completely unjustifiable! Literally in this case; after the debacle from the first round, those with the responsibility of grading RPs (mostly) shirked their responsibility of explaining their decisions later on. Or rather, they've stated they had no explanations to give in the first place. So how can I accept that Orphan deserved to win his match?

There's no criticism in the results, merely opinions on who was "better", free of any context or definition of what made the work "better". When you have that, coupled with NFW boy wonder Castor Strife winning the tournament, then of course people will suppose (privately, of course) that the tournament was rigged.

Justifying your decision on clear writing principles is not an impossible ordeal. It's exactly what I did during the first rounds of the tournament while I was still active. I'm also afraid it was these opinions from those who read my critiques that've contributed to my loss more than anything I wrote in my RPs proper. It's not like I have any reason to believe otherwise. But my point was; if I could do it, and you think you're all so much better than I, then you could do it too.

Again, I did a bit of snipping to your post but wanted to address your thoughts. Near as I can tell, your primary (or more global) concern was found in judges not giving you a valid opinion on your work as compared to Orphan's work. I'm going to be a bit lazy and avoid looking for Rd. 2 feedback that might've went your way, but if you did receive feedback from a judge, what did it say?

As for a rigged tourney, I'd disagree, especially w/o hearing any sort of reasoning behind it (besides Castor coming away w/ the Finals). We had too many people get knocked out early, guys who have a lot of respect in this circuit. We even had one who made it to the finals nearly go out in Rd. 1, my vote being one that helped keep Eli in. But I'd be open to listening.

I have one other thought. I did justify every decision I made, though I'm not sure I used any sort of "writing principles" as you mentioned. In fact, aside from poor word choice, I'm not sure such principles exist (and I'm currently in the top 30 of a contest of 1700 short stories). At the end of the day, it does simply come down to - "did the judge 'get it' or not?" As stated here and elsewhere, I was clearly a judge who didn't get Castor's work in the finals, at least in comparison to everyone else's. Did I fail in using some principle? Or did every other judge fail to see Castor's work for the gibberish drudgery that it is? (LQJ - I kid because I care!)

 

[SpookyDoom]

Well first of all, I suppose I owe a measure of apology to Pete Russo as I confused him with Spike Saunders/Dusty. Spike is the judge who sang so much to the Scooby-Doo song that he gave Classy Mike C the round, which I frankly thought was ridiculous.

Again, I did a bit of snipping to your post but wanted to address your thoughts. Near as I can tell, your primary (or more global) concern was found in judges not giving you a valid opinion on your work as compared to Orphan's work. I'm going to be a bit lazy and avoid looking for Rd. 2 feedback that might've went your way, but if you did receive feedback from a judge, what did it say?

Doom vs Orphan was Round 3 and no comments or critiques were given to that bracket from any judge. That's what I meant when I said that the results weren't merely unjust, they were unjustifiable.

Either you quoted the wrong person or you're still deciding that I'm to blame for everything that goes wrong in your life.

Regardless, we've already established that the tournament would have worked better with 3-5 (or even 7) judges that were consistently judging all of the matches and not the 850 that we had, which would have saved a ton of people losing their minds over the fact that apparently the only three of the 850 who would have voted Zero over Blaine assigned to that particular match.

That has been addressed, so I'm not sure what you're doing with your post. You're not adding anything to the conversation and you're not constructively debating anything anyone's saying.

What you're apparently posting about is "I lost and I don't accept the reasons that I lost."

Maybe that's somewhat valid in the sense that there was no singular, defined vision that all the judges had to follow and were left to their own devices to judge based on what they thought was a good promo and what wasn't, but under that criteria, isn't it possible that you lost because they liked Orphan's stuff better?

And do you have anything pertinent to the tournament and its happenings as a whole to contribute, or does your vision not extend past your own ego?

My point was that those "whispers and rumbles and rumors of discontent" you alluded to would stem from the lack of accountability of the judging. I'm giving examples from my own matches to show that there is a way to judge promos by their content rather than always resorting to "likes". If you always justify what you do by what you "like", then there's no accounting for tastes and you get reactions like why is Castor Strife the winner.

 

[brusch]

"Unjustifiable" is the wrong word. "Unjustifiable" implies that it's impossible to say why Orphan would go over Doom.

It may not have been explicitly justified, and it's fine to say "I got no answers and that sucks", but you need to use a different and more accurate word for your argument to hold.

 

[LQJT86C]

It seems we're arguing with a ghost here. Has anyone actually stepped forward to claim that the outcome was rigged? Until that happens, why are we lending credence to what is essentially AIM hearsay? No use arguing against an opinion that hasn't even been put forward. If someone has a grip with the result, let them come out and tell us who should have won. It's not like some unexplainable fluke happened, and some dude who won two matches in his life all of a sudden won Ultratitle with his friends judging.

 

[User Poets]

It seems we're arguing with a ghost here. Has anyone actually stepped forward to claim that the outcome was rigged? Until that happens, why are we lending credence to what is essentially AIM hearsay? No use arguing against an opinion that hasn't even been put forward. If someone has a grip with the result, let them come out and tell us who should have won. It's not like some unexplainable fluke happened, and some dude who won two matches in his life all of a sudden won Ultratitle with his friends judging.

Well I was hoping the claimants would man up and state their case so we could hash it all out but apparently the conspiracy theorists are also cowards.

 

[Justin]

Is this happening now?

Wow.

 

[Ernie]

If you want I'll help judge the next one.

Hint: I don't like lengthy RPs. So write half a Tweet and post it if you want my vote.

 

[Ford]

Is this happening now?

Wow.

It is 2012... I just never knew the world would end this way.

BTW, if the tournament was rigged, Pete woulda won. So I don't know what the frak you all are smoking.

 

[DBrunkGXW]

No, if the tournament was rigged.... a couple things....

Steve would have won with Melton.

NO ONE would hand a win worth $125 to Billy, not that it's for sure he's actually getting that money. (wink wink)

I certainly would have not lost with Dan Ryan in the first round.


And finally, if there really is someone who thinks it was rigged, I would really love for them to step up, say so, and have a RP'd match against Billy in front of the world and let us judge it.

That's not gonna happen.

"Rumor" in e-fedding isn't worth wiping my ass on.

 

[Colin]

Guys, as I co-host of EFG, I get all the hottest scoops. Hell, Tom Ford's nickname is "Scoops" and I can confirm, 100% that Billy outsourced all of his RPs to the judging panel of people I don't know so that they could then approve of his RPs because they themselves wrote them.

I think you will find my information to be very reliable, after all, I got Halkum to not-unconfirm he bought EWMania for $2 million.

 

[Spike Saunders]

Well first of all, I suppose I owe a measure of apology to Pete Russo as I confused him with Spike Saunders/Dusty. Spike is the judge who sang so much to the Scooby-Doo song that he gave Classy Mike C the round, which I frankly thought was ridiculous.

The overall tournament judging was being ruled as a joke altogether by this point. My comments about the song were simply what caught my attention, NOT what resulted in the win.

Everything went out the door after Round 1/2 as has been stated by Deacon and others in the other threads.

Quit.Complaining. It is over.
//end