The exemplar program just published its 8th wave, meaning it’s been going on for nearly 3 years now. Regions worldwide are publishing “exemplar features/highlights“, but with over twenty thousand recognitions behind us I’d like to take a more comprehensive look:
How well are the different regions doing and where do we stand among them?
Who are the all time highlights when receiving and giving recognitions?
There are numerous metrics that could be explored, and while official exemplar metrics are coming, until they do this would be an opportunity to answer some of these questions while exploring some metrics specific to the Europe-East region.
If you’ve stumbled across here from another region – welcome! Besides the local metrics of our region, I’m sure you’ll find many interesting global metrics as well.
Validity
Before we get started, a word or two about the nature of this study:
The information here is based on the CSVs files of exemplar waves 2-8. Wave 1, besides being a fancy pilot of 900 recognitions, doesn’t have a proper CSV and thus was excluded from the database. This study is also based on the information about judges and regions as it appeared on judge apps on the eve of wave 8 publication – March 8th 2017.
Another thing to take into account becomes apparent if we look at the data. This is an example of what an exemplar recognition looks like:
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As we can see this includes the following information – Window; Nomination ID (the serial number of the nomination); The name, DCI# and Region of the creator; Slot; The name, DCI# and Region of the receiver; detailed description of the recognition itself, Language, and Status (usually just “A” or “Approved”).
What’s important to note here is that the regions of both the creator and subject are included separately, so even if one of them later moved to a different region, that recognition would still be counted for the original region.
A piece of information which isn’t included however, is the levels of the judges involved, and while it’s possible to use the information appearing in the slots, some slots are “nominations of any level”, meaning we have no way of knowing the level of the subject without manually checking each and every one at that time.
Hence this study will look at judges as they are today, meaning that if someone was given recognition as L1 and later became L2, it would count as though that judge was L2 at that time.
To try and sum this up – judges get certified, advance to higher levels, move around, and some eventually laps, all the time. Hopefully this evens out throughout all the regions, but do take this into account when reading the findings.
And so without further ado – let’s get started…
Exemplars all around
As of wave 8, there are a total of 24,438 recognitions made. Out of those, 1,701 (about 7%) have been rejected, accounting for 22,737 approved recognitions. From here on we’ll only be talking about the approved ones.
This is their spread throughout the different waves:
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Exemplars peaked at wave 4 of winter 2016, dropped drastically during wave 6, and have been about the same ever since, slightly rising.
Why the sudden peak at wave 4? That wave increased the number of slots each L2+ judge was allocated, and it showed.
Why the sudden drop at wave 6? At waves 5 and 6 the exemplar program moved from three waves a year, to four, and reduced the number of slots accordingly. The total should still be the same for one year, since 3 times 4,000 is about the same as 4 times 3,000.
The slow increase in waves 6-7-8 can probably be attributed to a small increase in the number of L2+ each quarter, as well as more existing L2+ judges adapting to the exemplar program and eager to use their slots.
Now that we know this, how do the recognitions spread across the different regions? Well, there are two ways to look at this – as recognitions received by judges at the region, but also as recognitions given by judges in that region.
Subjects
Let’s start with received recognitions:
Just going by the number of recognitions, distribution would look like this
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But settling for this would be wrong – each region has its own number of judges, ranging from 115 all the way to 509, for a total of 7,098 certified judges.
By the way, that’s an average of 3.2 recognitions per judge.
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Notice for example, how Japan with 336 judges has considerably more recognitions than Latin America, who has more judges. By dividing the numbers we can see what the average number of recognitions per judge is:
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Since the top row isn’t very clear, I’ll list the top rankings of the average number of overall recognitions that judges received in each region:
| Rank | Region Received | Ratio |
| 1 | Iberia | 7.17 |
| 2 | Japan | 5.77 |
| 3 | Italy and Malta | 5.45 |
| 4 | China | 5.12 |
| 5 | Europe – Central | 4.32 |
| 6 | Europe – East | 4.18 |
| 7 | BeNeLux | 3.74 |
| 8 | France | 3.67 |
| 9 | Latin America – Spanish | 3.58 |
| 10 | Brazil | 3.45 |
Notice how the Iberia region’s ratio is quite high, thanks to their culture which encourages giving nomination. More on that coming right up.
Creators
Enough with global recognitions received. Just how generous is each region?
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Let’s have a look at giving vs. receiving
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In red (left) you can see recognitions that people in those regions nominated others, while in blue (right) recognitions people in those regions got. Almost all are about the same, with a few regions leaning more towards one of the two options.
Once again, these numbers fool us since each region has a different number of judges, which means a different number of slots. Moreover, only L2+ can give nominations, so let’s see the average of each region regarding those judges (It’s true that L2s and L3s have a different number of slots, but I won’t be going that in-depth):
| Rank | Regions Given | Recognitions | # L3 | # L2 | Ratio |
| 1 | Iberia | 1753 | 8 | 51 | 29.71 |
| 2 | China | 1136 | 3 | 38 | 27.71 |
| 3 | Japan | 1905 | 4 | 72 | 25.07 |
| 4 | Italy and Malta | 1232 | 8 | 49 | 21.61 |
| 5 | Brazil | 1089 | 3 | 53 | 19.45 |
| 6 | France | 919 | 8 | 40 | 19.15 |
| 7 | Southeast Asia | 563 | 4 | 27 | 18.16 |
| 8 | Latin America – Spanish | 1524 | 12 | 76 | 17.32 |
| 9 | BeNeLux | 507 | 10 | 21 | 16.35 |
| 10 | Europe – East | 551 | 3 | 31 | 16.21 |
Notably our region has dropped several spots here, but bear in mind that after wave 8 we had 4 new L2s which have yet had a chance to write recognitions. Without that change we would have been ranked 7th, which is very close to our rank as receivers.
The order isn’t 1-to-1 as with the previous ranking, but in general when compared you can see that the more generous a region is with its slots, the more recognitions it gets. It seems that being selfless and applauding others for their successes makes it easier to become exemplary yourself.
Apart from maybe USA – Central which only has 1 L3, this difference in averages can’t be attributed to the number of judges – for example Iberia with its 59 L2+ has 4 times the average of USA – South, with its 64 L2+.
17,005 recognitions have the same region for the creator and the subject. This means that 75% of all recognitions are “internal region recognitions”, which could also help explain the above findings. The majority of judges are not international travelers, and they recognize the people close to them. Only a bit over 25% of all recognitions have different regions for the creator and the subject, which is still impressive, and very important when it comes to isolated judges worldwide who might have a hard time getting noticed.
Regional coordinators are the record givers, since they have a lot more slots. So a question that comes to mind is do they fall into the same pattern? This is the ranking of the most nominating judges out there:
| Rank | Name | Recognitions | Region |
| 1 | Mitsunori Makino |
138 | RC of Japan |
| 2 | Sergio Perez |
129 | RC of Iberia |
| 3 | Adrian Estoup |
121 | RC of Latin America – Spanish |
| 4 | Guillaume Beuzelin |
120 | RC of France |
| 5 | David Zimet |
116 | RC of USA – Southwest |
| 6 | Edwin Zhang |
109 | Former RC of China |
| 7 | Justin Turner |
98 | RC of USA – Southeast |
| 8 | Riccardo Tessitori |
97 | Not an RC |
| 9 | Alfonso Bueno |
97 | Former RC of Spain & Portugal |
| 10 | Cristiana Dionisio |
97 | RC of Italy and Malta |
Iberia, China, Japan, France, Italy and Malta are all ranked at the top here too.
Interestingly we see on this list a name who isn’t an RC – Riccardo Tessitori – so how does he rank so high? If you look into recognitions given by him you can see many of his recognitions were GP HJ nominations, and many others are from back when he was L5 and had more slots.
Returning to Subjects
Moving on to judges being recognized – If we’ve mentioned before that there are 7,098 certified judges, more than half of them have been recognized – 3,917 judges, which is 55% of all judges.
However to take things into perspective, considering over the years there have been judges who became uncertified, current percentages might be lower. And then there are the 45% who have not been recognized – This is not necessarily a bad thing, since if everyone got recognized, there would be nothing exemplary about it.
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14.4 UPDATE: According to calculations done by Rob McKenzie who holds an updated list of certified judges, the numbers are 3,760 out of 7,266 , which is nearly 52% of all current judges.
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Let’s go to the extreme – who are the highest recognized judges in the world? Those you would see featured on all time highlights are:
| Rank | Name | Level | Recognitions |
| 1 | Riccardo Tessitori |
3 | 92 |
| 2 | Kevin Desprez |
3 | 90 |
| 3 | Bryan Prillaman |
3 | 85 |
| 4 | George Gavrilita |
2 | 78 |
| 5 | Nicolette Apraez |
2 | 74 |
| 6 | Riki Hayashi |
3 | 74 |
| 7 | Alfonso Bueno |
3 | 72 |
| 8 | Matteo Callegari |
3 | 72 |
| 9 | Dustin De Leeuw |
3 | 72 |
| 10 | Sergio Perez |
3 | 71 |
This list pretty much speaks for itself:
Ranked #1 in the world is Riccardo Tessitori from Italy with 92 recognitions, followed not too far behind by Frenchman Kevin Desprez.
Most recognized L2s are Romanian-born George Gavrilita (Europe East!) and Nicolette Apraez, based in Atlanta, Georgia.
The highest recognized judge among the L1s is Charles Featherer from New Jersey with 42 recognitions.
What about judges who have only been recognized once? They actually make up quite a large chunk – about a third of the recognized judges – at 1,350 judges. As you’d probably expect, there are also plenty of judges with only 2 recognitions, 3 recognitions, and so on. Then again this isn’t a competition – being recognized, even if only once, is an honor.
The Ottoman Empire
Let’s delve some more into the Europe-East region.
Just to recap – Judges in our region have received 602 recognitions overall, and gave out 427 recognitions. Out of our 144 certified judges, 96 have been recognized, which is over the average at 66%.
These 602 recognitions arrived from a total of 146 different people, only 32 of which are from our region (we have 34 L2+s), but our 32 judges accounts for 411 of our recognitions.
The Europe-East region is quite large, made up out of over a dozen countries. How well is each one doing? Again, this representation is based on the current state and levels of judges in our region as of March 8th. Because several judges have moved between countries and even regions throughout the waves, the total is a bit lower than 602:
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Croatia has a surprisingly large amount of 117 recognitions, followed by Greece and Serbia who share the 2nd place with 68 recognitions. However this becomes more apparent when taken into account that Croatia is the second record holder for number of judges in our region, with 24 judges (Greece being the first, with 27 judges).
If we go by the average number of recognitions per judge, it would look like this:
| Country | Recognitions | Judges | Average |
| Qatar | 66 | 2 | 33 |
| Cyprus | 47 | 5 | 9.4 |
| Macedonia | 24 | 3 | 8 |
| UAE | 61 | 9 | 6.77 |
| Israel | 51 | 10 | 5.1 |
| Croatia | 117 | 24 | 4.87 |
| Serbia | 68 | 14 | 4.85 |
| Bulgaria | 19 | 6 | 3.16 |
| Greece | 68 | 27 | 2.51 |
| Slovenia | 36 | 17 | 2.11 |
| Turkey | 20 | 10 | 2 |
| Romania | 16 | 14 | 1.14 |
| Kuwait | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Qatar is actually in the lead with an average of 33 recognitions per judge, and interestingly with only 2 judges, DLI is responsible for all 66 of the recognitions. Croatia drops to the 6th place, but it and Serbia are still above the world average of 3.2 recognitions per judge.
Time to drill deeper and see who are the individual record holders for our region:
| Rank | Name | Country | Level | Recognitions |
| 1 | David de la Iglesia |
Qatar | 3 | 66 |
| 2 | David Guteša |
Serbia | 2 | 26 |
| 3 | Jernej Lipovec |
Slovenia | 3 | 21 |
| 4 | Nenad Cizmic |
Croatia | 2 | 21 |
| 5 | Theodoros Millidonis |
Cyprus | 1 | 21 |
| 6 | Giorgos Trichopoulos |
Cyprus | 3 | 20 |
| 7 | Masaru Koide |
UAE | 2 | 20 |
| 8 | Zohar Finkel |
Israel | 2 | 16 |
| 9 | Vladimir Trajcevski |
Macedonia | 2 | 15 |
| 10 | Georgi Benev |
Bulgaria | 2 | 15 |
Way ahead, leading the L3s is DLI, with various recognitions. You can read all about his recognitions here.
Far behind him, but still ahead of everyone else, and leading the L2s is another David – Guteša. You can read all about his recognitions here.
Finally, leading the L1s is Theodoros Millidonis. You can read all about his recognitions here.
Out of the 411 recognitions within our region, 238 are within the same country – Croatia is leading here with 90 recognitions among its 24 judges, followed by 41 local recognitions within Greece, and dropping down to 24 for Serbia.
Another 168 recognitions are among different countries within our region (Yes, this doesn’t quite add up to 411 since some judges moved away). If we take out regional coordinator recognitions, we’re left with 104 such recognitions:
Most notably, there have been 11 Qatar-UAE recognitions, and 6 the other way around. There have also been 10 Croatia-Serbia recognitions, and 9 the other way around. Croatia and Macedonia are also somewhat recognizing towards each other, with 5 recognitions in both ways. Other than that, judges from different countries within our region recognizing each other are quite scarce, and form a “long tail”.
Levels
Lastly, I’d like to take a look at our recognitions per judge levels. Since I have no world data on the matter which could serve as a benchmark, let’s just have a look at each level within our region, and more interestingly, what part L2s and L3s take in their recognitions:
In the Europe-East region are 110 Level 1 judges. From them, 59 (54%) have been recognized, with a total of 184 recognitions:
144 of those recognitions were made by L2s, and the other 40 by L3s.
In our region are also 31 Level 2 judges, almost all of whom have been recognized, with a total of 305 recognitions:
181 of those recognitions were made by other L2s, and the remaining 124 by L3s.
Lastly all 3 of our L3s have been recognized, with 107 recognitions:
Only 40 of those recognitions were made by L2s, and the remaining 67 by other L3s.
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Looking at the global pattern for L3 recognitions (which we can do since L2s have just one slot for it), 49% of the recognitions received by L3s are made by L2s.
If you take into account that there are considerably more L2s than L3s, and that L2s are responsible for 68% of all recognitions, it actually means that it’s mainly L3s who are recognizing each other. This is since most L2s won’t be exposed to many L3s out there, were most L3s tend to know each other better.
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14.4 UPDATE: According to calculations done by Rob McKenzie who holds an updated list of certified judges, these are the global nominations according to levels:
____________Total____By L3s__By L2s
%L3s Nominated__99.37%__50.58%__49.42%
%L2s Nominated__92.93%__13.53%__86.47%
%L1s Nominated__40.45%__21.09%__78.91%
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Conclusion
What you’ve seen above was the publicly available data of the exemplar program, along with some interpretations of mine. What practical insights can you take from all of this?
If you’re L1 who hasn’t been recognized yet, your level is not an obstacle – Charles Featherer is only L1, but has received more exemplar recognitions than a lot of L3s, and I bet many L1s in your region are also highly recognized (Hello Theo). Do know that you are several times more likely to get recognized by L2 than by L3, and that it would likely be from your own country.
If you are indeed exemplary, interact more with other judges around, either physically or virtually – Eventually people will take notice of it. This also means you shouldn’t go out of your way trying to get attention, if you are not sincere about what you do – It’s real easy to tell when someone does that.
If you’re L2, know that the majority of L2s eventually get recognized, and there’s a greater tendency for it to be done by other L2s than by L3s. If you’ve only been recognized once or very few times, you can replicate it, or what others have done to get recognized (same is also obviously true for all levels). As for your own slots, you’re at a good place in the middle – look for exemplary L1s to recognize, but also remember you can recognize L3s for their good work, which is something that might be hard for you to spot.
If you’re L3, then almost all of you have been recognized, and many of you on multiple occasions. Just keep doing what you’ve already been doing.
I hope this has been an interesting and illuminating reading, and that you’ve learned a thing or two on the nature of worldwide exemplar recognitions.