Things have taken a bit longer than we expected as we ironed out bugs in the review systems and got all the code in place for the public review viewing (and once again, I cannot thank the inestimable Gavin Duggan enough for all the time and effort he has put into getting everything set up in this respect), but Exemplar Wave 2 has now been published.

All the recognitions can now be viewed through judge apps; in the menu bar on the left of the screen, the Exemplar submenu includes ‘My Recognitions’ (which should show the ones that you have written and received) as well as the new addition, ‘All Recognitions’. This takes you to a page containing a number of convenient filtering options to allow you to browse the recognitions in any way that you choose. I encourage you to take a look, both to see the great things that judges are doing in their communities and to see the kinds of behaviours that judges value and want to hold up as exemplary.

While the Exemplar team was reviewing these recognitions, there were a number of concerns that were coming up repeatedly in the ways that they were being written. Now that we’ve seen a large enough sample size to understand the things that people are and aren’t understanding in terms of recognitions vs. rewards, we’ll be publishing an article in the next few days informed by real examples to help guide authors in future waves through what is and what is not appropriate in this program. We’ve also been listening to a number of the concerns and difficulties that have been raised repeatedly, both via social media and in person, and have a few other articles in the coming weeks that should help to address some of these.

In terms of what happens next: I’ll be passing the list of approved nominations to Wizards of the Coast this evening. I can’t give any guarantees about what will happen from that point, or a timeline of when it will happen. Wizards will make all decisions concerning mailing foils in association with these recognitions, including what the identities, numbers and distributions of these foils are. Some of the infrastructure issues which led to delays in the first wave Exemplar mail out have not yet been fully resolved, meaning that it may be some time before this wave is mailed out. As soon as I have any information on what to expect, I’ll be sure to let you all know.

Thank you very much to everyone who took the time to recognise their peers in this wave. We’ll be looking over the data and making decisions about any modifications we’ll make in the next wave, and once we have sorted that out, I’ll be posting here to inform you all about what to expect. For now – enjoy looking over the latest Exemplar recognitions!