Hello all,
One of Judge Foundry’s core tenets is “Give judges a sense of pride, ownership and community that inspires them to invest in their peers and in their work”, to support that ideal we are happy to announce a new iteration of the Exemplar Program. For many of you, this may be the first time you have heard of the Exemplar Program, and this post will explain what the program is. For those of you who remember the previous incarnation under the legacy program, we will have a section towards the end with a brief explanation of the key differences.
This Exemplar Program is a peer-to-peer recognition initiative sponsored by Judge Foundry. It provides an opportunity for judges to highlight the efforts and contributions of other members in a meaningful way. Recognitions are based on what members feel is valuable at all levels of organized play and community involvement.
Judges do a lot of amazing things that are not always seen by players or tournament organizers. The Exemplar Program gives judges the opportunity to point out the achievements and accomplishments of another judge and say “That was awesome/meaningful, I want to see more of that!”
How it Works
Starting next week, and then again each subsequent quarter, a recognition wave will be opened. During that wave, anyone with a Judge Foundry certification can write recognitions to one or more members. Recognitions can be added, deleted, or edited right up to the wave closure. At the end of the quarter, the recognition wave will close and then the process of review and publishing recognitions begins. Once that process is complete, the recognitions will be published publicly, and we will have the opportunity to share in the accomplishments of others. The next wave begins.
A recognition is not a review, and does not have to be an in depth analysis of a judge, or encompass a long history of accomplishments. A recognition is just that, a recognition of some behavior the author felt like highlighting.
There have been 18 previous waves under the Legacy program. You can view those nominations if you have a JudgeApps account at: https://apps.magicjudges.org/recognitions/search/ or from the JudgeApps sidebar window under ‘Exemplar Program.’
Recognition Criteria
Recognitions will be reviewed and accepted for publication based on the following criteria:
- Specific – A reader should be able to understand what actions are being recognized.
- Praiseworthy – The recognized action/behavior needs to be something worthy of emulation by other judges.
- Relevant – The recognized action/behavior must be directly related to judging/running events.
- Representative – The construction of the recognition should reflect positively on judges or the program.
Stay tuned for a more detailed articles on this topic when the wave opens.
Recognition Examples:
“At the Final Fantasy prerelease, we had a player with no experience with magic and was overwhelmed with the tournament structure and just the game in general. You sat down with the player and gently suggested they drop from the tournament and then you could teach them some of the basics of the game. You took a situation that could have been embarrassing for the player and showed them courtesy and empathy, and ultimately what could have been a negative experience, into a player happy to return and get involved in other store events”
“At SCGCon: Birmingham, I made a wrong call, the player appealed and you overturned me. However, I appreciate both the questions you asked me before we reached the table, and the discussion after we left the table. Judging is so important to me and I go on tilt when I make a bad call, and you taking the time to both explain the aspect of the rules I had previously missed and making sure that I was ok, and that I understood the world was not ending really turned something that could have ruined my day into a positive experience.”
The Details
For the First Wave of the new Exemplar Program, judges can write nominations as follows:
Level Based Slots:
L1s – 1 “any” slot per wave
L2s – 1 L1 slot per wave, 1 “any slot” per wave
L3s – 1 L1 slot per wave, 1 L2 slot per wave, 1 “Any” slot per wave.
L4s – 1 L1 slot per wave, 1 L2 slot per wave, 2 “Any” slot per wave.
L5s – 1 L1 slot per wave, 1 L2 slot per wave, 3 “Any” slot per wave.
Role Based Slots:
Regional Advocates – 3 Additional “Any” Slots
Area Communicators – 1 Additional “Any” Slot
Core Judge Foundry Project leads will receive additional “Any” slots tied to the size/scope of the respective project.
The Schedule
Jun 16th Monday – This article announcing Exemplar!
Jun 23rd Monday – Wave Opens
Aug 18th Monday – Wave Closes
Aug 19th – Aug 31st – Nomination Review
Sep 1st Monday – Public Wave Release
Sep 8th Monday – Next Wave Opens
Sep TBD Monday – Blog article about what we learned during Wave 1, and how we might apply what we learned for future waves..
The Perks
In addition to getting some sweet recognition, the recognitions will be worth points that can be turned into discounts at the Judge Foundry Store. This process will be managed manually for the first wave or two, and then hopefully adopted. Four recognitions can be redeemed for a $5 coupon or credit (the exact mechanics are To Be Determined).
Additionally, each wave will have art for a custom token as well. In the legacy program, these tokens were printed with the nomination text on the back and mailed to each judge who received a recognition. For this initial wave, we will have a template where judges can print their own tokens with their nomination text. This may change as Exemplar evolves.
Each wave, the Exemplar team will select a particularly meaningful recognition, and the recipient will provide feedback into the art direction and token type of the art for the next wave.
Exemplar Primer for Legacy Program Judges.
First, let’s rip the band-aid off. There are no foils associated with this version of Exemplar. This program is dedicated to fostering peer-to-peer recognition.
The structure we are using to start out is very similar to the old structure of recognition slots allocated to quarterly waves, followed by a review process, and then a public publication of recognitions. There are multiple changes to the process we would like to make now that there are no longer foils involved; however, those will be gradual changes. To start out, we are using the infrastructure that exists, and then adjusting based on adoption rates. The review window will be significantly shorter than previous waves as this is no longer a global effort. One of the big delays in the previous process was accommodating all the different languages, and that is not an issue here.
Questions:
What about non-Judge Foundry members?
As this is a Judge Foundry sponsored project, the ability to give and receive recognitions is restricted to Judge Foundry members. It is our hope that this initiative will be successful and other programs will want to join in. Judges work best when they can work together and learn from each other. While this is not quite a fully open invitation, we are pretty close to it. We have already had a brief conversation with the IJP and they are cautiously interested in seeing how this turns out.
What about recognition for non-Judge activities like scorekeeping or prize wall?
Those are fine. Many of the qualities that make someone an excellent judge port over well into other event related tasks. Excellence doesn’t stop being excellent just because it happens in a role outside of Floor Judge. Judge Foundry has been looking to extend their certifications into the various customer support roles that make large events successful, and we do not see a reason to restrict those folks. There is however, one exception: recognitions for Judge Foundry members for actions taken while in a hiring capacity will not be allowed. We cannot permit judges to recognize folks for hiring them.
Will Tokens be mailed out?
No. The issue boils down to cost and adoption rates. The art for the token, the formatting for the token text, and even printing the tokens are largely fixed cost and predictable. What is not predictable, is how many mailings would need to be made. Tokens were a very important part of the last incarnation of Exemplar, and we want to provide them, however we cannot commit to printing and mailing tokens when we might have to walk that commitment. We want to get a sense of how many physical addresses we would need to ship to. Here we want to underpromise and overdeliver rather than the other way around. We will however, provide the token art image and a print template for you to print your own versions.
Will there be foils?
No.
Why is there a deadline at all? Why not just publish the second the recommendation is written?
There are a handful of reasons. First, humans being humans, if there is no deadline for something, folks tend to put it off indefinitely. Having a deadline provides a subtle motivation to do a thing. Second, these nominations are public. We do want a review period to make sure that nominations are appropriate to share. As an example, in the Legacy Program, one nomination seemed fine, until it started getting extremely personal and infringing on personal space, turning an excellent post into one that could not be published. If you are wanting to provide immediate recognition, you have other means available in the form of social media.
Closing
We hope you are as excited about this project as we are! Be on the lookout for a post next week as we talk about kickoff steps and what you need to know. The timing will be perfect, as we are sure many of you are returning from Vegas, and we hope you have plenty of stories and exciting experiences that you want to share with peers!