{"id":515,"date":"2016-01-20T04:12:07","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T04:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/exemplar\/?p=515"},"modified":"2016-01-20T04:33:52","modified_gmt":"2016-01-20T04:33:52","slug":"wave-3-foil-elemental","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/exemplar\/wave-3-foil-elemental\/","title":{"rendered":"Wave 3 Foil Elemental"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\"BryanPrillaman\"<\/a>
\n\"CarlosHo\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Written by Bryan Prillaman Level 3, USA and Carlos Ho Level 4, Panama<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Howdy all,<\/p>\n

As promised last article, today we are going to talk about foils and the Exemplar program.\u00a0This is a bit of a departure from what we have normally done because we haven’t really discussed the relationship between foils and the Exemplar program before.<\/p>\n

The first thing we need to realize is that there are different types of foils. Aluminum foil is the most well-known due to its versatility in the home.\u00a0Tin foil is another popular type, but has recently fallen out of popularity in favor for Aluminum.\u00a0Gold leaf, despite not having foil in the name, is also a type of foil used in decorating\u2026<\/p>\n

Oh, not that type of foil?\u00a0Sure.\u00a0The foil, along with the saber and the epee make up the weapons used in fencing. The foil itself can be electric or non-electric, also called \u201cdry\u201d. Wait, this isn\u2019t right either.<\/p>\n

When talking fluid dynamics a foil is any solid object that when placed in a moving fluid….<\/p>\n

Hrm.\u00a0Maybe I should get to the point.\u00a0You want to be serious and I am being silly.\u00a0Perhaps I am your foil!<\/p>\n

In today’s post we are going to be talking\u00a0about the Judge Foils. While the Exemplar program itself is not about foils, we can’t deny that it is one of the methods of foil distribution.\u00a0That distribution mechanism is what I’ll be shedding some light on today. Wizards has given the Exemplar team control over how the foils are distributed, which lets us be more transparent on how the process works and answer more questions. I’m going to pull back most of the curtain and talk about some of the nuts and bolts of foils.<\/p>\n

The high level summary is:\u00a0 Wizards determines what cards comprise a wave, we collaborate on the total quantity that can be supported. \u00a0The the Exemplar program determines the distribution based on those parameters.\u00a0The foils are then sent to your Regional Coordinator for distribution to the recipients.<\/p>\n

But you want to know more, don\u2019t you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before I get started, I want to highlight that while I\u2019m presenting this story as a linear narrative; it wasn\u2019t.\u00a0 There was actually a fair amount of iteration here.\u00a0 We would start down a path, see that it doesn’t lead to a good place, and then go back up to the top and try a new path.<\/p>\n

Going forward foil distribution will be comprised of a series of “packs”.\u00a0 Each pack is identical and will contain four cards;\u00a0two new cards and two older cards from a previous Exemplar wave.\u00a0 Cards introduced in an Exemplar wave will eventually rotate into the conference foils packs several months later. This way, if you aren’t nominated in a particular wave you will still have an opportunity to acquire these cards by participating in your regional conferences.<\/p>\n

It is possible for nominees to receive up to 4 packs per wave based on criteria determined by the Exemplar Program; and as a bonus, I\u2019m going to go into that criteria for wave 3!\u00a0 Before we begin, I want to emphasis that the criteria used below will change for Wave 4<\/strong>.\u00a0 By publishing this criteria, and showing what went into the decision, we are going to have to alter it with each wave in order to minimize abuse.\u00a0 Additionally with Wave 4 having so many additional slots, it\u2019s going to necessitate a change anyway.\u00a0 Despite these changes, we felt it was important for the Judge Community to get at least a glimpse of what goes into the decision making process.<\/p>\n

The Exemplar program discussed and established a desired range of foils with Wizards (no less than X, no more than Y).\u00a0 We can\u2019t be too greedy as we do need to hold some back for conferences and future Exemplar waves. \u00a0We also don’t want to release too few, as that creates a different set of problems. \u00a0We also set up the tier system, where each tier equates to one of the packs.<\/p>\n

The next thing we did was to establish a desired profile of the tier distribution.\u00a0 It roughly looks like a bell curve shifted to the left.\u00a0 In this curve, 85 percent of the nominated judges would get 1-2 packs, and the remaining 15 percent would get 3 or 4. \u00a0Additionally we \u00a0wanted there to be more judges in tier 2 than in tier 1. \u00a0In math-nerd terms, we wanted the median and the mode to both be 2.<\/p>\n

At this point we had to decide how to allocate the tiers to individuals. There was a fair amount of trial and error here. \u00a0Try something, see if it meets the profile, watch it fail, question the profile; rinse\/wash\/repeat. The most natural method we discovered was to use the number of nominations. Tier 1 was worth a certain range of nominations, tier 2 required a bit more, tiers 3 and 4 required even more.\u00a0 We were nearly able to get the profile we wanted by tweaking by changing the range of nominations associated with each tier.\u00a0 There was a problem though.\u00a0 While tier 1 and tier 2 made up 85% of the nominations, even setting tier 1 at a single nomination, tier 1 was too large. Allocating 1 pack to those in tier 1 would have sent less foils out to judges, whereas sending 2 packs to all of them would be more than we had. We wanted to distribute as many foils as possible, so we had to figure out some way to split tier 1 up and bump some judges up to tier 2.\u00a0 We looked at different options, with some very off the wall suggestions, we even tossed out this idea and explored other means. Ultimately we returned to using the number of nominations received and introduced one additional factor for this wave: the level of the nominator. \u00a0HLJs and L3s are expected to see the wider impacts of what occurs at events and within their communities. This broader scope can lead to those judges having their attention pulled in many directions. This complexity can make it more difficult for an individual to stand out. For this wave, we decided to elevate those who captured that type of recognition.\u00a0This solution additionally has the advantage that 90% of the impacted judges were L1s or L2s.<\/p>\n

Will we use this method in Wave 4?\u00a0 I don\u2019t think so.\u00a0 Wave 4 is significantly different from Wave 3 and will require different tools, but the method is in the toolbox if needed again.<\/p>\n

While exploring other possibilities, we did encounter an interesting fact I wanted to share.\u00a0 We briefly considered using \u201cFirst Time\u201d status as the delimiter.\u00a0 While we didn\u2019t use it, this gave us some interesting information. About 650 judges were getting their first nomination ever on this wave, which is right around half of the total nominees. This made us look into other data. We found out that in the 12 months, there were close to 1150 unique judges listed on staff for GPs, who would have received foils under the old system. Wave 3, on the other hand, reached 1302 unique judges, meaning that in just one wave, Exemplar reached 13% more judges in one wave than a whole year of record-breaking GPs. If you stop and consider that, its a pretty powerful statement about the breadth of the program.<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m sure many of you are interested in knowing more about Wave 3, since it closed a while ago. We had some logistical issues, which were to be expected, given that there was a big change in the process. I\u2019ve got good news, though. The packs have been mailed to the Regional Coordinators and they have already begun distributing the foils in person or via the mail already. They have the necessary information and will be working through the lists; Please do not flood their inboxes right away, but contact them if there is a problem.\u00a0 Hopefully in a few weeks most nominated judges will get their hands on these cool new shinies!<\/p>\n

\"Command_Beacon\" <\/a>\"Rishadan_Port\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Excited? So are we! Now that you\u2019re so enthusiastic about the Rishadan Port, I\u2019d like to remind you that Wave 4 is still open and taking nominations<\/a>, and each wave debuts new foils. If there\u2019s anyone that has impressed you, please head over to the recognitions section of Judge Apps and start writing those nominations. Remember, the deadline for Wave 4 is midnight PST on January 31st<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today Bryan discusses foil distributions for Wave 3 and has a bit of a preview!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":216,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"language":[9],"class_list":["post-515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-announcements","category-recognition-windows","language-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/exemplar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/exemplar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/exemplar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/exemplar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/216"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/exemplar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/exemplar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":526,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/exemplar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515\/revisions\/526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/exemplar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/exemplar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/exemplar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/exemplar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}