This week on The Feedback Loop, I’m taking a break from our usual content to talk about the blog in general, both its past and its future. As of this post, we have been publishing weekly content for a full year, which is a great accomplishment. There are certainly other judge blogs that have been operating longer, but those come with more ready-made structures, like Judge of the Week and the Rules Tip Blog. One of the ongoing challenges for The Feedback Loop has been coming up with the topics themselves,
Author: rikipedia
Forward the Feedback
“This is a 2011 review.” If those words don’t mean anything to you, consider yourself lucky. This phrase is an inside joke amongst older judges (and trust me, if you get it, you are now considered old in the Judge Program). Back in 2011, judges writing reviews in the Judge Center noticed that the drop down selector for the “observation date” year stopped at 2010. No 2011, no 2012, and most certainly not 2017. Strangely, this did not affect the “entered date” for reviews, which
My Favorite Coach
What kind of coach do you aspire to be? For me, there’s one coach who stands out above the crowd: coach Greg Popovich of the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs.
Introduction to Coaching
The New Year is a convenient time to make changes big and small. We make resolutions and goals in an attempt to alter the fabric of our lives for the better. Here at the Feedback Loop, we’re going to be altering our content for 2017 (hopefully for the better). We’ll still be bringing you quality blog posts on the art of feedback and reviews on a weekly basis every Tuesday, but there’s going to be more consistency to the material in two important ways. First, we’re going to have themed
Taking Selfies – Part One
Self reviews are somehow simultaneously the easiest and hardest type of review. What makes them so, and how can you average those two sides out to find a happy medium? It’s common for newer judges to not even realize that writing a self review is a thing that they can do. With your first exposure to reviews likely being your L1 Advancement Review, it’s easy to get locked into the mindset that reviews are a peer-to-peer tool. But there’s a subtle hint in the review submission form; every
Rejection Is Feedback, Too
As the judge manager for StarCityGames, I regularly send both acceptance and rejection emails to judges who apply to our events. I also regularly receive replies from people who get the latter. Many of these replies share common themes. For example, judges often respond to a rejection with something to this effect: “I’ve been declined for X events in a row (or X out of Y events), and I haven’t gotten any feedback on how I can get better.” If you or someone you know has ever expressed
Review Milestone – Abe Corson – 100 Reviews
Here at the Feedback Loop, we want to start celebrating round numerical milestones in review-writing. These are like anniversaries, but they are tied directly to the hard work that these judges put in to providing quality feedback to other judges. To kick this off, we wanted to start by highlighting a well known Level 3 from the United States, currently residing in Alexandria, Virginia, Abraham (Abe) Corson, who has hit the impressive milestone of writing 100 reviews. Abe's first ever review was
Writing a Self-Review with Stephan Classen
I started getting more involved in the Judge Program in the Spring of 2011, after a long hiatus from judging. My town was having some issues running events, and I was the only L1+ in a 200 mile radius so, after getting more involved, I desired to get better at judging. One of the major steps I took was regularly writing self-reviews. When I first started judging back in 2005, judges were required to write a self-analysis annually to maintain their L1. In these reviews, I wrote my
Welcome Back to the Feedback Loop – Self-Reviews
We're back! Or most of the way. I know things have been quiet here at the Feedback Loop, but we are gearing up for brand new content with an exciting line up of writers. Of course, you're already familiar with me, Riki Hayashi. My primary focus over the next few months will be self-reviews, first as a broad topic, then narrowing things down until we get to the mother lode of self-reviews, THE Self-Review that you need to submit to be considered for Level 3 Advancement. Joining me in a regular
Critical Feedback
L3 Joe Wiesenberg on the challenges of giving critical feedback, because useful criticism is harder than praise.