{"id":829,"date":"2017-02-21T11:00:29","date_gmt":"2017-02-21T16:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/?p=829"},"modified":"2017-03-03T13:11:48","modified_gmt":"2017-03-03T18:11:48","slug":"exemplars-vs-reviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/2017\/02\/21\/exemplars-vs-reviews\/","title":{"rendered":"Feedbag #11: Exemplars vs. Reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Hello and welcome to this month\u2019s edition of the Feedbag! <\/span>Last month<\/span><\/a>, we covered how to sell your local TOs on the value of feedback. This month\u2019s question comes to us from Luis Guimarais<\/a><\/span><\/span> of Portugal:<\/span><\/p>\n

When you perform exceptionally in an event or during your everyday judge activities, you may get an exemplar. The reviews meant to praise your work may have become rarer in a post-Exemplar world. I do not have the data for the entire judge program, this is just an assumption based on my experience and my country’s fellow L2s. However, reviews do have the “Areas to improve” field. On average, reviews may become reflections of those days where you were tired, where you failed a task or just plain tilted because of whatever. Whilst the large majority will not bother to write a review for those days where you have done everything you were asked (and according to Futurama “When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all”) if you fail at something then there will be a reason to write a review.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

So, after rambling on a bit, what I’m trying to get at is: Do you feel Reviews have become overshadowed by Exemplars? Exemplars have deadlines, and we might save notes for them. This diverts efforts from Reviews. Are we saving reviews for those times where people actually remember you because you messed up something?<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Like Luis\u2019 question, the answer can also be found in Futurama: Why not <\/span>Zoidberg<\/span><\/del> both?<\/span><\/p>\n

Exemplar recognitions and reviews serve different purposes, but they\u2019re not mutually exclusive. The existence of the <\/span>Exemplar Program<\/span><\/a> shouldn\u2019t diminish the value of reviews or relegate them strictly to records of negative interactions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Exemplar recognitions are definitely sexier than reviews. They\u2019re pretty much all upside: you get to say nice things to people; those nice things are shared publicly so everyone gets to see them; and the nice things you say are often accompanied by some exciting things in the mail.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, there are several ways in which traditional reviews can provide value that Exemplar recognitions cannot. The first is related to timing. Because the Exemplar program is structured in waves, it\u2019s likely to be several months between the time you write an Exemplar recognition and the time your recipient is able to read it. Writing reviews to capture things that other judges do well is important for this reason. If I did something exceptionally well or something that had a positive impact on another person, I\u2019d really like to hear about it sooner rather than later. That helps to make sure that I\u2019m aware of the significance of my actions and can repeat them across all my tournaments and interactions over the next few months. If I was awesome, I want to continue being awesome.<\/span><\/p>\n

As an example of this, I wrote a review for a Grand Prix head judge a few years ago just to highlight how much I appreciated his pre-event communication. I didn\u2019t end up interacting with him much during the event, but his pre-event work was really impressive. I wanted to make sure he knew the effort was appreciated, and would continue that level of involvement for his upcoming tournament. If you put a lot of effort into something, having someone go out of their way to validate that effort really makes a big difference in your willingness to continue spending that effort in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally, <\/span>Exemplar recognitions<\/span><\/a> are by their nature reinforcements of behavior. A recognition might be written in response to effort over time or a single Exemplary contribution, but in both cases the recipient had to be doing something well to get one. There\u2019s no opportunity to provide suggestions or guidance.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to feel like because Exemplar recognitions are all positive, traditional reviews must focus on the negative in contrast to Exemplar recognitions. This doesn\u2019t have to be true unless people make it that way. Your reviews should still focus on your subject\u2019s successes as well as their areas for growth. Don\u2019t view reviews as a vehicle only for criticizing someone when they\u2019re screwing up spectacularly. Reviews are a way of engaging with another judge and helping them to develop. They should be used to do that well before the point that a judge is lighting the event on fire.<\/span><\/p>\n

Reviews shouldn\u2019t be perceived as the stick to Exemplar\u2019s carrot. Exemplar recognitions feel good to receive, and reviews should also. I think people easily lose sight of the fact that if a judge writes a review of you, they probably care about you a lot. Where Exemplar recognitions tend to be brief and public, reviews are often more detailed and no one will know that one was written except the writer, the subject, and the <\/span>faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home<\/span><\/a>. That means someone is putting a lot of effort into something that\u2019s unlikely to be recognized, and the only payoff is that you will find value in it and improve as a result.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ultimately, the Exemplar program is designed to be a peer <\/span>recognition<\/span><\/i> program and reviews are designed to be a peer <\/span>feedback<\/span><\/i> program. These two programs serve different goals. My mission here isn\u2019t to claim that reviews are better than Exemplar recognitions, but to make sure judges are aware that they are different tools. One shouldn\u2019t replace the other, they each have a lot of value and should be used in complement (and sometimes to compliment).<\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks to Luis for his really excellent question this month! <\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to submit a question to the <\/span><\/i>Feedbag<\/span><\/i><\/a>, please <\/span><\/i>contact me<\/span><\/i><\/a> via JudgeApps.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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

Hello and welcome to this month\u2019s edition of the Feedbag! Last month, we covered how to sell your local TOs on the value of feedback. This month\u2019s question comes to us from of Portugal: When you perform exceptionally in an event or during your everyday judge activities, you may get an exemplar. The reviews meant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":275,"featured_media":116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[40,73,32,12],"tags":[62,23,74,13,14],"language":[78],"class_list":["post-829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-appreciation","category-exemplar","category-feedbag","category-joe-wiesenberg","tag-appreciation","tag-edited-by-angela-aliff","tag-exemplar","tag-feedbag","tag-joe-wiesenberg","language-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/275"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":834,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829\/revisions\/834"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}