{"id":875,"date":"2017-03-21T11:00:27","date_gmt":"2017-03-21T15:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/?p=875"},"modified":"2017-03-19T20:00:37","modified_gmt":"2017-03-20T00:00:37","slug":"feedbag-12-on-a-wing-and-a-player","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/2017\/03\/21\/feedbag-12-on-a-wing-and-a-player\/","title":{"rendered":"Feedbag #12: On a Wing and a Player"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Hello and welcome to this month\u2019s edition of the Feedbag! <\/span>Last time<\/span><\/a>, we covered the difference between reviews and Exemplar recognitions. This month\u2019s topic is partially inspired by this thread on JudgeApps<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The forum thread covers a few topics, but the one I want to highlight today is how to seek feedback from players. In earlier articles I\u2019ve discussed how to get feedback from TOs, and best practices for providing feedback to another judge while you\u2019re playing in their event. I haven\u2019t talked much about other players yet.<\/span><\/p>\n

In general, players are going to be less invested in the various apparatuses of the judge program. Most of them don\u2019t have a lot of insight into the way the program works, and don\u2019t track policy updates regularly — players tend to lag significantly behind judges in terms of understanding changes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Players will also tend to have much different priorities during a tournament than a judge. They tend to be concerned with the outcomes of their individual matches more than your promptness in handing out match slips or posting pairings. They\u2019ll definitely notice if things go poorly, but they may not notice when things go smoothly because that\u2019s their expectation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most players will interact with judges on an individual basis during rulings. As judges, we\u2019re the policy experts who know that the rulings we\u2019re giving are (hopefully!) correct. Players don\u2019t have that level of certainty, and particularly if the ruling is unfavorable for them, they may not feel great about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

When delivering a ruling, you should pay attention to how players react to it. Many are happy to accept the result, even if it\u2019s not in their favor, and continue playing. Others may be reluctant, which can manifest in a few ways. They may be asking questions about the ruling, not entirely buying into it. Their body language might show hesitancy. These are indications that you might want to have a chat with the player later.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the middle of a call, you don\u2019t always have the time to break things down in detail. But after the match is a great time to do so. Talk with players about your rulings to get their perspective. Players have a different focus than we do, so following up with them after a ruling is a good way to get their feedback on how you can improve for similar calls in the future. Maybe you were too technical in your explanation; maybe you brushed past player concerns too quickly.<\/span><\/p>\n

Players may approach you on their own to discuss a call. In my experience, this happens most frequently if they\u2019re unhappy with the result. Your mileage may vary, but that\u2019s tended to be more common for me than players coming up to tell me I really nailed something. Don\u2019t be dismissive in these interactions. You\u2019re likely to have issued a correct ruling that just didn\u2019t sit well, but understanding why the interaction concerned the player is important. You may not walk away with more than an \u201cagree to disagree\u201d, but listening to the player\u2019s perspective can help make these situations go more smoothly in the future.<\/p>\n

For example, at a tournament some time ago, I issued a pretty routine game loss for a Deck\/Decklist Problem. The ruling was totally correct, but the player seemed personally offended by it. After spending a bit more time talking with him, I realized that the way I had phrased the explanation (something along the lines of \u201cYou submitted an illegal decklist\u201d) sounded accusatory to him. In his mind, the association between himself and the error was too close, and he reacted defensively. I\u2019ve been able to avoid similar pushback since then by using other phrasing (\u201cWe\u2019ve discovered a problem with your decklist\u201d).<\/span><\/p>\n

Players are unlikely to create <\/span>JudgeApps<\/span><\/a> accounts <\/span>to review judges<\/span><\/a>, but the <\/span>judge feedback form<\/span><\/a> is a great resource to share with your players. Encourage them, as well as TOs, to use it!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the middle of a call, you don\u2019t always have the time to break things down in detail. But after the match is a great time to do so. Talk with players about your rulings to get their perspective. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":275,"featured_media":189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[32,12,80,69],"tags":[23,13,14,81,70],"language":[78],"class_list":["post-875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feedbag","category-joe-wiesenberg","category-players","category-tournament-organizers","tag-edited-by-angela-aliff","tag-feedbag","tag-joe-wiesenberg","tag-players","tag-tournament-organizers","language-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875","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=875"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":879,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875\/revisions\/879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=875"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/feedback\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}