Hello, today I’m going to talk about getting your Exemplar nomination flagged.

Rob McKenzie wrote a blog post recently about writing nominations and common mistakes. If you haven’t read it yet, I’d recommend doing so first. I had not read his sage advice myself, and made some mistakes in one of my recent nominations that ended up getting flagged by the review team. What I’m going to talk about here is the experience of going through the process of addressing a flagged nomination.

Here is my original nomination:

“Jason was a rock for my second PPTQ. He kept me on my A game. I was so happy to connect him with Louis Fernandes and help him get to L2. Now one more store has a steady L2 for their PPTQs.”

Now, I’m not much of a writer, and I tend to keep things short. I assumed Jason would read this, understand what I meant, and that would be it. I didn’t really think about anyone reviewing it.

But as Rob says in his blog post, “reviewers flag nominations as not meeting the guidelines for an acceptable nomination, and a different judge takes a second look and contacts the nominator and tries to help them rewrite the nomination to be better.” Rob was also the one that contacted me about my nomination for Jason:

“Greetings Ralph,

During the review of Exemplar nominations for wave 4, your nomination of Jason Long was flagged for dispute.

Looking at this nomination, I see two things.  One, Jason was “a rock” and “kept you on your A game”…but I have no idea what he did that was actually impressive.  Your second part talks about him certifying for L2, which is sweet, but not exemplary.  Literally every L2 has certified for L2.

You can leave the certification congrats in there if you have some specific things Jason did that were exemplary at the PPTQ – I would love to know what is actually great about Jason, because he is clearly fantastic.  

If you can address the concerns outlined above in a revised nomination, it will be included in the Wave 4 nomination posting. You can reply directly to this email with the updated nomination text.

—

Rob McKenzie
Magic Judge Exemplar Team
Magic Judge Level III
Judge Regional Coordinator USA-North”

At first I was a bit freaked out. “Flagged for dispute! Oh no, am I in trouble!?” Then I took a minute, reread what I had written, and realized he was totally correct. My review didn’t make much sense at all from an outside perspective. It kind of falls under two of the categories from Rob’s blog, “Vague Nomination” and “Expected Behavior.”

I took some time and tried to delve into more detail with what I was writing about Jason. Here was my reply:

“Hi Rob, thank you for giving me the chance to clarify. I’m not very good at these things, but I feel it’s important to give judges the recognition they deserve.

Here is my revised nomination:

Jason was very solid for an L1. At the PPTQ I head judged at Galaxy Games he had an answer every time I questioned myself. He reminded me of things I left out during the players meeting announcement. I upheld every appealed ruling he gave.  He easily could have been the head judge for that event and I couldn’t have done it without him.

Jason was an impressive L1 and I was so happy to connect him with Louis Fernandez at GP Oakland and help him get to L2. I know he head judged the next PPTQ at Galaxy Games and I’m positive he did an excellent job!”

Rob replied quickly, “That’s tons better, thanks Ralph.  I’ve updated your nomination text with the new text.” My fear and stress turned into pride both for my rewrite and for Jason.

While I was the head judge to fulfill the event’s “L2 requirement,” Jason could easily have handled the responsibilities of head judge at that PPTQ himself. He has gone on to judge a number of PPTQs since.

I’m grateful to have Jason as an additional L2 to the Bay Area and as a judge in general.  He has really added to the community with his rules knowledge, work ethic, and ability to explain when giving a judge call. I’m glad that Rob gave me a chance to really dig into what I meant and write something substantial instead of just a, “Good job.”