Dave explains judging 101

**Curt James** · 10-21-2019, 07:09 PM

I wasn’t aware of the various ways a tie in a contest could be broken. Very cool video discussing the recent Juan Morel and Nathan De Asha result.

**hifrommike65** · 10-29-2019, 05:53 AM

Weighted scoring in voting rounds exists to prevent bias & to level the playing field. It's a tricky system to use, but the result prevents one judge (or faction) from dominating the voting. The Hugo Awards, a science fiction award voted by fans, has adopted this format b/c of attempts to take over the nomination process & get a slate of nominees in the top spots (the attempt was done by the "Sad Puppies" & is well documented online). At any rate, here are the 2019 awards for "best graphic story," as described in the October 2019 issue of Locus Magazine. I will delete the names & condense a bit:

"A won, but only after a bit of a fight: it came in w/ the most nominations, but B got the most first-place votes, & held the lead for the first four rounds. Then C dropped & A picked up enough votes to take the lead, winning in the sixth round."

In this case the same votes are being counted again in the various rounds, but in bodybuilding, judges look at competitors again from several perspectives & revise earlier rankings. Since prejudge & evening rounds can show the same bodies in different condition (sometimes very different), the rankings at the end of prejudging are often not the same at the end of the finals. I have seen some amazing things at pro competitions. One guy was watery when he stepped onstage at the Masters Olympia (in 2002 at Lynchburg). He wasn't in the call-outs & was obviously not going to place high. As he stood in the background, I saw his build suddenly come into focus & he looked great. About 10 minutes later, it faded & he looked the same as when he stepped onstage. It was like a rainbow that appeared & then vanished. This doesn't usually happen to top competitors; that's why they're at the top.