Staff Invasion Judgements & Second Chances

[Tefka]

Tulan Kor You should take a break from Chaos.

 

[Gir Quee]

Onrai , RPJs do read every post in the invasion before seeing the summaries. When I judge invasions, I read them every day or so as they progress as I do not have the time to read it up fully at the end. Even then, the issue is that there is a lot of material to cover.

The last two invasions on the board are at 25 and 21 pages respectively. Each page is usually about 9,000 -11,000 words of actual writing. In other words, these last two invasions are probably between 189,000 words to 275,000 words long. To put that in perspective, the average novel is 60,000-100,000 words. So reading each invasion for a judge is roughly equivalent to reading 3 novels.

And we're not talking about a single straightforward, linear progression plot either, as many invasions have multiple locations/objectives and even individual duels within those objectives. With so much jumping around in the plots, and so much material to cover, there's always a chance that something could be missed. Having multiple staff members in the judging team does help with this, and many of us keep notes and discuss judging criteria with each other as the invasion progresses . Summaries are another aid to us in making sure that we don't miss things, and critically bring us something that we can't replicate within invasion judging teams: writer's intents and interpretations of events.

With that said, a summary isn't something I take entirely at face value either as a judge: I know that there is going to be clear bias in them. And even then, - there have been times where I've disagreed with both factions in the same invasion on the same criteria.

 

[Onrai]

Gir Quee then I must admit, if the judging staff reads over the entirety of invasions in concert with the summary in question, and presumably has all the information before them needed to make a decision one way or another, and is capable of reexamining the information already prior to the summation of judgement, what then is the value of a second chance when deliberation for the 'proper' first decision is presumably thorough enough to make a final decision?

 

[Tefka]

Because humans are fallible, dumb creatures Onrai.

Ya’ll keep hyping this up like Matlock and Opie are knocking these Invasions out. It’s not like that.

At best, it’s a Little League soccer game, and we’re the stoned 16 yr old ref.

 

[Gir Quee]

Onrai , this is my personal opinion as a site member, and not an official opinion as a staff member.

I think that a lot of the comments in this thread cover this. I think the majority consensus so far is that asking for 2nd chance based purely on subjective invasion criteria is frowned upon - judging an invasion is a lot of work for the staff and we have a fairly decent system designed to minimize mistakes and bias.

However, asking for second chances might make sense for similar reasons that Valiens has already noted.

 

[Redd]

Gir Quee then I must admit, if the judging staff reads over the entirety of invasions in concert with the summary in question, and presumably has all the information before them needed to make a decision one way or another, and is capable of reexamining the information already prior to the summation of judgement, what then is the value of a second chance when deliberation for the 'proper' first decision is presumably thorough enough to make a final decision?

As someone who notices the small details, I can see why you might think that a first decision is ‘infallible’ and in most cases it is. However, as Tefka said, humans are fallible. Mistakes can happen.

I’ve noticed in novels that I read, they are spot on. That there are no spelling mistakes or grammatical errors, but sometimes, in rare cases, one manages to slip through even with the thorough editing process that it goes through before print.

It’s probably a similar kind of process with judging. Sometimes and very rarely there is a need for a second chance, but again like the novel, it very rarely happens.

However, it’s always great to have a failsafe, just in case and there is nothing wrong with a backup plan.

 

[WolfMortum]

Over my time on Chaos I've been an RPJ twice and loved the responsibility of it all, Invasion Judgements included.

In all instances of judging, myself and one or two others were working with me, with an Admin member to monitor and support us if needed. During these times communication was consistent both between Judges and from us to the Admin. When disagreements or concerns arose, issues were talked out and there was never a case of the team coming to an agreed conclusion. The criteria and the process have always been taken seriously in my experience and when you go into these things, you do so without bias as much so as it can be avoided. (RPJ's do not judge or oversee the results of invasions their own factions are participating in).

With regards to the Second Chance, I think the opportunity needs to remain on Chaos for the sake of what's been mentioned above. I've judged my share, but my perspective may not mesh with someone else's and that's a part of life. People are flawed and bound to disagree from time to time. Second Chance opportunities allow the head staff on site to look into things and double-check what's been dished out via their RPJ's.

In all cases where an Invasion I've judged has requested a second chance, the end result has remained the same as originally decided. Despite this, there's absolutely nothing wrong with giving people the benefit of the doubt and having these things double-checked. Something that takes very little time compared to the over-all judgment process.

Just my five cents. Keep the Second Chance.

 

[Ellie Mors]

Second chances add maybe an hour to the review time, an additional day of waiting at most. There have been 2 invasion/rebellious to my recollection that have been overturned for legitimate reasons (as in, not a technicality), granted they were several years ago, but that's still reason enough for the process to remain.

Edit: I would like to note for the people talking about missing details that second chances are not to debate the judgement but rather to bring up when an rpj or admin is breaking a rule/their code of conduct.

 

[Arage Bao]

I think Second Chances have a useful place in the community, but I personally like Rusty 's suggestion here.

Make it so that the community has to be responsible about when they request a Second Chance. If there is a genuine concern (even if it doesn't pan out) then it's all fine, but if it's just done to try and roll a dice of fortune? Some kind of penalty.

That would both keep the option available for situations where it would matter, while disincentivizing people from just standard requesting a second chance when they lose and have nothing to lose.

 

[Jerec Asyr]

I think Second Chances have a useful place in the community, but I personally like Rusty 's suggestion here.

Make it so that the community has to be responsible about when they request a Second Chance. If there is a genuine concern (even if it doesn't pan out) then it's all fine, but if it's just done to try and roll a dice of fortune? Some kind of penalty.

That would both keep the option available for situations where it would matter, while disincentivizing people from just standard requesting a second chance when they lose and have nothing to lose.

If a Second Chance request is judged crappy (there's like eighteen ways to define that), maybe it functions as a tiebreaker for a judging criterion (story, drama, etc.) if one of them was a tie.

 

[Gir Quee]

As someone who notices the small details, I can see why you might think that a first decision is ‘infallible’ and in most cases it is. However, as Tefka said, humans are fallible. Mistakes can happen.

I’ve noticed in novels that I read, they are spot on. That there are no spelling mistakes or grammatical errors, but sometimes, in rare cases, one manages to slip through even with the thorough editing process that it goes through before print.

It’s probably a similar kind of process with judging. Sometimes and very rarely there is a need for a second chance, but again like the novel, it very rarely happens.

However, it’s always great to have a failsafe, just in case and there is nothing wrong with a backup plan.

To be clear, I don't think it's "infallible", nor am I in favor of entirely removing the ability to have a second chance.

I'm saying that there should be a specific reason to ask for a second chance besides a general disagreement of a subjective judging criteria. We shouldn't be asking our admins to read an entire invasion and then expect them to interpret subjective criteria differently than the original ruling.

Minor mistakes in this area shouldn't be much of an issue because:

1) If it's minor/small, it's probably not making a huge influence.
2) If it's something of noticeable influence and impact, if it somehow didn't get caught by the judges in the first read through, the invasion summaries from one or both factions should have mentioned it they think it had significant impact . Because if it doesn't have that significant impact on one of the general invasion judging criteria, then again, it's almost a minor issue by definition.

Redd

 

[Redd]

Gir Quee I appreciate you and I have nothing against you.

I honestly meant my explanation as an overall, basic as chit reasoning for why it’s a great idea to have a plan B; for Onrai.

As for what you just said? I’m in complete agreement.