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The Captain's Log: Regarding the mission judging

teaonatrain:

This is expected of a complaint but not done in any sort of jealousy of the scores, no, definitely not! It’s just I’ve noticed a trend in judging that is offsetting: The judging seems to always be more inclined towards artwork than storytelling.

As an artist I have a personal pet peeve whenever…

I can only speak for myself as a judge, and every other judge could feel differently, so please don’t misconstrue my words or think my opinion somehow represents the group as a whole. With that disclaimer out of the way..

First, the bias thing is a bit impossible to avoid. No matter how you slice it, when I am judging, it is still my opinion on the matter, and that will always be skewed in one way or another. There is no universal qualifier when it comes to judging a piece of art. Ideally, we would have 5 or more judges per rank, and that would help normalize the scores, but that’s simply not possible. It’s hard enough to get 2 judges! So I hope you understand that.

I have no “friend” bias, if that’s what you’re concerned for. I basically judge like I grade assignments: I don’t look at the user name or team name when judging. Of course, this is impossible to avoid entirely, and people have distinguishable styles and writing, but you get the idea. I do my best to ensure I avoid favoritism. There are teams I like, sure, but I tend to like them because they have consistently made quality entries. That’s how I notice them in the first place!

As for styles that we like, see the above, but also consider that we might like a person’s style and they might win because they’re genuinely skilled. I tend to not think of whether or not it’s a digital painting (in fact, I really enjoy traditional works, when done well!), but again, like above, it’s impossible to remove one’s preference when judging a large number of works. Good art is good art, really.

I understand your concerns about the story, and I’ll address something in particular that bothers me first: when a piece is submitted to art with a story in the description (and the person is *not* collaborating with a writer). In this case, I won’t factor it into the judging. The point of the art category is to let your art submission tell the story, either via limited text in the entry itself (say, comics), or via the drawing. This may seem a bit unfair to people who don’t submit a comic, but the reality is, telling a story through one or two pieces is a very hard task. I don’t want to discourage people from doing it, because we’ve had some fantastic entries that were one or two pictures, but I’m just saying.. It is harder to pull off well.

Story is important, but it’s a combination of a lot of factors. I’m sorry you think you’ve noticed a skew in the direction of art, but it’s not intentional. When there are two entries with a really enjoyable story, I am going to have to consider other factors. It’s also worth noting that quite a number of people tell good stories! But the winners, as far as I can tell, have a combination of both. We ended up enjoying their story and their art. It’s both.

I hope this answers some of your questions. Apologies to other followers. This is Tumblr’s fault for not having a reply function.