Beth writes: <<Some competitions allow a great deal of leeway to the judges, who too often allow unquestioned assumptions to support their judgement. There is frequently no way for an entrant to know what those assumptions are before entering! Before allowing this to happen, competition organizers really need to state their standards publicly, clearly, and well in advance of the entry date -- even if they have to get the judges themselves to set them down in writing (such as in state fairs and the like, where the organizers want competitions in areas of which they themselves aren't knowledgeable). The bottom line is, people need to question their own assumptions before judging someone else's work. There is a big difference between "I really love seeing the works that are all hand-made, every stitch!" and, "It's so obvious: people entering this competition should already know that only hand-made is suitable, we shouldn't have to tell them *everything.*" The rules should be nit-pickingly clear, and publicly stated. Then the burden is on the entrants to read the rules correctly, which is only fair!>> This is an extremely good point. In my experience of judging, I have not been given any kind of guidance by the fair. The previous judge, whom I helped for many years, was a very "seat" of the pants kind of judge, applying "gut feeling" type judgements. I have, in my possession, two different papers written about lace judging and how it should be done, including a point system. Every year, I conscientiously reread them, but they disagree. I don't know that I have ever seen a written out description of exactly how the lace in the IOLI's contest is judged. Is there one? I would think that it would be a tremendous help if those who were being judged knew what the judge was judging them on, ie, they had a copy of the point system to refer to. Of course, it would be helpful to the judge, too. Now that I am reading about how many people don't put things into competition because they think that they will be rejected because of some deficiency that they or their friends perceive, but that might not be on the judge's list of criteria, I wonder if there wouldn't be more entrants if these things were made clearer, and even changed from time to time with "emerging sensibilities". In the US, the system is First, Second and Third place, ie. things are judged against other entrants. In Europe, I understand, there can be many Firsts and Seconds, because the items are judged against an absolute standard. This has me thinking that criteria may be better defined for lace judging, outside the US. One problem I always encounter is, how do you compare a small perfect piece with a larger, imperfect piece. The person making the larger piece has more opportunities to make mistakes, so you are either inadvertently, throwing a benefit to making small pieces, or you are factoring in a size component where big pieces get more leniency in workmanship. Are there any other judges on the list? Do you have a system for judging? If you have been provided with a set of criteria by a fair or other organization, could you send it to me? Devon
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