Return-Path: owner-judge at synchro.com Received: from srvr7.engin.umich.edu (root at srvr7.engin.umich.edu [141.212.2.69]) by srvr5.engin.umich.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id AAA22402 for ; Mon, 16 Jun 1997 00:32:08 -0400 (EDT) Received: from redheat.rs.itd.umich.edu (0 at redheat.rs.itd.umich.edu [141.211.83.36]) by srvr7.engin.umich.edu (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id AAA00649 for ; Mon, 16 Jun 1997 00:32:07 -0400 (EDT) Received: by redheat.rs.itd.umich.edu (8.8.5/2.2) with X.500 id AAA16435; Mon, 16 Jun 1997 00:32:06 -0400 (EDT) Received: from uu6.psi.com by redheat.rs.itd.umich.edu (8.8.5/2.2) with SMTP id AAA16422; Mon, 16 Jun 1997 00:32:05 -0400 (EDT) Received: by uu6.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA17563 for spencer at umich.edu; Mon, 16 Jun 97 00:31:59 -0400 Received: (from majordom at localhost) by synchro.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA06155 for judge-digest-outgoing; Sat, 14 Jun 1997 14:15:06 -0400 Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1997 14:15:06 -0400 Message-Id: <199706141815.OAA06155 at synchro.com> From: owner-judge-digest at synchro.com To: judge-digest at synchro.com Subject: judge-digest V1 #1455 Reply-To: judge at synchro.com Errors-To: owner-judge-digest at synchro.com Precedence: bulk judge-digest Saturday, 14 June 1997 Volume 01 : Number 1455 ============================================================================ J u d g e N e t - t h e b e e r j u d g e d i g e s t ============================================================================ Moderator: Chuck Cox Archivist: Spencer Thomas Publisher: SynchroSystems Submissions: judge at synchro.com Subscriptions: judge-request at synchro.com Archive: http://realbeer.com/spencer/judge BJCP info: geninfo at bjcp.synchro.com ============================================================================ contents: Re; BJCP PR Re: judge-digest V1 #1454 RE: judge-digest V1#1454 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Joel Plutchak" Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 09:47:29 -0500 Subject: Re; BJCP PR Geez, we BJCP folks are a touchy bunch! Perhaps I should provide a bit more context for my observations lest there be further ruffled feathers. Though I've been brewing for something like ten years now, I have very little experience with the whole homebrew competition scene, as either entrant, judge, or competition organizer/staff. For some reason, I was appointed to organize our competition this year (either I missed the club meeting when it was decided or I'm the only one dumb enough to agree to do it-- probably both). So it would be an understatement to say that I've been depending heavily upon the advice and assistance of the more experienced people here. All my observations regarding why our competition is being organized the way it is come from that collective experience (though I reserve the right to take responsibility for any misinterpretation of that body of knowledge). On the technical side, my credentials are a bit more extensive: I'm a computer geek. I've been dealing with computers for the past twenty years as a programmer, system manager, etc., mostly from a user support or close customer contact perspective. I've been running web servers on the job since shortly after the first version of NCSA Mosaic was released, and get paid to provide access to terabytes of data on the web to a large range of users who hit our servers literally hundreds of thousands of times per day (and that's only the *sunny* days). Everything we provide on the web is based on usefulness to the end user, and we get plenty of feedback when we do something people don't like, both directly by email and indirectly by examining access logs. It's also my job to be aware of all kinds of computer hardware, software, file formats, trends, etc., especially as they relate to the web. With all that in mind, I'll respond to a few points that were brought up in response to my observations and suggestions: Bob Paolino emitted: (Joel quotes previous contributor) >>> the BJCP style guide. Unless some PR is done for the BJCP, I'd contend >>> that it's general usefulness in competitions is worthless because most >>> competitions use the AHA style guide. >> > If the BJCP wants its style guide to be recognized widely... >> > some action is necessary. >> >And Joel spoke: >> ...at the time (and even now?) the only place to get the BJCP guidelines >> was on a web site in an obscure (sorry, Tom & Dennis ;-) format. >pdf, obscure???? Sorry, Joel, .pdf is fairly common. Yes, "obscure" is probably the wrong word. "User-unfriendly" could be better, based on my technical experience. The average user is neither a government bureaucrat nor a technical wizard. >...which has the advantage of allowing the user to get the document just >as it appears in print. ...you don't have to worry about its appearance >varying depending on the setup of the user's browser. And when you have >publications, you can cite it properly because page 27 is the same in the >printed copy as the one Joel downloads and the same as the one Denise >downloads. Those are certainly advantages of the PDF format. If those are the sole goals of the BJCP, then that's fine. If getting more exposure for the BJCP guidelines to a wider variety of end-users is an important goal, perhaps there is a different answer. >That said, it WOULD be convenient for some users to have the descriptions >downloadable in WordPerfect or even for display in .txt format for the >purpose of a faster download for those who didn't care about having one >that looks just like the original. Like somebody browsing the web? Believe it or not, there are those people out there who can't handle three dozen different plug-ins and helper applications. In fact, one midwestern BJCP judge recently complained to me (in a good-natured way) about competition web sites that use tables and forms, since he could only use lynx from his home system and has a hard time getting to the information. (I'm more or less in the same boat at home-- if I spent less money on beer I could afford a better machine. :) >We sent out only the tabular form of the guidelines as part of our >competition packet--just one side of a two-sided page. It's not as good as >the full written description... >For us, the bottom line was supporting the BJCP... We choose to support the BJCP by $anctioning with them, and decided it would better serve the entrants to use the AHA guidelines again this year. Some may disagree with that decision, but we did what we did for the reasons I outlined, and it seems to be a successful tactic. >> (and make the current web guidelines a little more web-friendly, >> i.e., available in straight HTML). Maybe _Brewing Techniques_? > >Again, plain ol' .txt would be even simpler. Simpler, aye. But HTML is the lingua franca of the web-- even lynx understands it (barring use of non-standard extensions). And even straight text has formatting differences-- a couple days ago I witnessed a bit of confusion as two judges were trying to read the on-line text version of the BJCP competition guide. Table 1 is a space-delineated tabular list of maximum BJCP points earned for various competition sizes and participants. On their system, it displayed with skewed columns that did not align properly with the column headings, making it difficult to interpret. >(and I'll see you in the Twin Cornfields of Urbana and Champaign next >weekend...and I urge other judges in the Midwest to make the trek. The >BUZZards run a good event.) It's attention to detail (and agonizing over style guidelines) that gets us good entries, which in turn lets us properly entertain visiting judges. ;-) See you tomorrow... Dennis Davison emoted: >Please don't label something obscure just because you're not >familiar with it. As I said above, "obscure" was probably the wrong word. My familiarity with the PDF format isn't the issue. >Ever try downloading IRS forms? Need technical data >from Texas Instruments, IBM, Microsoft, etc.? Guess what, they all >use acrobat. Yup, I've gotten IRS documents from the web. Did it for myself, and have done it for plenty of others who couldn't handle PDF themselves. However, even though I have a powerful workstation from a leading manufacturer of scientific and graphics-intensive hardware sitting in front of me, I can't read ~50% of the PDF documents out there (including the BJCP and MWHBY docs), even after installing the latest version of the Acrobat reader. Luckily, I can swivel my chair 90 degrees clockwise, scoot forward 10 inches, and view them on a PC. In the user service business, though, we don't assume everybody has that luxury. >The advantages are plenty ... free viewer software, >great document integrity, good compression (important when you >are paying by the megabyte for your website; also reduces >download time for the user). Most of those are great advantages... for the information provider. In my experience, often what's best for the producer isn't best for the consumer. YMMV. >We could offer the document in 10 different formats, but it takes >time and costs the BJCP money. Three formats should be enough-- one of the advantages of having a master document in PDF format is that it's easy to generate versions in other formats. And since the BJCP community is fairly large and diverse, if you look hard enough you may find a person or two who has expertise in such matters and would be willing to donate the skill and time to do it. >> Our decision to once again go with the AHA guidelines came >> down to the bottom line-- we didn't want to have to effectively >> double our mailing costs by sending every potential entrant a full >> copy of the BJCP guidelines just to make sure they knew how their >> entries would be judged. > >I've received many competition packets that included the AHA Guidelines. >Personally I would want to use the guidelines that I felt were best, >even at additional cost. In my experience the competition mailing is not >even close to the most significant cost. We included just the 1-page table. As club treasurer and competition organizer, I have a fair idea of costs for our competition. Photocopying and mailing costs would roughly double with a full set of guidelines, and would be the difference between losing money and breaking even. And regardless of my slight personal preference for the BJCP guidelines, I had to consider the greater experience of others when deciding what to do. >I'd like to hear others' opinions on the competition section of the >BJCP web page. If you feel it needs improvement, let us know. Be more eloquent and word-choice-conscious than I was, though. :-) - -- Joel Plutchak (plutchak at uiuc.edu) Research Programmer, Department of Atmospheric Sciences University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ------------------------------ From: korz at xnet.com Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 11:05:53 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: judge-digest V1 #1454 Tom writes: >The BJCP Guidelines have officially been out for only 4 or 5 months. It I don't think the BJCP Guidelines are officially anything, yet... are they? I have found numerous *BIG* problems with them, which is why I joined the Guideline subcommittee. I urge you to hold-off on any "media blitz" or sending them to Brewing Techniques, until the subcommittee is done. When the BJCP Guidelines are finished, I'm sure we can get buy-in from many publications to publish them: BT, The Malt Advocate, BYO, All About Beer, The Celebrator, Ale Street News... If we really want clubs to use them, we should print some up on heavier weight paper and send a copy to every AHA registered homebrew club. (You can buy a list of these from the AHA... you can even buy labels.) Yes, there are something like 400 or 600 of them, but if we have non-profit status and we do a bulk mailing, it won't be that expensive and will surely generate a lot more revenue than it will cost. We can even put together a "How to Hold a Competition" package which would encourage young clubs to go to it. And with whom will they register? Even if they don't the BJCP will benefit from those who choose AHA SCP. Win - win. Let's just not jump the gun and distribute bad guidelines or our credibility will suffer. Al. Al Korzonas, Palos Hills, IL korz at xnet.com ------------------------------ From: "Houseman, David L" Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 09:28:05 -0400 Subject: RE: judge-digest V1#1454 Perhaps I wasn't clear since Tom Fitzpatrick thinks I'm saying that the BJCP guidelines are "worthless in one breath and in the next volunteer to participate in such a "worthless" activity." My point is that unless they are widely recognized and utilized they are not useful for competitions; it may be an interesting academic exercise, and perhaps the BJCP Style Guide will advance the state of the art in beer style science, but it will not be a success unless it's promoted and accepted and in general use. The point of creating the style guide and improving it is really solely for beer competitions. If the majority of competitions continue to use the AHA style guide, perhaps for very good reasons, then the effort expended on the BJCP Style Guide is worthless given it's intended purpose. I suggest that the BJCP needs to find out from all the club competitions what they use and why; go to the customer and find out what they want, rather than simply assert that ours is better than theirs. Let's listen to what competition organizers want. Dave Houseman ------------------------------ End of judge-digest V1 #1455 **************************** Send subscription cancellations & changes to judge-request at synchro.com. Messages sent to the wrong address will be ignored.