Subject: Digest for the period 3/18/2004 - 3/19/2004 Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 01:02:01 -0500 Table of contents ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Re: Alternate path to master (Jeremy Bergsman) 2. Alternative Path to master (Jeffrey Pinhey) 3. BJCP Northeast Region Election (Ed Westemeier) 4. New Online Competition Report System (Ed Westemeier) 5. Re: Alternate Path to Master Judge (blutick`at`juno.com) 6. Alternate route to Master (dave sapsis) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jeremy Bergsman Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 00:25:04 -0500 Subject: Re: Alternate path to master I think the discussion around the alternate path to master rank boils down to the idea that the exam is not the be-all and end-all way to evaluate a judge's skill, at least not for all judges. I think this is hard to argue with and I support some sort of modification to the existing scheme. However I have several points, some of which have already been made, that I would like to present. This is long and I'm sorry but I beg for your attention. -First, it is obviously silly that such a scheme only apply to the master level. I think it should apply to all levels. However, this begs a couple questions: how far can one advance beyond ones exam score, can one advance to grand master without a 90 exam score, and can one advance from a failing grade to recognized? I think if you allow people to advance indefinetely regardless of exam score, you are impugning the quality of the exam to such an extent that you should instead be arguing to change or eliminate the exam. BTW, the allowed advancement does not have to be measured in integer levels, it could be measured in exam points (e.g. 5 points). -It seems that nobody wants to "cheapen" the ranks. This is only fair for those who already have gone the "hard" way, and anyway, the whole point of the ranks is to recognize skill, not to reward people for their involvement. However, any such proposal will inevitably cheapen the ranks to some degree in that some comparitively lesser judges will always find themselved benefited by it. It is key to keep this in mind so that the impact is minimal. -We need to decide what to substitute for the evaluation currently imposed by the exam. In general the proposals have been experience points, or (slightly better in my mind) judging experience points. However, it has rightly been pointed out that it is possible to be a bad judge, judging badly year after year, and accumulate a lot of judging points. Is this someone we want to advance in level? (If anything I'd be more interested in a way of preventing bad judging than a way of rewarding judges with a fancy pin.) Since one already needs a lot of experience to advance to the higher levels, how much more will one *necessarily* learn from a little more judging (2 or 3 experience points for 1 exam point seems very little to me)? In my opinion it would be better to allow for a certain amount of an educational activity to supplement the exam score. Who hasn't learned a lot from attending a doctored beer session (as in George DePiro's suggestion)? Or a judge study group? Or a trip to a great beer city? A program has been proposed to the BJCP to recognize continuing education which could be used for this purpose. Other supplements to the exam score are possible, and I think it would behoove us to come up with some other ideas. Mike Hall's original post on 3/7 has a number of ideas on this which have received little attention. It deserves a second read. -If experience points are used as the exam point substitute, I think the proposal about the rate at which they are accumulated should be instituted--i.e. you can't just plug along at 2 exams a year and wait for your rank like a retirement pension. And I think it should be at least 5 judging points for each exam point. -Regarding judging vs. general experience points: I think most people accumulate more judging than non-judging points. If this is true, than I would like to point out that even the existing proposals which specify judging points would essentially allow non-judging points to count since one can just shift the points around as needed. Is this something we want? -Various comments have been made along the lines of "I'd rather have someone with loads of experience with a lower exam score than someone with a high score and little experience judge my beer." This is a bit of a red herring since you already need quite a bit of experience to reach national or master ranks under the current system, no matter what your exam score. -There has been some innuendo that this proposal is a cynical attempt by and/or for judges who are not really all that skilled who are desperate to advance in rank. Also, comments have been made that some judges are leaving the program because they are frustrated by their inability to advance in rank. (I find this very hard to believe.) Like some others, I do question the need of the program for judges who find their rank (as opposed to love of beer and judging) to be such a large part of their motivation. I have no argument with the idea that participation should be recognized and rewarded. If this really is the issue, perhaps we should institute some other recognition for participation. One could be awarded "golden mugs" (perhaps a literal token or trophy, or perhaps a membership in a "club" such as a listing on the web site) for each X experience points beyond what was needed for ones maximum rank as determined by the exam score. (Ted Hausotter made a similar suggestion.) Thus one might be "Certified, double golden mug member" This also addresses the comment by Roxanne Hastings about her experience in giving up BOS spots to judges who needed the points. -- Jeremy Bergsman jeremy`at`bergsman.org http://www.bergsman.org/jeremy ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * ********************************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jeffrey Pinhey Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 07:54:00 -0400 Subject: Alternative Path to master In the last digest - Jeremy wrote: > Jeffrey Pinhey is the only poster I could find who > indicated that his participation would (be) affected (positively with > the > change). I did indicate that this might make a difference to me. The little time to prepare for, and difficulty I have simply getting access to the exam makes any experience points irrelevant to me. I turn down BOS judging offers to allow others who need points to advance to have them, I don't even look at the mailouts with the experience summary sheets any more. I make sure I judge enough to stay "current". Sure, making the experience points, which are currently "worthless" to me, worth something again might create an incentive to increase my involvement, mainly because my involvement has decreased over time. But in retrospect, I doubt it would be a reason to get me back to organizing competitions and hosting exams. Similar to Roxy's post, the points don't matter to me now. I am happy being a National Judge whose experience is valued by organizers. I stay up to speed palate-wise by doing a lot of critical tasting and evaluation of wine, with some beer evaluation on occasion. I still brew. I think that if it mattered to enough people, a policy such as being discussed that would allow experience to substitute for exam mark points, in some discounted manner, might result in a bit of a renaissance in homebrewing by getting some people who may have drifted away a bit interested again. Wasn't there a time when new levels of "rank" were being created at the top to allow those who had "done it all" to keep advancing? I do not recall their having to match Steve Stroud's score of 110 on the exam. I have run into very experienced Certified Judges that are good at evaluating beer, who really don't ever expect to "move up" and often exhibit some resentment towards the BJCP and the board as a bunch of stuffy elitists. The reality is that not everyone is good at writing exams. A "judge class" has already been created in the hobby. Does the 90 score threshold create an elite class within that class? Do we want this? If not, why have ranks? Bowing out of the debate, as my lack of regular participation in real beer judging work tends to devalue my opinion. (I am judging next week, but I have to fly 1500 miles to do so!) Jeff ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * ********************************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ed Westemeier Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 13:04:55 -0500 Subject: BJCP Northeast Region Election The only contested opening this year on the BJCP Board of Directors is in the Northeast region. All current BJCP judges in that region are asked to vote electronically before May 4th. The candidates are Peter Garofalo and Jay Hersh. Each has submitted a campaign statement, and you can read them at our website. There is a new link on the BJCP home page (www.bjcp.org) that will take you to information about the election. In an effort to streamline things, we are using electronic notification in addition to online voting, completely eliminating the paperwork. We are asking everyone who reads this to help spread the word, and ask all the judges you know in the region to go to the website, read the candidate statements, and vote. At some point in the next week or two, we will also send an individual email reminder to every judge in the Northeast region for whom we have an email address on file. This slight delay is to give you a chance to check your record and make sure we have a current email address for you. Thanks to the remarkable skill of Jamil Zainasheff and Gordon Strong, we will be using our new online voting system, which provides security, anonymity, and a basic audit trail. Your vote will be recorded (once only) from the website. The system should be available today, but since you have until May 4th to vote, please just return later if you have a problem. After all, any new system can have glitches. Just a reminder: this is ONLY for judges in the Northeast region. Ed Westemeier BJCP Communication Director communication_director`at`bjcp.org ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * ********************************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ed Westemeier Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 13:05:04 -0500 Subject: New Online Competition Report System On behalf of the BJCP, I'm happy to announce that we now have a fully electronic system through which competition organizers can submit their reports via their web browser. The intention has always been to eventually eliminate the stubby pencil approach and integrate these reports into our database with as little manual effort as possible. Thanks to the skills of Jamil Zainasheff and Gordon Strong, we're now just about there. You'll find a new link on the BJCP home page (www.bjcp.org) that competition organizers can use to submit their reports directly, in three steps: =46irst, enter the competition info (number of entries, flights, days, and dates). Second, enter the data for judges, stewards, and staff. Third, review the information you entered, confirm it, and send it. We hope that the majority (if not all) of future competitions will be able to enter their reports this way. I never cease to marvel at the talent we have within our ranks. Ed Westemeier BJCP Communication Director communication_director`at`bjcp.org ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * ********************************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: blutick`at`juno.com Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 20:04:32 -0600 Subject: Re: Alternate Path to Master Judge There have been some very good posts of late on this subject. I think I see both sides of the question now and I've given it some thought. I am of the opinion that the current requirements for the rank of Master are fine and don't require any changes. We all knew, or should have known, the requirements for Master before we paid the fee and took the exam. Those requirements are tough. They should be. Anyone that quits judging beer because they want the rank of Master but can't or won't meet the requirements would seem to care more about the rank than about judging beer. I doubt there are more than a couple of judges like that in this organization. Do we really want to change the requirements just to please them? Jim Layton National with 34 judging points, 49.5 total points ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: dave sapsis Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 18:29:31 -0800 Subject: Alternate route to Master I have waited to weigh in on the Alternative Route issue for a bit, but now after a number of ideas have been vetted, I'd like to add my thoughts so people might understand them better given the context of what has been said to date, and as coming from someone who has actively worked in the program for a long time. Thanks go out to Mike Hall for calling for an open discussion. While I am not against an Alternative Route advancement in principle, I am against the one presented, for a number of reasons. First, the notion that people are giving up participating due to a lack of additional ranks to serve as motive strikes me as both disingenuous (I know of no Natl. judges in my area that feel that way) and ethically weak (quid pro quo in a hobby is the only means to stay active in hobby?). There is nothing second class about ranks. Every judge, regardless of rank, needs to work at their craft, and the manifestation of their skill (as in how their scoresheets look, sound and make sense; as in how they comport themselves as representatives of the BJCP; as in how they approach issues regarding the program that they disagree with) should far outweigh any perceived utility offered by the notion of rank. I know a number of people in the program who have modest ranks, but their skills are obvious and warrant serious respect. To a person, non of these folks has asked for special dispensation. Secondly, the original intent of having experience points as a metric for promotion was largely built in to make sure people showed up at comps to help out; yes, the very idea I discount above seemed a necessary element to foster the development of the program and hobby during its formative years. It should be noted, when these ideas were first formalized into standards, the hobby was undeveloped - the majority of people doing amateur beer evaluation had no formalized training nor certification, and it was difficult to get pools of qualified people who even understood the objectives, let alone the application. While some may argue that little has changed (justifiably, we still have a long way to go here) if we had the ability to look at the snapshot of beer judging and testing circa 1990 and compare it to today, IMO we have made huge improvements. Thirdly, and by far and away most importantly, I object to the circumvention of the exam because it decouples performance criteria (skills) from rank. Recent discussions have touched on this by basically highlighting the issue as one of exam performance vs. judge experience as a means of fostering skills. In my fairly extensive experrience, judge experience has not demonstrated to be a good factor conferring judging skills, especially those relating to perception, decscriptive ability, and completness. Put me into the camp that believes a person who performs at the Master level on an exam knows a lot better what is expected of Master level judges, than someone who took the exam 12 years ago, scored 81 (with an 85 essay 72 taste) and has judged 30 times since. I base this on extensive experience looking over actual judge sheets. Typically, many highly ranked (e.g., Natl.) judges do not materially improve their skills over extensive experience. Rather, they form a basic method and standard for evaluation fairly early on, and keep to that standard. There are obviously exceptions, but in my experience this is the rule. Honest. To drive this home, I have in my possession a recent scoresheet by a person that is both in favor of the proposed change, and who would change ranks according to it: Based solely on objective criteria of completeness and descriptive precision, it merits a mid 70's. To me, this is exactly diluting the rank. While the exam does need work (and everyone here should recognize that the Exam Directors recognize this more than anyone) I stand by my ability to distinguish Master from National level skills on the taste exam. It is not atypical to see Natl. level retakes doing remarkably poor on the taste section by simply failing to address the five components recognized as the performance criteria. Three of these five elements can fairly well be evaluated independent of what or how the beer gets served (descriptive ability, completeness and readability, feedback logic). Despite Roxanne's perceived shortcomings of the taste exam, she needs to recognize that while it may seem very difficult and subjective to her, she is new to it, and her evaluations are going to be reviewed by an AD and an ED who collectively have seen well over a thousand exams. Exam procedures have also improved significantly over time. It really isnt the subjective mess she paints. I want every Master judge to fill out Master level scoresheets. Hell, I want novices to fill out Master level scoresheets, but what I dont want to see is a bunch of folks performing well below what their rank implies. As it stands it appears that some folks don't know what Master level means. To me they are exemplary in all five facets. My suggestion is that those folks who are calling here for an alternative path at least consider that if it is that important, why not retake the taste exam and display their skill under the microscope of review. In every case where taste exams are really top flight, people get promoted. I even like the idea of a few dedicated Master Taste Exams (for lack of a better term), where exam implementation issues would be a non-issue due to control, and we allow new rule interpretation something along the lines that passing this test at the various ranks confers those ranks (with the existing experience requirements). Lastly, I encourage anyone to chime in with ideas on how to make the exam better. George DePiro's suggestion for some formal taste training component is a great idea, and is just one of the things we are looking at, as is re-weighting of essay/taste, reformat of essay, etc. to continue to make the process more valid. As they say, change is good, and good change is even better. Sorry this was a bit long-winded and thanks for reading. I welcome your comments. --dave sapsis ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * ********************************************************************** Subject: Digest for the period 3/18/2004 - 3/19/2004 Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 01:02:01 -0500 Table of contents ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Re: Alternate path to master (Jeremy Bergsman) 2. Alternative Path to master (Jeffrey Pinhey) 3. BJCP Northeast Region Election (Ed Westemeier) 4. New Online Competition Report System (Ed Westemeier) 5. Re: Alternate Path to Master Judge (blutick`at`juno.com) 6. Alternate route to Master (dave sapsis) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jeremy Bergsman Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 00:25:04 -0500 Subject: Re: Alternate path to master I think the discussion around the alternate path to master rank boils down to the idea that the exam is not the be-all and end-all way to evaluate a judge's skill, at least not for all judges. I think this is hard to argue with and I support some sort of modification to the existing scheme. However I have several points, some of which have already been made, that I would like to present. This is long and I'm sorry but I beg for your attention. -First, it is obviously silly that such a scheme only apply to the master level. I think it should apply to all levels. However, this begs a couple questions: how far can one advance beyond ones exam score, can one advance to grand master without a 90 exam score, and can one advance from a failing grade to recognized? I think if you allow people to advance indefinetely regardless of exam score, you are impugning the quality of the exam to such an extent that you should instead be arguing to change or eliminate the exam. BTW, the allowed advancement does not have to be measured in integer levels, it could be measured in exam points (e.g. 5 points). -It seems that nobody wants to "cheapen" the ranks. This is only fair for those who already have gone the "hard" way, and anyway, the whole point of the ranks is to recognize skill, not to reward people for their involvement. However, any such proposal will inevitably cheapen the ranks to some degree in that some comparitively lesser judges will always find themselved benefited by it. It is key to keep this in mind so that the impact is minimal. -We need to decide what to substitute for the evaluation currently imposed by the exam. In general the proposals have been experience points, or (slightly better in my mind) judging experience points. However, it has rightly been pointed out that it is possible to be a bad judge, judging badly year after year, and accumulate a lot of judging points. Is this someone we want to advance in level? (If anything I'd be more interested in a way of preventing bad judging than a way of rewarding judges with a fancy pin.) Since one already needs a lot of experience to advance to the higher levels, how much more will one *necessarily* learn from a little more judging (2 or 3 experience points for 1 exam point seems very little to me)? In my opinion it would be better to allow for a certain amount of an educational activity to supplement the exam score. Who hasn't learned a lot from attending a doctored beer session (as in George DePiro's suggestion)? Or a judge study group? Or a trip to a great beer city? A program has been proposed to the BJCP to recognize continuing education which could be used for this purpose. Other supplements to the exam score are possible, and I think it would behoove us to come up with some other ideas. Mike Hall's original post on 3/7 has a number of ideas on this which have received little attention. It deserves a second read. -If experience points are used as the exam point substitute, I think the proposal about the rate at which they are accumulated should be instituted--i.e. you can't just plug along at 2 exams a year and wait for your rank like a retirement pension. And I think it should be at least 5 judging points for each exam point. -Regarding judging vs. general experience points: I think most people accumulate more judging than non-judging points. If this is true, than I would like to point out that even the existing proposals which specify judging points would essentially allow non-judging points to count since one can just shift the points around as needed. Is this something we want? -Various comments have been made along the lines of "I'd rather have someone with loads of experience with a lower exam score than someone with a high score and little experience judge my beer." This is a bit of a red herring since you already need quite a bit of experience to reach national or master ranks under the current system, no matter what your exam score. -There has been some innuendo that this proposal is a cynical attempt by and/or for judges who are not really all that skilled who are desperate to advance in rank. Also, comments have been made that some judges are leaving the program because they are frustrated by their inability to advance in rank. (I find this very hard to believe.) Like some others, I do question the need of the program for judges who find their rank (as opposed to love of beer and judging) to be such a large part of their motivation. I have no argument with the idea that participation should be recognized and rewarded. If this really is the issue, perhaps we should institute some other recognition for participation. One could be awarded "golden mugs" (perhaps a literal token or trophy, or perhaps a membership in a "club" such as a listing on the web site) for each X experience points beyond what was needed for ones maximum rank as determined by the exam score. (Ted Hausotter made a similar suggestion.) Thus one might be "Certified, double golden mug member" This also addresses the comment by Roxanne Hastings about her experience in giving up BOS spots to judges who needed the points. -- Jeremy Bergsman jeremy`at`bergsman.org http://www.bergsman.org/jeremy ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * ********************************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jeffrey Pinhey Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 07:54:00 -0400 Subject: Alternative Path to master In the last digest - Jeremy wrote: > Jeffrey Pinhey is the only poster I could find who > indicated that his participation would (be) affected (positively with > the > change). I did indicate that this might make a difference to me. The little time to prepare for, and difficulty I have simply getting access to the exam makes any experience points irrelevant to me. I turn down BOS judging offers to allow others who need points to advance to have them, I don't even look at the mailouts with the experience summary sheets any more. I make sure I judge enough to stay "current". Sure, making the experience points, which are currently "worthless" to me, worth something again might create an incentive to increase my involvement, mainly because my involvement has decreased over time. But in retrospect, I doubt it would be a reason to get me back to organizing competitions and hosting exams. Similar to Roxy's post, the points don't matter to me now. I am happy being a National Judge whose experience is valued by organizers. I stay up to speed palate-wise by doing a lot of critical tasting and evaluation of wine, with some beer evaluation on occasion. I still brew. I think that if it mattered to enough people, a policy such as being discussed that would allow experience to substitute for exam mark points, in some discounted manner, might result in a bit of a renaissance in homebrewing by getting some people who may have drifted away a bit interested again. Wasn't there a time when new levels of "rank" were being created at the top to allow those who had "done it all" to keep advancing? I do not recall their having to match Steve Stroud's score of 110 on the exam. I have run into very experienced Certified Judges that are good at evaluating beer, who really don't ever expect to "move up" and often exhibit some resentment towards the BJCP and the board as a bunch of stuffy elitists. The reality is that not everyone is good at writing exams. A "judge class" has already been created in the hobby. Does the 90 score threshold create an elite class within that class? Do we want this? If not, why have ranks? Bowing out of the debate, as my lack of regular participation in real beer judging work tends to devalue my opinion. (I am judging next week, but I have to fly 1500 miles to do so!) Jeff ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * ********************************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ed Westemeier Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 13:04:55 -0500 Subject: BJCP Northeast Region Election The only contested opening this year on the BJCP Board of Directors is in the Northeast region. All current BJCP judges in that region are asked to vote electronically before May 4th. The candidates are Peter Garofalo and Jay Hersh. Each has submitted a campaign statement, and you can read them at our website. There is a new link on the BJCP home page (www.bjcp.org) that will take you to information about the election. In an effort to streamline things, we are using electronic notification in addition to online voting, completely eliminating the paperwork. We are asking everyone who reads this to help spread the word, and ask all the judges you know in the region to go to the website, read the candidate statements, and vote. At some point in the next week or two, we will also send an individual email reminder to every judge in the Northeast region for whom we have an email address on file. This slight delay is to give you a chance to check your record and make sure we have a current email address for you. Thanks to the remarkable skill of Jamil Zainasheff and Gordon Strong, we will be using our new online voting system, which provides security, anonymity, and a basic audit trail. Your vote will be recorded (once only) from the website. The system should be available today, but since you have until May 4th to vote, please just return later if you have a problem. After all, any new system can have glitches. Just a reminder: this is ONLY for judges in the Northeast region. Ed Westemeier BJCP Communication Director communication_director`at`bjcp.org ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * ********************************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ed Westemeier Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 13:05:04 -0500 Subject: New Online Competition Report System On behalf of the BJCP, I'm happy to announce that we now have a fully electronic system through which competition organizers can submit their reports via their web browser. The intention has always been to eventually eliminate the stubby pencil approach and integrate these reports into our database with as little manual effort as possible. Thanks to the skills of Jamil Zainasheff and Gordon Strong, we're now just about there. You'll find a new link on the BJCP home page (www.bjcp.org) that competition organizers can use to submit their reports directly, in three steps: =46irst, enter the competition info (number of entries, flights, days, and dates). Second, enter the data for judges, stewards, and staff. Third, review the information you entered, confirm it, and send it. We hope that the majority (if not all) of future competitions will be able to enter their reports this way. I never cease to marvel at the talent we have within our ranks. Ed Westemeier BJCP Communication Director communication_director`at`bjcp.org ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * ********************************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: blutick`at`juno.com Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 20:04:32 -0600 Subject: Re: Alternate Path to Master Judge There have been some very good posts of late on this subject. I think I see both sides of the question now and I've given it some thought. I am of the opinion that the current requirements for the rank of Master are fine and don't require any changes. We all knew, or should have known, the requirements for Master before we paid the fee and took the exam. Those requirements are tough. They should be. Anyone that quits judging beer because they want the rank of Master but can't or won't meet the requirements would seem to care more about the rank than about judging beer. I doubt there are more than a couple of judges like that in this organization. Do we really want to change the requirements just to please them? Jim Layton National with 34 judging points, 49.5 total points ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: dave sapsis Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 18:29:31 -0800 Subject: Alternate route to Master I have waited to weigh in on the Alternative Route issue for a bit, but now after a number of ideas have been vetted, I'd like to add my thoughts so people might understand them better given the context of what has been said to date, and as coming from someone who has actively worked in the program for a long time. Thanks go out to Mike Hall for calling for an open discussion. While I am not against an Alternative Route advancement in principle, I am against the one presented, for a number of reasons. First, the notion that people are giving up participating due to a lack of additional ranks to serve as motive strikes me as both disingenuous (I know of no Natl. judges in my area that feel that way) and ethically weak (quid pro quo in a hobby is the only means to stay active in hobby?). There is nothing second class about ranks. Every judge, regardless of rank, needs to work at their craft, and the manifestation of their skill (as in how their scoresheets look, sound and make sense; as in how they comport themselves as representatives of the BJCP; as in how they approach issues regarding the program that they disagree with) should far outweigh any perceived utility offered by the notion of rank. I know a number of people in the program who have modest ranks, but their skills are obvious and warrant serious respect. To a person, non of these folks has asked for special dispensation. Secondly, the original intent of having experience points as a metric for promotion was largely built in to make sure people showed up at comps to help out; yes, the very idea I discount above seemed a necessary element to foster the development of the program and hobby during its formative years. It should be noted, when these ideas were first formalized into standards, the hobby was undeveloped - the majority of people doing amateur beer evaluation had no formalized training nor certification, and it was difficult to get pools of qualified people who even understood the objectives, let alone the application. While some may argue that little has changed (justifiably, we still have a long way to go here) if we had the ability to look at the snapshot of beer judging and testing circa 1990 and compare it to today, IMO we have made huge improvements. Thirdly, and by far and away most importantly, I object to the circumvention of the exam because it decouples performance criteria (skills) from rank. Recent discussions have touched on this by basically highlighting the issue as one of exam performance vs. judge experience as a means of fostering skills. In my fairly extensive experrience, judge experience has not demonstrated to be a good factor conferring judging skills, especially those relating to perception, decscriptive ability, and completness. Put me into the camp that believes a person who performs at the Master level on an exam knows a lot better what is expected of Master level judges, than someone who took the exam 12 years ago, scored 81 (with an 85 essay 72 taste) and has judged 30 times since. I base this on extensive experience looking over actual judge sheets. Typically, many highly ranked (e.g., Natl.) judges do not materially improve their skills over extensive experience. Rather, they form a basic method and standard for evaluation fairly early on, and keep to that standard. There are obviously exceptions, but in my experience this is the rule. Honest. To drive this home, I have in my possession a recent scoresheet by a person that is both in favor of the proposed change, and who would change ranks according to it: Based solely on objective criteria of completeness and descriptive precision, it merits a mid 70's. To me, this is exactly diluting the rank. While the exam does need work (and everyone here should recognize that the Exam Directors recognize this more than anyone) I stand by my ability to distinguish Master from National level skills on the taste exam. It is not atypical to see Natl. level retakes doing remarkably poor on the taste section by simply failing to address the five components recognized as the performance criteria. Three of these five elements can fairly well be evaluated independent of what or how the beer gets served (descriptive ability, completeness and readability, feedback logic). Despite Roxanne's perceived shortcomings of the taste exam, she needs to recognize that while it may seem very difficult and subjective to her, she is new to it, and her evaluations are going to be reviewed by an AD and an ED who collectively have seen well over a thousand exams. Exam procedures have also improved significantly over time. It really isnt the subjective mess she paints. I want every Master judge to fill out Master level scoresheets. Hell, I want novices to fill out Master level scoresheets, but what I dont want to see is a bunch of folks performing well below what their rank implies. As it stands it appears that some folks don't know what Master level means. To me they are exemplary in all five facets. My suggestion is that those folks who are calling here for an alternative path at least consider that if it is that important, why not retake the taste exam and display their skill under the microscope of review. In every case where taste exams are really top flight, people get promoted. I even like the idea of a few dedicated Master Taste Exams (for lack of a better term), where exam implementation issues would be a non-issue due to control, and we allow new rule interpretation something along the lines that passing this test at the various ranks confers those ranks (with the existing experience requirements). Lastly, I encourage anyone to chime in with ideas on how to make the exam better. George DePiro's suggestion for some formal taste training component is a great idea, and is just one of the things we are looking at, as is re-weighting of essay/taste, reformat of essay, etc. to continue to make the process more valid. As they say, change is good, and good change is even better. Sorry this was a bit long-winded and thanks for reading. I welcome your comments. --dave sapsis ********************************************************************** * JudgeNet - the beer judge digest * * Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments * * Send subscription requests & changes to judge-request`at`synchro.com * **********************************************************************