I thought it might be a good idea to make somewhere where we can get a sense of how the greater vex community feels about what is being said in this thread.
If you haven't seen it yet, the op brought up the idea that some all girls teams were being favored in the judging process and that some undeserving teams were receiving awards because of this. Some specific teams were brought up, but I don't think that it is necessary to mention them here. Many other viewpoints were brought up and I've tried to include all of them in the above poll. The idea behind a poll is that people can speak without repercussions and without being drowned out by the louder voices in the thread.
EDIT: The above makes it seem like the girls issue is the only thing that was brought up, the main idea was that awards were being given to undeserving teams. The “girls idea” was brought up only as a possibe explanation. I think the poll itself still has an option for everyone.
Let me suggest that you go to the next available VEX or VEXIQ event and ask to shadow the judging team (needs to be an event that you are not competing at). You’ll quickly see that the judging isn’t easy there are lots of great teams out there, picking a winner is hard.
Sorry that the OP didn’t win. Even sorrier that they felt the need to put the post out. Even more disappointment that you @Aeden_6007, felt the need to put a poll out like this. Maybe give your mentor a call about this, not a really good representation of 6007.
I don’t think the OP in the other thread was solely saying that judges are favoring all girls teams. The OP was just complaining that it seems like some teams are winning awards that it doesn’t make sense for them to win. The girls thing was just part of the OP’s argument.
There’s been lots of complaining about judged awards over the last year+ and in general the community would like more transparency and clearer criterion.
He’s just creating a poll, and one of the options is that there is no problem. If that is the consensus, that is the consensus. I think it’s worthwhile to gauge the forum, if for no other reason than to clear up common misconceptions if you believe there are no issues.
I wouldn’t say it has. It kind of brought to the surface what a lot of teams feel about judged awards, legitimately or not. It’s a big deal to roboteers who spend hours on their robots and notebooks.
Also, I’m guessing that the vast majority of teams on here have won judged awards at some point. So people are offending themselves?
If you mean it is insulting to specific teams, yes, please refrain from calling out specific teams (though that makes it hard to form a solid argument).
Neither of us have said that we wanted awards that we didn’t get. I know I can speak for both teams when I say that we are both extremely satisfied with how we did this year. Are you saying that its a bad idea to hear what the vex community wants to say? If you think the poll is going to skew the results in some way, I’m welcome to hear it, but saying that a poll is a bad idea is the equivalent of saying that it doesn’t matter what people think.
There is transparency, there is a rubric, and at most events it’s followed. Not sure how much more transparent you want past that.
The original thread is a huge mess. The biased “poll” isn’t going to do any good.
The root cause is that the people that are unhappy with judging because they didn’t win and can’t perceive that maybe that team that DID win is better than them. Judging is hard, go give it a try.
Running events is hard, judging is much, much harder.
Take 40 notebooks, use the rubrics and rank them from 1 to 40. Get this done in a couple of hours after interviewing all the top teams you can (for small iq events). And they often haven’t done it before, especially at local events. The idea that they would even be able to keep track of the genders of the teams on top of all of that is a little nutty.
Focus your time on stacking cones and going over the rubrics and award criteria. There may be girls out there already doing that instead of worrying about straw polls. Probably quite a few boys too.
Fighting is useless, if someone posts something you don’t like, there is no reason to attack them… If they are wrong or unmoral so what… There’s lots of other stuff you could be doing and like @sankeydd said, you could be working on the GAME.
I mean, most of us honestly have a big hole in our schedules for another few weeks. And it’s not like writing on the forum takes any considerable amount of time, anyway.
It has been made very clear that neither Aeden nor I feel we personally were cheated out of any award. We just hope that at the World level the right teams are getting the awards they deserve.
Also there is no need to personally attack the character of Aeden because he simply is trying to hear the voice of the community. The poll provides many options and is not biased.
I think the majority of the people with a problem with this poll (and the original thread that started this all) think that @nmg_99 and the following company were specifically targeting teams with all girls / minority groups. Everyone who only sees this is missing the bigger picture: regardless of a team’s gender or racial makeup, there may or may not be teams undeserving of their awards at Worlds this year.
No biases were made due to not winning an award they were after. Look at Sailor Robotics themselves, they won an award themselves this year at Worlds. They’re just standing up for the rest of the teams that they felt were unfairly judged (and that’s their opinion, which they are entitled to have).
Please try to see the bigger picture before feeling flamed and rampaging onto a thread like this.