You have some great points, but I'm not sure what you're trying to get at.
Judging requires trials. This is the only contest I've ever entered, but I've watched the SEN contests judged before, and I'd personally contend that no "judging" has ever occurred here. It's hardly a surprise that several people on the boards have been looking for a different type of judging system, where the mapmakers themselves get involved in their own judging. The "judge" would serve as an arbiter to see that everything runs smoothly. I think you quite underestimate the ability of the mapmakers to look after one another. While I am opposed to voting for oneself, even if I could do such in the current contest, I still wouldn't vote for my own map because I see the merit and uniqueness in Azrael's map and am willing to vouch for it over my own.
Are you trying to say that instead of having certain people grade different maps, we should have the mapmakers themselves vote for their favorite maps, and then tally the votes for a winner?
If this was an ideal forum, where at least 10 people would participate in these week-long contests, then you're right. It would be a lot better to have the mapmakers themselves be the judge, as it'd better reflect how the public would feel about the maps. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The 2nd one had 7-8 maps, and while that is a lot of maps, I don't think we'll get enough votes to conclusively decide on a winner since there aren't enough participants.
Also, I did not underestimate the abilities of mapmakers. If I did, I wouldn't have publicly ask for more judges. Also, remember that I'm also a mapmaker.
With that out of the way, there's the most obvious half of the issue in the question is that our objective should be to make good and fun maps, than to win contests. If mapmakers were more communicable and got more involved in helping one another with the projects, rather than just having a one-week race to see who wins, we might see far more complete, far more interesting maps - or have you noticed - that all the useful comments people make, all the feedback, all the criticism, tiny issues and bug fixes, and so on, come AFTER the due date is over and the contest has been judged? This is because the other mapmakers are getting involved and starting to help one another, and more generalized playing is aiding in the construction of map that simply cannot be balanced perfectly without the aid of devoted people, unless the objective of the map is quite simplistic.
Yes, I agree that the objective is to make good and fun maps, not to win these contests. Having judges does not debunk this. The contest is supposed to create a friendly, competitive environment, to see who can push themselves, and challenge themselves to make better maps. Again, if we do have mapmakers vote, we would need a lot more participants.
The only thing I can take out from this is that we
may try tinkering with the amount of time creators are given to make a map. Maybe extending this to two weeks would give them more time to help each other and make better maps? We could try this, but having week-long challenges also keeps people on their toes so they'd stop procrastinating
(yeah I'm talking about you, lil).
The whole issue of bias derives not from who you communicate with frequently, but who you communicate with infrequently.
Personally, it's the reverse for me, as I expect the people I communicate with to do better lols
I think the point is that you want these contests to be more of a social thing. The only real thing I can do is extend contests into two weeks, and make people submit a draft by the first week. Do you think this is a good idea, guys?
None.