KLONDIKE, CP Army Headquarters – Just weeks on from the launch of CP Army Judges, a unified judging organisation, its chairman is speaking out against the organisation of the March Madness VII tournament. 

“Independent tournament judging undermines the purpose of CPAJ.“

Spotty, CPAJ Head Judge & Chairman

With nearly two years of Head Judge experience, Spotty was one of the people behind the recent unification of judges within our community. This organisation, known as CP Army Judges (CPAJ), was launched on February 23rd and ended the year-long divide between the CP Army HQ and CP Army Network.

But while the judging has united, the two leagues are still operating and tournaments are currently being organised by an independent staff team that sees all decisions voted on by the participating army leaders. In the wake of CPAJ’s launch, a vote was held to determine if CPAJ should be used to coordinate the tournament’s judging. However, all 12 armies that are participating in the March Madness decided they would rather keep an independent judging team rather than make use of the CPAJ judges and system.

Spotty, as the organisation’s Chairman, has been outspoken on this decision. I contacted her to find out why:

“In other organisations such as CPAH, we had the league admins and head judges sort out the judges for tournaments, which army leaders were completely fine with and supported. I get why when judges weren’t united that army leaders nominated judges. But judges are united again, which all armies had a say on, so why all of a sudden do the leaders feel the need to handpick the judges when previously they never did?

The standard rule for being a judge in a tournament is currently ‘has held a judging position before’, but yet we have judges like Frostty (who hasn’t judged in 2 years), bo (who hasn’t much judging experience), and then people nominated who are currently inactive in the current community such as Vedant.

If something goes wrong during a tournament, the judges are always one of the first people to have abuse thrown at them, but how is that fair when judges are being nominated with little to no judging experience, or are being nominated but are inactive in the community apart from judging the odd tournament? Surely people would want current and active judges who are used to the ongoing judging guidelines and have experience with how armies are today.”

I admit I was surprised to see the army leaders vote this way, and first assumed there had been issues with CPAJ over the past few weeks. I contacted the army leaders to try and understand why they had voted unanimously this way. One leader explained there was no issue as such, but rather if CPAJ were to be used, there would be “more judges and chances of getting someone you do not trust as a judge”. With an independent tournament judging team, the leaders get to vote for judges they know are good so the team is smaller and “more component”. I asked Spotty for her thoughts on this:

“I don’t particularly agree with this, as like I said people are being nominated with little to no experience over judges who have been judging for months, which honestly doesn’t make much sense. If all judges had judging experience then yes I would agree to this up to a point. The last few tournaments have seen armies reject judges for no reason, just because a friend of the army is a back-up judge for their battle, which then allows their friend to judge them.

Surely if the whole team is ‘more component’ then it shouldn’t matter which of those judges actually judge you, unless they have had history with one of the armies in a battle? But yet being ‘vetoed’ is becoming a regular occurrence for a small judging team that is supposed to be better.”

To conclude, I asked her one final question: If you believe this undermines CPAJ, what does this mean for the future and prosperity of CPAJ?

“I hope that the leaders decided not to use CPAJ for March Madness as the judging organisation itself is still new. However, since it has opened no battle has been cancelled due to the lack of judges, one of the reasons for the creation of CPAJ. It is hoped that as time goes on, more battles happen, helping to promote judges in training to judges, therefor expanding our team. Whatever, whenever the next tournament is, it would be nice to see the community actually use the organisation that they voted for and helped to create.”

Spotty is certainly passionate about this issue, having fought hard with the other Head Judges for some time to unify the judging system. Is this a step backwards, or could CPAJ be used in future tournaments when it has been established for longer? Who do you agree with – the army leaders participating in the March Madness, or with Spotty?

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