Four years ago, the Club Penguin Army Judges formed to unite community-wide judging. Since then, the organization has served in every tournament, providing the important and unbiased service the community now expects.
Designed by MasterDS
Origins of Club Penguin Army Judges
In January 2021, the Club Penguin Army Hub collapsed, causing all judging operations to cease due to a lack of a centralized judging system. On February 7, 2021, the community saw the opening of the Club Penguin Army Headquarters, rebuilt after significant losses. However, in 2021, March Madness sparked heavy controversy over its results. The controversy led to the formation of the Club Penguin Army Network, with each league creating its own judging organisations, leaving little hope for reunification.
When Legends Cup XI approached, CPAH announced the tournament but did not follow through, allowing CPAN to take the reins. Both CPAHQ and CPAN released multiple posts about the situation, which ultimately resulted in CPAN not hosting LC XI either. Instead, an independent board of army leaders took control of the tournament, with an independent judging panel.
On September 8, 2021, talks of unification began between CPAHQ and CPAN. These discussions eventually led to the creation of the Club Penguin Army Judges server on January 26, 2022. The official announcements followed on February 23, 2022. The creation of CPAJ led to both leagues releasing all judges, allowing them to transfer over and judge battles across the community.
The beginning of CPAJ
Changes in the organization
When the community decided that a new organisation was to be formed, army leaders voted on a new set of head judges from the previous league. The finalised founding team consisted of Spotty, Lightningmcj, AustinFraud, Popcorny, and Yvng. Over time, multiple changes occurred, with some head judges stepping down and parts of the judging system receiving changes. Within the past year, they created handbooks for both Judges in Training and Leaders to ensure a smoother system and clearer guidelines.
Despite many changes within the head judge team, the current leadership — T_T, Shpec, Yvng, and Spotty — continues to keep the organisation strong and maintain its success throughout the community.
Spotty commemorates its fourth anniversary
To learn more about this exciting milestone for CPAJ, Club Penguin Armies reached out to head judge Shpec.
How do you feel about four years of CPAJ?
Well, 4 years is a decent chunk of time , so it’s certainly something to be pleased with
Do you or any of the head judges have any plans regarding the future of CPAJ?
We have some plans, for starters we’re looking into hiring another Head Judge, we’re also coming up with systems to try and incentivise judges and some other ideas are floating around as well to develop CPAJ and the judging system further
In its fourth year, what challenges has CPAJ overcome?
Well we have had some issues with the availability of judges, despite that we’ve been able to successfully ensure that tournaments and battles have been judged, we are working on the availability issue and have some thoughts about how to proceed
Anything else you would like to add?
I’d like to thank everyone that has supported CPAJ so far including, the critics- their criticisms do make us think and we try to think of ways to improve, our partners, the armies, and of course the past HJs, JITs and Judges
The Club Penguin Army Judges were established in early 2022 to restore unified, unbiased judging after the community faced major organisational turmoil in 2021. Since then, much of the community has accepted this form of judging, and the organization has remained successful. What do you think is next for CPAJ? How do you think judging will improve next year?
Jazmin
Reporter In Training
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