Subject: Re: Ethics Test Date: Thu, 23 Jul 98 16:36:42 -0400 From: fairbank@muhthr.hlo.dec.com To: "Jeffrey Moeller" > [ A interesting thought experiment where a store ] > [ owner asks a judge to change a penalty. ] Well Jeff, this is one of those situations a judge has a chance to prove himself with. Each judge will of course approach the situation differently, but the outcome should always be the same. The "Really Good Customer" will be disqualified, and the "Big Store's Owner" will be happy to have you as a judge since the other players will be so happy you run a fair event. When dealing with situations like this it's important for the judge to keep the tournament running, and not spend too much time dealing with an individual. Incidents like this also require a judge to remain calm, level headed, and resolute in his decision. My first approach would be to continue to disqualify the player, and tell the owner I'd like to talk to him later. Once the player realizes your decision won't be changed they should able to be handled fairly easily, and you can show them the door. During the conversation with the owner I'd bring up a few different points, calmly reinforcing those that the owner had the most trouble dealing with. 1) Failure to uphold the DCI floor rules, particulary in a situation where the player was clearly cheating, could easily result in severe punishment for the judge and/or tournament organizer. The owner most likely would lose a lot of players when his tournaments lose sanctioning. 2) Even if the "Really Good Customer" is a big spender, all the other players will not like such blatant favoritism, and the owner could end up keeping one customer and losing 30 others. 3) One of the responsiblities of a judge is to enforce the rules. If the "Really Good Customer" actually did make an honest mistake he should be able understand the need for a judge to harshly penalize a mistake that could also be recognized as cheating so easily. Thus the owner may not have actually lost the customer, and instead just upset him for a day or two. 4) Any threat of a boycott would have no teeth, since all the other players in the event will appreciate having the floor rules enforced so fairly, and instead news that cheaters will not be tolerated might draw more players interested in supporting a store that runs fair tournaments. Most likely the owner will be swayed to your side by the end of this discussion, and have no problem supporting your decisions in the future. While I've never been in a situation where my career is threatened by a tournament decision (since judging is a hobby not a job) I am confident in my ability to sway the owner to share my viewpoint. Also since I would be so confident in my own answer, I'm fairly certain the threat of a boycott would not effect me as a co-owner. How to best structure a judging contract/agreement is tough, since it's realistically impossible for a judge to run events if the store folds. That makes it tough to seperate the judge's payment from the success of the store. One of the best would be to set a fee structure roughly dependant on the size (and length) of an event. $1 a head seems to be close to standard, but also might make the judge too financially interested in promoting the event. I might instead suggest an hourly rate since the judge gets paid for his actual time, and doesn't have to worry that they just made $8 for an eight person event that took over three hours to run. It's important for a judge to have experience dealing with difficult situations, even if it's only thinking about them. When they do happen you'll be much more prepared to deal with them and thus find them a lot easier to deal with. -Nat -- Nat Fairbanks DCI Level IV Judge fairbanks@alum.wpi.edu New England Area