How to Judge a Contest

At this point you have been asked by the Instructables staff to help judge a contest.  You may be a professional outside of the Instructables community, prolific author, or a past contest winner.

Your input as a judge is invaluable to the Instructable community and helps us to run the best contests on the internet.

This Instructable focuses of two parts of the judging process:
1. How to create and submit your judging ballot.
2. Understanding the judging criteria to make an informed decision on how to rate a project.


***NOTE: the images in this Instructable are not from a real contest.  They are all Instructables I (carleyy) made.  I will use them as examples in STEP 6 as a mock judging experience.

Step 1: Look for PM

Now that you have been asked by our staff to help judge keep an eye out for a message in your inbox with further judging instructions.

Once you've received a PM letting you know judging has started, you can head to the contest page to see the ballot!

Comments

[falk]

So what makes the finals is determined solely by popular vote?

[Junophor]

A short "Hello" to the instructables team
Thank for this help. It is an honour to me for beeing asked to judge. And so I read this instructable very carefully and it helped me very much to understand quite a bit more about the contest and its rules.
Cheers,
Yours Aeon Junophor........ now judging:-)))

[Ninzerbean]

Thank you for this. I would like to add that it would be most helpful if the theme and rules of the contest were posted at the top of each page of ballots to be able to refer to. That way something that does not meet the rules can be quickly 'ruled out' instead of spending time reading the whole 'ible in depth.

[bajablue]

It's my opinion that "...something that does not meet the rules ..." should never get past the contest moderator in the first place.

Maybe it's just me (and my pet peeve) but too many entries are not Ibles, in any true sense.  Often,  the author basicly says "I made this!" and provides a few pics, but no succinct DIY information.

We're all here to learn... not just fawn over finished projects (as spectacular as they may be) with no "how-to" information.

[Ninzerbean]

There is no moderator. It's about how many votes they get. In the past some 'ibles with 100's of votes got into the contest and they were dreck - they got in (and it may still happen) because of the votes.... maybe the votes came from friends, family, aliens... I don't know. But what makes you think there is a moderator, as this would be news to me.

[bajablue]

Possibly the protocol has changed since you last entered a contest, Ninzer?

[Ninzerbean]

Oh yes, of course there is a 'moderator to get into the contest' but there is no moderator of what gets into the finalist part. Yes, it's been a long time since I entered a contest, but I do judge them as often as I am able (it takes a long time, hours...)

[bajablue]

I'm referring to the moderation process that accepts (or denies) an entry into any given contest.

I've never seen an Instructables Contest that wasn't moderated.

[Carleyy]

Great idea. We're working on reformatting the judging page and I can suggest this. We're going to have all first time judges read this before judging.

[M.C. Langer]

Thanks a lot, Carley! :-)

[vanweb]

This is great for us wondering how the judging process works once the finalists are picked. But what I (and others I am sure) are very curious about is the process of getting from all entrants down to those finalists...

I know votes count for part of it but I have seen finalists with very low page views (and by extrapolation probably lower votes) than projects with 10's of thousands of hits that do not make the finals. The "legal-ese" usually states that 49% are chosen by votes and the rest by the judges. But on large contests with ~500 entries how is that 51% chosen and how many judges does it take for this daunting task?

Just curious :-)

[The Rambler]

I've never judged a contest before but this seems very helpful.

I had to chuckle when you said that the examples were "all Instructables I (carleyy) made". I swear I don't watch the Disney channel.

[depotdevoid]

Thanks for this Carleyy, there's a lot of good info in here the helps to clarify my own thinking on the process.

I would note that when you click on the project link on the left of the ballot, it pops out the instructable in a separate window. I don't like this, it's squished down and the picture format isn't normal. Rather, after adding projects to the ballot, I right click the link on the right side of the page and open in a new tab. That way I get to see the project the way the author intended, and I'm also able to favorite/comment etc.

[mikeasaurus]

Seems like you stumbled onto a pro process. For ages this is exactly how I did my judging (adding to ballot, then opening each in it's own window). I thought everyone did it this way, then I found out that many didn't even know!

We're working on a new judging interface and think it will make it much easier for everyone (soon, I hope!)

[sunshiine]

Carley, this is awesome! I learned so much! Thank you for sharing this. Have a splendorous evening!
sunshiine

[ynze]

Very useful I'ble for judges, I think. I judged one contest, this would have helped. On the other hand, there wetre no big surprises. Your examples are very useful, I think.