Hello everyone,
With the year soon coming to a close, I thought I’d revisit some of the goals discussed in the previous update. In addition, I’d like to add a few new goals to the UDE Judge Program in 2008.
Forums
You can find forums by following the “Forums” link on the right. As most of you know, we’ve consolidated the forums to unify all our site logins under one login name and password. Even with that setback, the forums continue to be an incredible resource for judges to share ideas and information. There have also been a couple of changes within the forum structure. Due to overwhelming requests by the Latin America judges, in particular Angel Ledesma, we have opened a Spanish-speaking rules forum for our Spanish-speaking judges. This forum is our beta test for future non-English–speaking judge forums, which is very exciting. Also, with the launch of this website, announcements will be displayed on the front page, so we are doing away with the Judge Announcements forum.
Judges will continue to view announcements, such as the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game Worlds sponsorships, and download policy documents from the forums. Judges with Player Management and Rules Knowledge certification 3 credentials can now download certification 2 tests directly from the forums as well.
Testing process
Testing and judge expectations have been formalized with a couple of FAQ documents that you can find by following the “FAQ” link on the right. We continue to advance toward the long-term goal of distributing testing for certification 2 judges through higher-level judges, with certification of higher-level judges at most professional shows. For now, such certifications involve UDE personnel. In the near future, however, I plan to involve some external people in the higher-level testing process to speed it up. As of now, we have about fifteen judges in North America with Player Management certification 3. In addition following WoW Worlds, we now have our first European World of Warcraft Level 3 judge – André Bronswijk!
Judge Card
Judge cards continue to be a priority for us. Unfortunately, it looks like a more accurate time frame for this project is winter 2008. I know I promised to have cards to folks by fall 2007, and I really hate to disappoint everyone, but the process to redesign the card is taking longer than I expected. Again, in preparation for the mailing, please make sure we have your current information.
New Tests
Here is the overview for the new tests. The goal is to develop a new test every six months for each rules specialization and a reasonable pace for all others.
Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG rules
Certification 1—Online.
Certification 2—Versions B and C, D and E. Version A is retired and is no longer used.
Certification 3—Versions A and B.
World of Warcraft TCG rules
Certification 1—Online.
Certification 2—Version A. Soon to come: version B.
Certification 3—Version A.
Vs. System rules
Certification 1—Online.
Certification 2—Version A.
Certification 3—Version A.
Player Management
Certification 1—Online.
Certification 2—Version A. Soon to come: version B.
Certification 3—Version A.
Tournament Organization
Certification 1—Online.
Scorekeeping
Certification 1—Soon to come.
Sponsorship
Sponsorship announcements will now be posted here, on the Judge Page. The details will still be tracked on the specialization-specific forum, similar to the WoW TCG Worlds announcement. Our goal to double the amount of sponsorship to any given show is on track, since we continue to develop new judges. In addition, plans are in motion to use senior judges to create training programs either at the beginning or at the end of each professional-level event. With so many opportunities for training at these types of events, I encourage you to attend these whenever possible.
Volunteer Point Store
Both Julia and I continue work on the Volunteer Point Store. This includes creating new and exciting items and making sure that we provide the best possible experience for the volunteers using this feature. To put it bluntly—we will not publish this program until we’re one hundred percent satisfied with it internally.
Judge Seminars
As the number of more experienced judges in our program continues to increase, one of my goals for 2008 is to work closely with them to create both introductory and advanced topics for formal judge training opportunities, called judge seminars. The location for these will be announced in 2008, as the Shonen Jump schedule finalizes. One exciting announcement is that the Yu-Gi-Oh! National Championship will definitely have a judge seminar for any judge who wishes to attend.
Judge Information
Similar to player statistics, such as ratings and rankings information, one of my goals is to implement a simple way for judges to log in and view statistics that may be interesting to them. As you probably know, it is currently possible for judges to review a list of their certifications online and even to view all their certification attempts. My goal in 2008 is to expand on that data by offering features like judging history or online peer endorsements.
As you can see, I want to establish a solid rewards program, a mentorship program, and a way to tie it all together with easily available data to reference. My goals for 2008 are certainly very ambitious. Of course, I can’t do this without the community’s support and feedback. As always, I am very appreciative of any feedback regarding the UDE Judge Program. If you have suggestions or ideas, please email me at judge@upperdeck.com.
Thanks,
Alex Charsky
Judge Manager
Upper Deck Entertainment