General Judging Rubric for Challenges

[Grover]

During the discussions prior to Book IV, guild leadership felt the Guilds would benefit from a standardized, public judging rubric.  What we came up with (and tested during the prelude to Book IV challenge) is below.  We welcome discussion and questions, as we feel this is a living document for all the Guild members and we wish to make judging as fair as possible.  We also determined that we do not want to make scores of entries public, but knowing what the criteria are can only help you.

These are the general criteria, and individual challenges may have specific additions or modifications to this.  Such modifications will be spelled out prior to or along with the announcement of the challenge.  Modifications to this rubric will not take place during an active challenge, and cannot be made retroactive due to prizes that have been handed out.

Judging Criteria:

Entry gate Pass/Fail
Pass / Fail • Does your build fit the category?*
Pass / Fail • Does your build meet the challenge requirements?
If either of these fail, the build is disqualified.

Creativity 0-20 / 20
0-5 / 5 • Interesting approach to category/prompt
0-5 / 5 • Good/novel parts use
0-10 / 10 • Build originality 

Build Quality 0-40 / 40 
0-10 / 10 • Detailing/ornamentation
0-5 / 5 • Overall build composition
0-5 / 5 • Functionality/physical stability
0-10 / 10 • Technical skill
0-10 / 10 • Visual impact (color choices, color blocking, height layout, etc.) 

Presentation 0-15 / 15
0-5 / 5 • Image quality/focus
0-5 / 5 • Good backdrop and lighting
0-5 / 5 • Good viewing perspective.

Story 0-25 / 25
0-5 / 5 • Furthers narrative of the Guilds
0-10 / 10 • How well story fits the prompt
0-10 / 10 • Creativity in storytelling
Note: As English is a second language for many, grammar and spelling will not influence the score unless it is unintelligible

Final Score 0-100 / 100

* Double dipping with concurrent contests is allowed, but be reasonable: don’t build a blacksmith for one competition then resubmit it here for a ‘mathematician’ challenge and simply say the blacksmith is a mathematician too. We haven't had a lot of problems with this in the past, but we felt we needed to make this explicit.