Level Judge Application

[Valtteri]

The role of the Level Judges has changed. Want to be one? Here are the basic tasks that they'll be doing:

LEVEL JUDGE TASKS

1. Review levels. Levels will no longer be sorted, but they will still get Level Judge reviews.
2. Pick a Featured Designer every month. The judges will review the users who have posted levels and decide on the monthly Featured Designer.
3. Moderate the levels forum.

Think you can do it? Here's how you can apply!

HOW TO APPLY

1. Review two levels.
2. Make two levels.
3. PM to me the links to your reviews and levels. I will relay your application to the staff and we will review you based on your reviewing and level design skills.

[aero]

Do the levels and reviews have to be new?

[Gameinsky]

I'd just like to point out that being able to make good levels =/= good are reviewing levels.

It's a lot easier to recognise mistakes on others than yourself. I hope you take this into account.

[HeroLinik]

Hey, I'm wanting to do this as well. Can you send in two levels you've made in the past before the system's changed? So, like I can reuse my older contest levels? And for that matter, can you send in two reviews you've done just before the system changed, like I did?

[Cedur]

I've already hinted at this in the "I'd like to say something..." topic but actually, why is it now required to put in two own levels when it was never required in the past before?

[Valtteri]

You may send old levels if you want. About two levels being required in the application, that's to ensure good judges. I think it's obvious that if you're good at designing levels, you know what to pay attention to when reviewing them. We're still looking at how you review, of course. Level design skills alone don't get you the job.

[Emral]

I don't have to be a cook to be able to tell your food is overcooked.
I don't have to be a car driver to be able to tell that pokemon go while driving can get you killed.
Then why do I have to design levels to be able to form a valid opinion on what levels are more fun than others?

[underFlo]

Also, NSMBX used to have a community project with a level designer group, but it was changed so that this group reviewed submitted levels for approval (but the members of this group didn't get changed initially), and it really showed that a good designer is not necessarily a good judge (although the opposite does apply more often - if you can apply your judgement to your own levels, a good judge is at least a decent designer).

Just my 2 cents.

[Valtteri]

I don't have to be a cook to be able to tell your food is overcooked.
I don't have to be a car driver to be able to tell that pokemon go while driving can get you killed.
Then why do I have to design levels to be able to form a valid opinion on what levels are more fun than others?

Sure but if you're a cook you're able to review finer qualities than whether the food is overcooked or not. It's not like having level design skills makes you a worse critic or anything? The level design sample requirement is to sort of ensure that the judges know what they're doing.

[Emral]

I disagree. Having level design skills often makes people around here more biased judges, since they have formed their own opinions of which trope of design is good. And even if a judge can suppress this bias from exierience and forcus on familiar technicalities (i.e. I do it differently, therefore your approach is inferior), I don't think it makes them a better judge than any competent judge who never made a level. Take Haruna-san for example. They joined the community and immediately got promoted to level judge for writing good reviews, and they never even posted a level. In my opinion, they're one of the best judges we had in a long time.
http://www.smbxgame.com/forums/v ... 79#p182079
http://www.smbxgame.com/forums/v ... 62#p182062
http://www.smbxgame.com/forums/v ... 49#p182049
http://www.smbxgame.com/forums/v ... 05#p181905
http://www.smbxgame.com/forums/v ... 83#p181871
http://www.smbxgame.com/forums/v ... 82#p181882

[Valtteri]

I don't doubt that we got some decent judges without requiring level design skills. What you said about people with level design skills being biased is nonsense though. My point still stands. A skilled level designer is more likely to recognize other skilled designers.

[aero]

Before this peters off into bias analysis, and review dynamics the real question is this: why are there no specifications about what LJs will do yet again? You have reviewing levels (everyone can do that already, no frequency or time stated just like before), pick a featured designer monthly (everyone else can do that too, no assurance that LJs will even do this right), and """"""""""moderate"""""""""" the levels forum when there's absolutely no need to. Just delete the group already, it's pointless.

[Shadow Yoshi]

The moderation aspect will mostly cover the Projects forum and making sure the new rules are followed.

[aero]

If that really is the case then idk why Valtteri would choose to single out the levels forum. Also since you mention the project rules, will LJs really be going around checking for lossy compression or slightly off screens to worlds ratios? The rules really just seem to be make-work requirements, to give LJs something to do when they don't need to. By the way there's no mention of YouTube being allowed in any of the rules, so is that implicitly allowed or not?

[Shadow Yoshi]

No, videos do not count for screenshots. They weren't make-work requirements either.

[aero]

That seems silly but okay then...

Can we have feature designers be determined by monthly contests by the way? Like it's the most accountable way of doing it than the way featured episodes were and it keeps the community involved in who becomes an FD for the month. The way it would work is like a normal contest except without the secrecy about who made levels and stuff and where both LJs and volunteers from the general community can rank submitted levels and select the most highly ranked level's designer as the FD of the month. It should keep things open to keep the bias down, keep activity up if and when the LJs slack, and keep things cohesive between the community's opinions and judges opinions. Given that the general forum hosts contests regularly, it can be done in the Levels forum with some working on for the purposes of selecting a FD.

[HeroLinik]

That seems silly but okay then...

Can we have feature designers be determined by monthly contests by the way? Like it's the most accountable way of doing it than the way featured episodes were and it keeps the community involved in who becomes an FD for the month. The way it would work is like a normal contest except without the secrecy about who made levels and stuff and where both LJs and volunteers from the general community can rank submitted levels and select the most highly ranked level's designer as the FD of the month. It should keep things open to keep the bias down, keep activity up if and when the LJs slack, and keep things cohesive between the community's opinions and judges opinions. Given that the general forum hosts contests regularly, it can be done in the Levels forum with some working on for the purposes of selecting a FD.

That's a bad idea, because the bias factor will be further amplified. Remember LotM on NSMBX back in 2012-13? Most of the time, people were rigging the polls to the popular designers like Chad and Kyo while leaving the rest for dust, just because it was the name. You have no idea how many LotM winners were popular level designers.

[aero]

Well that would be bad if that's what I was suggesting. My suggestion is simply level contests with slight changes to determine FDs. Idk what you're talking about with polls and bias factors.

[HeroLinik]

Idk what you're talking about with polls and bias factors.

That was the system used then.

[aero]

Okay how's that relevant to what I suggested?