2001-01-31 - 23:59:52

Here Comes The Judge

Hey, look! I'm caught up!

I've been debating talking about this, but what the heck.

I am an Immunity Challenge judge for Diaryland Survivor 2.

It's not like it's a big secret or anything, like in the first one. First off, it's well known that the contestants from last round are being judges this time. And secondly, there is an actual page with a list of judges' names on it. D'oh!

During the first contest I only knew who one of the judges was. She was someone whose critical taste I had a lot of respect for, but many of the judges' decisions mystified me.

Now that I am one, I see that it's not as easy as I thought it was. For instance, I can’t vote for me, like I thought they should have!

Actually, when I was approaching the first Immunity Challenge, I wondered how I was going to handle it. How was I supposed to judge sixteen essays?? I made it easy on myself. I created a little checklist with the names of all the Survivors on it, and I made notations next to each of their names, mainly to keep straight which essay was which.

On my first read-through I made notations about which essays were worth a second reading, and which weren't.

Before I start talking about what essays I liked, I'm going to try to come up with the criteria that I use when I'm looking at an Immunity Challenge.

First off, I remember how tough the Immunity Challenges were last round and I know that most diarists are busy people with real lives that demand attention. I'm not expecting The Great Gatsby from anybody.

To make my job easier, I try to eliminate essays, so I can limit the number I have to seriously look at. This makes the job a lot easier. There are only four things that will turn me off on an essay.

1) Illegibility - the layout of the entry should be easy on the eyes. I'm not a stickler for spelling or punctuation or paragraphs, but I should be able to not get a headache reading it. Luckily I haven't had any problems like this with any of the essays in DL Survivor 2.

2) Avoiding the question - This did happen - some of the essayists seemed like they didn’t understand the questions fully or they just ignored parts of them. Actually, in my opinion you can get away with this if you do something very clever or original. In the first DL Survivor, I thought Bigboy made some very telling points by not exactly answering the questions put to him.

3) Bad attitude - Okay, this one is a killer. In both DL Survivor competitions there were people who didn’t seem to give a fuck. The said critical things about the contest in their journals and just dashed off the Immunity Challenges. As a judge, nothing turns me off quicker than that. They are just wasting my time. So, you didn't like the question. So what? Just like in the theater - there are no small parts only small actors. I would also say that this is a good way to get voted out of the contest quickly, too.

4) Missing in action - not doing the Immunity Challenge at all. This is an extreme example of #3, barring extraordinary circumstances, like cranky internet connections.

What a drag that was. I much rather prefer to look for good qualities in essays rather than bad. However, good qualities seem to be harder to elucidate than bad.

Probably the most important thing is getting some sort of an indication that the person who is writing the essay is taking it seriously. This does not mean that the essay has to be non-humorous, or long and ponderous. During the first DL Survivor my Immunity Challenges were notoriously long, and perhaps even long-winded. And yet some of the essays that I admired the most were some of the shortest. They got to the point in very few words, but they were all the right words. Sabine's essay on being rejected comes to mind.

Something else I admire and look for in an essay is an original take on the question. I know that the writer is on to something when I find myself thinking: "Damn, I wish I had thought of that first."

I love humor, and it is nearly always a plus to have an essay that makes me laugh. However there is always the danger of wandering from Funny to Silly and then into the land of Downright Dumb. Well, since obviously I can’t tell the difference between these three myself, everybody else should be safe too.

If all else fails there is plain old good writing, nothing wrong with that. In fact, there are some people who can just write a good essay, based on their style alone, without even breaking a sweat. The example that pops into my mind most readily was Tobias' essay for the first immunity challenge. It was obvious that he didn’t much care for the question, but he wrote a stylish essay. I could admire the music of his words, all the while noting that their wasn't a whole lot of content there. It's a pity he was voted off so quickly.

However, the one thing that I look for most in an essay is some evidence that the writer has used the topic to uncover some essential kernel of truth, whether it's about themselves, their past, or the world at large. It doesn't need to be a blinding revelation, but this is the best indication that they have taken the question to heart. But, like I said before, this doesn't mean that the IC can't be funny.

And now I've going to describe how I voted on the first two Immunity Challenges. I hope nobody will be offended by this. I fully recognize that I may be sitting in judgement on people who are better writers than me.

The question for the first IC was: something dire has happened in the future, and you are sending an email back in time to give your old self a warning.

There were a number of entrants that had trouble with this question. Either they couldn't get into it, or they couldn't get past the time paradox inherent in the question. To my mind the whole question involved a certain suspension of disbelief, and if you couldn't do that you couldn't really answer it.

After my first pass I narrowed the field down to five: FatalError, Fattitude, Jello, Mocksie and Pischina. Then I whittled it down to three: FatalError, Mocksie and Pischina. By the way, Lily, who was looking over my shoulder while I was doing this, would have picked Jello's essay about lung cancer. That's what makes horse races, I guess.

After mulling it over, I finally picked Mocksie's wistful entry about the Bridge. I really, really liked the way it read. I also admired the way that she took the question and sort of enfolded it in the world of her diary, bringing up images and issues that she'd dealt with earlier in her journal. As it turned out two of the other judges agreed with me and Mocksie won the first IC.

The question for the second IC seemed much simpler - write about what the world would be like if you were in charge. In spite of its seeming simplicity, the Survivors had even more trouble with this question than the last one. When the deadline came, only 9 out of the 14 remaining Survivors had an entry posted. A few more straggled in before the judging deadline.

Jello, who'd done so well with the previous IC, seemed utterly unnerved by this one. Her entry was essentially an apology for not being able to come up with an answer to the question. Annatto had dialup problems that kept her from posting.

It took me a while to realize it, but this IC was something of a trap. Let me explain what I mean.

I run a comic book store, and as you might surmise this means I've read a LOT of comic books. Comic book villains are ALWAYS trying to conquer the world. It's their job, man! It's always struck me that this is a dumb goal. Sure, conquering the world is fun, but after you do that you actually have to RUN the world. What a tedious drag that would be! Also, I would imagine that there are lots and lots of people in the world who would hate to have an absolute ruler, no matter how well-intentioned he was.

Like Bill Cosby said once: "I let my wife be the boss. I've seen that job and I don't want it!"

For my part, I don’t want to run the world, I just want to OWN it! Everybody can make their own rules, I just want the income! This is the sort of tack big corporations are following, unfortunately. That ain't so funny.

Seriously, I think a number of the Survivors got bogged down in the real-life problems of what running the world would be like. For instance, a couple of them had the worthy goal of ending racism. The trouble is, I don’t think that's possible because racism is something that lives inside people's heads. Sure, you can forbid racist practices, but racism itself would live on in the hearts of small-minded people everywhere. Maybe the "my tribe is better than your tribe" attitude is something that is hard-wired into the human psyche. I don’t really think that anyone would want be such an absolute ruler that they would control people's thoughts.

So, the more successful of the second ICs used a lighter touch, in my opinion. Using my worksheet I narrowed the field down to three: Chumley (Curio Emporium), Sinnamon (Jaki) and Svengali (Branden). While I thought that Branden's rant about Carson Daly (why is this schmoe popular, anyway?) was pretty funny, the choice was plainly between Chum and Sinnamon.

It was a very tough call. I thought that Chum's "Wizard of Yahoo" was particularly witty, especially since Yahoo had been pissing me off recently. However, I thought Jaki's list had an excellent mix of humorous and serious concerns.

I finally settled on Sinnamon, by virtue of the fact that hers made me laugh more. Not exactly the Judgement of Solomon. Again, two other judges agreed with me and Jaki won the Immunity Challenge.

Do any of the other DL Survivor 2 judges have an opinion about this? I'd like to hear from you.

I hope this give the participants in DL Survivor 2 a better idea of what one judge is looking for when he reads their Immunity Challenges. If you think this sounds too hard, you could always try bribery. Gifts of chocolate are especially appreciated.