Stuff I've told the Judges for this tournament

[BLueSS]

These are the guidelines by which the judges for this tournament will try their best to follow. I have posted this in the judges forum, and they can get stuff clarified at anytime.

These are posted for the information of entrants to how judging is conducted; it is not for debate unless you believe there is something that is vitally important that I missed. I will *probably NOT* give them guidelines beyond these, and I trust that they will do a good job.

I will be judging both brackets, and I am trying to make sure I have 3 other judges for each of the two brackets. No judge will be allowed to judge the bracket their entry is in.

HOW TO REVIEW THE STEPCHARTS (so we're all consistent)

- Scores MUST be in increments of .25 ONLY. Valid scores are 3.5, 4.75, 1.25. Scores that are NOT VALID are 3.9, 2.55, 4.7
- If the chart has a wrong difficulty, but is a great file, it doesn't make sense to dock it a lot because you think it should be a hard 8 instead of an easy 9. If you feel it is bad enough to reduce points for, try to take off no more than a point for this small error. I didn't see any problems with this in my first run with the files.
- DDR has added harder songs to its collection in recent years. Boss/Difficult charts are still valid DDR stepcharts, and should not be looked down on just because they aren't a 7 or 8 foot rated file.
- There might be stepchart patterns you don't like. DDR has plenty of charts that *somebody* doesn't like. Avoid the temptation to say *I didn't like the "X" steps" and instead, examine if they fit the song and flow with the rest of the steps. I do not want to see anything such as "lots of gallops, boo!" but a valid response could be "you used lots of gallops where the song lended itself to many other types of possible patterns. Be more creative next time instead of just using only gallops."
- BE CONSISTENT! If you take off a lot of points for something in one file, you better take it off if another file makes the same mistake.
- There is no "this was a bad song choice." What is allowed is "the beat/melody in the song did not match the steps well" or "this song did not lend to steps that flowed well" or "you switched the patterns in your steps too much compared to the music" and so on. I do not want to see *any* wording of "this song didn't work well."
- PRESENTATION: If you feel the file fully met the standard of an acceptable simfile, the average presentation score should be a 4. For a file to receive a 5, it must be above average in the judge's view. Any file that meets what the judge believes to be a standard level for acceptable presentation average should receive a 4, unless extras such as a killer expert chart, doubles charts, really good video animations, ETC bump the score up to a 5. Bad graphics, sloppy presentation can always reduce the score from a 4. *This contest will have a LOT of files with good presentation scores.* That is a GOOD THING! Most files should get 4's and 5's.