[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by Jessica Boucher

2.) Championship-only exposure means better judging. No, really.
From a volunteer coordinator perspective, it was a total pain in the butt to find qualified professionals. Web Evaluator Advisors hated chasing evaluators down to do the judging. Evaluators hated a longer and longer survey. Teams complained for years that the judging was not standardized. Why not call the whole thing off?

So let's mull around the idea of a CMP only award. Who would judge it? The judges? No, they have enough going on and it doesn't fit their schedule. Web Evaluators? No, because they don't exist anymore. A panel of amazing individuals who know their way around the internet? Now you're talking.

Jess- I agree with most of your points except this one. This issue I have is one that Jared eluded to: what do you do with all of the web/animation/design team members on your team? You shift their focus to the new media award.

So now if every team that submitted for a web award, design award or animation award in the past (I'm sure there will be some who don't submit at all anymore, but just making a point) now submit for the new media award- the judging panel at CMP may be left to sift through 500+(?) submissions. That will take a tremendous feat to accomplish, and unfortunately I think the tradeoff to accomplish such a task will be to have less, for lack of a better term, quality of judging per each submission.

Of course, if less teams submit, it becomes an easier problem to solve, however this seems like it could be quite a task.

I think the new award is a great step in the right direction, I think more teams would've liked to see it kicked off at the regional level however.

-Brando