Should the judging criteria be changes?

[thoughtful]

Should the judging criteria be changes, becuase last year at some regionals the sites won , didnt even deserved to be called a website.

[jonathan lall]

I think the website award is more of a 'fun' thing than anything, and that it's taken a tad too seriously. Remember it doesn't count for anything so it's not like a travesty if a Brenteck won. It's voted on by teams so there really isn't much we can do.

[thoughtful]

Well, i think its time we start thinking differently about tht award, u r from canadian regional...and i think u know tht its taken pretty seriously there

[Jon K.]

The only thing I am wondering is what criteria do you want changed?????

[jonathan lall]

It wasn't taken that seriously at the Canadian Regional. St. Mike's had the best site, and IMO nobody came close.

Putting aside the fact that it's a pretty irrelevant award (except it might be good for the Webmaster's--and only his/her--ego), one must look at it this way: team members cannot be trusted to vote on an award that has any bearing on anything. If I was to make a criterion, "the site must be 100% student-built" I run into different definitions of 'built' and of 'student,' and each person has his or her own. This doesn't prevent them from voting based on their interpretations. If someone put a nice shell around OpenFIRST, it'd be difficult to judge. What if I said it must be cross-browser compatible, or must follow good coding practices? Then you would get a storm of arguments in every which way as to what that means, in addition to the fact that most webmasters do not actually know what that means. Are team members voting on how nice it looks, or how useful it is? Or are they voting on how well it showcases the team and its sponsors? Or are they trying to assess how well it helps other teams? Worse still, we're getting non-experts to vote; that is, we could have someone new to HTML and server-side coding, or someone who hasn't seen all the sites be the deciding vote. This is why FIRST decided to make it not matter, and it was a good decision. They only made the award because of the theme of FIRST, and because they realized how many neat sites there were.

It's a cool award to win, but I wouldn't take it too seriously. As you said, a lot of undeserving sites got the awards, and my point is that there's no way to get around it. I wouldn't be surprised if it happened again.

[iBob]

There is a way to get around it. Don't let it be student judged. Honestly, If they had a website judge that would work. But if it is again a student submitted vote there is no doubt that many undeserving teams will win.

[Duke 13370]

nobody really took it seriously anywhere. I think it's mostly because it wasn't able to be judged at the competitions, you actually had to be unlazy and look at other teams sites on your own time. I know our team actually did (actually not sure if we voted, but i know some of our team looked at other peoples site), but most teams didn't apparently.

I think it prolly should be judged by a group of firster's that might actually look at everything, and judge fairly and unbiasedly. (i think i just made up a new word) Eh, I hope FIRST is reading this.

[m0rph3us]

I don't know if this just happened to me but I was only told of this award the day the award was announced. There was a lack of 'propaganda' on this new award that I think collaborated with the few undeserving sites that won last year because there was no competition.

[Scott Shaw 237]

Well I know alot of people are saying to not take it seriously, but hello, i work on the Sie-H20-Bots site with a couple other people and we take our job VERY seriously. We want to win the award. FOr one thing, this award can mean the difference between going and not going to nationals for us. I think that there should be another way to judge the sites than let students pick it.

[jonathan lall]

Originally Posted by Scott Shaw 237

Well I know alot of people are saying to not take it seriously, but hello, i work on the Sie-H20-Bots site with a couple other people and we take our job VERY seriously. We want to win the award. FOr one thing, this award can mean the difference between going and not going to nationals for us. I think that there should be another way to judge the sites than let students pick it.

Err, I'm reasonably certain that this award doesn't contribute toward the point system (correct me if I'm wrong but it isn't a judged award). If it does, then the only truly fair way to go about websites is not to have an award at all. Seriously, what would a website judge judge on?

[Jeremy_Mc]

Originally Posted by jonathan lall

Err, I'm reasonably certain that this award doesn't contribute toward the point system (correct me if I'm wrong but it isn't a judged award).

But if they don't win the award, their team might not award them a slot on the trip to nationals. I know a few teams that treat their website and animation teams like that.

[JohnBoucher]

I believe that FIRST actually has a student judged award is terrific. It is the one opportunity for peer review and appreciation.
Web site design is both subjective and objective and needs to be judged as such.

The objective criterion includes;

· Operational in all current release browsers.
· Easy navigation with java and non-java browsers.
· HTML and CSS code validates to W3C standards.

The subjective criterion includes;

· Is the site current?
· Does the site appears to be actively used be its members?
· Does the site add value to the team community?

The students involved should create web site design. How to determine this will always be a problem. I suggest that if a team that wants their site judged, they should make available on the site, a design journal supporting the student participation.

A problem with the award seems to be that it is not well advertised. First should have the teams designate a team member that will judge the award when the team registers for a competition. I would not change the criteria each year. Allow each team to build upon what they had the previous year. Teams that have won the award could be held out of competition for 3 years to allow newer student to be involved.

By no means is the current process broken, but it could use some duct tape.