A Day In The Life Of A Head Judge

ALASKA, CP Army Hub Headquarters – Undeniably, judging is one of the core functions of a league, in addition to news, Top Tens, and structuring guidelines for armies. When administrators are too busy to cover each and every aspect of the league, who are the people they hire to manage the CP Army Hub’s Judges?

In the first edition of our newest column, “A Day In The Life Of…,” we’ll take a look into the daily schedule of a Head Judge, who runs the judging aspect of the CP Army Hub. The CP Army Hub currently has 47 wonderful Judges and 13 lovely Judges-in-Training. Of those 47 judges, five of them currently serve as Head Judges, the five being Spotty, Regan, Cassie, Light, and Sophie. But what exactly do they do?

What is a Head Judge?

As stated before, a Head Judge is responsible for managing the CP Army Hub’s Judges. Their responsibilities include managing judging group chats and upcoming battles, keeping the judging guide up to date, hiring new Judges, tracking activity and promoting Judges-in-Training, keeping the judging spreadsheet updated, and more. Occasionally, you’ll see us on cparmies.net, moderating a battle and kicking any early entries.

What is a Head Judge’s day like?

As one of the Head Judges who currently has the pleasure of serving the CP Army Hub, the first thing I do when I wake up is to check my pings and DMs. I’ll often wake up to messages from the “HEAD JUDGE GANG” group chat where we communicate, ranging from important matters such as new Judge applications to Spotty and Regan’s regular spats originating from their British-Irish rivalry. The Head Judge group chat is a lively place for sure.

Head Judge Regan being blatantly biased

I always have notifications on all messages in the CP Army Hub’s #judge-request channel throughout the day. This channel is no longer visible to people who aren’t army leaders or judges, but it’s here where the start of the magic happens. Army leaders will ping three specific roles: Head Judge, Judge, and Judge in Training, with information on their upcoming battle, whether that be a practice battle or invasion, thus requesting judges for them. Head Judges then write a short message denoting the time of the battle and which Judges are judging it before promptly pinning the message for easy access in the future. As more Judges and Judges-in-Training accept, we update the message.

A recent example of what goes down in judge request

Once we near the battle, Head Judges make the group chat where the judging happens. A Head Judge must own these group chats to allow us to review battles if necessary. Often, we’ll mute the chat while the battle happens, but if something happens and Judges are unsure what to do, a single ping sends us running to check things out.

In addition to managing battles, a part of a Head Judge’s daily schedule is looking at any new messages in the #judge-apply channel. Although we don’t hire Judges daily, we do drop applications in our group chat and discuss our thoughts on who to hire. Then, we wait for everyone to give their thoughts, which can take a short while due to different timezones and schedules. We hire in batches, so every once in a while, when every Head Judge has evaluated and agreed on what applications we like, we’ll announce a new group of Judges and Judges-in-Training. Reminder to apply if you’re interested in judging, but don’t flood the channel with your application! Sending just once after the last batch of hires is fine; we promise we look at all of them.

It’s always exciting seeing new judges come in!

In addition to hiring Judges, one of my favorite parts of being a Head Judge is promoting Judges-in-Training! After three battles, Judges-in-Training can message a Head Judge with the battles they’ve judged. The Head Judge then proceeds to make a group chat with the Judges who were present at those battles, and they provide feedback and evaluate the Judge-in-Training’s performance. When considering their performance, Judges look into the points they made, how relevant their points were, any signs of bias or misunderstanding, how much they talk, and their overall attitude. Depending on the feedback, the Head Judge then chooses to promote or recommend a couple more battles. There’s nothing like pinging people in the staff server to notify them of their promotion, and then once again in the CP Army Hub server to give them their shiny new Judge role.

The set of questions by which the judges evaluate judges in training, click to enl

Another important responsibility the Head Judges have is updating and keeping track of the spreadsheet. If you remember from our last “A Day in the Life of…” post, we explored the life of a CP Army Hub Editor-in-Chief. One of the responsibilities of an Editor-in-Chief is to update the reporters’ spreadsheet. Similarly, the CP Army Hub has a spreadsheet for judging. Every so often, we update with Judges’ activity. Sometimes we have to release Judges if they underwent long periods of inactivity.

The format for the judging spreadsheet, click to enlarge

Finally, although this isn’t a daily thing, Head Judges will sometimes work with our wonderful administration to set new precedents and rules for the judging guide. Recently, we implemented a new procedure where invasions do not get overtimes unless it is the invasion of an army’s capital. In the case of a tie, the defending army keeps its land.

A new standard the Head Judges implemented a couple of weeks ago alongside the admins, click to enlarge

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At the end of the day, I love my position, and I truly treasure the opportunity to work for the CP Army Hub as a Head Judge. Although the job comes with its occasional headaches, it’s also a gratifying experience, especially if you’re passionate about judging, and the people I work with are all highly qualified and pleasant individuals. Now, if only I could get Regan to stop bullying Spotty and me, this job would be perfect.

What do YOU think? Is the life of a Head Judge a fun and interesting one? Would you want to become a Head Judge one day? Let us know YOUR thoughts in the comments below!

Sophie

CP Army Hub Editor-in-Chief

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