JOC6B - A New Wave (COMPLETE)

[oldmanbuick]

@Mintymoon

I’m inclined to think that you did not treat me unfairly, you treated every entrant unfairly by withholding(intentionally or unintentionally) such information regarding the judging process until after submissions closed. One which would have entrants engineered their car differently if disclosed.

I always knew, and I always disclosed, that realism would be taken into consideration. This was in the original brief:

@oldmanbuick

Realism/design coherence will serve as a discretionary factor. I frankly do not have deep knowledge about things like the exact tire sizes these different cars had, but if you do something outlandish, it will count against you, potentially significantly. Also try to build something with overall consistency with the brief, which I reserve the right to use as a discretionary scoring factor. For example, if you build an extremely drivable sports car with rock-bottom comfort, that car likely would not win regardless of how the numbers come out because comfort is a priority.

Then this clarification followed:

@oldmanbuick

Clarification on realism [added 7/9]. Basically, make something that looks at least approximately like it could exist in the early 1960s, and don’t make any crazy engineering choices. For example, don’t try to shoehorn a V8 into a tiny hatchback or put something on 20-inch rims with low profile tires. The purpose of including realism/design coherence as a scoring factor is to provide a basis to (1) be able to severely penalize totally unrealistic designs and (2) reward entries that pay particular attention to detail and are particularly well designed. I am not going to be “gotcha” binning or penalizing anyone for having headlights that aren’t the exact right size for US regulations at the time or anything like that.

Since it was always disclosed that realism would be taken into account, I’m not sure why disclosure of the precise mechanism for considering realism would have made a difference in anyone’s engineering choices. In fact, I saw one of the finalists make a comment on Discord to the effect that “I always knew the rear double wishbones were going to kill me.”

I also don’t see how the upfront disclaimer about realism was somehow insufficient to put you on notice that realism would affect your score, or how it was any less precise than that provided in other challenges. For example, here’s the currently running QFC47:

@GAlexZilla

Realism: Somewhat realistic, what do I mean? As long as you can stay within “this could’ve easily existed with the technology of time”, you’re all good.

A single real life example would be even better, though it gets blurry if its a one of prototype that barely worked or cost 3 cars equivalent to build.

Here’s the recently completed CSR162:

@vero94773

OOC- Put simply, there were many ways to skin a cat so to speak when it came to performance and sports cars at this moment in time. You had things like the 350Z and RX-8 that represented performance on somewhat of a budget, but you also had things like the Corvette and Boxster that represented the blending of a more premium experience with the highs of a performance vehicle. That being said, if I see engineering that comes totally out of left field, like a twin-turbocharged V12 in a ladder framed convertible with solid axles, I’ll bin it unashamedly. I implore you to research information on relevant vehicles, and take risks that make sense, but keep in mind that all results are final, and I will not change them because the risks you took didn’t pan out.

Similarly, here’s CSR161:

@Texaslav

OOC: The 1990s saw many methods to make a premium/luxury highway car. You do not have to adhere to some rigid blueprint. However, if Maxbombe and I see a BMW S85 engine 10 years ahead of time nestled between the rear wheels of a body-on-frame barge, mercy will not be shown. In all seriousness, this is a CSR; you are expected to do your own research, and take only well-calculated risks. Not our fault if your “math” ends up being off. Also: in this challenge, you are able to submit several different types and classes of cars, and will be rewarded for cohesion and common sense in that class. For example, if you manage to make a V12 7-Series, maybe allow it the dignity of drinking premium gas.

Here’s the thing that’s been bugging me about the reaction to this judging; I was actually more transparent about how the judging was conducted than most challenges I’ve seen and went out of my way to try to come up with scoring mechanisms that weren’t just my own subjective judgment, and yet because everyone has come to expect design/realism scoring to essentially rely on the host’s subjective judgment and the notion that I “modified entries” set off alarm bells, the different way I approached judging has clearly rubbed people the wrong way. Admittedly, it would have been better if I had identified the design/realism mechanisms upfront in the brief, but, as a first-time host, this was a learning process for me where I initially relied on simply imitating similarly vague realism/design rules in other contests without having a clear idea of how those factors would ultimately be applied. But exactly the same outcomes could have been reached if I’d simply written things up a different way that was more opaque about how realism/design was taken into consideration. And this whole conflagration started with a wildly mistaken comment suggesting that “the finalist cars needed changing to be finalists,” which I think framed and fed the concerns that I “modified entries.”

I know that at this point this competition is going to go down in everyone’s memory as the one where the judge did some crazy scoring scheme that “modified entries” and had a bunch of “twists” in the scoring, and that nothing I say can change that impression, no matter how much I think that’s a mischaracterization. I also know that there is nothing I can say that will make you agree with me or stop you from feeling like you were somehow robbed or cheated in this challenge. But realism was clearly identified as a discretionary factor from the start. Considering that I would have been within my rights to bin or severely penalize any entry that I found to be unrealistic, I think that applying relatively modest realism penalties to cars that reached the finals was absolutely a fair approach.

Ultimately, beyond simply not considering realism at all, it’s not clear to me what you would have considered a fair approach to considering realism, or what sort of disclaimer you would have needed to take more care with designing your car more realistically.