on judge wages/legend tracker

Moving this over from TC, where it was received well enough that I want to continue the discussion!! The issue, basically, is whether or not judge wages should be lowered. (Sorry, judges, for going at your money like this. I'd be mad too!!)

Currently, Judges make $2,000 + 2,000cc -- more than a Normal rank winner, or equivalent to a Super winner / Hyper 2nd place. Referees make more than the loser, but less than the winner; it's rare in other professions that you make more than the participant, although it happens sometimes by quality check. It would fall in line with other professions more, if Judges made something comparable to 2nd place or 3rd.

One possible solution is that judge wages could scale to the rank, but then the question that follows is whether or not judging actually gets any more difficult at higher ranks. (Gray, for one, doesn't think so.) If that's the case, then perhaps judging should continue to pay at a flat rate, but maybe at something like $1,000+1,000 cc? $1,500?

Should be said: we're talking about this in part because Gray has damn near grinded out a milli in three months, which is unprecedented in any profession. Maybe Gray is just pulling off an exceptional grind, which is at least a little true either way, or that (extreme Monbrey voice) judge wages are a little too high for the work involved. Xali reffed up 200k in two weeks, could he make a million in three months? Or Ely in grading? It's hard to make any definitive statement on effort, especially since I'm not an active judge, but it's worth asking.

Lemme know how y'all feel. Also, sorry again for the push to fuck up your money @ judges. This doesn't come from a place of disrespect!! Thanks to Gray and Julio for being receptive to this topic in #TC earlier.

 

Judge wages should absolutely not scale with rank. Ref wages scale with size because larger battles take longer, and they get paid more for E4/Champion battles because the battlers take significantly longer to think of their moves. Even in Master rank contests, coordinators rarely take more than 5-10 minutes to send, and if they do, it's because something popped up IRL. I'm OK with an across the board nerf, I don't judge for the money. If I wanted money, I'd make more spamming randoms.

 

The last time I brought up nerfing wages or at least the legend tracker because of how un-denaibly lucrative judging is, the responses that got thrown in my face was along the lines of "it's hard to get people for a contest sometimes so we deserve better wages because we sit there looking for people for so long."

Why does that justify the fact that a profession easier than reffing gets paid on a scale equal to or more than every co-ordinator, whereas refs get paid an average of the battlers (albeit on rounding up so we avoid 250s etc) when that "inactivity" clearly isn't an issue if Gray can do near 70 contests in a wage period. That's 3-4 contests a day, where a ref has to do that same amount in 6v6s which usually take longer and have more work. I'll give that CC is generally undervalued compared to money (20k CC for a simple iirc??), and I'm honestly not concerned about the wage front, but judging is undeniably one of the easiest legend trackers and I don't think that's okay.

 

I would support a reduction in Judge pay down to $2,500 - $3,000 total if it included the ability to choose cash vs. CC again. Being able to prioritize one over the other would be a reasonable compensation for the lost future income--particularly since it's all equal as far as legend progress is concerned.

 

To clarify, I never said I judge for the legend. I have no intention on stopping once I hit contest 250.

 

On the risk that I look like some rambling idiot, I'm prefacing this with me saying that I am just a little bit mad. Irked might be the proper term. Judge (hah) me however you like; I'll take all reprimanding if any that follows to heart (double hah). But I stand by everything that follows. I could probably reword what I have to say to be more civil (I already tried), but you're getting r a w emotion instead. Think I just need to be honest with my thoughts/opinions, and brutally so.

@Nitro;

You pointed it out yourself; Judges make only more than the winner if it's Normal Rank. Would it satisfy people if Judges made less at this Rank? Be reduced at Super so as to make it less than (instead of equal to) the coordinator who took 1st? I find it strange that you make comparisons to other professions, in the plural, as though there's other professions than judging and refereeing which gives out pay to the host/participant. It's just those two, unless I am mistaken. (I have a hunch that an argument could be made for chroniclers-AH posters, but I am mostly ignorant about the dynamics of AH that I can't comment on it definitively.) We can't compare this to Curator-Artist or Grader-Writer unless the latter of both pairs is submitting for cash, and even then such a comparison looks tenuous at best. So when you say that it "would fall in line with other professions more" if Judges were to be paid at a rate close to 2nd/3rd placing, I'm reading this basically as it would fall in line with reffing, and reffing alone. Why then is there seemingly a need to reduce everything to the level of refereeing? Balance is the obvious answer. Only I am unsure whether we ought to be balancing around reffing pay in the first place--why is it acceptable anyway that the ref should make less than the battlers? I did say I was going to be brutally honest, so there it is. I've always felt that those in professions should be paid more with respect to participants, because those opting to host facilitate the game. But then I'll be hearing an outcry of "reffing is easy", or worse -- "reffing is easy, judging is even easier" (to these sentiments I throw back that with most (read: not all) battles, it is even easier and effortless to send mons and moves mindlessly, but I digress).

Gray is correct, Judging difficulty pretty much remains the same across Ranks.

And an exceptional grind it was, calling it a little true is an understatement. Judging near 14 hours a day should be duly rewarding. And once again an issue is brought up because an outlier does extremely well. The average judge gets in far less than what Gray's put in.

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@Fabled;

These people don't know what they were saying.

People are so caught up in framing Judging as this profession inferior to Reffing as far as difficulty is concerned that it's getting tiresome. Can we not divorce Judging from Reffing, and instead encourage both professions to flourish in their own rights? Again Judges only get paid more than the winner if it's a Normal Rank. Let that sink in. And regarding the comparison with 6v6s--good thing battles are flexible and referees could choose to ref smaller battles, take less time, and have less work. Lastly, I hope you're being comparative when you say Judging is one of the easiest legend trackers, because judging 250 contests all in all is by no means an easy feat. It's a slow grind unless you dedicate nearly all your time into it.

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@Elrond 2.0;

If it so happens that a reduction take place, this suggestion is, of those I've seen proposed so far (here and on Discord), the one I feel most inclined to agree with. Keywords: if a reduction takes place.

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@GhostlyGlaceon;

You are making the assumption that every Judge judges the same rate as Gray, who is an outlier and one that shouldn't stand for every Judge out there. And way to throw in some arbitrary multiplier ('3x less time') as though that's definitive. Calling it 'stupid', 'easy', and 'free' is an insult to those among us who judges a lot.

"Could even out the times it took to so called grind it."
Why should we punish grinding?

"These things are ment to be hard to obtain not easy."
Judging 250 contests is hard. If it were as easy as you claim to be then shouldn't more of the newer Judges be as close to Gray in terms of obtaining the Legend?

"As paunful as this is to say but i think if this gets put through i think also knocking back all the current legend trackers for judging by half would also be necessary to do because guving out free legends like this is stupid. "
Only it is not free, because people put in effort into judging a whole lot of contests. Knocking back Legend Trackers now would be nothing short of a middle finger to those close to it.

"Make them acctually work for a legendary not just half ass the easy legends on a small time frame like this. "
By them do you just mean Gray? It is hard to take what you say as constructive to the discussion when you have a clear veneer of personal distaste against him. Also, repeatedly saying it's easy doesn't make it true, and way to say that Gray half asses Judging when he's judged a lot more than most of the new Judges. If by some chance you don't mean just Gray, then who? Those near the Judge legend? Next to Gray as far as I know it's me who's next closest to the Legend; do you mean to imply I half ass getting a Legendary as well? If so, that's more than just a spit in the face to what I've done to revive the section. Bragging be damned.


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AND A GENERAL STATEMENT:

The pitchforks are raised. If this is going to happen, I would appreciate if everyone in URPG would first stop shitting on the efforts it has taken our Judges to get their trackers that high. A little off-topic, but I would also implore everyone to refrain, or at least reduce comments (here and on Discord, mostly Discord) made either seriously or in jest that the Contest Section and its Judges should be less deserving of rewards than Referees/Battlers on just the grounds that it is easier. Can we not foster both sections without shitting on the other?

I know my thinking that refs should get paid even more than the participants is too radical an idea for those in charge, so at my time of posting this I would say that if we're nerfing Judge wages I'd have to agree with Elrond's post above. Which springs the question of when such a nerf would be applied. Effective immediately reads as a fuck you to those near their Legends. More thoughts on the actual implementation instead of just let's do the thing would be great.

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Tagging other active higher ups in contests, reply to this matter when you can please. Don't make me spam mentions on chief-judges, and try not to be passive about everything
@Ash K.; @Siless;

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Tagging other active Judges who haven't posted, this will affect you so please weigh in when you can. Your insights are appreciated.

@Voltaire Magneton; @juliorain; @weirlind120; @Haillys;

 

It's been kinda hard to weigh in for me, idk why. I'll try to be as detailed and forthcoming as possible, and disclaimer: I don't mean to discount any efforts to revive or keep active any section.

The answer to this question is actually quite easily yes. I feel like I'm in a good position to talk about this; look at both of their logs from their big periods and you'll see my name more than anyone elses, I guarantee it. I'm very, very good friends with both of them and I can tell you WITHOUT DISCOUNTING EITHER OF THEM, that they both put in the exact same amount of work for the nearly exact same amount of time and effort. Xali came on every day for 2 weeks and picked up battles, even going to the lengths of asking his friends to find opponents so he could get battles started faster. He even took breaks and slowed down for a bit and made 210k+ from reffing, and I firmly believe if he wanted to (obviously, Shalee had motivation and finds reffing somewhat easy for himself), he could grind out another legend in 3 months. Hell, he's talked about it if multiple legends becomes a thing. Gray does the exact same thing. Gray works hard, puts in the effort, and gathers people to him to try and get contests going. He sits at his computer for 14+ hours every day, just like Shalee did, and made about the same in terms of Legend Tracker, maybe more ONLY because Gray seldom takes any breaks. I do NOT believe the outlier should be the driving force in an argument; I think everyone agreed when we had this discussion in TC a while back.

More or less what Morru wrote is how I feel (rip my old response). Especially about Battles vs Contests, I firmly believe the idea is so rooted that Contests are somehow slighting Battles out of something, and I really really do not believe this to be so.

Please please please this.

All in all, I think a lot of the argument has been put out there, and I personally don't want to beat a dead horse. If anyone has any specific questions for me I'd be more than happy to share my views, but I believe the ones involved (in this thread at least) know my position, and Morru has presented exactly what I think, so I just wanted to get that other info out there.

 

These are good thoughts and you're irked for a pretty good reason, so let's just be clear that all of that is okay and fine and straight up good. It's dope that you care, and it's taken into consideration that you care about judge wages more than I do. Just a few thoughts here, although definitely other voices have to chime in before anything sounding at all conclusive can be said.

I don't think it's wrong to compare grader wages to the $ value of a Pokemon obtained by writing; to a degree, I think it's necessary. The relationship will never be 100 percent translatable, but consider that I wrote for a Litwick (value of $35,000) for which Smiles' Extensive grade paid $22,000. Most Grades pay roughly $5,000-10,000 (with the caveat that an actual Grader would know better), which in most cases falls short of the $ value of the Pokemon written for. It's not a perfect comparison, and there might be a separate conversation to have about how there's room for mid-level Grader wages to rise, but I think the point generally stands -- as they are in *most* sections, wages usually amount to less than the $ value earned by the successful participant. (Whether they should pay more is a separate, and much more radical, conversation)

I don't like the phrasing of "reducing to the level of reffing." My idea of a long-term goal is to equate the two, and every profession as much as possible. I think reffing has approached what optimal wages should look like, especially after the change to 6v6 payment, and it's indicative of how the reffing pay model has been beaten and torn into and improved upon for years and years and years. I think what's happening now is that Contests are just now beginning to enter that process.

I hate for the perception to be that I'm trying to tear down what makes the Contests section good. I think Contests are finally legitimate in the mainstream, which is awesome, and the way I see it is that now they have to go through the same checks that mostly every other section has been going through for a long long time.

Agreed. I've made jokes before because I love the sound of my voice, but I'm trying to quit it because you're exactly right. With that in mind, I've tried to phrase the way I speak about Contests and Judging to be more considerate of your work. I'm never trying to tear you down, or undercut the insane level of work that Gray has done. Contests are good and here to stay. None of this is about shitting on anybody, because activity in any form is a good thing for URPG. But it is important that activity pays out at a proportionate level across all sections, and I think w.r.t Contests, that's something to be refined.

Also, Elrond's idea is good. I can't imagine any pushback to it.

 

I do think the 3k total, choosing your currency, appears to be the best solution presented. To be honest, I'm not quite sure where I sit on the Judge/Ref being able to earn more than the winner of their competition, it's an interesting question but this does keep that from being an issue while at the same time letting a judge get more of one currency than they used to if they wanted. And while I want to see others address it as well, I can say I think this idea would be good even outside of the context of lowering payment totals.

It feels overall there is a lot of... discouraging mental grinding from some of the attitude, seeing "But judging is easier than reffing" come up as an argument repeatedly can just make things tense, even when it comes from a place of concern. Yeah, we should be looking into refining things to make sure we're at the right marks, but it's easier to have a conversation when it doesn't feel like someone's efforts are being undermined or dismissed.

As to when, I wouldn't have saw a problem with effective immediately upon consensus if you haven't said anything about that Morru. If we make a change, unless like all the judges are scrambling for an effective immediately ruling, maybe a good date to apply it would be at the start of the first August judging period? There's time to get things discussed and prepared, if it happens to take longer than half a month we have time to discuss when to delay it to. Or we could just try and say "first wage period after a decision has been made"? I'll try to think on this all more, if I get any more thoughts flowing I'll bring them up.

 

There's really no reason to compare judging and reffing at all. Just because they both occur live doesn't mean they are the same or similar in more than a few ways. Setting the legend tracker should correlate to accomplishing a high level of quality activity in a section based on its own mechanics and average play. If a ref and a judge both earned a legend in roughly the same amount of time, that doesn't mean they both put forth the same amount of activity (not that one is easier than the other; just that they are different and should have different measures of activity).

 

@Morru; I'll just respond to your stuff and read other stuff laters. You know I'm being comparative as we've already discussed tbh.

I think it is fair to compare reffing vs judging only on the extent that they are very similar, in the same vein that curating and grading could be compared imo. I'm not by any means trying to imply that judging is a joke easy profession and easier than reffing, since reffing is relatively easy as it is. But no matter how you look at it, the same 4k for a legend tracker is less time and effort compared to reffing almost all of the time.

250 contests is a lot of work, sure. But lets just pull up raw numbers for reffing. 250 6v6 battles, which would only be as short as a contest if it was a half-assed randoms or an uncommon sweep. 4v4s I find still take about an hour on average, and earn exactly half of a contest for legend. 500 4v4s. 1,000 2v2s. Yeah, reffing is a bit more flexible in the way that it works but in the end doing that's still a lot of work also.

That's why I compare the reffing vs judging, because they are similar and yet one is directly faster and easier than the other.

I used Gray as my example not because he's the outlier, but because of what I mentioned. Last time I participated in this discussion, over half the active judges (i won't name names but i can) threw that argument in my face of "its so hard to find contestants" we deserve more.

At any rate, you're correct about the wages and I do apologise, I'm not versed in the ways of the contest. But also as I mentioned, I'm not bothered by your wages. Y'all can keep that CC. Just think that judging could afford to be a little more towards the effort of a legend. If you wanna throw raw numbers around, I'm not talking about doubling it, just a little more effort (maybe something like 300 idk). I won't lie, I'm a little bit salty that I put what I feel was a lot of effort into reffing when I wasn't swamped with work and study, and if I channeled that effort into doing judge quiz and then judging, I would quite frankly be a lot closer to a legend, and I wouldn't hate myself as much because I dislike reffing and judging seems like it might border being interesting.

 

Hi I don't really have much to input but I just want to voice that Gray has almost single-handedly restored a ton of interest in the contests section to the point where more contests than battles are happening some days. That kind of passion and determination shouldn't be discouraged and it certainly is not fair to suggest cutting his legend tracker or anything that diminishes what he has accomplished.

While reffing and judging shouldn't be compared in a lot of ways, Fabled makes a very good argument about the length of time required for a 4-man contest being very similar to that of reffing a 4 vs. 4 battle on average and the payout should probably be similarish.

Perhaps a combined 3K per contests judged would be more apt, particularly if it can be divided how the judge wants (or at the very least 2k/1k and 1.5k/1.5k). Again, other people are more knowledgeable than me here so just my 2c

 

Gray gets a lot of hoopla but there are other judges besides one person who does things. Every post has mentioned Gray. Is this about him... or about judging? No one's talking about OP Grader wages when Ely got the legend or OP ref wages when Xali made the legend. A part of me thinks this is just real salty.

Contests have very different structures and people can take very long to send their moves. While it is true that if everyone takes about 10 mins to send it will be over in 1.5 hours the fact of the matter is that I am still spending that time waiting on my coordinators. Most judges have been averaging 12k not 120k. To go four contests will eat up an entire day...a day that I could be doing homework, working, being productive. To constantly be shat upon by refs really annoys me.

Judging for legends is real work and it is high time that we get that respect. (and I have passed 1/2 way to legend today)


As a note on pay: I still like the plat rate. We still lose out on Hypers and Masters and win on Normals. Now that the contest section is alive and well, pretty much 70% of my requests are for the upper ranks rather than the lower. I have judged very few normal ranks in comparison since the Carnival Started. Normals take about the same time and effort as Masters to judge so therefore their pay should stay the same. For battles it makes sense to vary the scale based on number of pokemon, but since that is fixed in a contest, it doesn't matter. Reducing the pay for normals would just discourage them which they're already not in favor. People groan if they have to do normal rank contests...mostly because everyone pretty much has their favorite mons stuffed with their normal rank ribbons.

Personally I'd like to have the option to choose between CC and $ for pay, but I know that isn't a popular idea.

EDIT: I'm not sure what it is wrong with URPG but I think some aspects of Judge Pay are completely undervalued such as Festivals because the effort >>>>>>>>>>>>>> pay and the contestants usually donate parts of their winning anyways since the pay increments are stuck in 250s (or 125s for tying). I think we should be having a meaningful discussion on improving festival pay. It has been brought up in discord on many occasions even from head judges that festival pay is crap. I can write a whole separate post just talking about what needs to be fixed!!

1)The turn limit - the current rule that # of players = # turns

Horribly broken. that means the judge would have to sort x^2 number of sends. For instance weir's mega destival with 16 people that's 256 sends. By round 10 people were dropping like flies.

That's why I thought of a different rule:

1) # of sends = # of coordindators up to 8, for every additional coordindator up past 8, divide by four and round down. That way a contest with 12 people would be 9 turns and a contest with 16, 10 turns.

2) have base pay start $1000+500CC for the last three people. Increase by 250cc and 500$ after each (sort of like an FFA scale) --this is an idea and can be refined.

 

Now, I am a little late to this conversation because I wanted to do a few contests (not that many yet, albeit, but I do plan to do more and maybe my argument will change), but I'm gonna just toss in my thoughts on this.

To start off with, I am going to say right away that at the very least, I'm mixed on the subject on whether its the wages that judges earn or if it's just how everything has come to be over the last few months with the pick-up in activity. Contests previous to that were basically a dead section, with a contest being hosted every two weeks to a month at best. Nowadays, contests are judged every single day, and with the current event, we're easily putting out way more contests than we are putting out battles. People are able to send faster as they have now gotten more used to understanding what moves can help them win, something which in the past could take fifteen to twenty minutes or longer on average (from what I experienced). This has put them in much more of a spotlight than before, and with that in mind, it gives us more ways to look at this.

Firstly, I'm not going to count Xali or Gray in this. They are both total outliers who have the ability to grind out something since they're willing to dedicate as much time that was needed to getting this legend. Morru pointed out that Xali could have gone for a reffing legend in the same time as Gray, which I can agree on, but the way they are able to do this is completely to themselves and anyone else with the ability to do that. This was done well on their parts, and I don't want to include them in this argument.

As of right now, you can compare any contest to a 6v6 in terms of payment and going to Legend Tracker. So, looking at it from this perspective, they're exactly the same. However, both are super dependant on your battlers and coordinators. With the right battlers, a 6v6 can only take an hour and a half, and so can a contest. But, it can take longer if you have battlers who take a little bit longer to send, or a coordinator. This is completely fair, and both sides have these issues come up here and there. Its to be expected. However, I think my issue is the amount of effort per say that you have to put in. In a contest, you have five rounds and four sends. That's twenty sends. In ten turns of a 6v6, that's the same amount you will have reffed by then. Unlike a contest though, there's a very low chance the battle will be over by then. And that's where I see the biggest separation.

No matter if the battlers are sending at a consistent speed, due to how Pokemon works, there's a much higher chance that reffing a battle will take longer than judging a contest on average. This doesn't always hold true, as contests has some complex mechanics that'll make judging it take a little longer which to me can be worse than battles, but ultimately, this leads to a lower average time spent. This way to view it is why I've been lost on the issue as a whole.

I want to say judge wages should be lowered because, ultimately, they should in general take less work and time, but they suffer from the same thing that battles face; people will take time to send, and that's just how it works. If anything, I'd just like to see it decrease in terms of what's added to the legend tracker, or as added multiple times before, $3,000 per contest divided into whatever you want in terms of money and CC. But, there's something I want to bring up quick before I jump to any specific answers.

Can we increase the payout of festivals? I'm pretty sure this is being talked about, or will be, but it needs to be done. There's far greater amount of money given to the ref of an FFA, and judges definitely get the short end of the stick on this by far to me. I want to see more incentive to judge a festival, and for the people who have (looking at you Gray), they deserve more than what they're getting for it.

Sorry if you think I'm picking on your post, you're the only person that I can really reply to at this time. You also mentioned stuff about festival pay which I'll go over some time when I'm not near passing out. I'm also cutting out the stuff I don't feel the need to reply to.

At the first part, most people are focusing on Gray because, not only is this about judge pay, its about the fact that he probably set a record in getting this legend in a total of 3 months. This is very surprising to most people, and its understandable on why it would be. Xali grinded, yes, but it still took him a little over half a year with taking every battle because it was easy and, in no offense to other refs, there was barely anyone else who would take it at that time. Ely had progress stacking up for around a year, but her amazing grades in a month period was what pushed her up for a job that probably underpays.

The fact of the matter is that, they do have a different structure than battling. But refs have to wait too, its the job of both people in the role, so to say that we don't feels a bit off. I understand being upset about being joked with and maybe even getting insulted by some over judging, but the comment just seems overall passive aggressive. While you can argue refs can do the same, you can always do work while waiting for sends. I sometimes have trouble doing it, but you limiting your own productivity is up to you, not to your coordinator. If you want to spend a day being productive on something that's not URPG, do that, and maybe you'll clear up time for URPG activity.

Getting legends in general is work.

On the pay rate, I really feel like this is a case basis with you, and not the section. I don't see why people should "groan" when they have to do normals, not all of us coordinate all the time and have normal ribbons. Hell, you can say I'm "active" in the contest section from an outside perspective, but I have 6 normal ribbons, and one super. This leaves me in an awkward position by that logic, because since I don't have the ribbons required on all of my Pokemon to do what I want, it makes me feel like I should be excluded. But yes, I agree, pay should not be lowered or increased based on the tier of the ribbon. Unlike battles, there's always going to be the same amount of Pokemon and sends in a contest, and there's hardly a difference between Normal and Master besides strategy used, and even then, sometimes people will take longer to send in a normal than a master.

I'll reply to more later on down the line when it comes to it. But, tl;dr, wages may need to be changed but its super subjective and I'm not entirely sure on my answer yet. My only main thought is that there needs to be more of an understanding between both sides, and to decide that if these circumstantial differences mean as much as I think.

 

Just wanted to see if we could take this conversation somewhere closer to a real conclusion. (counting the topic of Festivals as, for now, a separate thing)

I still lean towards thinking a wage reduction is the ideal thing, mostly for the sake of the Judging legend tracker. I don't think it's necessary anymore, because of some of the points made in this thread, so in my mind I see it this way: would Judges prefer $3,000 per contest, split into currency however they like, over the current system? Some Judges seem to end up with more CC than they know what to do with, so maybe this works best for everyone.

If y'all like the current system more though, it doesn't seem like anyone's going to die on a hill to make a change. Things as they are, also seem reasonable?

Last thing: this was never about taking out the legs of a section that's finally healthy. It's awesome that it is, and it's pretty damn wild that somebody proactively sought out contests every day to cop a three-month legend. Nobody's trying to say that the section has gotten too successful, or that Judges don't put the work in. Those things aren't worth talking about. The conversation is just about making sure that the money is equal/reasonable enough and that the numbers check out, as much as that's possible. It's kind of become one of those things that everyone's tired of talking about, but I think it was healthy to have talked about. So no, damnit, I'm not salty.