Alright, for an IRV, we first tally the votes for the #1 spot

ApochPiQ: 3
DrewGreen: 1
xaver: 1

if no candidate has >50% of the vote, then the weakest candidate is elliminated. However, ApochPiQ has 3 out of 5 votes, which is 60%. ApochPiQ takes the first spot. We now discard all votes for ApochPiQ for any position.

Next, we perform another IRV for 2nd place. This one is easy:

DrewGreen: 4
ApochPiQ: 1

DrewGreen has 100% of the second place vote. It's not 80% because we discard the votes for ApochPiQ.

Finally, we perform an IRV for 3rd place, after discarding DrewGreen's votes:

d000hg: 5
xaver: 1

apparently someone chose a tie, essentially voting twice, but it doesn't matter, d000hg obviously has the majority of vote for 3rd place.

Quote: Original post by d000hg
An interesting method. For future use you might want to clearly explain the judging method in the contest rules, because different methods would switch the 1st/2nd places round (ie ApochPiQ has 10 points in total wheras DrewGreen has only 9).

Nothing wrong with IRV - but mention it in the rules...

Woohoo I get a prize: but how do I 'collect it'?
Thanks capn by the way, and all the judges too.

And congratulations to the 2 winners - I certainly reckon you are the best and both are pretty fun.

the method you describe is extremely prone to explotation. An example:
Given 100 candidates and 10 judges
all judges vote for candidate B as #2 (20 points)
all but one judge votes for candidate A as #1 (9 points), and one votes for A as 100 (109 points).

90% of the judges believe that candidate A should win and 100% of judges believe candidate B should be in second place, but by the "points" candidate B wins.

Quite frankly, I don't care if the contestants know the judging system or not. They can know what the important elements are (originallity over graphics, etc), but how the judge's decisions are combined is something I don't think they really need to know.

Quote: Original post by d000hg
Fair enough. It wouldn't help you make your entry better but just saying in the rules "IRV will be used" would avoid any issues wheere you could potentially be accused of choosing a scoring system to disciminate for/against particular entries.

see, if the contestants have no clue what the judging criteria is, then they can't complain about the judging, which is exactly the point. I described the judging system more than I have described it in the past and I got more complaints about the judging system then before.

I don't mean to be short with YOU personally. It's just that people that complain about judging should just GTFO. When I competed in martial arts tournaments, people would always complain about the judging and it really pissed me off, especially when I would tell my students "judges have the final word, don't argue with them." They would still argue with the judges and then wonder why they couldn't win at their next 3 tournaments. It pisses the judges off to be accused of bias and they remembered it. If you argue with judges, you aren't being a good sport and good sportmanship should be considered in any contest.

Judging isn't an exact science, and trying to "standardize" the process is an oxymoron.