purple.alien.giraffe
Executive Chef
Goodweed of the North said:But I'm thinking that we might do away with competing against each other, but rather, have our entries rated on thier own strengths, maybe with critiques about what was great, and what was not so great. Each entry would be up for scrutiny by the DC community.
Whatcha think?
The main problem I see with this is that critiquing can be tricky to do tactfully, and to accept tactfully. It's very easy to hurt someone's feelings without meaning to, especially if the person feels some sort of accomplishment in what is being critiqued. And there is potential for hurt if some people seem to get consistantly good critiques and others seem to get consistantly good but could be better critiques. The lack of annonymity in the critiquing could potentially open up the idea that some people had "favorites". It might also scare participants away if they know the qualities of their food are going to get analyzed and picked apart. And it might scare some people away from critiquing because they don't want to accidentally hurt a friend's feelings.
With the voting system, a lot more people seem to comment on the entries than vote on them and the voting is annonymous. This means there is not as great a chance of there being any perceived favoritism for repeat contestants. It also means people can vote without fear of accidentally hurting a friend's feelings by not voting for them.
The other problem I see with it is that to give a proper critique of something it has to be tried. It's very difficult to imagine what something will taste like and what the strengths and weaknesses of a dish are based on just the recipe and a picture. Someone who wanted to critique multiple entries would need to make and try multiple entries. That could be difficult to do given financial and time restraints, and given the availability of required ingredients.
With the voting system, it was as much about the creativity of the food made as it was about how good the food was. It's easier to look at the entries and determine how well they fit the challenge, how creative they were and a generalization of how good they are than it is to give a breakdown of their qualities.
Those are my thoughts.
Longwindette out.