Mogolympics Freestyle Results
Druid wouldn’t disclose the location for the Freestyle Event, she wanted to surprise me. I was getting a little worried as it looked like Gadgetstan at first, and really, you can’t have all those well-dressed people competing in the Thunderdome. We continued on, it looked like it might be Thousand Needles, kind of like a cruise event … have drinks with umbrellas on the deck while we … nope.
Finally we arrived and I admit it’s a pretty good place for a competition like this. Once again, this was a hard fought event. All the entrants were impressive, congratulations to all of you who made the Mogolympics so enjoyable to view!
Representing The Defilers, the Gold Medalist
The Silver Medal went to Silver Covenant!
The Bronze Medal went to the representative from The Earthen Ring
A very big round of applause for all the competitors!
Tome of the Ancient 
August 31, 2012 at 5:31 pm
Congrats to the winners! 🙂
August 31, 2012 at 6:14 pm
They sure deserve it, it was a grueling test of transmogative powers!
August 31, 2012 at 5:35 pm
As always, well done and congrats to the winners!
August 31, 2012 at 6:15 pm
I can’t believe how they kept it up through nine rounds of awesome!
August 31, 2012 at 5:40 pm
*making notes for some new outfits*
August 31, 2012 at 6:12 pm
Lol! I was going to say in the post congratulations and I’m stealing your ideas but I thought that wouldn’t sound very judgely!
August 31, 2012 at 5:44 pm
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August 31, 2012 at 6:03 pm
Woot! Grats to everyone!
August 31, 2012 at 6:16 pm
These guys are smoking! Each round even harder!
August 31, 2012 at 6:25 pm
Dear Judges:
In general you seem to be very fond of a certain silhouette. Robes, an A line skirt, and angular shoulders.
In many of these events, not just this one.
Kinda disappointed that of all the choices this is what you chose for freestyle winners.
It’s HARD to be a judge, but please think outside the box. Many moggers did, so please keep that in mind.
PS, Not sour grapes – I have a medal.
August 31, 2012 at 6:40 pm
Yes, we’re all prone to unintentional bias as much as we try to guard against it. But in most cases I think rarely did each judge pick the same top three. Every round’s winners were a surprise for us. Unfortunately in contests it’s always hard not to disappoint someone.
August 31, 2012 at 9:11 pm
This competition is meant to be fun and the judges are going to vote on who they think did the best job based around the criteria for the competition. Not everyone will agree with the results and some people will likely be disappointed.
For me the main thing is just to have fun and appreciate all the hard work people have put into this. I myself went into this with no expectation of really winning anything with the number of people competing, but I did enjoy putting those mogs together and the challenge presented by the competition.
September 1, 2012 at 7:07 am
Thank you Ishtla, if there was one you’d get this judge’s spirit of the competition award!
August 31, 2012 at 6:49 pm
Well, there are four of us, and we each have very different tastes in transmog, so it’s really rare that we all converge on the same outfits as our top picks. The winners are the outfits that have the top total score, so obviously we all liked them and scored them pretty highly. But most of the time my top picks don’t make the medals at all. It often happens that an outfit I score very highly will get really low scores from another judge (or vice versa) which averages out to a score in the middle somewhere. The medalists in this Freestyle round really surprised me, for instance. Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but I personally had 10 outfits ranked higher than the gold medalist here.
August 31, 2012 at 8:02 pm
Fascinating.
It seems like that “certain silhouette” keeps coming out on top because the things that are more daring are either very well liked or very much disliked by the individual judges; thus, an agglomeration of more moderate scores from all the judges propels the medalists to the top.
Is that a reasonable assessment of how the numbers are shaking out?
And once again, well done, everyone! Many of these outfits had a real sense of character about them, although (speaking soley as a spectator) I would have liked to see more labels indicating just what each proposed NPC is/does.
September 1, 2012 at 7:19 am
I’d say in some of the rounds I’m guessing that’s a pretty fair assessment. If memory serves, I don’t remember any of my 10s winning the gold. But then I probably skew everything by scoring a multitude of 10s!
The judges did have the descriptions for each entrant for those who included them and they did, at least for me, influence my scoring. Sorry I didn’t include them, I couldn’t decide between getting it up quickly or taking another day or two and quick won out.
August 31, 2012 at 9:25 pm
I think that’s certainly the case with some of the outfits, Kamalia. There have been a few outfits where clearly the judges agreed with each other, but on other ones we’ve had wildly divergent opinions.
August 31, 2012 at 8:12 pm
I just want to jump in and add my say in this. I’ve been a judge at mogging events too and I hear this constantly. People are naturally good at finding patterns, even when there are none.
As both Tome and Khizzara says, for this theory to be true, each of the four judges would have to have the exact same bias, which I believe is highly unlikely. Also as far as I know, they vote privately, which makes it even less likely that some pattern should arise.
With mog competitions, it’s natural to disagree with some of the winners, because well… people have different tastes, yet I find your comment disrespectful to the people who have put a lot of work into setting this whole thing up in the first place.
August 31, 2012 at 9:36 pm
We do indeed vote privately. Each of us scores the outfits without consulting the other judges and then emails our scores to JD. JD totals the scores and sends the results to the person hosting the event. We don’t find out who won until the hosting judge posts the round. The host doesn’t even know how the other judges scored because all identifying info is removed from the scores too. So JD is the only one who knows for sure which judge liked what.
I’ve also tried to be aware of my biases and not judge outfits too harshly when they don’t fit my own sense of style. There are certain outfits that I scored quite highly even though I wouldn’t dress one of my own characters that way. But ultimately fashion is subjective, and I have to vote for what I like. That doesn’t mean that what I like is what everyone should like!
Oh, also, I don’t find the original commenter’s post disrespectful per se… I had several criticisms of Mog Madness too when I was a contestant in that, and I have a few suggestions for future contests based on my experiences here at the Mogolympics too. Nothing is ever perfect, and there’s always room for improvement. I don’t mind feedback, and I’m pretty sure the other judges don’t mind ether.
September 1, 2012 at 12:25 am
I mean no disrespect at all. My tone is appreciative yet also one that wanted to bring something to judges’ attention. Believe me – I chose my words carefully to ensure the judges know their work and volunteered time is valued. Thank you
September 1, 2012 at 6:48 am
This is the part that I found had attitude in it:
“[…] but please think outside the box. Many moggers did, so please keep that in mind.”
I’m not a judge in Mogolympics so this comment is not even directed at me, but this is not helpful feedback, it’s just a complaint that you can never avoid anyways no matter what you do.
September 1, 2012 at 7:40 am
Just wanted to say thank you for the support Ironyca, it especially means a lot coming from you. I know you know all the worry of trying to be fair and not letting your biases sneak in!
September 1, 2012 at 7:42 am
Case in point. There was a previous event where both myself and Tome EACH gave an outfit a perfect 10. It didn’t even place in the top five.
September 1, 2012 at 7:45 am
LOL! We must be way outside that box JD! Someone should stuff us back in!
September 1, 2012 at 7:48 am
I think to even create this event in the first place was WAY OUTSIDE THE BOX.
LOL
September 1, 2012 at 7:46 am
I realize this is a general observation, and I do appreciate it. Whether directly or indirectly, that might be happening. I cannot speak for how others vote, only myself. And let me say right now, it’s been rare that more than one of my top 5 in any event won a medal.
Having said that, I think people appreciate your comments here but as Ironyca pointed out it was the “think outside the box” remark that comes across as a slight allegation and being anonymous does nothing to improve that perception.
Again, I’m not attacking you. I have always appreciate constructive criticism and this is no different. I was just trying to explain why responses might be the way they are. 🙂
September 1, 2012 at 9:13 am
It’s interesting to note the collective “you” here – I can tell you not a single one of us conferred with another on choices, which is really interesting in itself: if you spotted a trend, it was purely accidental, and the three of us are very different people. Some of my choices “won” and some didn’t – from what I saw of a few final numbers, the difference was by decimal points. It’s also interested to note when we did unconciously choose what ended up on the podiums. I’m still squarely in the school of “everyone gets a gold star” and “A for effort!” 🙂
August 31, 2012 at 7:10 pm
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August 31, 2012 at 11:31 pm
Once again, congrats to all the winners! I agree with Kam above, the label for the fortune teller was a nice touch and may have helped with some of the others, perhaps even mine. It’s true that the judging is subjective but that’s also why we have 4 judges too. I would be interested to see JD’s follow up post as he’s the one who can let us in on some of the back story, scoring, etc.
Look forward to seeing the last set of results whenever that may be…
September 1, 2012 at 7:27 am
I should have taken the time and put a label on the entrant’s that included them in writing but not on their screen shot. At least I’ll remember if I ever judge another event. For now, I’ll just sit back and anxiously await the Equestrian Event Results!
September 1, 2012 at 7:50 am
In all honesty, I gave the judges any notes that were sent in with Freestyle because I wanted all of us to know what the person was trying to achieve. Sometimes it’s obvious, and sometimes if you leave me to guess I might come up with “Marching Band Flute Player” when you’re clearly a Felboar Hunter. lol
September 1, 2012 at 12:10 am
So many interesting outfits! The only problem for me is that in many cases I can’t figure out what role each of them shows. I’m sure there are great stories hidden in the participants’ comments to these outfits. Is there any chance to see them?
September 1, 2012 at 7:30 am
Sorry I didn’t label those who included descriptions, I now see the error of my ways, lol. If I get time this weekend I’d be happy to do a post WITH descriptions for this event.
September 1, 2012 at 7:51 am
Don’t worry about it Tome. It’s already taken care of (and for now folks will just have to take my word for it).
September 1, 2012 at 7:52 am
Oh great JD, thank you!
September 1, 2012 at 1:46 am
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September 1, 2012 at 9:32 am
I’m severely in love with the gold medal winner. Grats to all the medalists!
And thank you once again for all the hard work the judges are doing. It seemed pretty clear to me from a few events how the scoring worked, and that there wasn’t any conferring that lead to the winners being who they were. I’m delighted to have won a medal given the fierce competition (still keeping my fingers crossed for my Equestrian outfit, heh).
September 1, 2012 at 9:40 am
Isn’t she lovely! And I thank all the competitors who have made this such a wonderful event. Even though I’ve seen the outfits I still get excited waiting to see the next round and grats on your medal!
September 1, 2012 at 5:14 pm
Oops did I not reply? Grats winners and thanks to all the judge’s for All their time and to JD for the awesome community event!
September 1, 2012 at 7:45 pm
Thank you Navi! And everyone else who showed us their beautiful outfits!
September 5, 2012 at 2:49 pm
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