(yes, the title is because it’s Fate Reforged weekend ^___^)

Good morning/evening to everybody,
the beginning of a new year is one of the moments when we make resolutions for the future, create plans, and set goals.
I’ve always believed in first creating plans and then acting; a proactive approach has always been to me more productive than a reactive approach.
Today, I would like to present to you the structure of the area that will be my focus for 2015: *Tournament Operations*


What are the main areas of the Magic Judge Program?
The several activities in the Magic Judge Program can be organized in a few different ways.
Here you have how I see the Judge Program is built:
1) Rules
2) Policy
3) Tournament Operations
4) Program (levels, tests, structure…)
5) Community (RCs, code of conduct, recognitions, communication…)
6) Education (articles, forums, conferences…)
7) Services (websites, technical support…)


What is “Tournament Operations” about?
The key activity of Magic judges is “judging tournaments”.
The goal of this section of the Judge Program is to assist judges in running tournaments as smooth as possible, logistically.
It’s about all the activities that happen around the playing tables; actually, some of the topics here are not necessarily about Magic, as this area may also apply to other types of games and, we hope, might also be useful for your other activities in you daily life.
Here you will find articles (“best practices”, mainly), links and documents that cover a very wide range, from the specific “How to perform a deck check” and “How to manage Fridays at a Grand Prix” to the general “Advice for surviving to jet lag” to “VIP services at GPs”.


What is “Tournament Operations” NOT about?
This section is not about the other two key aspects of running tournaments: Magic rules and Magic tournament policy. If you are looking for what we do to assist judges in rules and policy, please refer to the specific sections (http://blogs.magicjudges.org/telliott/ and http://blogs.magicjudges.org/rules-policies/ ).
Though we will marginally deal with aspects like online registration and VIP services at GPs, this section is not about the activities that happen between tournaments. If you are looking for the several activities of the Judge Program, here you have our portal, where you can find links to (almost) everything you may need (http://blogs.magicjudges.org/o/ ), and to our official Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/MagicJudges ).


How was the Tournament Operation area organized in the past?
Each major area of the Judge Program is overseen by a senior judge; “Tournament Operations” was overseen until 2014 by former L4 judge Jurgen Baert.
You can find all the *many* documents he created in the JudgeWiki (http://wiki.magicjudges.org/en/w/Tournament_Operations,_Professional_and_Competitive_%28Sphere%29 ).


How is the Tournament Operation area going to be organized in 2015?
The goal is to take the excellent material gathered by Jurgen and expand it, by having regular updates, add links, tools and useful statistics, and also add a more interactive feedback system with judges and tournament organizers; “Tournament Operations” will be overseen by Riccardo Tessitori, with the support of a “Directors committee”; if you have requests, or suggestions, or you want to join any of the activities, you can send a message to the directors committee (currently to riccardo.tessitori@gmail.com, soon to be a page in the JudgeBlogs).
There are a few major sections in this area:
- Articles (the content)
- Publishing (how the content is made available)
- Communication/Marketing (how the content is advertised)
- Forums and feedback (how users’ needs and information are taken into account)
Each section will have one or more supervisors and several people contributing.


How will the Articles section be organized and what can I find in it?
The article section has the goal to gather “all” (no, we don’t believe that it’s possible to list “all” the possible logistical elements of judging).
In the next message, you will find a list of ideas for articles; the plan is to initially look for people interested in collecting material about any of them and writing the main article, regularly publish and advertise them, and then maintain the main articles over time.
The current idea for each “article” is to have three types of resource:
• Core article: A main, long document with the “best practices” explained
• Summary: A short, one-page, printable summary for quick use
• Encyclopedia: A page with links to all articles/documents about the topic
Each “article” will have an owner (the person who coordinated the creation, who is in charge of updating it, and who will be the contact point for the topic), some contributors (the people who participated to the creation of the three types of resources) and, depending on the topic, editors+proofreaders+graphics…


What are the plans regarding Publishing?
The content is obviously fundamental but, if we want to make good use of it and “sell it”, we need to present it correctly.
The graphic aspect (colors, fonts, pictures, photos) will be fundamental.
The usability of the JudgeBlog will be fundamental too.


What has Marketing to do with Tournament Operations? And what has Communication in common with Tournament Operations?
You can have the best painting or sculpture of the world but, if you keep it in a box and nobody knows about it, it’s like it doesn’t exist.
Communication is vital.
The final goal of this area of the Judge Program is to assist judges in their daily activity during tournaments; this support is delivered by having worthy content made available to them; making it available to them means making them aware of the content, and making it as easy as possible to use it.


What’s the role of Forums and Feedback?
The communication is not unidirectional.
In addition to creating content and efficiently delivering it, it’s important to give continuous support to the “customers” and to receive feedback about our activities.


Are there other initiatives in this area that are not of public domain?
Yes, most of the areas of the judge program have activities “behind the scenes”, whose results or tools or documents aren’t public. This can be because of confidential information, or because the number of people who need to access that information is extremely limited.
Just to make you aware that other topics are being worked on, here you have a few of them:
- Head judging your first GP
- Template of tournament report
- GP logistics “certification”
- Pro Tour judge manager guidelines

Thanks for reading.
In a few days, I will send you another message, with a provisional list of topics that will be covered by this sphere and also a list of roles that you may want to volunteer for.
Happy 2015!

Riccardo

Hello to everybody,
it’s time to give you a few more details about the Tournament Operations sphere for 2015.


Current list of topics for articles (in random order, for now)
Here you have a very long list of topics that will be in this section; this list is not at all comprehensive, as the boundaries are only created by our imagination (for example, “First Aid” is one of the topics, and is surely very fringe); my goal here is to give you a quick, partial preview of what we are going to create.
IMPORTANT: you will read many topics relative to GPs, but it doesn’t mean that GPs are more important than other tournaments; actually, pPTQs and Trials and local tournaments will need to be expanded a lot, as they are the vast majority of sanctioned tournaments; GPs just happen to be the tournaments where I take more notes and therefore filled this list; the list is expected to grow month after month, with new ideas from anyone.
- The logistics team
- The deckcheck team
- The VIP team
- The floor team
- The paper team
- Judge clusters at big tournaments
- Sleep-in-special and preregistered pools
- How to manage a 8player draft with pen, paper and basic lands
- Splitting GPs
- Handling name and bye problems at GPs
- L3 appeal judges
- GP sponsorships: how they work and how to improve the chances of being selected
- Regional PTQs
- International tournaments: jetlag
- “Fast track” at GPs on Friday
- Friday at GPs: management
- Shifts at GPs
- International tournaments: the meaning of gestures in the different cultures
- The main stage at the GP
- Photos at GPs
- Twitter at GPs
- Travel guides
- What judges need from the tournament organizer (big / small tournaments)
- How to help the scorekeepers (big / small tournaments)
- VIP services at GPs
- The role of XO at GPs
- Sharing Top8 decklists (during and after the tournament)
- Cheating: what to observe
- First Aid
- Disqualifications
- Personalized decklists (mainly for GPs)
- Additional turns
- Running 8player pickup events at GP (day 0/1/2)
- Distributing consent forms and participation foils at GPs
- Preparing limited product at GPs (both sealed day 0 and day1 and draft day2)
- Team building methods
- How to fill out result entry slips
- Deck checks: the „Australian“ method
- Dealing with emergencies
- Mentoring opportunities
- How to integrate a judge test into your events (extra staff needs, when’s the best time, etc.)
- Staffing an event
- Online registrations
- Sealed deck in multiple languages
- Head judging your first trial/PTQ
- Template of tournament report (trial/PTQ)
- End of round procedure
- Extra time sheet
- Team meetings
- Effective team leading
- Language barriers
- How to count decklists
- How to run a tournament on paper
- Team sealed
Yes, my choice is to start developing this area from the few, huge tournaments, and then to scale the collected material to smaller tournaments.


Will articles be available in other languages?
Sure! We will select the most important articles, depending on the audience they are dedicated to, and we will translate as many as possible in multiple languages
More, as this is my personal passion, this area will also include material and advice to learn new languages and to interact with people from different cultures, so to improve the international experience and open the mind to new experiences.


What should I do, if I want to be part of this area?
This entire structure is under construction; most of the roles are at the moment unassigned, and I am looking for people interested in filling them.
If any of the following roles looks interesting to you, please send me a mail (riccardo.tessitori@gmail.com), and I will do my best to get back to all of you before the end of January.
If you have any idea about a section or a role that you believe should be included in the “Tournament Operations” area, please send me a mail (whether you want to be part of the activity or you just want to suggest others to do it).
Roles:
• Directors committee (up to five people)
• Articles supervisor (up to two people)
• Forum supervisor (up to two people)
• Publishing supervisor (up to two people)
• Editing and graphics (up to four people)
• Communication/Marketing supervisor (up to three people)
• Article main writer (one person per article)
• Article contributor (up to three people per article)
• Article editor/proofreader (any number)
• Article researchers (any number)
• Photographers (any number)
The expected workload for these roles varies from “a few hours, whenever you want” (article contributors and proofreaders) and even “just a few minutes to send a link to an interesting article” (article researchers) to “weekly or daily activity, depending on what you want to achieve” (supervisors and directors committee).

Riccardo