Everything I’m responding to in this blog is a response to 2 posts on this site: http://calliopeva.livejournal.com/
In hopes of clearing up some confusion on JoAnn’s part, I’ve decided to respond to a few more of her misguided & off the mark public statements.
“Until Round 3 of Spintunes 5, even though he had lost judges in the past, he had always been able to get someone else to fill in, and in fact from ST1 onward he usually had between 1-3 alternate judges doing reviews and scores just in case one of the main ones was unable to do what he had promised.”
I don’t go looking to get people to “fill in” when a judge fails to do their job. The alternate judges I get are typically planned ahead of time (before songs are even posted), and not last minute plug in’s. This fact puts a big fat hole in most of your conspiracy theories, but I’ll continue with a few other points that do the same as we go along.
“In ST5 Rd 3, he had no such back up plan, even though he knew that Hazen hadn't turned in anything. Well, he COULD have used Dave Leighs review of course- Dave had been a judge in the past, and had a review up for the better part of the week.”
There’s a few problems with your logic here. If for some reason I needed a last second replacement judge I wouldn’t go out and get someone that had already posted reviews. That gives me a bit too much power. Someone could easily say, well he used this or that review because he agreed with it. I don’t want to have my opinion matter much in the final outcome, and I’ve went out of my way to avoid that on a number of occasions.
"Travis usually/often had discussions with the judges after the listening party to see if there were any obvious DQ's,"
False. If I’m in a Google+ Hangout with someone that happens to be a judge, I’ll talk about it with them. Other than that, I usually just post in the forum about possible DQ’s. And not all judges are active in the forums. It’s very common for me to not hear from a judge until they turn in their reviews the night of the deadline. That’s another reason getting a last second replacement is not really practical, and exactly why I’m always an alternate judge. I try to get guest judges, but it’s not always easy to get people to guest judge. And get this...sometimes the guest judges flake on me as well. It’s happened more than once.
I wonder- did you talk to ANY of the other judges before the deadline for them to turn in their scores, Travis?
I messaged Hazen a couple times via e-mail to see if he would be able to get them done. I don’t remember the exact wording, but it was basically a “probably not” answer. I gave him as long as I possibly could before I had to post the results. Did I talk to the others? I only discussed a few things in the forum. I didn’t nag them daily for reviews. They signed up to judge, they’re adults, but sometimes life happens & things take priority over judging a free songwriting contest. That is, unless your name is JoAnn Abbott. In that case the songwriting contest takes #1 priority & harping about things that don’t go your way becomes your damn life as you hunt for people to blame & clues to back up your cockamamie theories.
"Hmmm…for ST3 Rd 2, you had three alternate judges lined up- why didn’t you have any for S5R3?"
It’s a free songwriting contest. There’s no BIG GRAND PRIZE, the judges don’t get paid, and it’s a time consuming task that takes effort. It’s not always easy to get people to agree to guest judge & I don’t ask just anyone to do it. This time around the people I asked just weren’t available for that round. Guest judges are never promised anyways. I even think that’s somewhere in the rules. Let’s take a look:
“* There could be "Guest Judges" who drop by from time to time. A guest judge has to be approved by me ahead of time. I'm not promising anything, but if I can swing something cool for you all I want to leave that open as a possibility.”
“There will be 1 or 2 guest judges each round if I can swing it. No promises though.”
Yep...right there in the rules...imagine that.
Now...onto the topic of you joining the SpinTunes Facebook group after I banned you from it.
I banned you from everything SpinTunes. Competing, shadowing, commenting on the blog, the official SpinTunes Facebook group....hell I even blocked you on Twitter. I told you how long your banning would be, and I never came to you & told you that I would unban you early. So yeah, when I saw that you had been added back into the group by someone else I kicked you out again. I have no issues with Caleb, I assume he didn’t know I still wanted you out. The annoying part is this...you knew you weren’t supposed to be there. And instead of removing yourself from the group or asking me if it was ok to rejoin, you just posted a new topic. You even quoted me in your blog post...you know...the line where I specifically said I didn’t want you there.
My first instinct is to just extend the banning another contest or make it permanent. I’ll stick to what I originally said though. I’ll wait until after the next contest then chat with you before making a final decision. Crap like this that insinuates that I could have intentionally arranged your departure isn’t helping your case. Even the 2 times I’ve ran into you at JoeCast’s you totally ignore me, so when it’s time for our meeting I can’t wait to hear why I should let you back into SpinTunes. *roar*
"Not like I am ever going to compete in another ST Challenge after all. No way am I going to try to win a rigged game like that."
Ok.
