RE: Decadence
iris@hort.net
  • Subject: RE: Decadence
  • From: &* W* <i*@telp.com>
  • Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 19:36:19 -0700
> So, I'll go back to my previous question, why does any iris with obvious
> problems climb the award ladder? 

Hi Dana. It's long been my opinion that the single greatest problem with 
the awards system is that it simply *counts* the number of judges who vote 
for an iris, rather than capturing the average assessment of all judges who 
are familiar with the iris. Suppose an iris is evaluated by 100 judges in 
different regions, all of whom are impressed enough to vote for it. Now 
suppose another iris is evaluated by 500 judges around the country, and for 
400 of them it does not do well at all. But for the remaining 100 (who 
perhaps live in the similar climate conditions), it is impressive enough to 
vote for. These are two very different things, but the two irises will both 
receive 100 votes and be treated the same by the awards system. Irises bred 
by popular hybridizers have a big advantage, and not just because of 
"politics", but because the irises from popular hybridizers are grown by 
more people, and an iris grown by a large number will get more votes than 
an iris grown by only a few, even if just a fraction of those growing it 
actually rate it highly.

I would prefer a system where judges rated each iris on a scale (1 to 5, 
say), and awards given to irises with the highest average rating from the 
judges who actually evaluated that iris. This would address so many 
problems, and it could be easily tweaked to achieve other worthy goals, 
such as requiring a high average rating from judges in different climate 
areas.


Tom Waters   

Telperion Oasis ~ www.telp.com/irises    

Cuyamungue, New Mexico, USA (zone 5/6)  

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