2025 Review Contest Results

The 2025 review contest has come to a close, and we have some winners!

The goal of this contest was to encourage judges to help each other improve. Feedback is one of the best parts of judging. Taking the time to write up some thoughts for a fellow judge shows them you care about their future development and want them to be successful. It’s also an essential skill that carries over to other jobs and relationships. Every time any of us get the opportunity to work together, we should be looking for a chance to write a review, hone our feedback-writing skills, and to grow our community.

The first task the review committee had to set on was deciding on a word count for qualifying reviews. After some good discussion, we ended up settling on a minimum word count of one hundred words. The goal was to include as many actionable and constructive reviews as we could, while including as few “fluff” reviews as possible.

Of course, as with any line set for a standard, we knew this would miss some. It’s possible to write a great, meaningful review with less than one hundred words and it’s possible to write more than a hundred words without giving any concrete help to the recipient. But we felt setting the line at one hundred words would let us get most reviews that had some real time and effort put into them, without being so high, it frightened off anyone from writing more reviews in the future.

By raw count, the USA – Great Lakes region had a substantial lead, with 56 reviews in the year. USA – Southeast came in next at 35, and the USA Northeast was next, with 33. These three regions finishing on top was to be expected, as they also have the three largest judge populations.

However, this contest was not about raw counts. This contest was always going to look at the number of reviews written per judge. When the numbers were crunched, the region with the most reviews written per capita was … (drumroll, please) … Canada – Western Provinces!

The Canada – Western Provinces region wrote 0.75 reviews per judge in 2025. USA – South Central was not far behind with 0.7, and the USA – Great Lakes region rounded out the podium with 0.63 reviews per judge.

Congrats to the Canada – Western Provinces. The Regional Advocate, Chris Hrichishen, will be given $500 to do something cool for the judges of the area. We look forward to seeing his ideas put into action!

When I had the idea for this contest and submitted the idea to the grant committee, I was excited. I wouldn’t have asked for the funds to do this cool project for judges and volunteered to run it if I didn’t believe in reviews. I suppose, then, it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to anyone that I wrote a lot of reviews in 2025. I’m not going to win my own contest.

After disqualifying myself, there was a four-way tie for fourth place, with Khailyn Schaefer, Ryan Sears, James Skoog, and Tobias Vyseri each submitting eight reviews in the year. Noah Rabin came in third with nine reviews, and Sam Philliber got the silver medal with ten. At the top of the standings, with eleven reviews submitted in 2025, the most review-writingest judge of the year … Joe Steet!

If you talk to a judge whose back hurts, they may remember that this is not the first review-writing contest Joe has won. Some years ago, two regions had a head-to-head challenge in review writing, and Joe didn’t just carry his region to victory – he wrote more than either region! What can you say, the man loves feedback.

Congrats to Joe Steet and the rest of the individual winners. Joe has won $100 in the Judge Foundry store and a unique hoodie, Sam has won a $50 gift certificate, and Noah, Ryan, and James all won $25 (Khailyn and Tobias, as sitting Board Members, are not claiming any winnings from this contest).

The last category for the review contest was the individual–quality prize. While writing lots of reviews is great, we wanted everyone to feel they could win a prize in this contest even if they only judged a few events a year. The individual–quantity portion was for the event grinders, the individual–quality could be won by anyone.

For this portion of the contest, we set up a Google form where judges could nominate reviews. After getting the thumbs up from both the review writer and recipient (and giving both the opportunity to redact anything they wanted to), the committee gave them a read.

Trying to determine the best review of the year was largely based on vibes. We didn’t have concrete criteria along the lines of “plus two points for a concrete example” and the like; we trusted that we’d know it when we saw it.

The result was unanimous. Congratulations to the writer of the review of the year … (drumroll, please) … Ryan Sears!

Ryan penned a 1315-word tome for a fellow judge that had it all. He touched on both Competitive REL and Regular REL, both strengths and areas for improvement, some good specific points, and a guide for future growth. 

One thing I particularly appreciated: it didn’t shy away from saying what the areas for improvement were. At one point it says, “The skills worth honing that stood out to me this weekend are Policy Philosophy and best practices with Judge calls,” and in another spot it recounts a discussion and the recipient’s initial position, and doesn’t mince words, saying simply “This is off.”

Despite that, however, there’s no doubt in reading the review that Ryan cares for the recipient and wants to help them grow. The review is sensitive to their feelings, contains actionable, concrete suggestions for growth, and ends on a positive note. A good review shouldn’t feel like an attack even when it is being critical; it should inspire the recipient to jump in the ring again. That can be a tough needle to thread but Ryan nailed it, and has won a gift card for the Judge Foundry store for $100.

Ryan’s writing wasn’t the only submission that needed recognition. We were also impressed by a review from Daniel Crabtree, whose specific and actionable feedback was the epitome of what we expect in a review. For this, he will receive a gift card for $50 in the Judge Foundry store.

I’m planning to ask the grant committee for funds to run another contest in 2026. If you have ideas on how this year’s contest could be improved, I’d love to hear them.

Huge thanks to the JudgeApps crew for building the tech side of things so we could make this contest happen, and to the other great judges who helped with organizing the data, pitching ideas, and doing everything else that needed doing on this project: Adam Blaylock, Jim Guggemos, and Khailyn Schaefer. 

Most importantly, thank you to everyone who gave another judge feedback in 2025. This community is what we make it, and it’s on all of us to help each other be the best we can be.