Re: Judge snafus?

> Quick question, does the judge ever actually screw up orders, or is it
> always the human that messes up?  In a game I am playing one of the
players
> is claiming that the Judge screwed up his orders, and I want to know how
> possible this is.

I've never seen this. I assume you mean that the judge gives a unit a
different order than the player sent, and not an adjudication issue. The
exception here is that the judge will *always* interpret:

fleet por-spa as fleet por-spa/nc
mao-spa as mao-spa/nc
[anything] s fleet por-spa as [anything] s fleet por-spa/nc
[anything] s mao-spa as [anything] s mao-spa/nc
fleet con-bul as fleet con-bul/ec
[anything] s fleet con-bul as [anything] s fleet con-bul/ec

Those are the only orders where the judge will "change" from what the player
sent. It seems to me that the type of thing that may have happened to the
player is that he sent in multiple order versions for the phase and there
were delays that caused the orders to be processed by the judge out of
order, or emails not received by the judge at all, or confirmations not
received by the player. I've found in the last year that confirmations from
judges on order sets are routinely delayed much longer than previously. In
the past, I could get a confirmation within a few seconds of sending... it
was that fast. Now, it is sometimes several minutes. And that is when my own
ISP and the judge's communications and load are in good shape. I suspect it
may be new spam and virus filters delaying things at many points.

At any rate, a player should always be cautious if he does not get timely
confirmations on his orders. This is not a big problem if he is not revising
orders. In that case, one of three (more?) things is happening:
1) the judge is down, the orders will be processed when the judge comes back
up,
2) the judge's email reception is down/degraded, the player might go late
depending on how/when the problem is fixed, and whether the player decides
to resend the same orders as he has not received a confirmation,
3) the judge got the email, and interpreted the orders, but the player did
not get a confirmation through an email fault... the player might see
results without getting a confirmation.

If I don't get a confirmation from the judge on a single order set, I go
back to my "sent" folder and scrutinize the orders I did send, and double
check the expected judge interpretation to make sure all is well if the
judge does process the order set ultimately. This is a good time to remember
spain and bulgaria... and to double check slips of the mind on places like
ven/vie and bur/ber.

Things get much more complicated if one sends in an order set that is not
confirmed, and then sees or decides that the orders submitted should be
changed. Without the confirmations, the initial undesired order sets are
potentially dynamite. In this case, the player should decide on his final
orders, make sure they are perfect, and include a password change with the
orders. If the final orders are confirmed by the judge, the player is in the
clear. If and when the judge ever processes the initial undesired order
sets, they will be ignored because of an incorrect signon. This is a great
trick to use when the situation comes up. I read about it on r.g.d. some
time ago (I think it was Rod Spade who posted it, but I'm am not sure).

However, if the final order set with password change is not confirmed by the
judge and there are one or more order versions issued by the player on the
phase (confirmed or not), then the player still potentially has his problem.
A good next step is to check to see if the judge is down (the openings list
at the DipPouch is a good way to check). The judge may be marked there as
down or the player can see if the last response the judge made to the
DipPouch was old compared to the other responses from other judges. If the
judge looks OK (though it may not be), a good next step for the player is to
sign on to a freemail account and send a message to himself at his regular
game email, to help determine whether the problem is on the incoming email
end of things. Also, sending an email from the regular game email to the
freemail account, can help determine whether the problem is on the outgoing
mail delivery. If all looks well with the player's email behavior, the only
other thing to do is to mail the GM and inform him of the intended final
orders as a protective measure. This message should be sent directly to the
GM and not through the press command (since the judge could be down), and it
should ask the GM to confirm receipt. It may also be a good idea to send
order intentions to one or more other neutral (and trusted) parties,
particularly if the GM is known to have low quality email service. This way
if the judge does not get all mails or processes them out of order, a good
case can be made for rolling back the turn and adjudicating with the desired
order set.

Finally, mulitple order sets can cause a problem in a subsequent phase and
the player should be aware of this if timely confirmations are not received.
In particular, if the judge processes an order set, and issues results, and
then processes another order set that was meant for the just processed phase
but delayed somehow, the judge may establish an undesired order for the next
phase. This could be for a retreat phase (if the order for the dislodged
unit was different in the order sets) or for the next movement phase (if
none of the players units moved on the just completed phase).

In summary, the judge confirmations are key. If they do not arrive in timely
fashion, the player should take steps to protect his interests and not be
"victimized". If there are known or recent problems in getting confirmations
from a judge, the player could anticipate the potential conflicts ahead of
time:

1) double check orders before they are sent,
2) plan on sending only one version of orders for a phase whenever possible,
3) send a "set wait", planning to remove the wait when orders are confirmed
and reviewed.

Steve