TL;DR: The judge program is changing, and JudgeApps is changing with it. We’ve implemented a “Roles” functionality to handle the new Certifications (like L2 Tester) and positions (like Program Coordinator). Roles will also signify notable members of the community, such as members of the Hall of Fame and WotC Staff. Finally, you can also use Roles to indicate whether you act as a Scorekeeper, Tournament Organizer, and/or Judge.

Winter is coming.

No, wait, wrong show.

I meant to say: change is coming.

As Toby announced earlier this week, we’ve overhauled the level system. To summarize: Instead of five levels, now we have three. Level 4 and Level 5 have been removed; their functions are being replaced by a system of Advanced Roles (Program Coordinators, Grand Prix Head Judges, and Regional Coordinators). Judges of various levels can also receive various Certifications that give them additional privileges.

To reflect this new (new) world order, I’m pleased to announce JudgeApps’ new roles system. A role is just some kind of responsibility, certification, or position within the judge program. Moreover, these roles are tracked independently of your judge level. Roles are valid filters for functions like the Judge Directory and the Judge Map:

Roles will also be displayed in other places around the site, notably the forums.

One job of the roles system is tracking a judge’s Certifications and Advanced Roles. The Regional Coordinator designation, for example, has been re-implemented as a Role. We’ve also added the Program Coordinators and Grand Prix Head Judges.

However, we’re also using the roles system to keep track of other cool things. An obvious use case was using roles to highlight members of Judge Hall of Fame, which was especially important to implement, now that Hall of Famers can also be active judges. WotC Staff has also been moved from being a pseudo-judge level to a role, which makes much more sense.

Finally, we’ve added three roles that relate to tournament functions: Scorekeeper, Tournament Organizer, and Judge. You can give yourself any or all of these roles at any time. The significance of these roles is ultimately going to be up to you, our community. Our intention is that you can use these roles to highlight your particular focus area at tournaments, or perhaps areas where you’re interested in learning more. This represents new ground for JudgeApps, and I’m excited to see where you all take this functionality. Whatever you decide, you can give yourself these roles (or not) on your JudgeApps settings page. New users will also be given the option to select any or all of these roles when they register.

And that’s the changes in a nutshell!

Huge thanks to Tom Kunc for writing the mammoth amount of code to make these updates a reality. Thanks as well to Alexei Gousev and Jernej Lipovec for leading the charge to test and review the features, and Alexei and James Bennett for deploy-day troubleshooting. Great accomplishments take a great team, and JudgeApps is lucky to have you!