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How to read and score show proposals

For anybody on a venue’s proposal panel: what you can see, how scoring works, and why you cannot see the average yet.

  1. If you are on a venue’s proposal panel, its proposals page — linked from the venue — is your pile. It lists what has been sent to that venue, oldest first, with what each one scored and how many people have finished reading it.
  2. You will not see proposals that are still being written, or that one exists. A half-written pitch is unfair to read and useless to score, so it is not on your list at all.
  3. Open one and the scoring box is at the top, above the proposal: a box per line of the venue’s rubric, 0 to 100, and a comment underneath. The rubric’s weights are shown beside each line, so you can see which ones carry the proposal.
  4. The comment is for the panel and the gallery. The proposer never sees it, and neither does another juror — so write what you actually think, including the part that is hard to put a number on.
  5. “Save for now” keeps what you have typed without counting it. “Done with this one” is what makes it count towards the average. Scoring a pile takes an evening and gets interrupted, and a half-finished score folded into an average is worse than no score at all.
  6. You can take a reading back and change it while the pile is still open — “Take it back” on one you have finished.
  7. You will not see what the panel thinks of a proposal until you have finished your own reading of it. That is not secrecy: a number on the screen before you have formed your own is the number you drift towards, and a panel that drifts is one voice wearing five hats. Finish yours and the average appears.
  8. Finishing one takes you straight to the next unread. A pile is read in a sitting, and going back to a list between each is how an evening becomes two.
  9. There is a count at the top of the pile saying how far through you are, and a link to the next one you have not read, so you can stop and come back.
  10. “The pile as a PDF” gives you the whole thing on paper, one proposal to a page with its pictures, which is how most people actually read a pile. It shows exactly what you can see on the site — no drafts, and no scores you have not earned the right to see yet.
  11. You do not decide anything. The panel scores; the gallery accepts or declines, and writes to the proposer. You will not be asked to sign anything or to tell anybody the answer.