Thread: What about a honing contest?

How about entry fees to just cover costs. winner gets their name on the perpetual trophy and gets to hold it for a year. Or no physical trophy at all and instead a line under their avatar "2009 Honing Champion"?

Originally Posted by Quick

How about entry fees to just cover costs. winner gets their name on the perpetual trophy and gets to hold it for a year. Or no physical trophy at all and instead a line under their avatar "2009 Honing Champion"?

Smashing idea!

The reason I wasn't crazy about the idea centers on the following concepts. What is the ultimate goal of the contest. I realize its fun and games and all that however in the end what will the moral of the story be. Will we be able to say Mr A is a great honer and Mr B is a not so great a honer? Will Mr A have a swelled head because he did such a great job and Mr C hangs his head in shame. I think not since we don't know what equipment each guy has at his disposal, the time spend honing and the state of each razor and if your going to be using different brands the difference in quality twixt the two razors.

Its kind of like if I only have a blue belgian and someone else has every stone in existence and my razor doesn't quite measure up to the other but comes pretty close what could you conclude? I need more practice or maybe its a miracle I did what I could with what I have as opposed to the other guy who had it much easier.

However, you all have my best wishes on this and I hope you have a great time.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

The reason I wasn't crazy about the idea centers on the following concepts. What is the ultimate goal of the contest.

The title! A sense of accomplishment, the celebration party, bragging rights on SRP, the afterglow of the win, becomming a hero in the eyes of your family and friends, ...

I can't think of any human competition where there isn't some luck factor. Conditions, equipment, whatever. It's just that the more skilled have a better probability of winning. Many competitions are also decided by a subjective measure. Films, dog shows, art in general. Many enjoy competing with no chance of winning. I'm sure there are skilled honers who are lurkers here so there's the chance of a dark horse win.

The only downside/ugliness I can think of would be cheating and I can't think of any incentive for doing so or any probability of that occuring with this group (not sure how one could cheat anyway).

I was looking at this as more of a combined and organized assessment of your personal honing skills, than a clear cut winner -vs- loser contest....
As I stated before this sort of thing has been going on behind the scenes for as long as I have been on here.... The only difference here is that said aspiring "honemiester" (a term that gets used way to easily) gets more than just one opinion on their skills, and their skills are compared to others that are closer to their level of skill, instead of just against one person's skills (normally a very experienced "honemiester") this I think is a great idea...
Also keep in mind that there will probably be NO clear cut winner, since razors can only get so sharp, and so smooth, and I am pretty sure that a majority of the people entering razors, will be able to achieve this level....
The difference here, to make what I was saying very clear...
Member X thinks that he is getting pretty good, so he asks an experienced Honemiester to access his edges and sends the razor to him....
That Honemiester has only one edge really to compare this razor too, ie: his own...
In this "contest" Member X's razor will be compared to say 19 other razors all honed by people that are way more evenly matched when it comes to experience level, and the "honemiester" is comparing all 20 razors as a group, and not just against his own abilities....

Did all this rambling make any sense whatsoever????

Originally Posted by gssixgun

That Honemiester has only one edge really to compare this razor too, ie: his own...
In this "contest" Member X's razor will be compared to say 19 other razors all honed by people that are way more evenly matched when it comes to experience level, and the "honemiester" is comparing all 20 razors as a group, and not just against his own abilities....

Did all this rambling make any sense whatsoever????

Well, yes, there's that too.

If people are worried about the agony of defeat aspect you could have a check box for each contestent to specify if they want their name/screen name to be kept private. Then in the above context you could get back your placing in the competition and no one would know that you even entered.

the reason i would enter the contest would be to see what someone else that is good at honing thought of a razor that i honed, he could point out things i could be doing wrong to me so i think it would be valuable critique of my skills, i really dont care about winning or losing just the valued opinion of someone that knows way more than i do about honing, a sort of learning tool instead of a contest to me, but i wouldnt turn down a livi razor as a prize either lol