Judge Foundry Calls For Volunteers

Greetings judges, it’s time for us to ask for your help with the nonprofit we are putting together.

Let’s talk about what kinds of things we are looking for from the community, how we want to coordinate the help we are looking for, and our plans for projects going forward.

What Kind of Help?

Right now we are in need of some key critical help for things to get off the ground.

The things we need the most help with right now:

• Certifications
  • Test writers for rules and policy exams
  • Test editors to refine questions
• Technology/web development
  • Python/Django developers
  • WordPress developers/admins
  • Frontend developers (CSS)
  • Full stack developers would also be great.
• Community Moderators
  • Forum moderators
  • Discord moderators
• Conference Organizers
  • We are trying to figure out potential conference plans.  If you have ideas in that space, we would love to involve you in planning them.
• Article Writers
  • We would love to produce more content reflecting the values of Judge Foundry.
  • This might involve dusting off old projects (like Judge of the Week or Judge Anniversaries), but could also involve doing new things.
• Photo Submissions
  • We’d like to build a catalog of photos to use on social media and in judge articles (like the one you’re reading right now!)
  • Submit your photos here.
• Social media Managers
  • Twitter (X)
  • Facebook
  • Other platforms are also welcome. If you’ve ever dreamed of making #judge trend on Instagram or creating judge TikToks, drop us a line.

How To Help

There are two routes.  Either send an email to volunteers@judgefoundry.org or join the shiny new Judge Foundry Discord.

There are a number of you that messaged through the webform already – we’ll be reaching out to you within the next day to get you to the right place.

The Discord is also an open dedicated way for you to provide us feedback.  Hop on over and you can get access to the feedback channel and tell us what you think about our plans, the Discord structure, things you think we can do better than prior iterations of the judge program, or anything else.  It’s not mandatory, but it’s a useful tool as we bridge to some more permanent things like forums for dedicated long-term discussions.

Future Project Plans

We have technology plans for what amounts to an expansion of JudgeApps and splitting up some of the functionality, but this will take development time and brainpower.  The eventual goal is to have certain member functions gated in a separate Judge Foundry site, and connect to JudgeApps as a central resource that can serve multiple communities.

We are interested in community growth in general and building out connections and mentoring opportunities among judges – if you have exciting plans or ideas in this space, we want to hear from you so we can help promote judges and the community surrounding judges in a positive way.

You’ve seen us mention exams, technology and articles here. These aren’t the only projects from judging’s past we’re looking at reviving. As we mentioned in our article on elections last week, we’re interested in any other projects our members might be interested in, that will improve our community. 

We want to shine a light on excellent performers in the judge community, so you can use those public postings as references for getting different positions at events, and to milestone your growth as a judge.