The only thing worse than not having a rating system for officials is having a rating system for officials.

Here is our system and it is simple. We as officials control 4 categories for the most part.
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The percentiles for the Top 15 and Ratings used to be things determined by officials as well. Every official's association used to have a Top 15 list, but they took that away a few years ago. Each Certified officials used to also be able to rate officials for varsity contests, but now that is also no longer the case. But just about every category you could control. And there are many other things considered outside of the Power Rating that was considered. I had 35 points last year and did not work the State Finals. There is a policy to not work more than 2 years in a row and then you take a year off. Even if my rating was that high again, I will not likely get back to a State Final. Geography, years of experience, what kind of games you work can all be considered along with many other things. I think people worry too much about things they ultimately cannot control.

Peace

I think a good way to chose post season officials is to do it while all stakeholders are sitting at the same table. AD's and coaches can all sit in the same room and pick from the pool of available officials. Coaches or AD's can nominate who they feel are the best and any objections should be discussed. The minutes of that meeting should be made available to the officials. Objections should be noted in detail so the official can use the feedback to get better.

I think doing it in a open forum will eliminate some of the politics.

Evaluations from coaches are not a bad thing but I would not allow them in the decision process to chose post season assignments. I would welcome feedback anyway I can get it.

I do not mind getting ratings from coaches, but not an evaluation. They know nothing or not enough about officiating as much as I or most of us would know little to nothing about actual coaching. We know coaches do not like officials for some silly reason or for following the rules, so why would I want to know what a coach thinks of me that I have little or no respect for?

And your suggestion would still be political. It would make people realize who does not like them either way and likely be seen as held against one or the other. Then if we had a coach that was on the record not valuing our ability, then anything we did with them moving forward would be held against us even if we did not really care or pay attention. There is a reason politicians have closed-door meetings about policy. The public knowing how the sausage is made only would cause a problem in many cases for the person making the comments or the result to be accepted.

Ratings are fine but do not tell me that a coach knows when I should rotate or who actually should have made a call or not. They often think we are all looking at the same play when we clearly are not.

Peace

I think good officials are appreciated by terrible coaches in most cases.

I didn't say it would eliminate politics. I feel it would eliminate some of the politics but not all of it. The open meeting would hopefully detour a coach or AD from being unfair.

I never said it should be a mandatory thing or part of a selection process but I would appreciate certain feedback from coaches if done in a proper way. For example, did I show a high level of decisiveness? Did I communicate with participants effectively? Did I maintain professional control during the contest? Was I aggressive or overbearing?

Evaluations regarding my application and understanding of the rules should maybe be left up to our peers.

It was just a thought. But anyway.

Politics
 

Don't worry about a vote, may be we should vote on if a coach should be in post season! The better officials may not be available or can't get off from their jobs. It is a nice honor if done the correct way. Some times it is just plain ole' politics!

And they would avoid the situation by not saying their feelings on the record.

The point I was making that even in your suggestion you still would have a major flaw. All systems have flaws that someone, somewhere is not going to like or respect and that even your concern would have a way around what you were looking for. Which goes back to my original point, no matter what they come up with, someone is going to not be happy. We have to control what we can control and not worry about much else. Often in my experience, people do not accept the obvious. Because even if a coach shared exactly what they thought of you in their rating, people would claim they were not being fair. I know when clinicians tell officials why they are not advancing or why they need to do better, guys/gals get defensive.

There is more to what we do than rules and application of rules. We used to have the same kind of feedback from coaches and they took it away because it was clearly was not helpful to anyone. All it did was piss off officials because some coach would complain about some mechanics and the coaches clearly have no idea what our mechanics entail.

Peace

Everyone in SC wants to do away with the peer ratings, including myself. The problem is no alternative solution can gain enough traction.

They're done through Arbiter for all varsity games. We have six categories where we rate each of our partners on a scale of 1-10 (10 is the best). If you rate below an 8 in any category you have to provide a comment (though theoretically you could just put a dash in the comment box and the system would allow you to submit it). The average score and any comments written about an official are made public to officials shortly after the season ends. You cannot see how you were rated by partner, by game, or who wrote the comment–only the season average score and the comments themselves. The average score is multiplied by 2.5 and applied to your overall rating for the following season.

That is pretty obvious. My comment didn't limit the feedback from our peers to that subject only but take it away from coaches.

I think one of the more insane things that goes on is the top 15 vote for officials of your association when your only contact with those other officials is if you are their crew, or at clinics and meetings. Varsity games here are pretty much assigned to a crew instead of random assignments and you dont work with anyone else except maybe one or two other guys outside the crew and whoever you get paired with in tournaments.