Nearly every contest I've ever competed in has had judges who I didn't believe were vigorously qualified. Perhaps not in the final round, or in the most competi

Nearly every contest I've ever competed in has had judges who I didn't believe were vigorously qualified. Perhaps not in the final round, or in the most competitive sections, but they were there, somewhere, filling in the gaps. On the other side of the equation, I regularly got "please judge this contest" emails I wasn't qualified for while I was still in academia. Falling for this phish woudln't need to be a matter of inflating one's opinion of oneself, it could simply happen by knowing that at the low end of contests, the bar for judging is low.