My attitude went sour the moment the AHA decided to give preference to Grand Master, Master, and National judges during the lottery, and it has not improved much since. Even non-judge AHA members were irritated by that decision because it created two classes of members.
Why create a thread about needing more judges, and then conclude the original post by stating "Judging assignments will go to the highest ranking judges first, Grand Master, Master, and National in the past, but there is a chance that some Certified judges may be called upon?" The conjunction connected compound sentence serves no purpose. Ranked judges know that judging assignments are based on rank, and non-ranked judges know that the probability that they will judge is low going into the selection process. However, by adding that final sentence, Bruce unwittingly told Certified, Recognized, Apprentice, Rank-Pending, and Provisional judges who have never attended NHC that they need not apply. I judged the final round last year as a Rank-Pending judge.
As far as to the post directed to Amanda, well, I realized that following up a post that I saw as condescending with a post that would be seen as condescending was not the proper way to address the problem. No one goes through the trouble of becoming a judge to steward contests, and no judge should ever tell another judge that he/she should steward a contest if his/her rank falls below the cutoff. That's leadership 101. If a judge wants to steward a contest because his/her rank falls below the cutoff, then he/she will volunteer to fill the role without being told to do so. I am fairly certain that most ranked, Apprentice, Rank-Pending, and Provisional judges are aware that they can volunteer to steward the final round.