About Free BBQ
Welcome to the Free BBQ project. Free BBQ is a community-driven sanctioning system built on three very simple principles:
- Free for competitors to compete.
- Free for judges to both become certified and to judge.
- Free for promoters to sanction both informal and formal competitions.
While Free BBQ does not receive royalties for the use of our system, promoters will need to supply or purchase printed resources necessary to run a competition (available under downloads). We also do not expect members of our community to volunteer their time for free, officials are permitted to accept modest remuneration from the promoter for the hours they've worked at competitions. Remuneration between the promoter and the official is a direct engagement between the two, it doesn't come via Free BBQ. See Free BBQ sanctioning for more information.
"Free" also refers to a commitment to modern democratic freedoms:
- Free BBQ is a microdemocracy - decisions are escalated to a vote by the community, and then voted on online by the community as whole. In this way major decisions are made directly by the community, as compared to the more traditional approaches of decisions being made by a committee of elected members, or by the management of private companies. This includes sanctionable proteins and competition structures. Rule changes are implemented on yearly basis.
- Free and open discussion on competition and bbq related topics on the Free BBQ Facebook groups, including permitting criticism of Free BBQ rules and operations. However excesive swearing, personal attacks, general off-topic garbage, and advertising are not permitted (see our social media moderation policy). Our commitment to free speech applies equally to competitors, judges, promoters, and even officials.
- A free market (non-interference) policy applies to promoters while they're not in conflict with the Free BBQ rules, including no restrictions on prize pools, competitor fees, judging fees, or competition dates. We recognise both the free market and commercial viability, as being incredibly important to the health of the competition BBQ community. Promoters do still need to secure commitments from their local officials, so short turnarounds or circumstances like Covid-19 may affect their ability to secure officials.
We strongly believe that competition BBQ is as much about community and having a good time, as it is about the integrity of the competition. Our mission statement is to always retain that balance.
Intellectual property in this project is released where feasible under copyleft licences.