Same Judges Doing the Whole Discipline?

Have we ever been advised how the judging is used in a competition? I know it is in total secrecy but, I am not sure how it works.

For Singles and Pairs, there is the SP and the LP. In Dance, the CD,OD,FD.

While ALL judges scores are used in the competition, only certain scores are used for the tally. My question is: Are the same judges used in the SP used in the LP?

In Dance, the judges are different for each segment?

I know I should know this, but I don't.:scratch:

Joe

I'm not really sure but i think (for at least singles) that the judging panel are the same for the SP and LP.

The random selection, i believe, happens at the start of each round so that at the start of the SP the computer randomly choses whcih judges scores will count and the same judges scores will be taken for that segment. Next round at the start of the LP the computer radnomly choses again from the judging panel and again those judges scores are the ones taken into consideration.

Ant

antmanb said:

I'm not really sure but i think (for at least singles) that the judging panel are the same for the SP and LP.

The random selection, i believe, happens at the start of each round so that at the start of the SP the computer randomly choses whcih judges scores will count and the same judges scores will be taken for that segment. Next round at the start of the LP the computer radnomly choses again from the judging panel and again those judges scores are the ones taken into consideration.

Ant

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It's not the overall chosen panel that I am thinking about. It is the segments panels. Are they different? Different panels for SP and LPs.

It could be that a skater with not so good scores in the SP can get a big lift from different judges in the LP.

Joesitz said:

It's not the overall chosen panel that I am thinking about. It is the segments panels. Are they different? Different panels for SP and LPs.

It could be that a skater with not so good scores in the SP can get a big lift from different judges in the LP.

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No the panel is the same for each discipline so the same panel of judges judge the mens SP and LP. Etc and its the same panel per discipline all the way through each segment (including dance CD, OD and FD).
Some judges will be qualified to judge both singles and pairs, as has obviously been the case at Skaet Canada :

http://www.isufs.org/results/gpcan06/

If you click on judgin panel you'll see them all listed there.

Ant

Within each discipline, the judges are randomly selected separately for the SP and FS (and for CD, OD and FD in dance).

That means the judges who did the SP may not be the same ones who judged the FS (different random selection).

That was very noticeable at Worlds in ice dance last year. There was tremendous variation between the OD rankings and the FD rankings, even among the top teams, and the actual performance didn't seem to have much to do with it.

It is not so clear, however, that the random draw was the reason for the unusual results. If you exclude three from a panel of 12, that still leaves a core of at least six (out of nine) that judge both parts.

Isn't there a way that the judges for the SP know somehow that they were not used for the LP.

It's a general statement that with minor changes in the panel of judges that has no effect on the outcome. I'm not getting into conspiracy theories but just plane old subjective preferences. I daresay, if I were judging Mens and Lambiel needed a boost, I think I would rate his best elements a point higher in CoEs. And I would not even be conscious that I was doing that. It's human. I'm not Swiss but I do love beautiful skating and Stephane floats over the ice and it wins me over. I'm sure there are judges that feel the same way.

Joe

Joesitz said:

Isn't there a way that the judges for the SP know somehow that they were not used for the LP.

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The judges are not supposed to know whether their scores were used in the SP, the LP, both, or neither.

The same panel of twelve judges scores both programs. Only the computer knows which nine of the twelve scores are added up to give the point totals.

So if Judge Joe was (subconsciously) trying to help his favorite skater, you would have

(a) a 75% chance that your score was counted for the SP.

(b) a 75% chance that your score was counted for the LP.

(c) a 56.25% chance that it was counted for both.

(d) a 6.25% chance that it was counter for neither.

Also, if you gave higher scores to your favorite than any of the other judges, your scores would be thrown out even if you survived the first cut. (Highest and lowest thrown out.)

BTW, knowing all this you can almost always work bckward and figure out which judges' scores were actually used -- that is, judge #2, 4, 7, etc. -- but you don't know whch judge was which number.

It would be better to use all 12 scores, possibly with more trimming of the mean.

Well, if you had 4 colluding judges who wanted to skew the results, under the current system, the chances are good that 2 or more will be picked in both SP and FS. So if one high is kicked out, the other stays; the same for the lows. Meanwhile, ALL the resullts are skewed if the agreements cover up to 10 skaters, with different judges responsible for different skaters. It would be very hard to detect the collusion because it would never be consistently the same two judges scoring the same way.

I have looked at the protocols for one of the JGP ice dance competitions (where there was no secret judging) and it was apparent that certain judges were acting in concert to skew the results in favor of certain teams. Some teams achieved MUCH higher point scores than they had in previous events. Meanwhile, other top teams seemed to go down in score, although all the reports from people who saw both competitions said how improved those teams were.

The skewing took place not only in the PCS scores, but in the GOE. If you added the GOE for each team, it was amazing how some teams had astoundingly high GOE from some judges, while other teams (including medalwinners) got lots of 0s and -1s from the same judges.

Collusion happens. It isn't fair to the skaters and it completely defeats the fairness of the CoP system, and there isn't a darned thing anyone can do about it. Speedy rules.

Quite true. With four colluding judges there would be a 73% chance that at least two would be chosen in each segment separately, and a 53% chance that this would happen in both.

There is that "corridore" thing in the review process, but, as you say, this is easy to cover up and in any case we must depend on the ISU to conduct the review. If everyone is in on it, we are out of luck utterly.

The only thing that could possibly help is if everything were out in the open. Then at least we could raise a protest when we see judges tapping their toes. If the purpose of the New Judging System is to polish up the venire of integrity in the wake of the Salt Lake City pairs scandal, this secret judging just makes everyone look like bigger crooks than ever before -- even when they're not.

The only thing that could possibly help is if everything were out in the open.

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Are you saying "It's OK to collude, as long as you do it out in the open so we can catch you"?

Then at least we could raise a protest when we see judges tapping their toes.

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Well of course if you *see* judges tapping their toes there isn't any way for the sekret computer to cover up which judges those toes are attached to. Is there?

If the only evidence of collusion is judges over- and undermarking the same skaters in the same direction, all you can really do is use that as a red flag to investigate further. Under either system, with or without anonymity. Just, under the current procedures, you wouldn't know which judges the similar over- and undermarking is attached to and whether there's a pattern from one event to the next until long after the events are over.

mathman said:

The only thing that could possibly help is if everything were out in the open. Then at least we could raise a protest when we see judges tapping their toes.

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gkelly said:

Well of course if you *see* judges tapping their toes there isn't any way for the sekret computer to cover up which judges those toes are attached to. Is there?

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Actually, in this instance, it may not be COP, but a rule the ISU enacted after the toe-tapping scandal: no cameras behind the judges' stand.

gkelly said:

Are you saying "It's OK to collude, as long as you do it out in the open so we can catch you"?

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More like, "if you are going to collude I hope you get caught."

But the point I was making is not that the new system is better or worse than the old, or that a lot of judges cheat (I don't think they do).I was speaking more from an "appearance of impropriety" point of view. Competitive figure skating is broadly held up to public ridicule -- or apathy -- along the lines of, "oh, it's all fixed anyway." When everything is done under a cloak of secrecy, that just adds fuel to the fire and makes potential new fans think the worst.

Just, under the current procedures, you wouldn't know which judges the similar over- and undermarking is attached to and whether there's a pattern from one event to the next until long after the events are over.

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I would delete the word "just" from this sentence! That's huge. If you know somebody is cheating but don't know who, what good it that?

We don't know anything about it before, during, after or at all. We trust the ISU to carry out the appropriate review, again in secret. So a year later they issue a statement, nope, nothing fishy here.

To me, this does not inspire public confidence. All this cloak and dagger stuff -- anonymous judging, secret draws -- just creates the perception in the mind of the public (insofar as they care at all) that something shady is going on.