Proposed CoP Changes for Singles

At this point, I think it would be more feasible to improve this new system that we've got than to start from scratch.

About ten years ago, when there were some complaints about the ordinal system (from Cinquanta, from some new fans who maybe were more familiar with gymnastics scoring at the time, etc.), I had some thoughts about ways to make things a little bit more objective than just letting judges give two marks to produce ordinals with all the decisions that figure into those marks being made in their heads and hearts but closed to the skaters and the public.

My plan A thought was to keep the 6.0 system and to define the official expected technical content for, let's say, 4.5 and 6.0 benchmarks, maybe 5.0 and 5.5 as well. Also define specific bonuses that could be added to those benchmarks and deductions to be subtracted.
Presentation marks would still have been based on each judge's overall subjective impression, adjusted as necessary to account for the technical level and comparison with other skaters in the event if we're still talking about ordinals.

Not really much of a change from the 6.0 system actually -- just more specific guidelines as to what it takes to earn a specific technical mark.

[Later, about the time that the current system was first proposed, the Australian federation submitted a proposal with guidelines for breaking the 6.0 technical mark into separate parts for jumps, spins, etc. But that never got anywhere.]

The other suggestion I was thinking about back then was similar to what we actually ended up getting, but not quite so complicated.

Set base marks for each kind of element.

Have an official (I was thinking referee, but it could be a separate "technical specialist" or "technical controller") identify which elements a skater actually completed. But they wouldn't micromanage the identification of errors or extra difficulty. At most, they would decide that a 2.5-revolution jump attempt counts as double rather than triple.

Judges could take 1-5 deductions from each element (I was thinking in terms of SP-type deductions of 0.1 to 0.5) for errors of varying numbers and severity. They could also give bonuses of 1-5 for added difficulty ("features" in the current system) or quality (+GOEs).

I did foresee some potential difficulties with that approach, some of which are solved by the more active technical panel function that we have now.

I don't remember what I had in mind for judging the presentation and in-between skating.

gkelly said:

So what would you suggest?

Click to expand...

I have read many interesting and good comments on this thread.

Many would improve CoP but a problem I see is that making Cop more complicated is not the answer.

I say that after considering mm's last post. I also remember comments from Mishin who did not go into great detail but specifically noted the part of skating that has to do with IN, and presentation as it relates to an audience is just not something that can be judged by points.

He did not suggest an alternative but I think he was getting at a return to an ordinal type of placement, atleast for part of the judging.

Evan comes to mind and there seems to be alot of dispute about his recent marks. Whether one prefers Evan or Johnny may always be subjective but I think the system favors Evan over Johnny and I get the distinct feeling that more skating fans prefer Johnny's style of skating over Evan.

I wonder if assigning an endless amount of points over a series of categories is needed to judge skaters. Perhaps a judge should be allowed to say "Evan was busier but I think Johnny was more effective at presenting himself even though he didn't do as much (trans, arm movements, high kicks during steps, etc.)

I don't claim to have answers but I do have a hunch that making CoP even more complex and using more points and percentage/factors is not the approach that is needed. I think it could even make it worse.

Let's consider some problems from 6.0 that still remain under CoP.
One of the worst is the "reputation scoring" which seems just as bad, and possibly worse.

Skating needs to decide about it's direction - does it really think it can win new or more fans by becoming more of a sport, more athletic and less artistic?

Just my opinion, but I seriously doubt it. I don't think the direction CoP is leading skating will help it win new fans or win back old fans. For me, that is enough reason to change it.

Skating at it's best is not like other sports. It is not like diving and really not like gymnastics. Skating has a unique quality that can bring the skater and the audience, whether in the arena or on TV together in a way few other sports can.

I think a scoring system should be reflective of skatings special appeal and reward skaters that can provide the special moments we remember and even cherish at times.

Skaters like Plushy and Evan appear to be good at skating under this system. But it feels like a majority of fans do not always like their programs.
Why is that? Is it good for skating? Is it the right direction, this point based system that says busier artisty outscores better artistry?

Watching Akiko at the GPF gave me quite a thrill. Maybe I am too sentimental but I did not see Yuna and especially Miki winning that LP. Their skating did not thrill me or move me in the least at the GPF.

I saw something and even felt something from Akiko and I don't think I am the only one. I also noticed Akiko did not seem to be fairly rewarded for her effort. Maybe it is not CoP's fault but then who and what am I supposed to be upset with? The judges? I think they are just following a flawed system.

janetfan said:

Watching Akiko at the GPF gave me quite a thrill. Maybe I am too sentimental but I did not see Yuna and especially Miki winning that LP. Their skating did not thrill me or move me in the least at the GPF.

I saw something and even felt something from Akiko and I don't think I am the only one. I also noticed Akiko did not seem to be fairly rewarded for her effort. Maybe it is not CoP's fault but then who and what am I supposed to be upset with? The judges? I think they are just following a flawed system.

Click to expand...

I think I understand your point but that's not CoP's fault. I believe the same thing would have happened in 6.0 system.

No system can prevent the "reputation scoring" if the artistic side (or PCS) is included in the judging. I agree that Akiko's LP at GPF was briliant. But I believe she would have never gotten enough score in any system one could imagine. If the figure skating is to be judged by human with a brain which can store some information on what has happened in previous events, that's unavoidable.

So I would suggest changing our viewpoint. If you think along this line, it is logically inevitable to admit that figure skating score is history dependent. There is a kind of time delay and some average effect of previous performances. I think that this is one of the fundamental natures in figure skating. Unless you give up either evaluation of artistry or human judges, it is simply impossible to invent a scoring system which evaluates only the performance under judging.

I don't think CoP is particularly bad in this respect. I would say it is at least not worse than 6.0. To my mind, the only truly meaningful (still incomplete) progress here is to increase the number of judges to get better statistics. All the other changes, however ingenious, would not be much helpful unless you effectively reduce the portion of PCS.

gkelly said:

[The judge] can distinguish that Isabelle had great skating skills, a few impressive transitions, poor carriage and body line but good projection and physical/emotional/intellectual involvement, pretty good concept and layout to the choreography and phrasing of movement to the music.

Click to expand...

So here is my question. This judge just gave Isabelle an 8.0 for P/E because although she had poor carriage and body line she had good projection and physical/emotional/intellectual involvement.

The next day the very same skater skates the exact same program exactly the same before the very same judge. The judge thinks that although she had poor carriage and body line she had good projection and physical/emotional/intellectual involvement. Taking all this into account, he gives her a 7.75.

Are 8.00 and 7.75 far enough apart that this could not happen? Or would we expect it to happen routinely?

Mathman said:

So here is my question. This judge just gave Isabelle an 8.0 for P/E because although she had poor carriage and body line she had good projection and physical/emotional/intellectual involvement.

Click to expand...

Actually, I wrote

He could reflect those differences with scores like 8.0 7.5 7.25 7.5 7.25 (total 37 before factoring) for Isabelle

Click to expand...

I.e., 7.25 for P/E, tied with IN for her lowest component. Hard to break 8.0 with poor carriage and body line.

The next day the very same skater skates the exact same program exactly the same before the very same judge. The judge thinks that although she had poor carriage and body line she had good projection and physical/emotional/intellectual involvement. Taking all this into account, he gives her a 7.75.

Are 8.00 and 7.75 far enough apart that this could not happen? Or would we expect it to happen routinely?

Click to expand...

I think a difference of 0.25 for two similar performances of the same program by the same skater is probably pretty common.

The performance might be just a tiny bit weaker the next day.

Or the judge might perceive it slightly differently that have more to do with the judge, or the previous skaters in the event, than with that skater's performance.
[you want examples?]

But if the performance really was very similar, the same judge is not likely to change to score by, say, a whole 1.0.

A different panel might have judges who tend to mark lower on average.

gkelly said:

But if the performance really was very similar, the same judge is not likely to change to score by, say, a whole 1.0

Click to expand...

So isn't this an argument that the gradation should be in whole points instead of in quarter points?

The same judge, same skater, same program, same performance cannot tell the difference between a 6.25 performance and a 6.50 performance, but he can tell the difference between a 6 performance and a 7 performance.

(No fair saying, what if another skater is just a teeny bit better but both in the 6 range. That's ordinal scoring -- what the CoP was designed to get rid of. )

Mathman said:

To me, that strikes at the very heart of the concept of the CoP. In principle, the score that a skater gets in Interpretation should be determined solely by how well that skater interpreted the music, according to the ISU guidelines for this mark. It should not, in principle, have anything to do with the element scores that this skater has racked up, or with her other component scores.

Click to expand...

Well, yes, you are correct. The PCS themselves should not have anything to do with technical scores (to a degree...a low technical score obviously means there were problems, which disrupts the flow and look of the program).

However, if a judge sees two performances and Skater A is clearly better than Skater B (but Skater B still had stronger technical merit), they need to understand how many points in PCS needs to be assigned to make Skater A the winner. They know that Skater A deserves higher PCS and deserves to win, but they may not know exactly how to assign those PCS to make it happen.

Now, judges shouldn't simply assign PCS to prop a skater up. There should still be guidelines of approximately what constitutes a "10" or "9" or "8" mark in the Program Components. Brian Boitano's 1988 Olympic LP would be an example I would use of a performance that's reaching towards a "10" and every judge should keep in mind performances that they would mark at each interval as a reference point.

Mathman said:

Actually, neither the random selection nor dropping the highest and lowest introduces an addition element of chance into the outcome.

Click to expand...

It does, though, because the exact opinions of the judges are not being weighed. IMO whatever grades the judges give are exactly what should be reflected in the scores. Ignoring the scores of 3 judges, and dropping the highest + lowest for each element, means that the score will probably not reflect the exact opinion of the panel.

For example, in 2006 Sasha Cohen was ahead of Irina Slutskaya by .03 after the SP. However, if none of the scores had been dropped and the exact opinion of every judge had been factored, Slutsakaya actually would have been ahead by one-hundredth of a point. Not a huge difference, but every fraction of a point can mean something...let's not forget what happened at 2008 Nationals when Johnny Weir was robbed of the Championship by the rounding error in the computer (I'll ignore the idiocy of the judges' marks that caused the scores to be that close in the first place).

ng

Janetfan said:

Skating needs to decide about it's direction - does it really think it can win new or more fans by becoming more of a sport, more athletic and less artistic?

Click to expand...

Indeed! it does have to make that decision.

Skating at it's best is not like other sports. It is not like diving and really not like gymnastics. Skating has a unique quality that can bring the skater and the audience, whether in the arena or on TV together in a way few other sports can.

Click to expand...

i
and neither is gymnastics like diving.

The audience in the arena are like those who travel to golf and tennis comps and all the other single sports that do not compete as teams. It should also be noted that more women than men travel to skating comps. Americans like single sports but they adore team sports. The question should be: How can we gget men more interested in the sport(?) of figure skating. It seems only relatives and male coaches and a handful of males like skating.

On the Future of Figure Skating on TV. Regretably, I see it on some cable provider. I don't see it as a sport on major network TV, and if a fan does not have that cable provider, well, if icenetwork remains in business, that's it.

Lucky for me, I don't see it as anything super artistic, so IN is perfect, as long as it lasts.

Blades of Passion said:

However, if a judge sees two performances and Skater A is clearly better than Skater B (but Skater B still had stronger technical merit), they need to understand how many points in PCS needs to be assigned to make Skater A the winner. They know that Skater A deserves higher PCS and deserves to win...

Click to expand...

IMHO, giving the highest score to the skater who clearly deserves to win is an aspect of ordinal judging, not the CoP.

In the CoP, the only thing the judges are supposed to do is key in the numbers that best describe the quality of different compartmentalized aspects of the performance. The winner is then determined by the computer without regard to what the judges think.

I think if we were honest we would say, hey, wait a minute -- is this really the scoring system we want?

Blade of Passion said:

It does, though, because the exact opinions of the judges are not being weighed. IMO whatever grades the judges give are exactly what should be reflected in the scores. Ignoring the scores of [2] judges...means that the score will probably not reflect the exact opinion of the panel.

Click to expand...

The way the random draw is done, the "panel" (what the ISU calls the "scoring judges") comprises the 7 judges who are actually judging the contest. This is the "whole panel."

In addition to the panel of judges, there are two decoys sitting there with their fingers up their noses trying to fool people into thinking that they are members of the panel, but in reality they are not. So that is the sense in which the random draw is statistically irrelevant to the outcome.

In the example that you mentioned, the judging panel placed Sasha ahead of Irina. There were a couple of other Bozos hanging around, not judges, who liked Slutskaya better. If they had been judges the outcome might have been different, but they weren't. Just like if you and I had been judges -- but we weren't -- there might have been a different result.

However, this point is not really worth me pontificating about Setting aside the "luck" factor, the random draw is bad because (a) it would be better to have a scoring panel of 9 judges than to have a scoring panel of 7; (b) the random draw gives the appearance that the ISU is trying to put one over on us yet again (although we can't exactly figure out what it is that Speedy is up to); and (c) it is just stupid on its face.

Blades of Passion said:

However, if a judge sees two performances and Skater A is clearly better than Skater B (but Skater B still had stronger technical merit), they need to understand how many points in PCS needs to be assigned to make Skater A the winner. They know that Skater A deserves higher PCS and deserves to win, but they may not know exactly how to assign those PCS to make it happen

Click to expand...

But if Skater A is clearly better then the PCS should reflect this automatically without the judges having to see how many points they need to tack on. If the skater is that much better in PCS, then the difference will show regardless. The same can be said for the opposite situation. With a skater who is clearly better but has lower presentation skills). If the judges are scoring based on nothing more than what is happening on the ice then the scores WILL reflect the true winner, and if they aren't then no amount of changes to the scoring system will fix the problem.

...of course the problem is that the sport is so subjective that at most competitions an arguement can be made for at least one other skater to have been placed higher then he/she was.

Blades of Passion said:

....let's not forget what happened at 2008 Nationals when Johnny Weir was robbed of the Championship by the rounding error in the computer (I'll ignore the idiocy of the judges' marks that caused the scores to be that close in the first place).

Click to expand...

Johnny wasn't robbed. Evan won and IMO should have been much farther ahead of Johnny than he was.

Blades of Passion said:

It does, though, because the exact opinions of the judges are not being weighed. IMO whatever grades the judges give are exactly what should be reflected in the scores. ...[D]ropping the highest + lowest for each element, means that the score will probably not reflect the exact opinion of the panel.

Click to expand...

In considering whether we want to trim the mean by throwing out the highest and lowest, the following is the corresponding question in ordinal judging.

Here are the ordinals given by a nine-judge panel to two skaters.

Skater A: 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 4, 3, 5, 2
Skater B: 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1

Who deserves to win?

In the majority of ordinals method, skater A has five first-place ordinals. That trumps all other considerations. Skater A wins. If you think this is right, then you ought to like the trimmed mean.

If you think that skater B should have won because, holy smoke, one of the judges put skater A 4th and another put skater A 5th! – then you probably do not like the trimmed mean.

BravesSkateFan said:

Johnny wasn't robbed. Evan won and IMO should have been much farther ahead of Johnny than he was.

Click to expand...

The interesting thing is that there are three perfectly acceptable ways to do the rounding.

If you did it the way that the printed ISU rules stated, then Johnny won.

If you did it the way the computer was programmed to do, then it was a tie.

If you did it in the most mathematically precise way (no rounding at all untill the very last step), then Evan won.

The reponse of the ISU was to issue a "clarification" that said, the computer way, rather than what they actually said in their rules, was what they really meant.

Mathman said:

The interesting thing is that there are three perfectly acceptable ways to do the rounding.

If you did it the way that the printed ISU rules stated, then Johnny won.

If you did it the way the computer was programmed to do, then it was a tie.

If you did it in the most mathematically precise way (no rounding at all untill the very last step), then Evan won.

The reponse of the ISU was to issue a "clarification" that said, the computer way, rather than what they actually said in their rules, was what they really meant.

Click to expand...

My issue wasn't with the rounding, my issue was with the judges scoring. I think they gave Johnny higher marks then he deserved. If the marks had been in line with what was on the ice it wouldn't have mattered what rounding system was used, Evan would have won regardless.

But as I said before, skating is very subjective and someone can always make an arguement for a different skater to have won. As far as I'm concerned though Evan was the clear winner that night.

BravesSkateFan said:

As far as I'm concerned though Evan was the clear winner that night.

Click to expand...

Well, yes, Evan deserved to win that night, and he did. But Johnny deserved to win two nights before, in the short program, and he did. So it all came down to adding up the points.

Which segues neatly into my next suggestion for improving the IJS.

I think it would be better to carry only ordinals instead of point totals over from the short program to the long.

There are pluses and minuses to both methods. But since the two programs are not skated on the same day – and in fact, since many spectators will see only the long program – I like the “semi-finals and then the finals” sports model better than the “two halves of a football game” model.

Mathman said:

There are pluses and minuses to both methods. But since the two programs are not skated on the same day – and in fact, since many spectators will see only the long program – I like the “semi-finals and then the finals” sports model better than the “two halves of a football game” model.

Click to expand...

The problem with this analogy is that, historically-speaking, the short and long program are not like semi-finals and finals, which would be "repeats" of the same event (ie, you're always playing basketball, and always under the same rules, just against a different team). The short and long program have always been intended to test different aspects of skating, so even though you're still skating both times, the rules aren't the same.

BravesSkateFan said:

Johnny wasn't robbed. Evan won and IMO should have been much farther ahead of Johnny than he was.

Click to expand...

I don't want to get into "who should have won" in this thread, but you should watch the performances again.

Evan was very sloppy that night. The judges didn't give him as much -GOE as they should have for his mistakes (plus -GOE doesn't have as much effect as it should it in the first place), AND he didn't get downgraded on a jump that should have been downgraded - his 3Toe in the 3Flip/3Toe combination. Not to mention the first 3Axel he did was quite suspicious in terms of the rotation as well; I would check it again if I actually cared.

I'm not even going to get into the judges giving Evan a higher score for "interpretation".

Johnny was robbed.

Mathman said:

In the CoP, the only thing the judges are supposed to do is key in the numbers that best describe the quality of different compartmentalized aspects of the performance. The winner is then determined by the computer without regard to what the judges think.

Click to expand...

Well for PCS it's really impossible to give exact grades simply based upon the performance itself. There has to be a comparison to other performances. If there isn't, and the marks fluctuate greatly from competition to competitions, the numbers become a bit less meaningful.

And then we get the really awful PCS marks like we saw at this past GPF.

BravesSkateFan said:

But if Skater A is clearly better then the PCS should reflect this automatically without the judges having to see how many points they need to tack on. If the skater is that much better in PCS, then the difference will show regardless.

Click to expand...

That's not always what happens, though. Either way...judges should know exactly how many points in total their scores add up to. If they think Skater A deserved 66 in PCS and Skater B deserved 60 in PCS, the ability for them to calculate that should be available.

Without a way for the judges to calculate it, they sometimes just go incredibly overboard with the PCS marks in order to ensure that they are giving a skater enough to win. Or, other times, they just use the PCS as ordinals and only mark a skater slighter higher when that skater actually deserves more.

kate said:

The short and long program have always been intended to test different aspects of skating, so even though you're still skating both times, the rules aren't the same.

Click to expand...

Really? I do not see any difference between short programs and long programs except that short programs usually have a more unified theme and better choreography, and that short programs are (often mercifully) shorter.

Blades of Passion said:

Well for PCS it's really impossible to give exact grades simply based upon the performance itself. There has to be a comparison to other performances.

Click to expand...

I agree. But let's be clear what we are saying. This is an argument in favor of scrapping the CoP and returning to ordinal judging.

Under ordinal judging that's just hoiw it was. The judges decided who they thought gave the best performance and deserved to win. Then they manipulated the 5.7s and 5.8s to make it come out that way.

If we think that this is the right and only way to do it, then why not drop the fiction of objective point-total judging altogether?

Mathman said:

So isn't this an argument that the gradation should be in whole points instead of in quarter points?

The same judge, same skater, same program, same performance cannot tell the difference between a 6.25 performance and a 6.50 performance, but he can tell the difference between a 6 performance and a 7 performance.

(No fair saying, what if another skater is just a teeny bit better but both in the 6 range. That's ordinal scoring -- what the CoP was designed to get rid of. )

Click to expand...

I see what you mean. Yes, some of the reasons I had in mind that a judge's scores for the same performance might vary from one day to the next would involve direct influence by the scores given to a previous skater.

Of course, that wouldn't necessarily an effort at ranking. The judge could be thinking of it more in terms of calibrating his/her mental scale to the specifics of this particular field.

Other reasons might not have to do with the rest of the field at all. Maybe no one else in the field is good enough to deserve scores in the 7s at all, and today they all skated badly and barely deserved scores in the low 6s at best. Now the judges is in a bad mood from seeing so much bad skating (scores in the low 6s aren't bad skating, unless we're talking about medal standards of major senior championship, but if these are skaters who are capable of better but stumbling all over themselves today, it would be depressing to watch).

And then finally the skater who probably had the best overall skill set in the field to begin with comes out nails the program.
There's no question this skater is going to win and deserves much higher marks than everyone else today. But how much higher? None of the others outjumped this skater either, so ensuring a win isn't a consideration either.
If the performance is exactly the same as another day, and the other performances are irrelevant, then any differences in this judge's score would be attributed to this judges' mental state. The judge is a human being, not a computer.
Mathematically the difference between 7.75 and 8.0 is exactly the same as the difference between 7.75 and 7.5. Psychologically it's a bigger difference to break that 8 barrier. Maybe the judges is in such a bad mood from watching bad skating and a bad lunch in the judges' room that she is not willing to go there even for a great performance. Or maybe she's so excited to finally see some good skating that she gets a little overenthusiastic in marking this skater.

Another reason could be that today the referee's instructions included a comment that the ISU is really encouraging judges to use the five PCS marks independently -- they should not be afraid to use bigger spreads between the marks for the five components for the same skater. There was also some general theoretical discussion in the judges' room about whether facial expression to reflect the emotion of the program would be more appropriately rewarded under Performance/Execution or Interpretation, and this judge changed her mind about that particular point.

So now a skater with poor posture and perky projection comes out and performs the same as yesterday, complete with little smirks, winks, and shoulder hitches to punctuate musical fillips. Only instead of giving 7.25 for P/E and 7.75 for IN like yesterday, the judge shows more distinction between those areas and goes to, let's say 6.75 for P/E (sending a "message" to clean up that posture) and 8.25for IN (great use of nuances, that's where this skater's presentation really shines). Same total of the two marks, so there's no change in how this judge is ranking this skater compared to the rest of the field, but the judge has slightly changed how she conceptualizes those marks.

Don't we want judges to be able to distinguish between skaters in these areas, and between different areas in the same skater? Isn't that useful information about why the judge judged the way s/he did? If many judges agree, the skater has a clearer idea of where she needs to improve to score better in the future.
Fans can also see where the judges rewarded their favorites and where they thought other skaters were better. The fans might not agree -- and the judges might not agree with each other -- but isn't more information more useful than less?

BladesofPassion said:

That's not always what happens, though. Either way...judges should know exactly how many points in total their scores add up to. If they think Skater A deserved 66 in PCS and Skater B deserved 60 in PCS, the ability for them to calculate that should be available.

Without a way for the judges to calculate it, they sometimes just go incredibly overboard with the PCS marks in order to ensure that they are giving a skater enough to win.

Click to expand...

The theory behind the IJS is that judges are no longer supposed to be ranking skaters -- they're just supposed to be judging what they see on the ice and let the system figure out the results.

Let's assume for the moment that all judges are honest and never intentionally cheat. They do have their own unconscious preferences and biases, however.

In the ordinal system, if two or three skaters are both good in very different ways and also each have significant weaknesses, then a judge would often decide which kind of strengths were most important and reward the skater who was strongest in that area. They might not be able to quantify how much better each skater was in his strong areas or how much worse in the weak areas.

One judge might always put a skater with a clean quad ahead of a skater without one, irrespective of the rest of the jump content or the rest of the program. She might even reward skaters who rotate quads but don't land them ahead of other skaters who don't attempt them. Another judge might not like quads at all and ignore the number of rotations while making decisions based on presentation and edges-on-ice skills. So those judges' biases assure that they will always disagree about certain skaters unless the quad jumpers pop their quads.

The IJS lets the system determine how much quads are worth in the overall scheme of thing and then lets the judges judge the skating. Some skaters, judges, and fans, think that quads should be worth even more, and others think they should be worth less. But at least everyone knows what their current value is and what a skater who doesn't have one has to do to compete fairly against those that do.

Let's say that Tom lands a messy, slightly cheated quad on one foot. The first judge will probably already believe that that added to the excitement of the program and give a higher P/E score to reward it. She might also give 0 GOE because it looked close enough to adequately landed.

The second judge would penalize for the flaws in that element in the GOE (-1 or even -2) and will also remember that messy landing, especially if there were other instances of sloppiness/imprecision throughout the program, when scoring P/E.

So already the first judge is rewarding and the second judge penalizing the quad attempt a bit more than the system itself requires.

Now suppose that judges are still informed about downgrades, or they can see the TES before they give their PCS so they can figure out from the totals that Tom must not have gotten credit for rotating that quad. Do you really want the first judge to be able to say to herself "That was a darn good quad attempt! It's a travesty the way this system undervalues athletic risk! I know this skater only deserves PCS in the 7s (and that's what I would have given him if the caller gave that quad proper credit), but I'm going to give him 9.5 for Skating Skills and Performance/Execution just to make up for that boneheaded downgrade!"?

janetfan said:

I saw something and even felt something from Akiko and I don't think I am the only one. I also noticed Akiko did not seem to be fairly rewarded for her effort. Maybe it is not CoP's fault but then who and what am I supposed to be upset with? The judges? I think they are just following a flawed system.

Click to expand...

janetfan, I'm gonna respond more fully in the thread you started, but I disagree with the last part. To me, I think the flaws in COP (and there are flaws, as much as I admire the changes made and love the skating it's produced) are different from the flaws in judging (which were carried over from the era of 6.0). As a result, I think the discrepancies are magnified.

gkelly said:

I see what you mean. Yes, some of the reasons I had in mind that a judge's scores for the same performance might vary from one day to the next would involve direct influence by the scores given to a previous skater. ..

Other reasons might not have to do with the rest of the field at all. Maybe no one else in the field is good enough to deserve scores in the 7s at all, and today they all skated badly and barely deserved scores in the low 6s at best. Now the judge is in a bad mood from seeing so much bad skating...

Click to expand...

*whole post*

This entire post is a great description of some of the many things that actually happen in figure skating contests. To me, though, all of these nuances come down to saying that the job of the judges is to ignore and evade the whole idea of the CoP as much as possible.

It seems to me that every poster who has contributed to this thread agrees that the concept of deciding a competition by following ISU guidelines and adding up points is so far from any kind of reality that we have to ask, is it really worth it to keep up the pretense?