- Joined
- Feb 5, 2004
ITA with gkelly, he is obviously better at debating the points than I am. It would also go so far as to say it should be required that judges be named when disciplined at least for serious or repeat cases. Part of the assessment process is to identify judges who need remedial training to improve their judging. And while I am being somewhat of a devils advocate here by taking the anonymous judging side (yes I would prefer not to have non-anonymous judging) but I feel that many judges are wrongly accused of cheating regardless of the facts (guilty until proven innocent).
Even in your letter scenario you assumed that the one out of kilter mark was the cheating judge but if you were a believer in block judging the reverse could be true where the -2 GOE was the judge not involved in holding up a skater. Not the most realistic scenario but I hope you get my point.
If the ISU is more transparent with the investigative process then yes the judges don't need to be anonymous because the general fan base would be accusing all judges of being cheats. It is unfortunate that a few have given the whole a bad name.
Maybe we just ended up trying to out devil's advocate each other
I just have an extreme reaction to anonymous judging and could not believe that people were actually advocating it.
In hindsight my one -2 GOE point actually ended up working against my argument since it would far more likely be a human error than anything else. It was borne out of my frustration when you see an uncharacteristic low ball GOE that seems to stand out, though i have seen a +3 that made me but i can't recall where. It frustrates that i can't just look at the protocol and say "oh i get it, it was the judge from the skater's country that gave that. "
Also gkelly has made her usual good points about how seating position of the judges, angles, things the udges are particularly looking out for can all affect GOE and that a mark isn't necessarily "wrong".
I accept all that and I do forget sometimes that judges are fallible humans too. I also know that their job is exceptionally difficult especially if you try for even one skater to mark everything as they must (which i did all of once before i gave up ) it is tough and the majority do get it right most of the time (which i did say earlier).
Anyway it's all good! We've got to talk about something before the Olympics!
Ant