- Joined
- Jun 3, 2008
^ Oh, come on. Just because Johnny married a man doesn't mean he wants to burn all the brides.
LOL I chocked
^ Oh, come on. Just because Johnny married a man doesn't mean he wants to burn all the brides.
...he will be shuffled to the middle or back of the pack. Best case scenario would be a 7th place at Nationals I would guess.
That'll be good for him because he'd have the "proof" that what he said about politics in skating and how unfair USFSA was to him were true.
Seriously, I think USFSA will find out soon enough that Weir's "comeback" will bring them more trouble than benefits.
I don't know if this is historically accurate as it applies to figure skating, but judging from 0 to 6 is perfect from the point of view of cognitive psychology. Many studies have confirmed that humans can correctly place items into six or seven comparative categories, but no more.
That is why the program component scores have come in for such criticism. There are forty-one different grades that you can get, from 0.00 to 10.00, graduated in quarters of a point. It is beyond human capacity to distinguish between a performance that deserves 5.50 and one that deserves 5.75.
Not only that, but statistically speaking the sampling errors swamp the thing that is being measured.
But isn't 0 to 6 actually 0.0 to 6.0, which is sixty grades, compared to 40s for PCS? And given that judges have to judge dozens of performances at a time, how can they correctly place them relative to each other if we can only do six/seven comparative categories? Or am I misunderstanding what you're saying.
During the figures era, skaters traced six figures scored from 0.0 to 1.0. They did three tracing with each foot for a total of six. The scoring system's range carried over to the program portion to keep it consistent.
During the figures era, skaters traced six figures scored from 0.0 to 1.0. They did three tracing with each foot for a total of six. The scoring system's range carried over to the program portion to keep it consistent.
If there had never been a 6.0 system, would anybody today design a scoring system this way at all? Would it even occur to them?
Today's fans demand justification for every individual mark on every element and component, poring over and debating about parts and all of the protocols. They will never stand for judges' simple verdict on one skater's presentation over another's. That time has passed.
^ Oh, come on. Just because Johnny married a man doesn't mean he wants to burn all the brides.
If you ask anyone who holds a degree in Research, Evaluation and Measurement, I guarantee you will discover what they talk about is mostly two words: "Reliability" and "Validity". A consultant that designs a scoring system without considering reliability and validity is not a scientist but an artist, probably a con artist. Indeed, the design itself is more of an art. Through exploring the objectives (e.g., cheating prevention, feedback to skaters, etc) and constraints (e.g., maximum number of judges, cost, time, equipments, etc.), the consultant gets the idea whether a holistic measurement or a cumulative evaluation can better meet the needs. Then he will rely heavily on literature reviews,I'd be really curious to find some people who know a lot about evaluation systems and nothing about the history of figure skating scoring and see what they would come up with given different descriptions of the task.
1. Content Validity (The extent to which a measurement covers the content that it is supposed to measure): What are the quantitative methods the ISU used when analyzing opinions of the selected experts and representatives in determining the "content" (i.e., what constitutes good skating)? Apparently Salé and Pelletier, who said the new system killed the art, were not selected, and so did other like-minded former champions.
Is the scoring system comprehensive and representative of the content? Well, field moves are disappearing, which says something about whether CoP proportionally reflects all aspects of skating.
The presentation mark has five elements to it and judges mark each aspect on a scale of one to 10.
The system also appears to have improved the ice dancing event, an ethereal discipline that attracted the most nefarious deal making in the past.
In Beverley Smith article:
Further more, blaming the general interest decline solely on CoP is absolutely not fair and wrong. I think the people who hold the string on spreading the knowledge of new scoring system, the ISU, the commentators, the journalists, the coaches, the skaters, have much more resposibilities to the decline of the interest than the system itself. I, for one, don't know how to hold my interest in a sport for which I have not much knowledge, and also constantly hear the commentators tell me that it is a fluke, predetermined sport.
The reason that there is much less problem for Asia is, as I understand, because Asia has very much accepted the CoP whole heartedly and put the energy towards meeting the challenge of the system instead of constantly complaining about the system.
The reason that there is much less problem for Asia is, as I understand, because Asia has very much accepted the CoP whole heartedly and put the energy towards meeting the challenge of the system instead of constantly complaining about the system.
How do we know what the public want from a presidential debate since there seems to be no consensus? There is a scientific approach: Quantifying the opinions. First, give out open-ended surveys to a sample of experts. Second, design scaled questionnaires based on the open-ended feedback. Third, administer questionnaires with proper sampling methods. Forth, quantify the results and analyze.....That's how one decides the content and the weight for each skill to be measured.That probably comes down to the question of defining good skating. Is it primarily good execution of elements? Good use of the blade across the ice between and within elements? Or good art performed by use of skating skills? Obviously experts who define "good skating" differently will come up with different answers about how to measure it or whether the current system is succeeding. Even within those broad approaches, there will be differences of opinion over whether to privilege, e.g., speed vs. complexity as a measure of skating skill. How can an evaluation system either reconcile the different experts' different opinions or else define the subject matter so clearly that everyone is on exactly the same page using exactly the same definition?
Less and less skaters (especially men) that are willing to include a prolonged edge-holding move in their competitive programs, as you said, partially because it takes away too much time and partially because they have an option of not doing it.I'm not sure what you mean by "field moves are disappearing"
Any tweak (e.g., changing the well-balanced program rules, etc.) will result in a different measurement because its content or relative weight for each trait has changed. After multiple tweaks, its reliability and validity must be re-examined, and I am not sure if it has been done by the ISU. Mathman once told me that ISU conducted validity tests during the developing stage of the NJS. And coincidentally, the early stage of the NJS was the period when I personally found many memorable programs (e.g., Jeffrey Buttle's) that exhibited a good balance of athleticism and artistry. The NJS today is different from the NJS then. It has yet to be validated.Change the well-balanced program rules, or short program required elements rules, or change the time limits, and you'll also likely see a change in program content, without changing the scoring system.
Well, no. Asian media and fans---at least in Japan---very well know how pre-determined the whole thing is. Do you know that Fuji television, the station that showed 4CC, did a news piece of Mao's performance later in the evening and they showed Mao's triple-axel at least NINE times consecutively, and I mean literally nine times from different camera angles and at different speeds, so the viewer had ample opportunity to scrutinize what an 'under-rotation' looks like? Of course no one on the show inc. Shizuka who was commentating said that it wasn't an under-rotation. They only clearly showed her triple-axel many, many times.
(Incidentally, I don't think Mao only lost out this time due to the whims of CoP judging. Her double-axel-triple toe combo was underrotated and wasn't called and I think she flutzed---not completely sure---and she wasn't called. Ashley's triple-triple combo in SP was also underrotated and wasn't called and she also probably flutzed---assuming her technique hasn't suddenly changed as no footage of that jump seems to be in circulation---and she wasn't called.)
It IS predetermined---only to a certain extent tho, which makes the whole situation even more irritating and annoying.
How do we know what the public want from a presidential debate since there seems to be no consensus? There is a scientific approach: Quantifying the opinions. First, give out open-ended surveys to a sample of experts. Second, design scaled questionnaires based on the open-ended feedback. Third, administer questionnaires with proper sampling methods. Forth, quantify the results and analyze.....That's how one decides the content and the weight for each skill to be measured.
Less and less skaters (especially men) that are willing to include a prolonged edge-holding move in their competitive programs, as you said, partially because it takes away too much time and partially because they have an option of not doing it.
Weir was burned very very badly by the Inman and Nichol dictatorship over what should get high scores in PCS. Weir went out there and probably had the best overall performance of all the men. No quads, no inman-nichol choreography. You could see how quads could almost triumph over the nichol-inman dictatorship. But even on the technical side he did his second 3A in the wrong place. The system was dictating and demanding where to place his second triple axel in order to maximize points no matter where the jumps made sense to the skater and their music or feeling.