Skaters/Judging experts on GS - Question

spikydurian said:

Why don't the figure skating federations take fs OUT OF THE OLYMPICS ie. sports realm so that fs do not have to conform to the 'sporting rules' ie. turn fs into an artistic (like ballet and dance)? Certainly to the ordinary folks, watching a dance competition is more fun than a sports competition which tends to be very technical and in this case, fs is a compeition where many skills are displayed in that few minutes unlike gymnastics whereby it is an element at a time.

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Well, skating is a very technical sport -- it's not possible to be very artistic and fun for general audiences to watch without pretty good skating technique.

(It is possible for performers who are good at other kinds of performance to get just good enough at skating to do their thing on ice with skates on and be fun to watch, but in that case the skating is not the fun part except as a novelty.)

The skating that occurs in the Olympics is the sport of skating, which over the past century or so has evolved to include more show-biz accoutrements than in its early days. Also remember that the ISU was formed by and still run by speedskaters as well as figure skaters and is focused on the sport aspect of skating.

Meanwhile there was always show skating, but the ISU was never in charge of it and often looked down on it. Most skating for the sake of artistry is not in competitive format, aside from professional competitions that I always considered more like shows with scores anyway.

Individual national federations have devised competition structures for skating that focuses more on artistry and less on difficult skills (e.g., "showcase" or "interpretive" competitions, etc.) that are not part of the Olympic track. There are even international competitions in disciplines like Theatre on Ice. But the ISU doesn't oversee these competitions at an international level. Because there is no Olympic or world championship to look forward to, it doesn't tend to attract the skaters with the greatest physical talent and/or competitive drive. Some rinks/clubs may have more of an emphasis on this kind of skating rather than on competitive skating.

Some athletically talented skaters are more interested in skating for artistic purposes rather than for competitive purposes and build their careers in that direction. Unless they were successful competitive skaters first, or were headliners in a show that we happened to see or that happened to be televised, we're less likely to know their names.

The media for the most part are more interested in showcasing figure skating as competition than as performance. So that drives what audiences expect to see and what skaters who want to be famous direct their training toward.

I'd love it if there were some way to develop more skating shows with high levels of technical skill and artistry that exist outside a competitive format and can build their own stars rather than primarily relying on competitive champions as headliners.

Professional skating has largely relied on past competitors who choose to turn their focus from sport to art when they reach their 20s or 30s. So that's the best place to find what you're looking for. Unfortunately, for various reasons, pro skating is not as strong now as it was during the skating boom ~15 years go.

skatinginbc said:

Charlos is well qualified (+1), Diego is better qualified (+3), Candidate X is better qualified than Charlos but Diego (+2), Maria is best qualified (+4), and I am not qualified at all (0). The numbers in the above examples are NOT treated as interval scales since equal interval is not warranted.

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Why isn't this ordinal ranking? "Candidate X is better qualified than Charlos but not as well qualified as? Diego."

Better than Kozuka but not as good as Takahashi.

Didn't you just rank the five candidates in order:

Maria (gold)
Diego (silver)
X (bronze)
Charlos (pewter)
You (also skated)

What do we gain by attaching the numbers +4, +3, +2, +1, 0 to these placements and thereby pretending falsely that we have measured something rather than judged comparatively?

Thanks for posting these score cards for sports like dance and cheerleading. The scoring category I like best is "Genuine Smile." Presumably judges mark this score (from 0 points up to 5 points) by comparing the dancer's smile to the universally recognized smile-genuineness scale. Maybe it would be better, though, to have this graded in hundredths of a point, as in figure skating. My smile is worth 3.29 genuineness points. :yes:

This would never do for figure skating because of Alissa Czisny. I would give her a top score of five in this category every time out. But another judge might reason, how can her joy be truly genuine when she just fell four times in her long program?

spikydurian said:

Why don't the figure skating federations take fs OUT OF THE OLYMPICS ie. sports realm...

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I am far from an expert in any of this. But I will say that it has taken me a decade and counting to get over being mad at the Olympics. The Olympic Games had TWO CHANCES to give Michelle Kwan a gold medal, and they blew it both times!

I think there are three reasons why the ISU and National Federations would not want to abandon the Olympics. The first is, if figure skating were not an Olympic sport (and also didn't hold world championship competitions, etc.), then the ISU and the National Federations would be out of business. What would there be for them to do? if you want to put on a show, you don't have to consult the ISU or your national federation, just put on a show.

The second is money. Even now, there is still money to be made off the Olympic Games. Except for that, the only way the ISU could get money is to take it from the national federations in dues, and the only way the national federation could get any money is to take it from local clubs and skaters' parents.

Third, the skaters like it. They may like to express themselves artistically, but they also like the idea of "I can do a double Lutz better than you can!" The Olympics remains the biggest thing a competitor can win. Young skaters like to go higher, faster, stronger, just like athletes in other sports. :yes:

Mathman said:

"Candidate X is better qualified than Charlos but [less well-] qualified than Diego."

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If you treat "well-qualified" as one word, its comparatives would be "less well-qualified" and "more well-qualified". If you think "better qualified" is correct, its opposite would be "worse qualified" (the antonym of "better" is "worse"). Either way will produce unnatural expressions. Therefore, in my opinion, the correct way is "well qualified" (two words), "less qualified" and "more qualified". Indeed, the google search shows 10,100,000 records with "more qualified" compared to 3,440,000 records with "better qualified".

Mathman said:

Why isn't this ordinal ranking?

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Yes, my example was ordinal. It was an example of quantifying qualities. To assess quality, one sometimes would ask the question: to what extent? To what extent do you like Kozuka's skating? Not at all? Fairly? Very much? How good is the skater's presentation skill? Poor? Average? Excellent? A Likert-type or range-voting-like scale can be designed as such that equal interval and symmetry are implied and that data are thus analyzed as cardinal (Not ordinal ranking) or approximated with interval techniques (i.e., using statistical techniques for interval data as an approximate).
In every day life, there are lots of examples where we quantify qualities. For instance, mathematical skill is a quality. To measure it in a classroom setting, a teacher may design a multiple-choice test with items of equal points such that equal interval is assumed, although somewhat arbitrarily. We don't normally rank students. We assign a grade (A, B, C, D, or F) or a score (1 to 100). If a teacher is justified to designate 5 points to a math problem, so is ISU to designate 8.50 to a 3A. It is the same logic.


BTW: I just came across a research article on the reliability of 6.0 judging in skating competitions. It concludes that the judge variance accounted for 10 percent of the total variance in singles' events and was therefore a concern. The reliability for Pairs and Ice Dancing events were, on the other hand, excellent (http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jqas.2011.7.3/jqas.2011.7.3.1241/jqas.2011.7.3.1241.xml).

skatinginbc said:

If you treat "well-qualified" as one word, its comparatives would be "less well-qualified" and "more well-qualified". If you think "better qualified" is correct, its opposite would be "worse qualified" (the antonym of "better" is "worse"). Either way will produce unnatural expressions. Therefore, in my opinion, the correct way is "well qualified" (two words), "less qualified" and "more qualified". Indeed, the google search shows 10,100,000 records with "more qualified" compared to 3,440,000 records with "better qualified".

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I think it should be well qualified, better qualified, best qualified. (He is the candidate with the best qualities, not the most qualities.)

Then, poorly qualified, more poorly qualified, even more poorly qualified, more poorly qualified still, the most poorly qualified candidate in the race.

"Not as well qualified" would be OK, too, I think.

I agree that you can't say "worse qualified." If you want to convey the idea of "worst qualified" you could just say, "He is the worst candidate in the race" and leave qualified out of it.

As for Google statistics, proper usage is not "the way most speakers and writers speak and write." It is "the way the best speakers and writers speak and write."

And who decides who the best speakers and writers are? Why, the best speakers and writers do, of course.

skatinginbc said:

In every day life, there are lots of examples where we quantify qualities. For instance, mathematical skill is a quality. To measure it in a classroom setting, a teacher may design a multiple-choice test with items of equal points such that equal interval is assumed, although somewhat arbitrarily. We don't normally rank students. We assign a grade (A, B, C, D, or F) or a score (1 to 100). If a teacher is justified to designate 5 points to a math problem, so is ISU to designate 8.50 to a 3A. It is the same logic.

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It is quite true that as a species we delight in attaching numbers to things.

But the example of a school mathematics test is more like basketball than it is like figure skating. By and large, there is a right answer and a wrong answer, the ball either goes in or it doesn't. So yes, we can assign points and keep score.

I think a better analogy would be a prize offered for the best original research paper in mathematics. In that case I think the jury would say something like, this paper is stronger than that one, but lacks the originality and significance the other one.

Mathman said:

proper usage is not "the way most speakers and writers speak and write." It is "the way the best speakers and writers speak and write."

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"More" and "less" are antonyms of each other ==> more qualified (OK), most qualified (OK), less qualified (OK), least qualified (OK) ==> symmetrical, good grammar.
"Better" and "worse" are antonyms of each other ==> better qualified (Ok), best qualified (OK), worse qualified (No), worst qualified (No) ==> asymmetrical, bad grammar.
The way most speakers speak is usually closer to so-called Universal Grammar, a common cognitive process held by human beings of various linguistic backgrounds. "More/less/most/least qualified" could easily pass the linguistic barrier when tested in Chinese, whereas "better/best qualified" could not.
The "best" writers that made "better/best qualified" the preferred usage were probably famous and influential but not necessarily logical. And the so-called "proper" usage was initially preferred because it was different, not because it was "proper".

Mathman said:

I think a better analogy would be a prize offered for the best original research paper in mathematics. In that case I think the jury would say something like, this paper is stronger than that one, but lacks the originality and significance the other one.

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Indeed your analogy is better. But the jury may act like school teachers, concerning themselves mainly with assigning grades/scores. They usually discover the ranking order of their students after, not during, the scoring process.

skatinginbc said:

The "best" writers that made "better/best qualified" the preferred usage were probably famous and influential but not necessarily logical.

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There have been many attempts to make natural language more logical. For the most part, they didn't fly.

But if it's logic that we seek, do we want a candidate that has more qualities than another, or do we want a candidate who has better qualities? Do we want a skater who has more of a triple Axel than another, or do we want one whose triple Axel is better? To be sure, we can say, "Joe is more of a skater than Pete" (and the CoP quantifies exactly how much more), but that is slang for "Joe is a better skater than Pete."

Now, you can say that a candidate for U.S. President is qualified. This means that he is over thirty-five and was born in the United States. If not, this candidate is unqualified to assume office. A candidate is not more unqualified than another, but he could be disqualified (by committing a felony, for instance).

I don't mind the usage "poorly qualified." Not at all. But comparing two candidates, I think the best language is to say. "Candidate A is better qualified than candidate B. Candidate B is not as well qualified as candidate A." Skater A is better than skater B. Skater B is not as good as skater A.

What really bugs me about "more qualified" is the same thing that bugs me about the match between the CoP and figure skating.

More = quantity. Qualified = quality (duh. ). CoP = quantity, figure skating = quality.

Most skaters and fans like the CoP and do not see any problem. In contrast, here is an article about what some of the best skaters of past and present think. Oh well, in any case it's too late now.

http://www.examiner.com/figure-skat...rtistic-heart-of-skating-torn-out-skaters-say

Added in proof: It is true, however, that sometimes common usage gangs up on both proper and logical usage and overwhelms it.

For instance, even the best writers no longer care about spilt infinitives. "To boldly go" has totally creamed the correct "Boldly to go."

But think about it. "To boldly?" Boldly is not a verb. Yesterday I timidlied, but today I am determined to boldly.

No. "To go" is the verb. Boldly is an adverb modifying the verb. Boldly to go. But we have been saying it wrong for so long now that wrong has become right. (Thus the CoP? )

I'm probably very lost and missing a lot with this thread, which is nevertheless very interesting. But....when MM says "better triple axle" ....then I ask: what makes one triple axle better than the next....and when I do, I feel like the criteria for CoP pops into my brain....but isn't that what MM is arguing against?

emma said:

I'm probably very lost and missing a lot with this thread, which is nevertheless very interesting. But....when MM says "better triple axle" ....then I ask: what makes one triple axle better than the next....and when I do, I feel like the criteria for CoP pops into my brain....but isn't that what MM is arguing against?

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No, I do think it is possible to say that one triple Axel is better than another. Secure take-off edge, minimal pre-rotation, full rotations in the air, good height and ice coverage, graceful body positions throughout, deep running edge on the landing, element integrated into the choreography and highlighting the music, etc.

What I am arguing against is attaching numbers to all of these things. Is the smoothness of Skater A's running edge worth 2.91 points, while the choreographic value of Skater B's jump is worth only 2.88 points?

Skatinginbc's argument is, yes, you actually can do that. The reason you can do that is because over all the thousands of triple Axels that have been performed and judged we can work up a scale that dependably serves as a yardstick for the quality of the jump, even though the number 2.88 might seem arbitrary when attached to this particular jump in isolation. Skatinginbc is probably right about that.

Skatininbc's analogy about a piano competition is quite convincing, I think. Yes, you can say that this particular performance should score 77 out of 100, because what you are really doing is comparing this performance to all other performances real and imagined and arranging them on a uniform scale from 1 to 100. (OT -- They also have a cool boot-strapping procedure for dealing with outliers, which is better IMO than the trimmed mean. )

Even if you find this suspect, still you have to do something of the sort or you can't have a sport at all.

So in conclusion, skatinginbc's argument is better supported than mine. (Or do I mean it has more support?)

Still, I am uneasy in my bones. As the article linked above points out, the danger is that a new scoring system affects -- for better or for worse -- not only how the sport is judged, but also how it is performed.

Edited to add. We have drifted away a little bit from the original topic of this thread, but not really. The proposal of the OP is that, in view of all these difficulties, maybe it would be better to separate out the elements that can be judged objectively (jumps and spins) in a separate competition, then have a free skating program where the artistic side of skating would come to the fore.

Mathman said:

Still, I am uneasy in my bones. As the article linked above points out, the danger is that a new scoring system affects -- for better or for worse -- not only how the sport is judged, but also how it is performed.

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To me, the problem is that a program is now the sum of its parts and never judged as a whole. The potential results of this worried me as soon as Cinquanta's scheme was announced. I want to watch a program, not a series of tricks. By quantifying the program by the value of each individual element, the judging system is missing the whole picture. And skaters and choreographers are beginning to disregard it as well. The potential gain in PCS for creating a unified and compelling program is far outweighed by the point potential in cramming in level 4 tricks.

And I think it is notable that for fans, skaters have career defining programs not career defining elements. Kwan is elected to the U.S. and then World HOF and fans around the web are remembering their favorite programs not their favorite performance of a triple flip or combination spin. I don't see a day coming when fans compare which performance of level 4 combination spin that received x.xx points and .xxx GOE defines a skater's impact.

skatinginbc said:

BTW: I just came across a research article on the reliability of 6.0 judging in skating competitions. It concludes that the judge variance accounted for 10 percent of the total variance in singles' events and was therefore a concern. The reliability for Pairs and Ice Dancing events were, on the other hand, excellent (http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jqas.2011.7.3/jqas.2011.7.3.1241/jqas.2011.7.3.1241.xml).

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I cannot access the full text (unless I pay 30 euros or 42 $U.S. ). The conclusion that most researchers have drawn from studies of this kind is that the "rater" variance is a symptom of national bias on the part of the judges. I wonder if the authors of this study controlled for this variable. (They would have to beat the anonymous judging roadblock to do so. )

Mathman said:

Still, I am uneasy in my bones. As the article linked above points out, the danger is that a new scoring system affects -- for better or for worse -- not only how the sport is judged, but also how it is performed.

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I think it is absolutely true that COP has affected how the sport is performed; no doubt about it.

There are elements we never see any more because they do not garner points ( 1 foot axel into 3S for example (Trenary)).

There are elements that are better performed: - whether you like it or not, the days of the tiny, fast under rotating little flutzers at the highest senior level is pretty much over.

Even in the US, jump technique is slowly improving because the IJS demands it improve.

There are elements that I am sad to say are not as well performed-the complex spiral positions so leave people cold that they are dropping out of ladies programs, which I think is a shame. And death spirals which used to be gorgeous are mostly not so much.

OTOH, dance judging actually more or less makes sense and has something to do with how the skating actually was--for me a huge plus, although, sad to say, the current steps-in-hold requirements make all those sequences look much the same, since examples of each type of turn are required, and there is only just so much space and time to fit the steps. However, we no longer have couples where one team member is by far the stronger (which I think is a good thing).

I could whine about this as part of IJS, but truth to tell, the sport has been evolving ever since I started watching it 50 years ago. The rules have changed certainly every Olympic quad. The weight of figures and compulsory dances, the introduction of the SP, the change from OSP to OD to SD, and so forth. So I think you'd have change whether there was an IJS or not.

However, from the High School & Collegiate thread, the team sport there actually has some individual skills competition and some performances...so there is already a place where the structure the OP envisions exists.

dorispulaski said:

There are elements we never see any more because they do not garner points ( 1 foot axel into 3S for example (Trenary)).

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It does garner points, but fewer points than 3S+2T, i.e., not commensurate with the difficulty.

It would be an easy change to the rules within the existing structure to make that combination worthwhile: give a bonus multiplier to the second jump in a true combination. Of course that would also affect the values of loop and toe loop combinations as well, and the powers that be evidently have reasons for not wanting such a bonus.

Or they could make some special rules for one-foot axel combinations if they wanted to encourage them.

Certainly the specific rule changes over the years make a big difference in which elements or skills skaters train because they're rewarded or ignore because they're not. I've been saying for years that I'd like to see the rules for the free program tweaked in various ways to reward more variety of skills.

louisa05 said:

And I think it is notable that for fans, skaters have career defining programs not career defining elements. Kwan is elected to the U.S. and then World HOF and fans around the web are remembering their favorite programs not their favorite performance of a triple flip or combination spin. I don't see a day coming when fans compare which performance of level 4 combination spin that received x.xx points and .xxx GOE defines a skater's impact.

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I wonder if Patrick Chan will turn out to be a test case. People do praise Patrick for how he can squeeze the last hundredth of a point out of the scoring system.

For instance, his 3Lz + half loop + 3S is amazingly cool. But instead of "amazingly cool," the buzz is all about how this element maximizes the point value of his jumping passes, while cleverly evading Zayak limitations. Not to mention how shrewdly it is placed in the program, right after the halfway mark to get an extra ten per cent.

11.77 instead of a mere 10.89 that he would have got if he done a 3A+2T instead!

Mathman said:

For instance, his 3Lz + half loop + 3S is amazingly cool. But instead of "amazingly cool," the buzz is all about how this element maximizes the point value of his jumping passes, while cleverly evading Zayak limitations. Not to mention how shrewdly it is placed in the program, right after the halfway mark to get an extra ten per cent.

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I think the number of people who are truly interested in parsing the scoring to this minute level are few and far between. Your post is the first time I've ever seen this mentioned and while I've been known to pour over judges protocol sheets for the fine details, overall I'm more interested in the impact the program makes. I'm not much for programs which maximize points but seem to have no clear "story" and are just a series of elements with little to connect them to the music or the theme.

Mathman said:

Added in proof: It is true, however, that sometimes common usage gangs up on both proper and logical usage and overwhelms it. For instance, even the best writers no longer care about spilt infinitives. "To boldly go" has totally creamed the correct "Boldly to go." But think about it. "To boldly?" Boldly is not a verb. Yesterday I timidlied, but today I am determined to boldly. No. "To go" is the verb. Boldly is an adverb modifying the verb. Boldly to go. But we have been saying it wrong for so long now that wrong has become right. (Thus the CoP? )

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Nay. The truth is: We have been saying it wrong for so long that common usage finally gangs up to make it right.
Language is constantly evolving. The infinitive marker in Proto-Germanic languages was -an. The particle to (equivalent to German zu) was in fact a dative marker. For instance:
Old English: etan "to eat" (nominative as in "To eat is human, to digest divine”); to etanne "to eat" (dative) as in "If you'll excuse us, I have a dinner to eat."
Old High German: ezzan (nominative, accusative), zo ezzanne (dative)
Since the particle to was originally a case marker not part of the verbal construction, Middle English writers felt free to separate it from the infinitive. For instance:
For this was gret unkyndenesse, to this manere treten there brother. "For this was great unkindness, to in this manner treat their brother."

The infinitive marker -an gradually disappeared in late Middle English and to compensate for its loss early Modern English speakers started to use "to" like crazy in such places not supposed to as nominatives and accusatives and to see it as inseparable from its verb. It was not until the mid-19th century some big cats like Henry Alford condemned split infinitives so much so that despite the objections from some grammarians, the schools, the press and the public were brainwashed to prohibit the use of split infinitives. Thank goodness, after half a century of prohibition, the tide has finally changed.

Why is splitting infinitives more logical? It better matches the Universal Grammar (the way that human mind constructs and understands sentences) in terms of this universal rule: a modifier shall be placed as close as possible to the word modified. "To boldly go" is better than "boldly to go" because "boldly" modifies "go", not "to".

Mathman said:

"To go" is the verb.

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"To go" is a nominal phrase (nominative, accusative, or dative), not a verbal phrase.
"To boldly go there is very risky" is similar in construction to "It is very risky", with a pronoun "It" substituting the NOMINAL phrase "to boldly go there".
"Go" is a verb. "To go" is not a verb (The very purpose of infinitive is to nominalize the verb). The adverb "boldly" modifies the verb "go", not the nominal phrase "to go".

Dragonlady said:

I think the number of people who are truly interested in parsing the scoring to this minute level are few and far between. Your post is the first time I've ever seen this mentioned and while I've been known to pour over judges protocol sheets for the fine details, overall I'm more interested in the impact the program makes. I'm not much for programs which maximize points but seem to have no clear "story" and are just a series of elements with little to connect them to the music or the theme.

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True, casual fans do not care that Chan's combo is worth eighty-eighty hundreds of a point more than the more expected 3A+2T. But I bet skaters and their coaches do. Look at how many programs have a lull just before the half-way mark, then a flurry of jumps all in a row to get that extra ten per cent bonus.

This placement of elements does not contribute to telling a story or connecting to the music. But the CoP does not reward telling a story or connecting to the music nearly as much as it rewards checking off the bullets for level fours.

I think that is what Louisa05 is talking about in post 92.

People complain, oh that evil person Patrick Chan, he is going to win worlds by twenty points. Yes he is, but not because he is a better story teller or interpreter of music than the other guys. It is because team Chan makes sure that he gets every tenth of a point he can find all the way down to the toe of his CoP stocking. He is, in fact, Michelle Kwan of the CoP. :yes:

Mathman said:

I cannot access the full text (unless I pay 30 euros or 42 $U.S. ). The conclusion that most researchers have drawn from studies of this kind is that the "rater" variance is a symptom of national bias on the part of the judges. I wonder if the authors of this study controlled for this variable. (They would have to beat the anonymous judging roadblock to do so. )

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I found the article interesting not because of its findings but because it was one of the few articles that focused on the reliability of a skating scoring system. The high inter-rater reliability found in Pairs and Ice Dancing could be explained by reputation judging, which the author failed to investigate. Of course, national bias was not analyzed, either. Anyway, my point was: "Hey, somebody finally paid attention to the reliability of our scoring system!!!"

BTW, different disciplines may have different "languages". From the perspective of Measurement, no distinction is made between "judge" and "measure". We use "rater" as a generic term for one who assigns a score, a grade, or a rank order.