Men's PCS at Worlds.

[Mathman]

But I think he had timing issue only in the last one minute of his program and he got -1 deduction for that already, also he got -0.79 off, which means that he got only 8.21 on IN.

I don't think that is actually right, according to the rules. The -1 deduction is not for finishing behind the music, it is for exceeding the four and a half minutes that are allotted for a men's long program. (I think there is a couple of seconds leeway.) The time starts when the skater begins to move and ends when he stops moving. It has nothing to do with music.

If you think that the correct score, according to the rules, for Patrick's Interpretation, is 8.21, then it seem like you should be curious about why the judges gave him 9's.

Yes, the judges know more than we do. Still, I am curious. No one has yet offered a point-by-point justification of all these 9s, citing the published criteria of the CoP. The only response to fan's curiosity is, "judgie knows best."

[Robeye]

No, no, a thousand times no. I believe the exact opposite.

That is why I feel that the CoP is completely the wrong way to go about figure skating judging. When we assign numbers to something there is an implicit assumption that these numbers mean something. In fact, they don't. Their only meaning is, these are the numbers we assigned. Obviously, then, these numbers are "right" by default. I do not subscribe to this view.

Ordinal placements, on the other hand, do mean something. They mean that judge number three thought that skater A was better than skater B. To me, there is an honesty about that statement that, try as it might, the CoP cannot veil or obscure.

This is a judged sport. It is the CoP that pretends otherwise, referring silently to the Platonic ideal of a perfectly performed element or a perfectly composed program, and then tries to match up numbers as to how closely the actual performance measures up.

My main (and really my only) beef is this. I like figure skating. But I love numbers. I hate like anything to see them abused. I hate to see them forced into unwilling service by taskmasters who do not respect what they are.

That having been said, as a practical matter I am not against the CoP. It works as well as anything else in determining a winner to a skating competition, so pragmatically speaking I say, whatever. But I do not accept the argument that I can't complain about the judging system because one of the rules of the judging system is that I can't complain about the judging system.

I agree with almost everything you've said here (almost ). Where I diverge a bit is in being a kind of Platonist with regard to skating, a pragmatic Platonist as far as the "technical" aspects are concerned (which potentially includes skating skills and transitions), and a "modifed", or maybe even "evolutionary" Platonist with regard to the aesthetic aspects. Allow me to unpack:

-Both by concept as well as by personal observation (whatever that's worth), I believe that there is a right way to do a jump, a spin, change edges, etc., and a wrong way (actually, the wrong ways are endless, and may be the single biggest source of creativity in skating. It reminds me of the comment by Tolstoy in Anna Karenina, that happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. ). And pragmatically speaking, that's it's possible to place a reasonably precise numeric value on it, signifying just how right/wrong it was.

-With regard to the artistic, my own humble view is that ground for a "right" and "wrong" way can be achieved under at least two approaches. The first possibility is that the audience (including both general spectators and judges) share a fairly uniform set of aesthetic values. We can see real-life examples of successful cases in societies such as Athens of the classical period, which is what allowed the drama competitions to come off without causing riots among disgruntled fans (that and the lack of the internet). Of course, the much more diverse nature of modern skating audiences makes this a bit more difficult to achieve, but it has not, in my view, completely erased the phenomenon of value commonality. I would argue that there exists a kind of "skating culture" that cuts across traditional boundaries, which skaters, judges, and knowledgeable viewers all implicitly acknowledge, which dictates, at least in broad strokes, what is to be considered good or bad performance in skating, whether one is American, European, Asian, or whatever.

More fundamentally, what allows such a skating culture to be understood, learned, and felt by diverse audiences is that the principles of aesthetics are ultimately based on reactions to physical cues which are shared by all human beings as human beings. We evolved both the ability to recognize the aesthetic via commonly shared modes of emotional response, and to be sensitive to certain types of cues as being more pleasing than others. This is why music is universal, dance is universal, among all societies wherever they are (except maybe the Amish), and why a person from one culture can learn to appreciate the art of another. It is why the rhythmic (as opposed to the arhythmic or chaotic) is an almost universal preference, for example. Possibly because (my speculation here) we recognize, on an atavistic level, that it represents health and life, in contrast to sickness and death. The implication of this is that education of viewers is both possible and desirable.

While it may not strictly satisfy any metaphysical criterion () for "objectivity", it fulfills that function for all human intents and purposes. I think it extremely important that skating fans come to terms with this. This is the reason that I vigorously object to the notion that artistry (in general, but for skating in particular) is "subjective", in the sense that there is no right answer, or that conversely, any notion is in principle as right as any other. If this were the case, then we are on a sharply steep and slippery slope, and at the bottom of it, we find that there is no tenable justification whatsoever for retaining the artistic/performance aspect in what is, after all, a competitive endeavor. We will have succeeded in throwing the baby out with the bath water.

That being said, I entirely agree with you that, given the more holistic nature of artistic performance, it may be possible for most educated viewers to agree that one performance was better than another, but the level of precision that is implied in the system of scoring for the artistic aspects (PE, CH, I), down to the fractions of points, is conceptually inane.

Here's an idea that I'll run up the flagpole (and it's just an idea; I'm not wedded to it and would be interested in hearing responses): what if the artistic components were scored on a kind of "10-point must system" (like boxing)? In other words, forget about whether a 10 is a "perfect" performance in any absolute sense. Instead, a 10 would be the score received by the skater who was, relative to that field, the best of the night. The second best skater would receive some set discount to that, say a 9, and it goes on down the line from there, at predetermined increments (8,7,6...etc.). There could be refinements. If you believe there is more than one skater who were the best of that competition, then you could give them both 10s (but with a strict limit on how many skaters could occupy a particular slot). And, of course, the scale of this grading on a forced curve can be tinkered with. It could start with 30, say, (with some factoring, to give the desired weighting to overall scoring) and the increments can be adjusted, in accordance with how punitive one wants the curve to be.

The advantage of this system, it seems to me, is that it gives everyone in the field a fair chance, but it does not place a burden on judges to think cosmically about how this program compares to a theoretical version of perfection, or how it compared to all the performances that have historically been done. It merely requires that the judge focus on the much narrower and more manageable question of: who was better than who, right here, right now? And simply rank them, which takes the problematic issue of precision out of the judges' hands. The other possible advantage is that it really incentives the skaters to try to achieve a clear differentiation in the artistic qualities of their performance, one that allows them to stand out from the rest.

In a way, I guess this would be a kind of hybrid scoring, one that retains most of the advantages of COP in the technical scoring, while incorporating the elegance and conceptual correctness of 6.0 in its approach to the aesthetic components.

[deedee1]

German "hei da" (literally "hi there") was borrowed into Middle English as "heyda" and later "heyday", which was an archaic exclamation of cheerfulness, excitement and surprise and later reanalyzed as "high day" and adopted the meaning of "prime". Still, the construction of "hei" (hi) + "da" (there) was an ancient concept, literally "Hi, (one who is over) there" with an implication of physical distance, similar to the old nautical expression "Ahoy, there".

"Hello" is quite modern actually, first recorded in the late 19th century.

Thanks again, BC.
Skating, music, other areas on arts, and now linguistics!?
It seems you are so knowledgeable just on anything!!!

[yuki]

But I think he had timing issue only in the last one minute of his program and he got -1 deduction for that already, also he got -0.79 off, which means that he got only 8.21 on IN.

Chan was in the sixth place in the category of Interpretation. Lower than Takahashi, Hanyu, Amodio, Joubert, and Abbott. Wasn't that low enough already?!

So are you saying that you think he should have gotten 8.21 in IN or that he actually got 8.21? I'm asking because Patrick's actual score for IN in the long program was 9.21, making him not the sixth, but the first in that category.

[gkelly]

-Both by concept as well as by personal observation (whatever that's worth), I believe that there is a right way to do a jump, a spin, change edges, etc., and a wrong way (actually, the wrong ways are endless, and may be the single biggest source of creativity in skating.

I would disagree.
I think that there is a platonic ideal of school figures and those were scored on how closely the execution matched the ideal.

But with freeskating, there's doing the basic thing correctly, and then there are variations that enhance the basic skill or that reflect different ways of doing it right and better than just "right." That's where the positive GOEs come in, or uncaptured mental extra credit under a holistic judgment. If there's only one way to make an element better, then the better-est it could be might be the ideal. But if there are multiple ways to make it better, then the standard good is not the ultimate ideal and neither is only one of the possible improvements.

-With regard to the artistic, my own humble view is that ground for a "right" and "wrong" way can be achieved under at least two approaches. The first possibility is that the audience (including both general spectators and judges) share a fairly uniform set of aesthetic values. ... Of course, the much more diverse nature of modern skating audiences makes this a bit more difficult to achieve, but it has not, in my view, completely erased the phenomenon of value commonality. I would argue that there exists a kind of "skating culture" that cuts across traditional boundaries, which skaters, judges, and knowledgeable viewers all implicitly acknowledge, which dictates, at least in broad strokes, what is to be considered good or bad performance in skating, whether one is American, European, Asian, or whatever.

Yes, very broadly. But there are cultural differences among practitioners and officials as well as among fans. The skating community can try to reinforce common standards within its own boundaries. But the the individuals will also have outside influences. And subcommunities of fans will develop their own common criteria that may draw more on the values of the outside

Just as a random example, some expert and nonexpert viewers might swoon with delight a the sight of a male skater with impeccable body line and pointed toes. Others might feel deeply uneasy at what they perceive as feminine characteristics on a male body, to the point that watching male skaters with these qualities gives them the creeps. (Obviously, they wouldn't last long as officials or coaches if that were the case. But as fans they could continue to enjoy women's skating and the more macho, perhaps less refined male singles and pair skaters.)

That being said, I entirely agree with you that, given the more holistic nature of artistic performance, it may be possible for most educated viewers to agree that one performance was better than another, but the level of precision that is implied in the system of scoring for the artistic aspects (PE, CH, I), down to the fractions of points, is conceptually inane.

The numbers are inevitably a compromise. It's more convenient than giving a verbal evaluation (to communicate) or mental or penciled tickmark (to keep track) of where each skater is good, better, or not so good and by how much.

Here's an idea that I'll run up the flagpole (and it's just an idea; I'm not wedded to it and would be interested in hearing responses): what if the artistic components were scored on a kind of "10-point must system" (like boxing)?

I have no idea what that means and don't have time to google.

In other words, forget about whether a 10 is a "perfect" performance in any absolute sense. Instead, a 10 would be the score received by the skater who was, relative to that field, the best of the night. The second best skater would receive some set discount to that, say a 9, and it goes on down the line from there, at predetermined increments (8,7,6...etc.). There could be refinements. If you believe there is more than one skater who were the best of that competition, then you could give them both 10s (but with a strict limit on how many skaters could occupy a particular slot).

So if there are 30 skaters in the short program, then there should be an average of 3 in each slot? Or can there be slots of 8.5, etc.?
Are these scores given for whole programs or several scores from each judge for different aspects of the program (e.g., 5 separate components)?

Since these are comparative scores, they could only be given after the fact. How do you keep track in large fields?

Here is the best (in the opinion of 5 of the judges, IIRC) men's short program from 1996 Worlds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyGkx7b_Dc0
It was also the 2nd out of 30 performances that day.
What kind of notes do the judges need to keep to remind them to give 3 or 4 hours later that that was the best performance of the day? They can't give the best-in-field score in real time, because for all they knew that could end up being only be the 4th or 5th best performance of the day.

How do they remember that the first skater of the day was, in their opinion, 25th best overall? That's what the placeholder scores were for under 6.0, with some advantages from the flexibility of tiebreakers and some disadvantages in that the numbers corresponded only roughly to absolute skill levels as understood given the state of the sport at that point in skating history.

What the program components scoring is trying to do is to peg the numbers to those somewhat-less-rough mental consensuses about "absolute" skill level rather than comparing them directly to other skaters in the same event.

So I have a few questions about how your proposal would work.
*How many numbers does each judge give to each performance?
*How do they keep track of comparisons among many skaters across the several-hour duration of a large event?

And, of course, the scale of this grading on a forced curve can be tinkered with. It could start with 30, say, (with some factoring, to give the desired weighting to overall scoring) and the increments can be adjusted, in accordance with how punitive one wants the curve to be.

Can you elaborate?

The advantage of this system, it seems to me, is that it gives everyone in the field a fair chance, but it does not place a burden on judges to think cosmically about how this program compares to a theoretical version of perfection, or how it compared to all the performances that have historically been done.

I disagree that there is a theoretical version of perfection. I think there are multiple, potentially contrasting, theoretical versions of excellence. So several different skaters in the same well-skated high-level event might come close, in different ways, to the best imaginable performances of their different programs with their separate areas of excellence. If we want to come up with a winner, there needs to be a way to distinguish at a finer level than either 10 or 9 for the whole program (not sure if that's what you're proposing).

It merely requires that the judge focus on the much narrower and more manageable question of: who was better than who, right here, right now?

See, I think that's actually a much harder question when you have more than 6 skaters to keep track of.

The few very best and very best in the event will be memorable. But how do you distinguish between 10th best and 13th best if they skated several hours apart without some external mental benchmark to compare them to?

And simply rank them, which takes the problematic issue of precision out of the judges' hands. The other possible advantage is that it really incentives the skaters to try to achieve a clear differentiation in the artistic qualities of their performance, one that allows them to stand out from the rest.

Is this proposal for program components/second mark only and there would still be more absolute/cardinal scoring of the elements?
Taking control of the increments (margin of victory) in components away from the judges would mean that the base values would more often determine the results.

Or if you're proposing to use this for technical content too, then it takes away precision in evaluating the tech content.

[Olympia]

Can I say how much I love this thread? Platonism, etymology, examination of the mathematical justification of the scoring system...even Tolstoy.

I actually think that Tolstoy is incorrect about happy families. They can be very different, too...and vive la difference.

Does anyone have any idea of exactly how and by whom the CoP was devised? That would give us a lot of insight into its intention.

Carry on!

[Dragonlady]

Does anyone have any idea of exactly how and by whom the CoP was devised? That would give us a lot of insight into its intention.

Carry on!

Octavio Cinquanta devised the system. A group of Canadians actually created the computer program which is used, with input from the technical committees.

[gkelly]

Does anyone have any idea of exactly how and by whom the CoP was devised? That would give us a lot of insight into its intention.

I don't know exactly.
What I have heard is that there was dissatisfaction with the scoring at least as of 1997 and 1998.
(There had always been dissatisfaction, and there had been earlier changes at various points in history, but I think that era is when the move toward something other than ordinals started to gain momentum)

Cinquanta didn't like the place changing in the men's event at 1997 Europeans. So he commissioned a new scoring system that would address that problem. The introduction of OBO instead of majority calculations for dealing with the ordinals, as of 1998-99 season, was the first significant change.

Meanwhile there was a scandal in the ice dance competition at 1998 Olympics, so the dance judges and technical committee were trying to find ways to make that sport more objective and less subject to national bias and deal making. Required elements for ice dance (hello twizzles and dance spins!) were introduced for 1998-99; a fall deduction was introduced immediately after the Olympics and applied at 1998 Worlds.

My understanding was that a project to score elements and what we now call program components was a back-burner project as of 1998 that was moved to the front burner after the 2002 Olympic pair scandal. In an attempt to appease the wrath of the IOC and to satisfy his objective speedskater sensibility, Cinquanta rushed the new system into use with the test project in 2003 senior fall competitions (Nebelhorn and Grand Prix) becoming the new official scoring system by fall of 2004.

I don't know everyone who was who put the new system together. I do know that Ted Barton is the primary name I've heard associated with its development.

Anyone else here know more?

So I think there were several goals in devising and adopting the new system. Primarily to get rid of the confusing place changing and to make the evaluation of technical content more standardized and transparent.

I don't know what the intentions were for the program components other than to keep the values that had already been part of judging the non-element technical content in the first mark and the second mark under the old system. Personally, I like the idea of breaking these qualities down into more than one or two marks, but I don't know what the official reasoning was behind doing so.

Anonymous judging (and random selection, which now thankfully is gone) was also added as of 2002-03, but that's a separate issue. The stated goal there was to interfere with federations' attempt to control their judges' judging and to make deals. Another intention might have been to prevent the public from calling out specific officials for perceived irregularities.

[Dragonlady]

I don't know everyone who was who put the new system together. I do know that Ted Barton is the primary name I've heard associated with its development.

Octavio Cinquanta proposed the system to the figure skating federations in the years prior to SLC because he didn't like flip flops and because he wanted to quantify the scoring similarly to the gymnastics scoring system adopted in recent years. They turned the whole thing down flat. After the judging scandal in SLC, Cinquanta again raised the issue of the new scoring system but this time, instead of proposing it to the figure skating federation, he proposed it as "a study, not a rule" to the entire ISU Council, including the speed skaters and the short track speed skaters, so that the figure skating federations couldn't veto it and of course it was passed.

Ted Barton developed the computer program that runs the whole thing, hence the firmly held belief that the Canadians developed the system. They did not. They developed the computer program which runs the system. The judging criteria and the point values were established by the ISU Technical Committees and have been tweaked annually ever since.

[gkelly]

The judging criteria and the point values were established by the ISU Technical Committees and have been tweaked annually ever since.

Thank you. That's good to know.

[Bluebonnet]

I don't think that is actually right, according to the rules. The -1 deduction is not for finishing behind the music, it is for exceeding the four and a half minutes that are allotted for a men's long program. (I think there is a couple of seconds leeway.)

Whatever way you want to put it, there is no difference between finishing behind music and exceeding the four and a half minutes. They are talking about the samething.

The time starts when the skater begins to move and ends when he stops moving. It has nothing to do with music.

This is incorrect.

Watch this Patrick's World LP. You could see that his music started at 55" and at 5' 35" the music struck the last note. But it was not the end. There has to be, in this case, a time to allow the last note to finish. I would say that the music has finished, at least, at 5' 37". The music was 4' 43" long. I could also say that the music has finished at 5' 38" because depending on different person's different interpretation, the fermata could be stretched longer in order to fully express the feeling of the music.

Patrick's movements started at 58" and ended at 5' 38". They took 4' 41". If he did the movements correctly according to the music, his movements should take 4' 38".

Assume that we consider the music has ended at 5' 37". If you say that he was still moving after the music has stopped, then he was one second behind the music. If you say his last movement should be at exactly the time when the last note of the music struck (which I personally think it should in this case), then he was three seconds behind the music.

Where else the time deduction could go to besides Interpretation? There is a timing's definition for ice dance:

Timing
Definition: The ability of the couple to skate strictly in time with the music and to reflect the rhythm patterns and prescribed beat values of the compulsory (pattern) dance.

So time is first and foremost related to music interpretation. Even though there is no timing requirement in singles, there is a time deduction. My understanding is that CoP gives more flexibilities related to music in singles than in ice dance but want to make sure that there is not too much freedom as to be off the certain limit of timing. This mandatory deduction (the mandatory fall deduction as well) is to ensure that there is some sort of punishment in case some of the judges took liberty not to give any deduction.

Therefore, I personally think that it goes into interpretation as if mandatory deduction of falls goes into technical portion of the scores. Of course, there is no difference whether you minus this number first or minus this number last because there are only additions and subtractions. So might as well leave it outside to emphasize the punishment.

If you think that the correct score, according to the rules, for Patrick's Interpretation, is 8.21, then it seem like you should be curious about why the judges gave him 9's.

Yes, the judges know more than we do. Still, I am curious. No one has yet offered a point-by-point justification of all these 9s, citing the published criteria of the CoP. The only response to fan's curiosity is, "judgie knows best."

My best guess, I don't know what the judges think, is that:

1) the judges have considered the mandatory time deduction within the interpretation category.

2) Patrick's timing in the category of interpretation, besides the last minute of the program, was excellent.

I have proof for this claim too. If you watch his Worlds LP carefully, you could see that every single jump of his in this program, before the last minute, was landed on the struck of a strong beat. His landing blade touched the ice just when the music struck a strong note. This is soooooo difficult to do. No matter if he was ready or not to do the jump, he had to jump according to the music. And he did them so perfectly! Even in the last minute, I think I could say that his last sequence wasn't affected much by the delay if we talk about it purely from the perspective of music interpretation.

Upon reviewing Patrick's World LP, I'm ready to declare that Patrick is indeed astonishingly musical! I think he deserved high IN marks!

[gkelly]

Whatever way you want to put it, there is no difference between finishing behind music and exceeding the four and a half minutes. They are talking about the same thing.

No, they're not.

A senior men's LP is allowed 4:30 +/- 10 seconds. So 4:40 is acceptable, 4:41 gets a deduction.
The timing starts when the skater starts to move.

If the music is cut to just 4:40 and the skater starts moving during what should have been the still opening pose, or if the player at that particular venue is running just a hair slow for some reason (I don't know how likely this is with today's digital media), then the skater could be on the music perfectly throughout the performance after the first second or two and still earn the time deduction.

If the music is cut to 4:30 and the skater gets behind by several measures and finishes the last spin 8 seconds after the music ends, he's still within the allowed time limit and gets no time deduction.

Where else the time deduction could go to besides Interpretation?

The time deduction is taken off the total segment score, same as a fall deduction or a costume deduction.

My best guess, I don't know what the judges think, is that:

1) the judges have considered the mandatory time deduction within the interpretation category.

No. They don't consider the time deduction at all. That's the referee's job. The judges just judge the interpretation as they see it.

[Bluebonnet]

No, they're not.

A senior men's LP is allowed 4:30 +/- 10 seconds. So 4:40 is acceptable, 4:41 gets a deduction.
The timing starts when the skater starts to move.

If the music is cut to just 4:40 and the skater starts moving during what should have been the still opening pose, or if the player at that particular venue is running just a hair slow for some reason (I don't know how likely this is with today's digital media), then the skater could be on the music perfectly throughout the performance after the first second or two and still earn the time deduction.

If the music is cut to 4:30 and the skater gets behind by several measures and finishes the last spin 8 seconds after the music ends, he's still within the allowed time limit and gets no time deduction.



The time deduction is taken off the total segment score, same as a fall deduction or a costume deduction.



No. They don't consider the time deduction at all. That's the referee's job. The judges just judge the interpretation as they see it.

Ok, then I was wrong. But I have a question:

Patrick's skating took exactly 4' 40" to finish. Why did he get the time deduction?

[gkelly]

Ok, then I was wrong. But I have a question:

Patrick's skating took exactly 4' 40" to finish. Why did he get the time deduction?

The referee's stopwatch must have read at least 4:41.

[Bluebonnet]

The referee's stopwatch must have read at least 4:41.

Yeah, sorry, I was just planning to delete my last post because I've realized it.

Changed my previous post accordingly.