Men's PCS at Worlds.

Should the competition always follow the audience first reaction or should the competition respects the honesty of true qualities on ice?

let`s talk said:

That is exactly why popularity of FS is declining rapidly- a paying customer is told his opinion is not right after all. So he goes to watch something else.

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Do paying customers have to have the results go their way or they won't be accepted? Then they should go to watch ice shows, not competitions.

On the other hand, I'm not saying that this is not a problem. That is the reason that I believe ISU has urgent task to do.

Remember, figure skating is still, for the most part, an amateur-style sport; it is not big business funding itself by ticket sales.

The "paying customers" for an eligible figure skating competition who pay for fair results are the skaters and their federations.

The price of a ticket to an event gives you the right to watch the event and to have an opinion about what you liked and didn't like or what you wished were given more weight in the scoring. It does not give you the right to decide the results.

doctor said:

Data entry mistakes?

Mathman said:

SS:
Hanyu. 7.50--7.50--7.75--8.00--8.25--8.50--8.50--8.75--9.00 - 8.39
Joubert 8.00--8.00--8.00--8.00--8.25--8.25--8.50--8.75--8.75 - 8.21

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In ascending order, the SS scores should’ve been:
Hanyu. 7.50--7.75--8.00--8.25--8.50--8.50--8.75--9.00--9.00 - 8.39
Joubert 8.00--8.00--8.00--8.00--8.25--8.25--8.50--8.50--8.75 - 8.21

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That's what I get for just copying and pasting from another post instead of checking the numbers myself.

My list was taken from post #218, where Skatefiguring was arguing against the claim that some of the Hanyu judges really, really liked Hanyu (like giving him 9's, considerably above the median of 8.50. ETA: Actually the median is 8.4375. The median class is 8.50, but there are two 8.50s. One-and-a-half of the 8.5s are in the top half and .5 is in the bottom half. ).

Even so, for Skating skills Skatefiguring is right. There are more really low marks for Hanyu than there are really high marks. The way to tell this is, as skatinginbc mentions, compare the median (8.44) to the mean (8.36, over all nine judges). The data is skewed slightly to the left. This supports SkateFiguring position for the SAkating Skills category. (I haven't looked at the three artistic components yet.)

In any case, the question under view is: can we tell from the protocols which skater was favored in this category by the majority of judges.

No, we can't. Maybe the judge's matched up like this:

H. 7.50--7.75--8.00--8.25--8.50--8.50--8.75--9.00--9.00
J.. 8.00--8.00--8.25--8.50--8.75--8.00--8.00--8.25--8.50

Joubert wins, 5 judges to 4. (I hope I did that one right. )

This possibility cannot be avoided by any add-up-the-points scheme. To me, this is an unpleasant feature of the the CoP -- but no big deal.

This is actually a question for Mathman, since he is a mathematician.
Back when I was a lab tech, I was told that you couldn't do statistics on numbers that were not actual measurements. I was ranking how well bar codes stuck on test tubes at the time (exciting job, I know), with say 4=perfect stick, 3=some bubbles, 2=partially falling off, etc. and doing averages of them. My boss told me that you could not correctly take averages and other statistical measures when the numbers were made up, somewhat subjective criteria as opposed to actually measuring something with gauges and rulers.

If this is true--and I never heard it anywhere else, so I don't know, but she was an engineer, so I trust her--all of this statistical analysis is meaningless. It means nothing that Hanyu got 8.9 and Patrick got 9.9 and Takashi got 8.3 because these numbers are just made up. Yeah, I know there's a rubric, and yeah, I know that teachers like myself do that (averaging grades on reports and projects, for example).

The more I read this thread, the more I wish they'd bring back the 6.0 system, and a few years ago, I never thought I'd say that. Yeah, it could be crooked and the faves were usually held up, but this system is hardly more transparent, still holds up favorites, and is pretentious beyond compare. I like the points per jump aspect of the code of points, but it seems like most of the competitions are decided by the more subjective "second mark," so falling or skipping the harder jumps hardly matters.

I'm getting disgusted.

Poodlepal said:

This is actually a question for Mathman, since he is a mathematician.

Back when I was a lab tech, I was told that you couldn't do statistics on numbers that were not actual measurements. I was ranking how well bar codes stuck on test tubes at the time (exciting job, I know), with say 4=perfect stick, 3=some bubbles, 2=partially falling off, etc. and doing averages of them...

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I agree with your boss on this one. I would look at it this way. What would an average mean? If you had one label with a perfect stick (4 points) and one label partially falling off (2), does that average out to a label with some bubbles?

The point about being arbitrary would go like this. Suppose instead you decided to give 100 points for perfect stick, 50 points for bubbles, and 25 points for partially falling off. Now the average of a perfect one with a partially falling off one would be 62.5 -- quite a bit better than some bubbles. Which scale is the right one?

In this example the only statistic that would be useful is a relative frequency count. 45% of the labels were perfect, 29% had some bubbles, etc.

Mathematicians can do two things, count and measure, arithmetic and geometry. I think it goes back to how people made their living when they emerged from hunting and gathering economies. If you are a herder of animals, you must know how to number your herd (counting). If you are a farmer you must know how to measure your land (geo-metry = earth measurement).

Since the time of Cain (farmer/geometer) and Abel (herdsman/arithmetician) the farmer and the cowboy have never been friends, fighting countless wars over land use throughout history.

Ordinal judging is counting (animal husbandry). How many judges gave you a first place ordinal. Count them, 1, 2, 3. You cannot add or average ordinals. (2+4=6. Yes. 2nd place + 4th place = 6th place. No.)

CoP is measuring (agriculture). Takahashi's Interpretation measures 8.25 on the musicality yardstick. So, yes, you can average CoP marks if you believe that there is such a thing as the musicality yardstick. On this thread I think maybe skatingbc, Robeye, and gkelly lean in the direction that yes (Virginia) there is a musicality yardstick, so we really are measuring something when we assign these numbers.

As for me, I don't know what I think.

Robeye said:

On the other hand, if a tentacled sentient mollusk from Neptune vibrated its antennae in a certain way while releasing electromagnetic pulses that we can't detect, then I'm not sure that we would be capable, even in principle, of knowing what was being communicated, or of feeling the same way about it even if we could.

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An interesting question. We don't want to fall into the trap of speciesism or planetism. Some sea creature do wave there tentacles in a pretty way, even if all they are communicating is "come a little closer so I can grab you" or "I am just chilling out letting the ocean currents swish me back and forth." I can easily imagine, as sentience advances, that these behaviors could develop into two forms of dance -- like Latin (come closer so I can grab you) and ballroom (just chillin' and swayin' to the music) -- that earth people would find beautiful in much the same way as the methane-breathers do.

The electromagnetic pulses could be detected artificially and augmented in various ways so that we could experience them -- like displaying a graph of the primary frequencies of the Fourier series, very pretty. Sort of like how the soundbox of a violin shapes and amplifies the scraping of a bow across the strings of a fiddle and produces a pretty sound.

Maybe the common musicality yardstick could be stretched a little further after all. :yes:

gkelly said:

Remember, figure skating is still, for the most part, an amateur-style sport; it is not big business funding itself by ticket sales.

The "paying customers" for an eligible figure skating competition who pay for fair results are the skaters and their federations.

Click to expand...

I would imagine that by far the majority of income comes from parents who put their children into learn to skate classes or beginning level competitions. They deserve a sport run with professionalism and grounded in fair play. (Aside: Do they get it?)

Still, there was a time when everyone in America knew that Scott Hamilton was a skating star and a million little girls wanted a Dorothy Hamill haircut. It seem like a retreat if the sport becomes less welcoming of the public than it was in the past.

I think you hit the nail on the head when you wrote that what is missing is that the audience does not know why this skater won and that one lost. In terms of "educating the audience" I am still intrigued by this post.

gkelly said:

Is one of these closer than the others to what might be considered the platonic ideal of a layback spin?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnoRJ8gZpZU&t=0m55s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_Ikxi6Zx4A&t=0m30s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5p3zrEI7N0&t=2m25s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4IFWjMlFVk&t=4m30s

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Suppose you wanted to explain to a casual fan what was so wonderful about these spins and why they got oodles of points?

Lucinda Ruh. OK, this is obviously the best spin in the history of skating and any fan who can't see that is just uneducable.

Natalie Krieg. Look at her blade on the ice. Just look at it! (The hand and arm movements may contribute to the Performance, Interpretation and Choreography, but that's a trifle.)

Angela Nikodinov. Here a fan can profit from being told something about ballet positions, etc.

Caroline Zhang. This is the only CoP spin in the bunch. I assume it is a level four, the other three being level ones by modern scoring. Caroline looks like a million dollars. But the reason the spin is a big point-getter is because of a a lot of changes of edges and positions. This is hard for the casual fan to see or to understand, plus, all those point-getting features do not make the spin any better, just more difficult. We have a big education job on our hands here, unless we just retreat to, oh look how pretty!

Responding about the laybacks in the Educating the public thread

Mathman said:

An interesting question. We don't want to fall into the trap of speciesism or planetism. Some sea creature do wave there tentacles in a pretty way, even if all they are communicating is "come a little closer so I can grab you" or "I am just chilling out letting the ocean currents swish me back and forth." I can easily imagine, as sentience advances, that these behaviors could develop into two forms of dance -- like Latin (come closer so I can grab you) and ballroom (just chillin' and swayin' to the music) -- that earth people would find beautiful in much the same way as the methane-breathers do.

The electromagnetic pulses could be detected artificially and augmented in various ways so that we could experience them -- like displaying a graph of the primary frequencies of the Fourier series, very pretty. Sort of like how the soundbox of a violin shapes and amplifies the scraping of a bow across the strings of a fiddle and produces a pretty sound.

Maybe the common musicality yardstick could be stretched a little further after all. :yes:

Click to expand...

This is a thread that has spawned a lot of thread drift, so I suppose one more excursion won't hurt.

We are more likely to impute art to alien species than to our own, I think.

Consider the case of the humpback whales:

http://www.youtube.com/results?sear...=youtube.12...0.0.1.9031.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0.

In fact, a good deal of the "Save The Whales" movement was first inspired by a releasing of recordings of their "songs".

Mathman said:

An interesting question. We don't want to fall into the trap of speciesism or planetism. Some sea creature do wave there tentacles in a pretty way, even if all they are communicating is "come a little closer so I can grab you" or "I am just chilling out letting the ocean currents swish me back and forth." I can easily imagine, as sentience advances, that these behaviors could develop into two forms of dance -- like Latin (come closer so I can grab you) and ballroom (just chillin' and swayin' to the music) -- that earth people would find beautiful in much the same way as the methane-breathers do.

The electromagnetic pulses could be detected artificially and augmented in various ways so that we could experience them -- like displaying a graph of the primary frequencies of the Fourier series, very pretty. Sort of like how the soundbox of a violin shapes and amplifies the scraping of a bow across the strings of a fiddle and produces a pretty sound.

Maybe the common musicality yardstick could be stretched a little further after all. :yes:

Click to expand...

Actually, at the risk of falling afoul of political correctness, speciesism, I believe, (and, by conceptual extension only, planetism, since we don't yet know for a certainty that it's even necessary, Hollywood movies and Discovery Channel documentaries notwithstanding ), is something we should fall for, and it's not a trap.

Let me be precise: by my provincial way of thinking, "sentience" is the ability to comprehend and manipulate logic, including the basic idea of cause and effect (although on that measure, it's not entirely clear, on the evidence of Sarah Palin's interviews, that all human beings qualify . This was just a throw-away one-liner, so I'm hoping that I won't be bombarded with flaming from SarahPAC). I can envision that communication would be possible with aliens with regard to physically demonstrable matters, including mathematics, physics, and even that if you (the alien) electromagnetically flux in a certain pattern, I know it means that I should come no closer, and similarly that you will understand that if I brandish a golf club at you, it means something roughly similar (unless we are on a course, and even then you should be wary).

However, sentience is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the ability to share a common experience of feeling, which, when we peel away all of the philosophical and analytical layers, is what art ultimately boils down to. The reason that human beings, at least potentially, are able to achieve this is because we have in common a certain neurological arrangement, and hardwired emotional responses to certain types of stimuli that we have in retrospect recognized and labelled as "aesthetic". Like rhythm, or melody, harmony, or analogous phenomena in movement or pictures. These phenomena can be analyzed logically or mathematically, but our emotional response to them (and, indeed the ability to "emotionally" respond) is part of our unique evolutionary legacy, which cannot be replicated by any other beings, sentient or otherwise, unless they, by some miracle of serendipity, have also wound up being so similar to human beings that we could probably mate and reproduce (one of the charming lunacies of space operas such as Star Trek).

To think otherwise is to fall into the much more serious "trap" of anthropomorphism. Take the example of humpback whales. We listen to what we call their "songs" (anthropomorphism at its finest), and are charmed, because we project onto those emanations qualities of human song by analogy. But I think that it is at least as likely (as you imply) that the humpback is saying something like: "That's a nice looking school of my favorite krill right there", or "Gads, my fluke is itching and it's driving me nuts that I can't get at it", with no other intention whatsoever. But, IMHO, you are not following this accurate observation, that their experience of the calls is not our experience, to its logical conclusion. And in the case of whales (and even more so for, say, chimpanzees or for dogs), we at least have some scientific evidence to support our intuition that, on some level, they share the ability to experience the neural phenomenon that we call emotion, because we share a mammalian lineage.

Even if we stipulate, for argument sake, that the creatures of Neptune possessed artistic intention in the way that we understand the term, I believe that, just on purely perceptual grounds, it is impossible for us to feel whatever it is that they feel. If you have to view an oscilloscope to perceive the action, this is very different from direct perception via your own pair of antennae. Just as, to use a human example, it is a very different matter actually viewing a performance vs. reading a detailed written account of that performance.

More fundamental, however, is the issue of how that information is processed, and the neurological effect that it creates. If we make the reasonable assumption that the evolutionary histories are completely alien to each other, is it safe to think that they even have the internal plumbing that make possible "emotions" or "feelings", and therefore "art", in the way that we define the terms? Although a plausible case can be made that sentience has evolutionary advantages, it is not clear to me that it is necessarily linked to the very idiosyncratically evolved capacities for emotion that we call the aesthetic sensibility (that is to say, our tendency to believe in the inevitability of that coupling is spurious, though understandable, since we know of only one example of sentience).

The methane-breathing "mollusks" of Neptune (and the quotation marks were there by implication in my original post) may exhibit phenomena that we find ravishing, but this would be in the sense that we would can view "found art" or whale calls as ravishing: the artists in this case are not the Neptunians or the humpbacks, they are ourselves.


(And apologies to Doris for contributing even further to the OT drift. But I blame Mathman fully as much as myself . I believe I'm feeling a certain (decidedly un-aesthetic) emotion now :.

Mathman said:

I think you hit the nail on the head when you wrote that what is missing is that the audience does not know why this skater won and that one lost. In terms of "educating the audience" I am still intrigued by this post.



Suppose you wanted to explain to a casual fan what was so wonderful about these spins and why they got oodles of points?

Lucinda Ruh. OK, this is obviously the best spin in the history of skating and any fan who can't see that is just uneducable.

Natalie Krieg. Look at her blade on the ice. Just look at it! (The hand and arm movements may contribute to the Performance, Interpretation and Choreography, but that's a trifle.)

Angela Nikodinov. Here a fan can profit from being told something about ballet positions, etc.

Caroline Zhang. This is the only CoP spin in the bunch. I assume it is a level four, the other three being level ones by modern scoring. Caroline looks like a million dollars. But the reason the spin is a big point-getter is because of a a lot of changes of edges and positions. This is hard for the casual fan to see or to understand, plus, all those point-getting features do not make the spin any better, just more difficult. We have a big education job on our hands here, unless we just retreat to, oh look how pretty!

Click to expand...

Ha ha! What an OTT discussion. Is 'beauty' be quantifiable? Not sure, but I am a casual fan and I would like to provide my honest opinion about which one I think should get the most points.

Caroline Zhang's spin is most certainly difficult and obviously deserves far more points than the other three. However, if the question is, who has the best layback?, then Caroline's would rank fourth because the layback part of her spin is so short. Natalie Krieg's layback is best for me because it was the fastest, and her's was fast from the moment of entry and lasted so long. Plus, out of the four examples, her's was the most centered. Then follows Lucinda Ruh's. Her spin was nice too but not as fast and not as centered, and she had less revolutions at less speed. Then Angela Nikodinov's because it was far slower than the other two except Caroline's.

However, I don't think my judgement is the voice of Platonic aesthetics but just me looking at these spins as athletic feats and trying to making some judgement about who I thought was best demonstrating the ability to spin on one leg while bending backward.

If someone insisted that I had to make an 'aesthetic' judgement about which spin was the best, I would say Lucinda Ruh's because she has the nicest body shape and the color of her dress is prettiest.

gkelly said:

Remember, figure skating is still, for the most part, an amateur-style sport; it is not big business funding itself by ticket sales.

The "paying customers" for an eligible figure skating competition who pay for fair results are the skaters and their federations.

The price of a ticket to an event gives you the right to watch the event and to have an opinion about what you liked and didn't like or what you wished were given more weight in the scoring. It does not give you the right to decide the results.

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This is the most nonsense-ish post that I have ever read on FS forums. Please tell me you were not serious. We all know that ticket sales don't give all cash needed. The money flow comes from television, sponsors, advertisers, etc. Now let's say the popularity of the sport is zero and seats are empy. Who of them will want to pay. No one. It's a biological organism, where one thing leads to another. Yes, my dear, a paying customer is exactly the one who has the power of say. Not those who are sitting in front of their monitors watching free livestreams and snarking how stupid the audience is.

Mathman said:

I would imagine that by far the majority of income comes from parents who put their children into learn to skate classes or beginning level competitions.

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And the higher popularity, i.e. more paying customers, the sport has, the more parents will wish to pay.

let`s talk said:

This is the most nonsense-ish post that I have ever read on FS forums. Please tell me you were not serious. We all know that ticket sales don't give all cash needed. The money flow comes from television, sponsors, advertisers, etc.

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At the elite levels, yes. There are no television contracts or advertisers, and few sponsors, for less important events that are not televised. Some developmental events such as the JGP may be funded by money from broadcasters and sponsors of the top elite events.

Other lesser internationals and domestic events have entry fees.

Now let's say the popularity of the sport is zero and seats are empy. Who of them will want to pay. No one. It's a biological organism, where one thing leads to another. Yes, my dear, a paying customer is exactly the one who has the power of say. Not those who are sitting in front of their monitors watching free livestreams and snarking how stupid the audience is.

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The people who have the "power of say" are the people who have put in the thousands of hours in the rinks. They don't get to the televised events without having paid their dues, often at their own expense, for years before that.

And the higher popularity, i.e. more paying customers, the sport has, the more parents will wish to pay.

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Yes, that is true. If the sport is more popular in general, it will be more popular with the subset of people who want to try it for themselves. If there are more opportunities to compete internationally, paid for by the federations, there will be more incentive for skaters to keep training until they reach junior and senior level and more incentive to stick around once they get there.

gkelly said:

Some developmental events such as the JGP may be funded by money from broadcasters and sponsors of the top elite events.

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Then they also have a reason to worship a paying customer a.k.a. popularity of the sport.

The people who have the "power of say" are the people who have put in the thousands of hours in the rinks.

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They are not doing any one a favour. If for years they still didn't figured out how things work and think that the audience is dumb and therefore should be ignored, then they should be looking for another job.

let`s talk said:

Then they also have a reason to worship a paying customer a.k.a. popularity of the sport.

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The best way to improve the audiences and the $$$'s flowing into the ISU's coffers would be to have the American skaters win everything. Then interest in figure skating in the US would increase by leaps and bounds, and the networks would pay big bucks to cover it. The audience would get what they want and the ISU would make money.

Anyone here think this would be a good idea?

Dragonlady said:

Anyone here think this would be a good idea?

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I don't think it would work. I think the American public has moved on to other forms of entertainment.

Even when Michelle Kwan was still skating the handwriting was on the wall. Sasha was as good as anyone and lovely besides. Kimmie Meissner won the World Championship (and is lovely besides). Belbin and Agosto won an Olympic silver medal, Evan Lysacek won a gold, Davis and White won a world championship. No dice.

(Meryl Davis and Tanith Belbin are also lovely -- I don't want to slight anyone. )

It would have to an American lady winning. Everyone saw how Lysacek winning meant nothing. But then he is a problem personality wise.

gmyers said:

It would have to an American lady winning. Everyone saw how Lysacek winning meant nothing.

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Or Davis & White.

The real issue is that PCS should be weighted a little lower. To common viewers of figure skating speed/deep edges is really NOT the most important thing ever. Artistry isn't, either. It is deeply perplexing to common viewers that someone can win a gold medal with multiple falls. There's no point always trying to make excuses to deny that very simple fact. At the end of the day, just the fact that so many people are mad at Patrick Chan winning and openly state their opinions in the press is bad for the sport's reputation. Doesn't matter what percentage of people. If 30 percent of people are complaining, it's bad enough and I'm definitely seeing more than that.

noidont said:

The real issue is that PCS should be weighted a little lower. To common viewers of figure skating speed/deep edges is really NOT the most important thing ever. Artistry isn't, either. It is deeply perplexing to common viewers that someone can win a gold medal with multiple falls. There's no point always trying to make excuses to deny that very simple fact. At the end of the day, just the fact that so many people are mad at Patrick Chan winning and openly state their opinions in the press is bad for the sport's reputation. Doesn't matter what percentage of people. If 30 percent of people are complaining, it's bad enough and I'm definitely seeing more than that.

Click to expand...

With respect, I've got to disagree on almost all counts here. Just to be clear, we're both talking about popularity within the general audience, right? If we can agree that the casual viewer knows very little about the actual details of what skating entails, and what's more, never has (and what's even more, doesn't particularly want to), then I think we need to recognize the following:

-While absolute levels of general popularity have declined (and we can discuss why that's so, and if it's reversible), I would bet that there's nevertheless a genuine correlation between incremental changes in popularity (the "delta") and the presence/absence of an American ladies champion, particularly if her mastery (miss-tery? ) seems genuine, as opposed to transient or fluky (a Michelle Kwan, as compared to a Kimmie Meissner).

-More cautiously, I'd bet that the correlation (and the magnitude of the delta) is positively affected if the ladies champion is considered attractive (the Dorothy Hammill sassy Homecoming Queen bob, Peggy Fleming's spare, Hepplewhite elegance). If she's attractive enough, being a champion in everything but name might even suffice (Janet Lynn's golden, translucent nimbus, who might have been Botticelli's muse had he been born in the twentieth-century midwest. Or Sasha Cohen, a pixie transplanted from the Old World by way of the Bolshoi).

(And BTW, Mathman, I'll put forward the idea that the measurement of qualities such as attractiveness, and PCS components, have statistical validity and meaning. Entire fields in the social sciences, including economics and politics, as well as practical commerce, would not be possible if this were not an accepted principle. Political polling, surveys of consumer and business "confidence", customer samplings for marketing purposes, all of these things would not be the ubiquitous, and demonstrably useful, things that they are if the discretionary nature of the respondent data disqualified it for statistical purposes).

-Even more speculatively, I would cautiously speculate that if the ladies champion wins beautifully (with "artistry"), there are some definite ratings points involved. Athleticism works, too, but IMO a Katarina Witt (who's not even an American) will always trump a (pre-tire iron) Tonya Harding in a general popularity contest.

-While I harbor a few discontents with COP and PCS on general principles, I really don't see the nature of the rules as being the primary factor for skating's diminished popularity in the US, in comparison to the above. I do believe that there may be larger societal trends which play a prominent role in the the absolute decreases in general viewership over time. Nevertheless, in my view, the single biggest thing that can move the needle in a positive direction (as said by Dragonlady and others) is still a homegrown/attractive/artistic (+athletic would be even better)/sustainable/ladies/champion.

I'd be interested in a further articulation of differing views, but them's the realities of general popularity, IMHO. (And the thing that I'm most curious about is, if you think that, for common viewers, it's not about the skating skills, or the artistry, then what do you think it's about? The difficulty and general hygiene of the jumps? Given the fact that we seem to agree that most "common viewers" can't tell a salchow from a milk cow, I'm still not quite sure what you're trying to say here. Again, we're talking about the factors that drive popularity, if I don't mistake? I can't persuade myself that general popularity will be significantly affected by any tweaking of rules, whether they be heavier penalties for falls, or anything else).