Men's PCS at Worlds.

[gkelly]

Just to clarify a few more points.

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.

There are no requirements or restrictions for the music in freestyle programs aside from the time limits (this has pretty much always been true irrespective of the scoring system) and the prohibition against lyrics.

So yes, it's perfectly legal to ignore the music entirely, and if you watch lower level competitions, or even senior competitions when a skater who isn't very musical in the first place is having a bad day, you'll see a lot of that.

There are rewards for interpreting the music well (high scores for IN and maybe PE and CH) and points lost by ignoring it (low scores for those components). But there are no deductions -- it's not against the rules.

Therefore, I personally think that it goes into interpretation as if mandatory deduction of falls goes into technical portion of the scores.

As I mentioned in my last post, the fall deduction also comes off the total segment score, not the technical element score. If a skater falls between elements, it would be possible to have full base value and positive GOE for every single element with no loss of points in the TES.

Of course, there is no difference whether you minus this number first or minus this number last because there are only additions and subtractions.

Actually, it does make a difference whether you subtract the deduction from the TSS or from one of the components, and when you subtract it from the component, because the components are factored. In the men's long program, the PCS are doubled. So -1.0 subtracted from one of the components before factoring would end up taking 2.0 off the total score.

[Mathman]

About the CoP, I have read that a good deal of the credit should go to legendary coach Stanislav Zhuk. (He coached Gordeeva and Grinkhof and also Irina Rodnina and her partners.) Zhuk had long advocated a point system, and when Cinquanta came along a lot of the groundwork had already been worked out.

[Bluebonnet]

These have cleared up a lot of my confusion. Thanks, gkelly!

Actually, it does make a difference whether you subtract the deduction from the TSS or from one of the components, and when you subtract it from the component, because the components are factored. In the men's long program, the PCS are doubled. So -1.0 subtracted from one of the components before factoring would end up taking 2.0 off the total score.

I wasn't clear on this in my post. But whatever, there is no need to explain them now. You are right!

[Mathman]

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....

I agree with this. I think that two conclusions follow:

(a) If the ISU uses terms like musical interpretation, performance, and composition of a program, to define the components of the judging system, then they do have to pay some attention to what these words refer to in the broader common esthetic experience, and not insist on defining them solely in terms applicable only to skating; and

(b) An observer should be allowed to ask, "What's so all-fired musical about that performance?" without being scolded.

[Mathman]

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...

To me the criteria for GOEs suffer from multiple personality disorder.

The original idea was that this was where the quality of an element was evaluated, once the technical panel established the base value by calling the element's name. Some of the bullets for positive GOE are still like that (good height and distance, good flow on landing). For these, it would seem sensible to give +1 GOE for even better hight and distance and even better flow on the landing, and -1 for not so much height and distance and not so good flow.

But other bullets have nothing to do with the quality of the element at all. Unusual air position and clear recognizable steps preceding the entry make the jump harder (in a way that is easy to quantify if we wanted to), but not better (in quality). Holding your arm over your head in a Tano position does not contribute one way of the other to tyhe quality of the jump.

For negative GOEs it seems like the goal of evaluating quality has been abandoned altogether. It has been replaced by a list of specific errors (wrong edge take-off, two foot landing) which are penalized with specific point value deductions.

By the way, I think that the spate of +2's and +3's that we are seeing these days was a deliberate decision by the iSU. If you compare this year's GOE guidelines with previous ones, they used to require "superior" height and distance, "outstanding flow," etc. These words have been replaced by "good."

So in case anyone was wondering why skaters are getting +3s for elements that are merely good but not outstanding, that's why.

[Bluebonnet]

I want to add more about Patrick's musicality:

Not only his jump landings were on beats of the music but also his simple strokes. For example, look at his transitions entering into 4T, 4T-3T, and 3A. They were stepped on the beats and carried the music with them and landed them on the beats. His spins are carrying the music too. He has mixed the required elements with the music. That is the beauty of Lori Nichol's choreography! If that couldn't get a high IN mark, I don't know what could. But of course, it's just my personal interpretation of his music and his skating.

[Mathman]

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

In boxing, the "ten point must" system goes like this. For each round, a judge must give ten points to the fighter that the judge felt won the round. If the judge thought it was tie, then both fighters get ten points. If one fighter was just a little better than the other, then the winner would get 10 points and the loser 9. If the winner beat up on the loser more decisively, the winner would get ten and the loser maybe 8 or 7.

As you (gkelly) point out in your post, this method is better if there are only two contestants than if there are many.

I want to add more about Patrick's musicality:

Not only his jump landings were on beats of the music but also his simple strokes. For example, look at his transitions enter into 4T, 4T-3T, and 3A. They were stepped on the beats and carried the music with them and landed them on the beats. His spins are carrying the music too. He has mixed the required elements with the music. That is the beauty of Lori's choreography!

I totally agree, and only a big meanie would say otherwise. If Patrick's entire program had been as strong with respect to musical timing and choreography as the first minute, no one would be complaining if he got straight tens. (Well, 9,5s )

But toward the end he fell off the pace and did not deliver the choreography with as much precision and flair. So the program as a whole did not have the artistic impact that the first half promised. This should be reflected in the scores, too.

[Boeing787]

In boxing, the "ten point must" system goes like this. For each round, a judge must give ten points to the fighter that the judge felt won the round. If the judge thought it was tie, then both fighters get ten points. If one fighter was just a little better than the other, then the winner would get 10 points and the loser 9. If the winner beat up on the loser more decisively, the winner would get ten and the loser maybe 8 or 7.

As you (gkelly) point out in your post, this method is better if there are only two contestants than if there are many.



I totally agree, and only a big meanie would say otherwise. If Patrick's entire program had been as strong with respect to musical timing and choreography as the first minute, no one would be complaining if he got straight tens. (Well, 9,5s )

But toward the end he fell off the pace and did not deliver the choreography with as much precision and flair. So the program as a whole did not have the artistic impact that the first half promised. This should be reflected in the scores, too.

true, or we'd have seen some 10's as in last worlds!

[Bluebonnet]

If Patrick's entire program had been as strong with respect to musical timing and choreography as the first minute, no one would be complaining if he got straight tens. (Well, 9,5s )

I highly doubt that!

After so many times watching his this skating, I don't have as much objection to the judges' decision on IN as I had in the first time I watch it. Note: I've said in Men's LP thread that Patrick should have gotten 8.00 in interpretation. Well, I've changed my mind. I'll go with the judges' decision. As the consequence, it has actually raised my respect for the judges even higher! How could they make decisions in such a short time while I need so many times to review on the same thing!

[Robeye]

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.

Actually, I don't disagree with anything that you are saying here. Maybe we are just misunderstanding each other. But the fact that there are multiple variables that define the success of technical elements is not the same thing as saying that each of those variables, in principle, is not definable (can be mapped in a systematic way to a range of numerical increments).

And, yes, the number of discrete variables means that the number of permutations is also large, but again, they are mathematically finite.

Certain variables/aspects are only bounded by the limitations of human capability and physics (e.g. how "deep" an edge can go, or how fast they can skate, or the number of rotations, "hang time"/delay, and distance in a jump), but, again, these can be mapped to a numerical range of scoring effect.

This is what was meant by the proposition that the technical elements can be viewed though a pragmatically Platonic lens.

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.)

Again, no disagreements from me. I really think we're on the same page, but looking past each other.

-Sure, there are cultural differences, but those differences don't prevent viewers from learning to understand and appreciate other (human) cultural cues if they make a good-faith effort. The ability to do so is one of the things that defines human beings as members of the same species. 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.

-On your more earthy (and earthly) example, I would suggest that the negative response to the male skater is a reflexive, unexamined reaction, similar to those of the crowds laughing all the way out of Marcel Duchamp's Armory exhibition (and I say this as someone whose personal taste runs to ladies skating vs. mens). But I would bet that a good portion of those crowds was able to understand and even appreciate Duchamp's merits a couple of decades later, once the world got used to the modernist perspective. In other words, I'm certainly not arguing that viewers (or even judges) are infallible, or can immediately adapt to unfamiliar things (and this is probably why there are a lot of "warhorses" in terms of music and choreographic style; this is a competition, and for most competitors, any possible acclaim for artistry some years down the line just wouldn't make up for missing the gold by looking like an oddball right at this moment ).

Nevertheless, so long as those unfamiliar things are human, other human beings can learn to appreciate the point of view, as well to develop a sense of judgment as to greater/lesser within that perspective. And even, to extend this further, to be able to judge why a certain tango-inspired skating performance was better than a certain ballet-inspired one. This is why, on the same principles, a film competition feels justified in placing a comedy next to a tear-jerker drama in the category for "Best Picture". IMO, what we all share in terms of the basis for aesthetic response, albeit "very broadly", is ultimately more innate and hardwired than the aspects on which we differ. Everything else, particularly the cultural conventions, is detail, and can be learned.

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.

To re-emphasize, I am not against numerical scoring of itself. Any competitive endeavor, almost by definition, must have some numerical basis, however simple. Where I question COP is in the implied precision of the scoring for the artistic components (PE, CH, I), because the scoring increments cannot be persuasively shown to correspond to a set of discrete variables with fairly precise gradations of incremental fulfillment (in contrast to the "technical" elements).

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

Sorry, I should have been more mindful that the fan bases of skating and boxing are generally pretty far apart . In boxing, each round of the boxing match must have a winner, who will be awarded ten points for that round, irrespective of whether the performance in that round was better or worse than the winning performance in another round of the bout. In each round, the winner always gets 10 points, and the loser gets a score relative to winner's performance.

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)?

As per my caveat, this is just a preliminary idea off the top of my head. But for the sake of discussion, how about this:

-Each "artistic" component (that is to say, this only applies to PE, CH and I, because I consider skating skills and transitions to be, in concept if not always in actual practice, "technical" and hence more amenable to precision) is scored separately. For each of these components scores, the skater receives a rank relative to the field. So if there are 30 competitors, there are 30 rankings.

-Each ranking number (e.g. #1, or "the best") can have, say a maximum of 2 or 3 names in that slot. In other words, two or three skaters can be tied in the #1 slot. Similarly for the #2 slot, and so on. This doesn't mean that it's mandatory for judges to put in the maximum number of names in each ranking slot. This is only if the judge feels that there is no clear choice for that ranking slot. So (assuming a maximum of 3 skaters per ranking slot) you could end up with, for example, 2 skaters ranked #1, 3 skaters at #2, only 1 skater in the #3 slot, and so on. What this means is that there may be 30 rankings, but they may only go down to, say, #20 (since there are multiple names in slots in some cases).

-The scoring differentiation between the ranking slots is up for debate. But a very simple example would be for the #1 ranking skater(s) to receive 10 points, the #2 slot(s) to receive 9 points, and etc. on a linear scale. I haven't completely thought through the scale of increments, but it could also be curved, either more sharply at the top or at the bottom, depending on whether you want to incentivize the top performances and/or more heavily penalize the worst. And to answer your question directly, a particular slot could certainly have 8.5 points. The big-picture theme, though, is that the increments are pre-determined and are not discretionary on the part of the judges.

-I am currently envisioning that the artistic components scores would be given by each separate judge for each separate component, as is the current practice. The key difference is that the judge is only responsible for determining greater than/lesser than/equal to, strictly relative the the field of that particular competition, and with no discretion for determining the precise magnitude of the scoring differential.

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?

Ahh, you've got me, here . You're absolutely right that the logistical problem of handing out purely relative scores in a competition is probably the biggest issue. My very preliminary thoughts as to a possible solution (and I say again for the eighth time that this is just an idea that I've been playing around with for a pretty short time):

-Have a separate panel of judges (who can be members of the general judging pool, but who are designated to judge only the artistic components at this particular competition). The artistic rankings (and, hence, the artistic component scores) are punched in and tabulated at the end of the SP and the FS. Thus, the "overall" score will only be known at the end of that day's competition. This involves some incremental cost. One could theoretically have this done by one panel of judges responsible for both the technical as well as the artistic scores (as currently done), but this would leave open the charge that the judges can "manipulate" the artistic scores to achieve a desired result. How to achieve this as a practical matter is a separate issue; I'm just focusing on the concept for the moment. It would actually be even better, I think, if the "artistic" panel didn't know what the skaters received in their technical scores, but I haven't fully worked out the mechanics of that .

I think it's even conceivable that this type of scoring procedure might heighten the audience thrill factor, particularly in cases where the technical scoring is close, and the overall results very much hinge on the artistic aspects, which the audience generally feels they can more readily relate to.

Can you elaborate?

Please see above.

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).

I think this was addressed in the discussion of the ranking/scoring increments above.

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?

My own personal viewpoint is that it might actually be easier to correctly rank the skaters on artistic components if done after all the performances are completed, and with more than a few minutes to make an assessment per score (the subject for scoring is both complex and holistic). It might, for instance, cut down on the cases where a skater received low marks simply because the skater wasn't in the final group.

The judges will still be able, unofficially and privately, to keep a rolling tabulation as the competition moves along, and he'll still be able to utilize almost all of the "outside" principles of assessment that he/she has always done. Just not any reference to any skate (either personally ideal or historical) outside of that competition in assigning ranks, and the official rankings are only inputted and tabulated after the judge has seen all of the performances.

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.

As I tried to make clear in both my previous and this current post, this idea proposes to apply this "new" scoring convention only to the "artistic" components of PCS (PE, CH, and I), and not to SS and TR, and certainly not to TES. The scoring of those elements/components would stay as is.

Under the above, I don't see how this would mean that base values would more often determine the results.


I'm not in any way going all Tom Cruise in proselytizing for this idea. It's just a musing that I thought would make for interesting discussion, possibly highlighting some of the issues along the way.

[Bluebonnet]

Of course, interpretation is not all about timing. Patrick is not the best in the dance abilities in the world. His arms are a little stiff. But he deserved high IN marks anyways.

[Mathman]

This is a competition, and for most competitors, any possible acclaim for artistry some years down the line just wouldn't make up for missing the gold by looking like an oddball right at this moment ).

Unless you are Toller Cranston.

Where I question COP is in the implied precision of the scoring for the artistic components (PE, CH, I), because the scoring increments cannot be persuasively shown to correspond to a set of discrete variables with fairly precise gradations of incremental fulfillment (in contrast to the "technical" elements).

Indeed. In astrophysics the literature before extensive studies of the cosmic microwave background became available in 1998 was full of articles reporting, "according to our data the expansion rate of the universe is 67.947364755 kilometers per second per megaparsec -- up to a factor of two." (I.e., most likely somewhere between, oh, say 34 and 136. )

In boxing, each round of the boxing match must have a winner,...

A 10-10 tie is also possible.

By the way, there are strict rules for what a 9, 8, or 7 means. Seven means you got knocked down several times and your opponent thoroughly humiliated you throughout the round, beating you to a bloody pulp while simultaneously calling your mother bad names. (I have never seen a score lower than 7.) If you Google it, a number of blogs and forums come up where people debate whether this is a good system or not, propose alternative judging schemes, and rant about those lyin', cheatin' judges.

To me, this proposal for figure skating judging leans more in the direction of ordinals than that of CoP. If we rank the skaters 10 for the best, 9 for the second best, 8 for the third best, that is a lot like first place, second place, third place. (I understand that this is not exactly the proposal. )

After so many times watching his this skating, I don't have as much objection to the judges' decision on IN as I had in the first time I watch it.

Me, too. That is the best thing about these threads. They make us go back and really look at the performances.

[gkelly]

I agree with this. I think that two conclusions follow:
(a) If the ISU uses terms like musical interpretation, performance, and composition of a program, to define the components of the judging system, then they do have to pay some attention to what these words refer to in the broader common esthetic experience, and not insist on defining them solely in terms applicable only to skating; and
(b) An observer should be allowed to ask, "What's so all-fired musical about that performance?" without being scolded.

I don't think they're defining the terms differently, but the way they apply the definitions is slanted to be applicable to evaluating the mastery of the skating technique. Some aspects that are important to musicians might be given less emphasis or even ignored because they're not particularly relevant to the skating as skating.

They could take out all references to skating in the definition of the Interpretation component and define it in such a way that a competitor who can barely skate could earn high scores for interpretation by posing in place and gliding on two feet while expressing the music with facial expression and upper body movement. But that would defeat the purpose of measuring skating to the music.

Meanwhile, the officials who are judging have been chosen for their expertise at evaluating skating and have been intensely trained to evaluate skating. They may have considerable experience competing as skaters themselves, and if so they may have been very musically oriented skaters, especially if they were ice dancers. Or maybe not. They might have taken music lessons as children (or adults), might still play an instrument or sing in a choir or take dance classes or dance in performances or socially or in ballroom competitions, etc., or otherwise maintain outside music-related knowledge and skills. Or maybe not. Skating judges aren't chosen for their prior music knowledge, so there will be some with very broad and detailed knowledge and some with virtually none and every level in between. The best the judging training is to try to get them all on the same page about the very basics of musical knowledge as it relates to evaluating skating. The ones with outside knowledge will probably do a better job at evaluating this component than those without.

Some fans will have a lot of music knowledge and will know more about music than a lot of the skating judges. Other fans will have little knowledge but they know what they like and don't like.

How can judges be better educated to evaluate the skaters' interpretation? How much of their training time should be devoted to analyzing musical interpretation? What kind of musical knowledge would be most important for judges to have and what is less relevant for their purposes?

I definitely think there's room for improvement, but we're not suddenly going to see all skating judges become music experts.

Sharing information and encouraging deeper thinking is definitely preferable to telling people they're wrong.

[skatinginbc]

I define "right" as any defensible score or ranking according to the rules and standards at the time.... The official results are the consensus of the answers by that particular panel of officials on that particular day. So that consensus becomes the official right answer that supersedes all other possible right answers.

So under the CoP mentality, the official result is always "right". And it supersedes ("righter" than) all other possible "right" answers. And so you restrict not only yourself but also others to follow the same box (i.e., the rules and standards at the time). My mentality is different. From the perspective of measurement theory, an observed score is defined as "true score + measurement error". The true score (or the "right" score) is something that cannot be known for certain but can be estimated with a variety of measures. All scores are simply estimates, whose measurement errors can be approximated through statistical and empirical methods. As a result, I tend to think outside the box to explore a better measure. Think about it: A winner based on an error-prone judging system is still the "right" winner, and the error-prone scores one received are still the "right" scores. So the dichotomous concept of "right" and "wrong" is of little significance in the measurement sense. What is significant to me is whether a measure (e.g, the scoring criteria in IN) closely represents the content or construct of the skills that it is supposed to measure, and if it does, whether the judges faithfully apply the prescribed criteria to their scoring. Therefore I discussed about "universal laws" (i.e, content and construct) that underlie artistic appreciation. To get a rough grip of the universal construct (i.e., what fans and experts are actually looking for), I invited posters from various fields of performance arts to express their views, and encouraged people to play the judge. One critical issue you are still reluctant to "educate" me is why Chan's performance was justified for extreme high scores (9.2s) in IN. Did the judges faithfully apply the prescribed criteria to their scoring?

I would say that that is true only of viewers for whom "honesty" in connection to the music is more important than all the other criteria for those three components.

Did I give Chan 0 point for his presentation? Other criteria are important too, and that's why I gave him a good score (7.75 is a top-10 finisher score, isn't it?). Musicality has a global effect on presentation (PE + CH + IN). Simply count the number of listed criteria that involve music and count the total number of criteria. What's the percentage? Approximately one third, I guess?

it's easier to forgive momentary weaknesses in skaters we generally have a positive affect towards, whereas they seem magnified in skaters we already have negative feelings for.

Nay, that's not the issue here. The true issue is that Chan made more visible errors (obvious to everyone) whereas Dai's errors were almost invisible to untrained eyes. You are trained to look for superstimili with magnifying glasses, just as a dance expert looks for pointed toes. The French fans "saw" with their naked eyes that Chan made multiple errors but they did not "see" Dai's. Here comes the age-long debate: Should errors detectable only by the magnifying glasses cost as much as those detectable by every one?

This (halo effect) is undoubtedly true, to the extent that it's part of the nature of human perceptions. But you're not immune from it either.

So how do we deal with it?
One approach: "Live with it regardless whether you are happy or not".
Another approach: Amend the judging system (e.g., two panels, one for global assessment, the other for analytical assessment) to minimize the problem.

There is, after all, still that "effortless flow over the ice surface" phrase in the Interpretation criteria.

To my understanding, "effortless flow over the ice" alone has nothing to do with interpretation unless it is done "in time to the music". Of course, I'm no expert in CoP. Will you cite that criterion in full context instead of just giving us that phrase? The criterion I saw from USFSA (http://www.usfsa.org/New_Judging.asp?id=289) is "effortless movement in time to the music".

[dorispulaski]

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!

Alla, wife of Piseev, says COP is a stealth system, developed by Canadians, to dethrone Russia from the pinnacle of the world of skating

There is something to that. Canadians' first effort to develop a system under which Canadian ladies would not have to jump was the Interpretative Figure Skating event that debuted at Skate Canada one year, around 1990. AFAIR, they expected Josee Choiniard to win. (There had been great unhappiness in 1988 that the 2nd place Canadian woman who could only do double axels, was not highly rated enough, Charlene Wong, and her "artistry" was supposedly undervalued.)

The actual winner was Joanna Ng, 12 years old.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlDBuOkNfvo

Thus we see the intention of a rule change is not always what results. CoP has been great for Canadian men, pairs and dance, but the ladies are further in the hole than ever.