Skaters/Judging experts on GS - Question

[gkelly]

Look at how many programs have a lull just before the half-way mark, then a flurry of jumps all in a row to get that extra ten per cent bonus.

This placement of elements does not contribute to telling a story or connecting to the music.

I think that element placement, and specifically a flurry of jumps all in a row shortly after the halfway mark, can be used in a storytelling sense.

Here's the quintessential example, pre-IJS: a day in the life of an ocean wave where all the jumps in a row would be the wave crashing against the shore

I also once made up a fictional men's freeskate to music from a Hamlet movie in which there was a lot of storytelling, including a lull in the middle that could be equated with Hamlet's dithering soliloquies and then a bunch of jumps in a row that could be where Hamlet starts to take action by killing Polonius, etc.

Most skaters don't match the temporal jump placement to a story line that explicitly under either scoring system.
At best they often try to match the timing of the jumps to what the music is doing at that particular moment -- and they have the option (under either system) to cut the music to support what works best for their jumping in terms of stamina and bonus points.

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

Well, that too, but mostly because the quality of his basic skating -- and therefore the ease with with he can execute complex choreography -- is superior even to that of the other top men in the world. If they all skate clean, he'll win on the strength of that quality.

Strategic point-wringing does help make up for mistakes here and there, which he often needs to rely on when those mistakes do occur.

 

[Olympia]

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

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

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


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

BC, this is so cool. I never knew that about the change in the infinitive particle, and I studied Old and Middle English. When you demonstrate it, it makes perfect sense. (I made sentence diagrams in my mind to help me see where in the function of the sentence the infinitive was. Thank you, Mrs. Eagleson, my seventh grade English teacher!) Hmmm...so English will regain its original shape in the 23rd century, when "to boldly go" into the stars will be correct again. Kind of cute, that.

 

[Mathman]

Here's the quintessential example, pre-IJS: a day in the life of an ocean wave where all the jumps in a row would be the wave crashing against the shore.

That was cool! Like a footwork sequence where every other move is a rotational jump.

I also once made up a fictional men's freeskate to music from a Hamlet movie in which there was a lot of storytelling, including a lull in the middle that could be equated with Hamlet's dithering soliloquies and then a bunch of jumps in a row that could be where Hamlet starts to take action by killing Polonius, etc.

Who would fardels bear, when they might their quietus make with bare bodkin?

Send it to Jeremy Abbott!

 

[Mathman]

Nay. The truth is: We have been saying it wrong for so long that common usage finally gangs up to make it right.

Well, now you have the best writers and most of the writers on your side. Still...

"To eat is human, to digest divine”

Sinfully to err is human, mercifully to forgive, divine.

I think the infinitive takes an adverb for direct modification, an adjective in the predicate. We say "to eat is human" but we don't say "Human to eat..." as the subject of a sentence. (The ball is red. The red ball…)

(Except in newspaper headlines: "Human to eat 1000 frogs, set record.")

"For this was great unkindness, to in this manner treat their brother."

For this was great unkindness, to treat their brother in this manner.

"To boldly go" is better than "boldly to go" because "boldly" modifies "go", not "to".

I think boldly modifies the infinitive "to go." You can say "The dog is bad" and you can say "Bad dog!" You can say "To go is bold" but you can't say "Bold to go!" (unless you are ordering beer by the brand). Why not? Because unlike a dog, "to go" is an infinitive.

I don't like either "To boldly go is risky" or "Boldly to go is risky." These are both awkward IMHO. I think a better way to say it (or a way to say it better, but not a way to better say it ) is

"Rushing in like a fool is risky." (Gerund.)

Edited to add Let me get at this another way. The infinitive form "to go" is a linguistic atom in its own right, and a very quirky one at that. The "to" in "to go" is not a separate word. What part of speech could it possibly be? We don't try to modify "to" and then separately modify "go." (By the way, in the phrase "try to modify" the "to" goes with "modify," not with "try." "Try," however is one of those verbs that "take the infinitive.")

"Consider the verb, 'to go'." "Use the verb 'to go' in a sentence." "What form of the verb "to be" should i use in this sentence?"

 

[Mathman]

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

I think, though, that in fact there is a huge difference between "measuring" and "judging" as the terms are used in ordinary discourse.

When we "measure" something there is a tacit assumption that there is something there to measure, independent of our attempts to measure it. This steel rod has a length. (Or so we imagine, perhaps naively.) We can stretch our measuring cords along it many times, make many different measurements, then analyze the variance of our sample measurements, etc.

In other words, there are two separate things. The length of the steel rod and our collection of measurements.

But when we try to "measure" the soulfulness of a skater's choreography, it is not at all clear that such a thing exists independent of the measurements (judgements. observations) themselves. The best we can do is let some sort of "average judgement" stand in the place of the actual thing being judged, and then talk about how individual judgements vary from that benchmark and among each other.

This distinction is especially prominent when the unit of judgement is a ranking of skaters from best to worst. There is no grand Platonic Ideal Ordering up in the sky that individual judges are trying to discover with their individual judgements.

 

[skateluvr]

Oi vay, my computer is not charging again. Can anything go right? I was about to ask if a simplified tutorial to IJS exists here on golden skate, or must I go to ISU.org and read a long pdf. document that is dry and dull. I am losing charge, so I know it won't happen tonight. Darn. When I go to best buy, it usually does not replicate. Anyway, if my laptop goes in, I won't get to follow the threads and worlds, etc. I can't believe what happens to me and electronics. I am overwhelmed. I was just trying to recap how I'd like to see the sport change if it became more accessible, the sport part were better respected by other sporting fans. Maybe skating by its nature as art will always make it appealing to we who love dance, music, choreography, costumes, stories etc. I am now at 31% battery charge. My brain I think is about the same. I would simply say, since I'm running out of time and energy (literally not just computer wise) that the truly memorable moving skates for me are still more from the past era, but that is my age. I just find IJS too busy, too "calculated" to make truly lovely programs with time to breathe and enjoy. i would miss the music costumes, choreo, etc too much to probabaly really want drastic change. But it was simply an idea-just a general one that would need to be fleshed out by people who actually do the sport/judge the sport.

I would say because I may not get to post more until puter gets fixed or I get a new one (groan-the set up- too old and tired for this electronic stuff) that less is more. If I had to mention a program that i felt was darn near perfect, due to all the music, the choreo and the performer of the peice, I'd have to say in ladies singles nothing has brought me back more than Lyra Angelica 98 Nationals and Olympic skate. While I found the 2010 ladies champion stunning, and marveled at the jumps and the speed and the beauty, I was not moved by either skate. I can't tell you why one program gives me goosebumps and one does not. There was nothing to fault and much to admire in Yuna's Oly programs. only leg line/club foot style jarred me as a dance person who appreciates ballet.

In the end, it becomes about beauty, mastery of the elements and the performance level I guess that makes me remember someone's skate. We still see that under CoP. 6.0 wasn't so bad either. zwell, now to figure out why the computer is not charging again.... ciao.

 

[skatinginbc]

Human to eat...

I don't want to gross you out, but they say human tastes like pork.

I don't like either "To boldly go is risky" or "Boldly to go is risky." These are both awkward IMHO. I think a better way to say it (or a way to say it better, but not a way to better say it ) is "Rushing in like a fool is risky." (Gerund.)

The reason they sound awkward is because "to" was historically a dative marker, not supposed to appear in the nominative case. Gerund, which can be modified by an attributive adjective as well as by a predicative adjective (e.g., "extreme bashing", "Bashing is extreme"), functions more like a full noun and is thus preferred when used in the nominative case. Not accepting an attributive adjective, however, does not take away the fact that the infinitive serves as a noun. That-clause (as in "That he won surprised me") when serving as a subject (NOUN) cannot be modified by an attributive adjective, either. Interestingly, the two constructions (i.e., infinitive and that-clause) can be co-referred with a cataphoric pronoun "It". For example,
To err is human = It is human to err.
That he would win the competition was predicted by everyone = It was predicted by everyone that he would win the competition.

Now, let's look at the original dative usage of infinitive: According to Webster's 1913 Dictionary, it is a "verbal noun ending in -e, preceded by to and usually denoting purpose...as, "Ic haebbe mete to etanne" (I have meat to eat.)." Indeed, the dative infinitive in Vedic, Old English, and other Indo-European languages usually denotes a purpose (e.g., "a house to let", "kids to feed"). And here are some other forms of datives:
I bought this house for you. "For you" is the dative.
I sent an email to my friend . "To my friend" is the dative.
Both "for" and "to" serve as a preposition in the dative case. As a matter of fact, "for to", "forte", or "forto" was a common marker associated with the infinitive in Middle English.

Here are some examples of splitting infinities in Middle English:
1. The prestis ben forfended to enymore takyn monee of the puple (c1382 Wyclif) = "The priests are forbidden to anymore take money of the people." (The priests are forbidden to take any more money from the people).
2. He schal not be able to fruytefully preie for him silf (c1449 Pecock Repressor) = "He shall not be able to fruitfully pray for himself."
3. to prechen and for to fully þat folk and godes lawe techen (c1275 Passion Our Lord) = "to preach and to fully those people and God's law teach" (to preach and teach God's law in full to those people).

Not all adverbs modify a verb. For instance,
I wrote this, obviously for you )). I wrote this, obviously to make you happy )). I wrote this to obviously make you happy (Incorrect :disapp.
Hence, in my opinion, "I've decided not to go" is preferred to "I've decided to not go", and "I live only to eat" is preferred to "I live to only eat".
Rule of Thumb: Adverbs that modify an entire prepositional phrase (e.g., obviously for you, not for you, only for you) shall not split the infinitive, which is etymologically a prepositional construction.

 

[skatinginbc]

To me, the problem is that a program is now the sum of its parts and never judged as a whole.

This is what the book Majority Judgment (http://books.google.ca/books?id=sSXxXBxuorIC&pg, p. 146) has to say:
"How can the judges have the time to look at and appreciate the entire performance given that they must evaluate individually each of the fourteen elements in 4 1/2 minutes?...Why should the sum be a decent measure of the whole? As the Asian proverb says, "Knowing in part may make a fine table, but wisdom comes from seeing the whole." Will this system, once skaters and their coaches have worked out the strategies that maximize the number of points they can win, kill the creativity and overall artistry of programs with a quest for perfection in high-valued executed elements?...It (CoP) fails the most important basic principle: to be fair, a system must be transparent and understood by all."

there is a huge difference between "measuring" and "judging"

To either measure or judge, one must have a standard.
Mathman: Every figure skating expert has their own idiosyncratic standard of what is good and what is bad. There is no way to come up with a uniform standard. Therefore, the judging system should be a form of preferential voting--Let the majority of experts decide the competition outcomes.
Skatinginbc: As a sport, figure skating must be judged against established standards, which can be formulated by a well represented sample of the interest groups and learned by judges and the public. Therefore, the judging system should be a form of performance evaluation whose consistency and validity are monitored and controlled with the application of measurement theory.

I do think it is possible to say that one triple Axel is better than another. Secure take-off edge, minimal pre-rotation, full rotations in the air, good height and ice coverage, graceful body positions throughout, deep running edge on the landing, element integrated into the choreography and highlighting the music, etc.

You seemed to be agreeing that at least in some aspects of figure skating a common standard can be held by many--experts and fans alike.

 

[Mathman]

This is what the book Majority Judgment (http://books.google.ca/books?id=sSXxXBxuorIC&pg, p. 146) has to say: ...

Cool.

Drawing on insights from wine, sports, music, and other competitions, Balinski and Laraki argue that the question should not be how to transform many individual rankings into a single collective ranking, but rather, after defining a common language of grades to measure merit, how to transform the many individual evaluations of each competitor into a single collective evaluation of all competitors.

So am I understanding this right, that the authors of this book do, in spite of the criticism that you quoted, actually prefer a CoP type of approach (a group evaluation) to an ordinal approach (a group ranking)?

Judging from the introduction these authors seem a little immodest in touting their own ideas.

One also notes "how to transform" instead of "to how transform."

 

[skatinginbc]

So am I understanding this right, that the authors of this book do, in spite of the criticism that you quoted, actually prefer a CoP type of approach (a group evaluation) to an ordinal approach (a group ranking)?

They are advocates of "majority judgment", a variant of range voting, in search of a voting technique that can satisfy the majority criterion, the independence of clones criterion and the independence of irrelevant alternatives criterion. So yes, the premise of their book is: Preferential voting is bad.

One also notes "how to transform" instead of "to how transform."

You are funny . By the same token, "why for you" (good) instead of "for why you" (bad).

 

[Mathman]

In spite of everything, to me, violations of the independence of irrelevant alternatives criterion do not mark the end of the world. In fact, I think this criterion is misnamed. In an ordinal system, every ordinal from every judge is "relevant" to all the final relative placements.

In CoP, once you earn a score (168.29 points, however arrived at), that score is yours forever not matter what. In contrast, a provisional ordinal from a judge is just that - provisional. If you are temporarily in first place because you have provisional first place ordinals from a majority of the judges, then obviously it is possible for of some later skater to come along and grab a few away from you.

After all, the very first skater has all provisional first place ordinals before anyone else skates.

Here is the canonical example (mentioned earlier by skatinginbc with respect to electoral votes versus the popular vote -- a different thing altogether*). In the 2000 U.S. Presidential election, it was virtually a dead heat in electoral votes between the Republican candidate George Bush and the Democratic candidate Al Gore. The whole thing came down to the state of Florida with its 25 electoral votes up for grabs. (Florida will have 29 electoral votes in 2012.)

I will make up some round numbers to illustrate what happened.

Gore was favored over Bush by a majority of voters.

Gore: 1,500,000 votes (first place ordinals)
Bush: 1,400,000 votes (first place ordinals.

But no. There were two other candidates in the race. Conservative Pat Buchanan drew some votes away from Bush.

Gore: 1,500,000 votes
Bush: 1,300,000 votes
Buchanan: 100,000 votes

But then liberal Ralph Nader drew some votes from Gore.

Bush: 1,300,000 votes (first place ordinals)
Gore: 1,200,000
Nader: 300,000
Buchanan: 100,000

Everyone screams, "Hey wait a minute! Nader beat Buchanan, and this caused Gore and Bush to flip-flop?! How can such a thing be? Why -- *gasp, sputter* -- that's a violation of the Principle of Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives!"

That is the wrong way to look at it. There is no reason to attach a string of big words to describe this phenomenon. If fact, all that happened was that Nader drew more votes away from Gore than Buchanan drew away from Bush.

(By the way, in both the OBO system and majority of ordinals Gore would have won.

--------------
* "That's a- whole 'nother thing!" (A great colloquial phrase! ) "That is different thing altogether." (Blah.)

"Of course she's better than Miki-freakin'-Ando, fer cryin' out loud! But is she better than Mao Asada?"

 

[skatinginbc]

Nader beat Buchanan, and this caused Gore and Bush to flip-flop?! How can such a thing be? If fact, all that happened was that Nader drew more votes away from Gore than Buchanan drew away from Bush...By the way, in both the OBO system and majority of ordinals Gore would have won.

That kind of phenomena is caustic to democracy and scandalous in sport. Different voting systems may produce different outcomes and yet they all claim to be a "majority" decision, whose definition in itself is a variable not necessarily agreed upon by the majority of voters, or a decision of the "society", whose chance existence shaped by the voting method bears little meaning in real life.

 

[Mathman]

That kind of phenomena is caustic to democracy...

Well, in actual fact of course the votes for Buchanan and Nader were not entered sequentially after the Gore and Buch votes were counted. They are all counted together. Each person votes for president. The results were

Bush: 1,300,000
Gore: 1,200,000
Nader: 300,000
Buchanan: 100,000

The flip-flop has disappeared. Indeed, it was never there in the first place. No other information is available except these four numbers. As in the CoP, once you get your score (number of votes), no one can take it away from you.

Or -- do you like the 6.0 method better (imagined rankings, votes in millions)

1.2 1.3 0.3 0.1
AG GB RN PB
GB AG AG GB
RN PB GB AG
PB RN PB RN

Gore wins by OBO (Condorcet), and Gore also wins by majority of first- and second-place ordinals, no one having a clear majority of first-place ordinals.

So in a strict add-up-the-points system Bush wins, while in an ordinal system Gore wins.

Which system do you think is more caustic to democracy in this example?

 

[skatinginbc]

So in a strict add-up-the-points system Bush wins

Where did you get that from? Bush would have received very low program component scores. Gore, in spite of his lower base mark, would have still beat Bush with high GOEs and PCSs.

 

[Mathman]

^ But here is a more relevant example. This is the example of Dragonlady's daughter, who would have got third place under standard 6.0 judging , but ended up in fourth because of an unusual add-up-the-points method.

(A toy example with three judges, no trimming, and it all comes down to a single mark, Interpretation.)

Skater D: 4.5 4.75 4.25
Skater C: 4.0 4.0 5.75

In CoP, skater C wins. In 6.0 skater D wins. In the grand scheme of what sports are all about, which result is correct? Is either result scandalous to the concept of sport?

Example 2. Two sprinters run a 40 meter dash. They are timed by three stopwatches, with these results.

Runner D: 4.5 4.75 4.25
Runner C: 4.0 4.0 5.75

Who won the race?

 

[skatinginbc]

^ But here is a more relevant example. This is the example of Dragonlady's daughter, who would have got third place under standard 6.0 judging , but ended up in fourth because of an unusual add-up-the-points method.

(A toy example with three judges, no trimming, and it all comes down to a single mark, Interpretation.)

Skater D: 4.5 4.75 4.25
Skater C: 4.0 4.0 5.75

In CoP, skater C wins. In 6.0 skater D wins. In the grand scheme of what sports are all about, which result is correct? Is either result scandalous to the concept of sport?

Example 2. Two sprinters run a 40 meter dash. They are timed by three stopwatches, with these results.

Runner D: 4.5 4.75 4.25
Runner C: 4.0 4.0 5.75

Who won the race?

In CoP, Skater D would win. Skater D received a mean score of 4.5 whereas Skater C had only 4.0 (The extreme score 5.75 will be deleted from calculation if according to the common practice in grading design).
"No trimming" is an unfair restriction in this exercise. It doesn't reflect the reality of how it is supposed to happen in real life. If there are only three judges, it is usually two raters' scores being compared first. If there is a significant discrepancy, the third judge's opinion is then required. And that is the principle that the CoP was first designed to get: If there is a discrepancy between the two technical specialists, Technical Controller's opinion will be considered. The CoP however has failed to comply with this common practice because the two technical specialists did not reach their judgment independently.

This applies to Runner C's 5.75 as well. Apparently it was a measurement error given that it deviated so much from the other two scores. Will they accept such a big discrepancy measured by stopwatches in real life? Nay, that score will be thrown out for sure.

 

[Mathman]

D: 4.50 4.25 4.75 4.25 6.00
C: 4.00 4.00 5.75 3.25 5.75



Edited to add: By the way, the ISU does not want fans to be able to do this analysis On the protocols the judges' scores are listed in random order separately for each skater, so no one will ever know that skater D was preferred over skater C by four out of five judges, yet by the CoP, skater C won.

 

[skatinginbc]

D: 4.50 4.25 4.75 4.25 6.00
c: 4.00 4.00 5.75 3.25 5.75

Good example:thumbsup:

No trimming ==> Skater D won.
D = (4.5 + 4.25 + 4.75 + 4.25 + 6)/5 = 4.75, Median = 4.50
C = (4.00 + 4.00 + 5.75 + 3.25 + 5.75)/5 = 4.55, Median = 4.00

Excluding the highest and lowest scores ==> Skater C won (Same in diving competitions, which employ 3 to 9 judges. When there are five, only the middle three are counted.)
D = (4.50 + 4.25 + 4.75)/3 = 4.5
C = (4.00 + 4.00 + 5.75)/3 = 4.58

Correcting extreme scores deviating more than 1 level (one point on a 10-point scale) from the mean ==> Skater D won.
D = (4.5 + 4.25 + 4.75 + 4.25 + 5.75)/5 = 4.7
C = (4.0 + 4.0 + 5.5 + 3.5 + 5.5)/5 = 4.5

Standardizing every judge's raw score (or "rogue" score) to a z-score to reduce severity differences and ensure equal weight among judges ==> Skater D probably won if we had the complete data concerning each judge's score distribution. This method has been used in such competitions as Cleveland International Piano Competition, Bösendorfer Piano Competition and Van Cliburn International Piano Competition with the assistance of the computer software.

 

[Mathman]

There is a substantial body of current research, as I am sure you know, on the question, "What is the sampling distribution for trimmed means?" In particular, under what circumstances does the standard deviation give us useful information? Unless there is reason to hope that the underlying distribution is symmetric, the only methods that seem to give robust results are boot-strapping (iterative) techniques (like the piano contest rules that you cited above ) Interestingly, if there are five scores to begin with and two are discarded, the sample size is still 5, not 3 -- for instance in formulas that have sigma/sqrt in them. The other two guys do affect the outcome, even though it is their scores that are discarded.)

In the IJS, if the scores of a particular judge are way out of line (I think it is 1 full point from the mean of all judges, including the errant one), then that is marked as an "anomaly." A judge may be required to explain him/herself to the referee in the immediate post event meeting.

If you get too many anomalies over the course of the season then you get in trouble with the ISU and are exposed to various penalties. In a typical year there are about a dozen disciplinary actions taken by the ISU. The "accused" judge has a right to appear before the ISU committee and justify his marks, using video evidence, etc.

Here is an interesting detail. For GOEs the anomalies strictly add. If you give a skater too high a mark on his triple Lutz, but too low a mark on his triple flip, that's two anomalies.

But for PCS the anomalies subtract. If you are too high on interpretation but too low on choreography, that counts as 0 anomalies. This is actually a cool feature of the scoring system. The idea is that GOEs should be more or less cut and dried -- either the skater satisfied the required number of bullets for +1 GOE, or he didn't. If you disagree with your fellow judges about that, then maybe you are not so well qualified to be a judge.

But for interpretation, performance/execution, etc., there can be a greater difference of opinion -- and indeed, the minority or lone judge might be "right" and the majority "wrong." What the ISU wants to control against is systematic bias for or against a particular skater, rather than just disagreement with the majority.

One of the criticisms of the IJS is that it promotes "corridor judging." No one wants to get an anomaly, so you tend to give the score that you think the rest of the judges will give, rather than "voting your conscience." If you are sitting in evaluation of Patrick Chan and you think his choreography deserves 8.5, but you know that all the other judges are going to give 9.5, you might feel pressure to up your score to 8.75.

 

[emma]

^I confess to being a little lost in this thread - or out of my element- and need to read it through slowly and more carefully. But what you just wrote is so interesting - yet another aspect of skating/judging I didn't know a thing about (from GOE's vs PCs...very interesting variation here and the way you explain it, it makes quite a bit of sense...to the problem of possible 'corridor' judging erasing or mitigating the potential for perhaps important disagreement). Are you sure you don't like CoP 'cuz you sure do explain it well!