Edit: It is hard to fault the ISU judges on this issue, though. On components, there is a range of values that are tacitly reserved for different levels of competition. 4s&5s for novices, 6s&7s for juniors,7s & 8s for seniors, 9s for the top medal contenders. Does this seem a lot like "reputation judging"?. It does, But without some sort of guidance it would be impossibly unwiedy to have a single contunuos scale that encompasses all levels os skating, beginners through Olympians.
Those numerical scores are not officially reserved for specific competition levels. (Yes, I know you said "tacitly.")
The numbers are defined in terms of adjectives such as Poor, Fair, Average, Above Average, Good, Outstanding.
Or, more broadly, the colors red, orange, green, gold, platinum.
If you look at a large JGP competition, for example, all competitors will be competing at the junior level (although a handful maybe shouldn't be). You might see PCS inching into the 8s for a really stellar junior performance, or as low as 3s for weaker juniors. Or lower than that for skaters who are not really at junior skill level.
At the senior level, e.g., senior B competitions or Euros or 4Continents, you might see occasional 4s for the weaker seniors up to 9s for top elite competitors.
The tricky part is if you look at a skater who has strong skating skills (worthy of 7s or 8s -- and maybe earning 9s from judges who are especially impressed by successful difficult jumps, speed/power more than complexity, and possibly the skater's nationality) who does not use that power to execute varied or complex skating between the elements.
So if the transitional moves are minimal and simple, but performed at great speed, how should that be scored relative to skaters with average, fair, or poor skating skills performing similarly simple skating?
I would guess this has been a topic of discussion at judging seminars and roundtables, especially when there was a dedicated component for Transitions. Even if everyone agrees that the Transitions score should be lower than the Skating Skills score, judges might disagree about
how much lower. 0.25 or 0.5? 1.0? 3.0 or 4.0?
Part of the differences among judges may have to do with how different individuals are neurologically wired to process numbers. Another part, especially when we're talking about new International and not already-ISU-level judges, might have to do with the range of skating ability they have the most experience judging.
Is it possible to set firm benchmarks that everyone can agree on about an appropriate Transitions score for an empty program by a strong skater vs. an averagely-constructed program by an average skater vs. an empty program by an average skater, etc.?
I think what happens is that the ideal is put out in the official documents in relatively general terms, and then the specifics narrow in through each judge's experience and interacting (outside of ongoing competition) with other judges to share impressions, and the most experienced judges sharing their experience with the newer ones. And also probably with the experienced judges talking through what they've been seeing and discussing how to get everyone closer to the same page in understanding what skill level and content correlates with what numerical score.
And changing the wording of the official guidelines, or even changing the rules (e.g., 3 components instead of 5) in hopes of getting better agreement on how to apply the guidelines.
I'm not sure that removing the Transitions score, aside from reflecting those moves under Composition, Skating Skills, or element GOEs where relevant, was necessarily the best way to improve judging of that aspect. Or that combining Performance/Execution and Interpretation was necessarily better than evaluating those aspects separately. But that's what we've got now, so that's what judges have to figure out how to evaluate and assign numbers to and come to some agreement on what counts as average, good, or outstanding for these broader component categories.
It's always going to be a work in progress, both for individual judges and for the international judging corps as a whole (or domestic judges in federations around the world). Even if they discuss and discuss and refine guidelines and come to agreements that everyone agrees that X performance by Skater Y deserved 5.0 or 10.0 for a specific component, that doesn't nail down exactly what score to give next year's performance by a different skater that was equally excellent (or equally average) in different ways.
The skating itself is always a moving target, so we can't really expect the judging to reach a point where it is fixed and perfect.
For example in Trusova's Worlds 2021 performance, if you judged her components score as 9.00/7.00/8.25/8.50/8.25, all of your scores would be integral part of the final judges score, even the majority of judges gave her 8.5/7.75 in the first two components... (it is hard to go bellow 6.5 for components in this particular occasion when the lowest score for TR at the whole competition was 6.25)...
