Should quads per program be limited to balance artistry?

[yfan1]

Figure Skating: While individual elements are given a base value and then a Grade of Execution (GOE) from -5 to +5, a completely failed element, such as a fall where the jump is not completed, results in the element receiving no points (base value of 0) and potentially deductions from other scores. Also, already with figure skating, there are * elements... for instance with some rules ... SP requirements not met (popped jump) Axel requirement not met. Invalid elements (botched lift or death spirals or spins) Zayak rule. ETC

Well, this is wrong (underlined). So I'm not sure how accurate the rest is.

Unless it is talking about things like waxels, I guess? Then it's accurate.

And it's accurate that we do have elements that get zeros when they don't meet the requirements. If all these are equivalent, then it's fine to me. But I am not fine with falls on jumps (or any elements) given zeros on spot.

 

[4everchan]

Well, this is wrong (underlined). So I'm not sure how accurate the rest is.

It is right depending on how you read it. A fall on take off. A fall just before take off. It does say, "when the jump is not completed", so it's a fall that leads to the skater not being able to jump not a fall on the jump itself. . And the rest is right too

ETA. here's an example

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

Unless it is talking about things like waxels, I guess? Then it's accurate.

That's one example.

And it's accurate that we do have elements that get zeros when they don't meet the requirements. If all these are equivalent, then it's fine to me. But I am not fine with falls on jumps (or any elements) given zeros on spot.

That's your position and I respect that. My position is that a fall is a big enough mistake and should be equal to a 0. I mean a beautiful double will be worth zero in the SP because it's supposed to be a triple (or quad) jump... think about the logic of not giving points for someone who popped into a beautiful double versus someone who fell. Why does one person gets points with a glaring and disruptive mistake, while the rulebook says NO POINTS to not meeting a specific rotation requirement.
In figure skating, a jump is supposed to be landed on one foot. If there is a fall, there is no landing... and no one foot landing either with major stumbles. So if that rulebook requires jumps to be landed in a certain way... why is rotation the only factor to invalidate a jump ?

 

[gkelly]

To me, this question is nor merely rhetorical. Is there merit in rewarding difficulty just for the sake of difficulty?

There are many ways to make a sport more difficult. A sprinter could be required to run with a 50-pound weight strapped to his shoulders. A fencer could compete blindfolded.

There's a difference between adding difficulty by imposing external burdens such as weights or blindfolds, vs. increasing the difficulty of what's actually being performed as the techniques of the sport itself.

In racing, extra difficulty is achieved by adding hurdles. And, of course, by longer courses.
But these are separate events -- runners don't get extra credit for running many yards past the finish line or for adding hurdles to jump over while their competitors run on the flat.

In figure skating, skaters add extra difficulty by using all the different edges and lots of different ways to transition from one edge to another,
rather than just skating forward in circles around a track (which is a different sport, albeit also governed by the ISU).

In figure skating, what is more thrilling than a Dorothy Hamill level 1 upright scratch spin, no change of position, no change of edge, no change of foot, no flying entrance, closing out the program with a glorious climax and bringing the house down?

But is the point of figure skating competition to be "thrilling" to audiences?

Backflips may be more thrilling than double axels. Should skaters be rewarded for or even required to do backflips in place of double axels in their short programs?

Twist lifts are more thrilling than a level 4 ice dance curve lift. Should ice dancers be allowed and encouraged to include triple twists? Or do they need to compete in a different sport for that?

As for scratch spins... what makes a great one thrilling is great technique -- speed and centering. But the basic requirements of the spin are pretty simple.
I have (rarely) seen fast centered scratch spins performed by pre-preliminary skaters whose other skills are limited to single jumps, and worthy of Skating Skills scores maybe in the high 1s. That would make them stand out among their peers with similar non-spin skills.

Skaters had already stopped focusing on extreme quality in simple elements like scratch spins and single axels long before IJS came along.
When building the IJS, the ISU built in rewards for difficulty such as "features" for spins and other non-jump elements and also built in rewards for quality (GOE).

They could have, and maybe should have, made the rewards for quality larger than the rewards for added difficulty, so it would always be more valuable to improve the GOE by 1 + than to add another level.

But as long as the levels are achieved by executing difficult features that tech panels can recognize and call using their eyes (and maybe slow-motion replay), there aren't many ways to increase the base value of a simple scratch spin. All the added value would be in quality.
Cross-foot spin (both feet on the ice, crossed with the toes pointing toward each other, during the spin) and "headless" position (more often performed in the cross-foot position or back scratch spin than in the forward scratch) could add to the difficulty while still retaining many basic characteristics of the classic scratch spin. Including speed. Would a high-speed back scratch spin with the head tilted backward be more thrilling than a spin with similar speed and centering in a fully upright position?

Change of edge and change of direction (in change-foot spins) are other ways to add difficulty to basic upright spins, but they would probably result in less speed, effortlessness, and centering. So audiences who are thrilled by speed and centering probably wouldn't enjoy those variations as much, even if they understand that they are more difficult.

Not difficult enough for the ISU, though -- since they removed those features from simple upright spins about 15 years ago.

If the ISU wants to promote the specific skill of forward and/or backward upright spin in classic scratch spin position, to be performed with elite quality, they could
1) hold a separate spin contest in which one of the required elements is a simple scratch spin with no features -- everyone gets level Base and only GOE counts
2) make forward and/or backward scratch the required "spin in one position" in the short program (probably rotating with other positions or requirements from one year to the next), with few if any options available for higher levels so everyone would be getting level Base or maybe level 1 or 2, but most points earned through GOE
3) add a "choreo spin" element to the free skate, where everyone gets the same base value and points are earned through GOE -- basic scratch spin could be one of many options for this element, worth doing for a skater who can do it thrillingly

In 1) and 2), you'd probably see a lot of mediocre scratch spins mixed in with the occasional example of thrilling excellence. In 3), skaters who don't have strong scratch spins would more likely use that element to show a position they can do with higher quality or rely on GOE points like creativity and matching the music rather than on technical quality.

If we ever get technology that can measure exactly how well centered a spin is, how many total rotations, exact number of revolutions per minute (or per second!), and maybe aspects of acceleration, and deceleration if we want to reward that when done intentionally, then a required scratch spin element could be scored on those qualities alone, or together with additional subjective GOE points awarded by judges.

 

[Mathman]

But is the point of figure skating competition to be "thrilling" to audiences?

That is the 64 dollar question. What is the purpose of spectator sports? If athletes want to challenge each other to see who can run the fastest, OK, it's human nature to want to be better at something than someone else is. But why are bystanders interested in paying their hard-earned cash to come out and see whether Speedy Gonzales can run faster than Edward Longshanks?

In racing, extra difficulty is achieved by adding hurdles...
But these are separate events -- runners don't get extra credit for... adding hurdles to jump over while their competitors run on the flat.

[OT -- ah, the memories. When I was in the eighth grade we raced among ourselves, and the P.E. teacher/ track coach would run along beside us, he going over hurdles while we ran on the flat dirt. The very best 14-year-olds on the track team were able to keep up with him, to a certain extent. It was great fun.

Sorry for the interruption, ]

 

[gkelly]

That is the 64 dollar question. What is the purpose of spectator sports? If athletes want to challenge each other to see who can run the fastest, OK, it's human nature to want to be better at something than someone else is.

Is the primary stakeholder for competitive figure skating the athletes challenging themselves against each other, or is it the spectators?

Historically, in ISU competition, it has been the athletes.

At developmental levels, where the skaters are still learning to be the best they can be, which in most cases won't be good enough for anyone besides friends and relatives to want to pay money to watch, it's the athletes.

At what point, if any, should the athletes' interests take a back seat to pleasing audiences?

Personally, I think that point is when they perform in shows, or professional competitions that are designed to entertain audiences first and foremost.

For the Olympics, for world championships I think the appeal to audiences should be about watching the best in the world -- or the best at some lower level in other championships and qualifying events etc. -- push themselves to achieve their athletic best and to outdo others in their category. That's sport.

People pay to watch that in other sports. If they want to watch competitive skating as sport, that's what they sign on for.

It so happens that this particular sport can be beautiful to watch. It uses music partly as a way for skaters to showcase the ability to control their skating enough to time it to the music, and also beyond that to express the music artistically and connect emotionally with the audience. And they can get extra points for that.

But (unlike some exhibition programs), it's not a sport about interacting with the audience or about interpreting music while standing still, lying on the ice, or even sliding on the ice. Or even about moving beautifully, unless it's about gliding on edges (or spinning) beautifully. Or while the person holding you up in the air is gliding beautifully while you make beautiful positions in the air, in the case of pair and dance lifts.
It's about skating -- gliding on edges, with an emphasis on all the varied ways of transitioning from one edge to another (including jumping up in the air and rotating 4 times before coming down on another edge, or the same one in the case of a loop jump).

If what you're looking for is a show, then buy tickets to a skating show. Encourage broadcasters to broadcast them, and purchase livestreams if available.

If what you're looking for is watching skaters push themselves and each other technically, while also enhancing all those techniques with artistic components as well as they can manage, then watch competitions.

And maybe start to get a better idea of what the skaters are trying to achieve in all the different kinds of elements and skating between elements, and what the sport defines as success or failure. (Most posters at Golden Skate have a pretty good idea -- most new viewers do not.)

But why are bystanders interested in paying their hard-earned cash to come out and see whether Speedy Gonzales can run faster than Edward Longshanks?

To watch athletes push themselves to achieve their athletic best and to outdo others in their event.

If watching runners push themselves to run faster is of interest to you, buy tickets to a track meet. Or tune in to the TV broadcasts.
If that doesn't interest you, spend your money on something else.

 

[Zora]

Did anyone else thoroughly enjoy the junior men's short program at the GPF? There was no hiding behind quads, the only way to set yourself apart was through quality of elements and artistry. Not sure how this could work on the senior level, because these point differences would be crushed in the free skate. The only way I can think of, if standings would become relevant again like in the 6.0 era. But I kind of like the idea, one program for quality of elements and artistry, and one free program.

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

(...)

This is never how judging has worked in the past, and it would unnecessarily complicate the process for the judges without giving them more control over how to weight different aspects of each specific performance as they perceive them in the moment.

Let's take Skating Skills, specifically
Variety of edges, steps, turns, movements and directions
Clarity of edges, steps, turns, movements and body control
Balance and glide
Flow
Power and speed

These are largely related to each other but it's possible for different skaters (or the same skater on different days) to excel more in one of these areas than another.

The variety of edges, steps, turns, movements, and directions could be counted. It would require highly advanced programming, but in theory an AI could do this more accurately than a human who is also trying to evaluate all the other criteria at the same time.

Speed can be measured.

So are you proposing that the beginning of the season that, e.g., for all competitions they judge that year, a judge would decide, e.g., that the Variety criterion, as counted by the AI, should be weighted at 20% of their total Skating Skills score for each skater, and Power and Speed should be weighted at 20%, and then judge the rest of the criteria qualitatively, assigning numbers on the 0.00 to 10.00 scale?

And a different judge might decide that the same computer-generated counts/measurements of Variety should only be worth 10% of their SS scores and Speed could be worth 35%?

Would the latter judge then take this weighting into account, knowing that they assigned a high weight to Speed at the beginning of a season, when they see a skater who achieves a lot of speed by running on the ice rather than stroking, and then gliding with the speed they generated that way? Penalize the running in one of the other criteria?

Would judges be able to decide in advance that they want to weight variety of edges, turns, and directions more highly than variety of steps and body movements? Would the AI be programmed to count each of these separately?

What if a judge then sees a skater who did some really unusual steps and body movements while maintaining flow, that the judge wants to reward? Just do so under the Composition component, and/or GOEs for the elements if they happen during elements? If it's up to the AI to come up with the determination of variety and apply a weighting that this judge came up with before they ever saw this program and the unique skills the skater demonstrates, does the judge have no power to reward it in Skating Skills?

(...)

So in Skating Skills, for each criterion, the judge would tell the software their expectations for each step on the corresponding score ladder, as long as it's reasonable (that is, I would say, no child skater would be left with full 0 unless they basically can't skate, nothing not done yet would be demanded to get 9.5; and in between, the progression could be a bit logarithmic as I believe it's meant to be, that is, it's easier to get from 1 to 2 than from 8 to 9, but not excessively; nor worse than linear, which would be, making it extremely hard to get 6 but then easier to get 9s), and there would be multi-parameter graphs; the simplest to understand may not be for Components but for a Jump GOE Bullet: very high and very long, as there are only two parameters, it wouldn't be as ruthless as, the skater has to jump both way higher than average and way longer than average, it would be a function of these two parameters which would have to be beyond a certain value, with perhaps minimum height and length but these minima would be under the average; while the combination/function value would have to be anywhere the judge wants it to be, between two value limits determined by ISU.
I believe that in Skating Skills, all the criteria are in a very large part measurable.
Then after scaling all sub-criteria (measurements and judges' assessments) they would weight them inside each criterion, then weight each criterion inside the Component.
It's not how it is done because judges don't have time to give many dozen little scores on a grid, but this leads to inaccuracies, don't you think? If they can determine before the season, how everything would be best scored and weighted, it would be done once and for all, for, say, with simple software (because what we're speaking about is considered simple calculation nowadays, the difficulty residing more in what to measure and how for the rest, than in how to input and calculate it), most of the Skating Skills and a significant part of the rest, and with more advanced software, over 80% of everything (the rest needing judging proficiency!)

Speaking of something completely out of topic but it's judging proficiency that made me think of it, do judges listen to skaters' music cuts beforehand? Should I be able to judge Figure Skating which is extremely far from being the case, I think that I would have to do it, yet I understand that it's unwelcome? Even with this, I would be afraid of missing a program's real point out of lack of understanding of something, or because the previous program watched led my mind the wrong way to understand the next, and so on. This being said, I don't think that it would be good if judges had a written introduction to each program's perspective because they would be liable to be taken into a narrative which isn't reflected on the ice. Tricky problem.

 

[gkelly]

So in Skating Skills, for each criterion, the judge would tell the software their expectations for each step on the corresponding score ladder, as long as it's reasonable (that is, I would say, no child skater would be left with full 0 unless they basically can't skate, nothing not done yet would be demanded to get 9.5; and in between, the progression could be a bit logarithmic as I believe it's meant to be, that is, it's easier to get from 1 to 2 than from 8 to 9, but not excessively; nor worse than linear, which would be, making it extremely hard to get 6 but then easier to get 9s), and there would be multi-parameter graphs;

Judges don't think this way.

What you're asking them to do is to design a personal schematic for every possible score for each component before they've seen any of this year's skating.

Judges don't do that. They watch skating. They evaluate what they see, when they see it.

Even if we were going to ask them to decide on numerical weightings for the measurable qualities that they no longer need to judge themselves...

What do you expect them to be doing during and after each program, evaluating the qualitative aspects of the skating that can't be measured and turning them into numbers on the 0.00 to 10.00 scale?

THAT is what judges do. The computer can do the measurable parts by itself, with percentages that can be agreed upon by the ISU technical committee rather than asking each judge to come up with their own personal weightings in a vacuum of what they're actually going to see that year.

I believe that in Skating Skills, all the criteria are in a very large part measurable.

If they're measurable, then just measure them.

Let the ISU technical committee decide on the weightings, which will apply to all skaters equally regardless of which judges happen to be on the panel for that event.

Then after scaling all sub-criteria (measurements and judges' assessments) they would weight them inside each criterion, then weight each criterion inside the Component.
It's not how it is done because judges don't have time to give many dozen little scores on a grid, but this leads to inaccuracies, don't you think?

I think what you're proposing will lead to more inaccuracies. Every judge, and therefore the mix of judges on every panel, would have their own personal weightings? So skaters would have no idea what kind of weighting things like speed vs. variation of directions will have for their panel at any given event.

At least if those were consistently established for everyone at the start of the season, skaters would know what to expect.

Everything that's measurable would be weighted the same for every skater.

The question is what should the judges actually be doing during each performance? How should they score the things that can't be measured? In the moment, when the skating is fresh in their mind. Not months earlier before they've seen it.

If they can determine before the season, how everything would be best scored and weighted, it would be done once and for all,

Yes -- anything that can be done in advance should be done one way, the same for every skater. It's just between the people making the rules and writing the computer programs, and the computer itself. If you're going to have these aspects be measured objectively and not let the judges give their own evaluations of what they actually see in terms of variety, for example, then don't give them extra work before the season starts that will have nothing to do with what we actually want them to do during the competition.

Assuming we actually want them to do anything at all.

Let's talk about what we want the judges to evaluate, not about how they can disagree with each other about how to combine the scores that the computer measures and they have no direct input into.

for, say, with simple software (because what we're speaking about is considered simple calculation nowadays, the difficulty residing more in what to measure and how for the rest, than in how to input and calculate it), most of the Skating Skills and a significant part of the rest, and with more advanced software, over 80% of everything (the rest needing judging proficiency!)

Let's talk about actual judging proficiency instead.

(I don't think that we're anywhere close to software sufficiently advanced to measure could theoretically be measured. By the time we do get there, decades from now, the whole scoring system and what kinds of skills skaters are doing might have changed significantly.)

Speaking of something completely out of topic but it's judging proficiency that made me think of it, do judges listen to skaters' music cuts beforehand?

Not systematically.

Judges may watch practices at important events to get a sense of what the skaters will be doing technically (tech panel members definitely do). The music is played at the practices. Depending what the skaters actually focus on during each practice session, judges may see a lot of the choreography, or they may see very little at all.

And if the skater performed the program at a competition (or show) that the judge was present at, or watched a video of, they may have seen a version of the program before.

But each performance will have differences. Including changes in the music if skaters feel the need.

At lower-level competitions, which may have many more skaters at different levels, even if there is official practice ice there may not be music played there, and judges would not have time to watch all the practices -- they may be busy judging a different event on the other ice surface, for example, while the skaters in the next event they're going to judge are practicing.

Some judges may have seen some of the skaters before, maybe some of the same programs before, but not in any systematic way.

Should I be able to judge Figure Skating which is extremely far from being the case, I think that I would have to do it, yet I understand that it's unwelcome? Even with this, I would be afraid of missing a program's real point out of lack of understanding of something, or because the previous program watched led my mind the wrong way to understand the next, and so on. This being said, I don't think that it would be good if judges had a written introduction to each program's perspective because they would be liable to be taken into a narrative which isn't reflected on the ice. Tricky problem.

The "real point" of a competitive program is to show off the skater's skating skills. Including their ability to skate to the music. But if the skater has a story in mind that helps them move in musical, expressive ways, that's not something that is being judged.

So if you're going to judge figure skating, just judge what you see, as you see it.

(Theatre on Ice or Showcase competitions may supply summaries of the program themes to the judges, but that's not what we're talking about with singles or pairs. Ice dance has occasionally required skaters to say what rhythm(s) they were skating to in the Short Dance, for example, but not what "point" they were trying to make with their program.)

 

[Mathman]

About the "scale" for PCSs. the most straightforward thing to try is just raising the factors so that the top artists could get more nearly the same for PCS as the top techies can get in TES. (That Is assuming we tthink that things are drifting out of balance -- not everyone agrees that they are.)

Problems arise because the same scale, whatever It is and however it it capped, must serve the needs of all levels of skating competitions, from beginners to World Champions.The second stumbling block is that we would also want a greater separation at the very top between the divine gods of artistry and the mere legendary kings.

So some sort of exponential curve. as @DizzyFrenchie mentions, with ranges something like this.

0-1. This range represents what the bottom 50% of all skaters can do.

1-2. This is what the next 25% can do.

2-3. The next 12.5%

…

When we get up to the PCS range of 9-10, those marks are reserved for the top one-tenth of one percent (1/1024).

Even that wouldn’t be enough, though. All of the skaters that we see on the Grand Prix, Championship Series, and ISU championships are in the top .001 of all participants in skating competitions at all levels, so some further ratcheting would be needed.

 

[rabidline]

But in a sport? Do we not want athletes to push themselves in attempting difficulty?

We do! And to achieve the "balance of artistry" goal asked in this thread, I think if the result of that difficulty push is ugly and have no artistic value, it should just be... valued as nothing. Because it's not artistic!

 

[rabidline]

But is "performing a program that they can do cleanly" the primary goal of figure skating COMPETITION?

Again, it's not an art contest. Professional competitions whose primary purpose is to entertain audiences may prioritize artistry, including lack of visible mistakes, with technique only appreciated as a support to the artistic purpose.

But for sporting competition, the technical challenges ARE the primary purpose. High quality (which may or may not have anything to do with artistry) makes elements and in-between skating "better" than lower technical quality, but it's quality is a continuum, not an either/or, perfection or no credit, nothing in between.

Artistry is added value. We love it when it's there, we reward it when it's there, but it's not the point of Olympic-style competition.

But figure skating is that intersection between sport and art. It's why someone opened up this thread and ask whether limiting quads per program is a solution to balance the art part of figure skating with the sport part. Which I disagree with, because IMO if we really want to review what happened to the artistic aspects of figure skating, just limiting quads is not enough.

So "looking good" (to casual viewers only?) counts more than technique? Or can judges penalize poor technique that looks bad to them but just fine to the audience? Can judges reward step sequences with excellent technique that happen to catch a rut in the ice at the end? Or does the casual viewer's demand for harshly penalizing those errors they can recognize while ignoring pervasive weaknesses that are harder to appreciate on video, from a distance, and without technical knowledge take precedence?

This is the fun part to argue about.

In the current rules:
In a step sequence with a fall, the majority of the element can be completed before, although steps (and therefore levels) might be lost at the point of the fall and during the recovery afterward. In a step sequence with a fall at the very end, all the level features may already have been achieved and the judge may already be thinking about high positive GOE, only to have to lower the pluses to no higher than +2 once the error occurs, and then deduct a further -5, to end up with either -5, -4, or at best -3 as the final GOE.

Nope. Need to be zero without any compromise.

This is to prevent skaters to get credit for do-overs.
But if they've already completed all or most of the element, shouldn't they get credit for what they did?

Not if there's a disrupting mistake in it. That's the thing, points should not be given for "completing most of the element" but "completing all of the element with no mistakes" .

Do you really want falling on the entrance to a jump to earn the exact same score as rotating a quad-triple combination and then falling on the second landing?

Yes.

 

[gkelly]

Problems arise because the same scale, whatever It is and however it it capped, must serve the needs of all levels of skating competitions, from beginners to World Champions.The second stumbling block is that we would also want a greater separation at the very top between the divine gods of artistry and the mere legendary kings.

Yes, but...

So some sort of exponential curve. as @DizzyFrenchie mentions, with ranges something like this.

0-1. This range represents what the bottom 50% of all skaters can do.

1-2. This what the next 25% can do.

2-3. The next 12.5%

…

When we get up to the PCS range of 9-10, those marks are reserved for the top one-tenth of one percent (1/1024).

There are many skaters at the lower levels, who may compete in medium-large groups (12 is not uncommon, larger is not unknown) -- sometimes they are pretty similar in skill level and sometimes there are skaters who stand out from the rest of the pack, in a good way or a bad way (or both, if their skills are very different for, e.g., Skating Skills vs. Performance).
Judges at those levels need to be able to distinguish among skaters at those skill levels.

By "50% of all skaters" do you include skaters in learn-to-skate classes who are still learning the very basics and haven't even started learning jumps and spins and pattern dances? If so, OK -- those are skill levels that would likely deserve Skating Skills scores in the 0s. But some of them are good performers for their skill level and can deserve higher than that for Performance. And others... not.

Skaters who are doing double jumps and a variety of turns and spin positions, etc., but with only developing quality, now typically earn PCS in the 2s and 3s, maybe higher if they're especially strong for their level in one or more components. But numerically, are they better than 75% of "all skaters"? Depends how you define "all skaters," but probably not, especially if you don't count skaters as part of "all skaters" until they're doing real figure skating skills and not just basic learning to glide on ice.

Already there is a much larger number of skaters at those levels, so judges need to be able to use a wide enough range of numbers to reflect skill differences between weaker and stronger skaters in the same lower level event. Not to mention between skaters at preliminary vs. juvenile levels (with the recognition that the strong preliminaries can be stronger than the weaker juveniles).

So it should be differences in the actual skills the different skaters demonstrate, rather than the total number of skaters at those very broad skill categories, that should determine whether they deserve PCS of 1s, 2s, 3s, or even 4s.

Maybe every skater in the same event will deserve 1s, or all 2s. Or maybe not. Depends who enters, how good they are in general, and how well they skate that day.

If the idea is that the scores should increase logarithmically as the skill level rises and the number of skaters at each level decreases, maybe it makes more sense to increase the factors at each level rather than the range of scores available to the judges.

So, e.g., judges might still be giving 6s and 7s to top juniors, but the factor for junior men remains 1.0 SP/2.0 FS (0.8 and 1.6 for junior women), but for seniors the factors could be raised to 1.2/2.4 (1.0/2.0 for senior women). Or more. And lower than that for novices, lower still for lower levels.

Which would better balance the TES points at each level, since lower levels have fewer elements and the jump rotations and non-jump levels tend to be higher at higher levels.

Of course this doesn't take into account the fact that junior women might make more quad and triple axel attempts than senior women.

Even that wouldn’t be enough, though. All of the skaters that we see on the Grand Prix, Championship Series, and ISU championships are in the top .001 of all participants in skating competitions at all levels, so some further ratcheting would be needed.

Even higher factors for GP and ISU championships?

PCS scores in the 9s were practically unheard of early in IJS but became more common ca. 2014/Sochi. They're still pretty rare, though. 9.75 and 10.00 rarer than lower 9s. Can we consider those scores as reserved for divine gods, with lower 9s and high 8s reserved for the "mere kings"? (Depending on how good the specific performance was. Even for the best skaters, on a good day they may be a divine god, but on a bad day just a mere king. )

 

[Arriba627]

Jumps with arm over the head? When Brian Boitano did it, it was eye-pooping and esthetically satisfying, because Boitano paid attention to the arm position.

It was amazing but probably not eye pooping.

 

[Mathman]

By "50% of all skaters" do you include skaters in learn-to-skate classes who are still learning the very basics and haven't even started learning jumps and spins and pattern dances?

I was thinking of those skaters who have progressed to the level that they actually enter competitions that are judged by IJS rules. I assumed -- maybe this is wrong? -- that young children just learning how the glide on an edge do not actually compete until a little bit later on.

If so, OK -- those are skill levels that would likely deserve Skating Skills scores in the 0s. But some of them are good performers for their skill level and can deserve higher than that for Performance. And others... not.

I was guessing/speculating that the "good performers for the skill level" would still be better than 50% of everybody.

Skaters who are doing double jumps and a variety of turns and spin positions, etc., but with only developing quality, now typically earn PCS in the 2s and 3s, maybe higher if they're especially strong for their level in one or more components. But numerically, are they better than 75% of "all skaters"?

I was assuming that anyone who can do a double jump is indeed way ahead of 75%.or even 87.5% of all skaters, however "all skaters" is defined. Maybe I am underestimating the percentage of all skaters who get this far -- I am bedazzled by anyone who can do a double jump at all.

Already there is a much larger number of skaters at those levels, so judges need to be able to use a wider range of numbers to reflect skill differences between weaker and stronger skaters in the same lower level event.

I think that it would be OK to have a narrower range for large but low-level competitions. If the competitors can only earn 0.37 worth of TES, then the difference between getting 0.51 and 0.56 in PCS is significant.

I guess I am also assuming that as a skater progresses through the ranks, the TES and PCS tend to rise together and more or less keep pace with each other. Maybe this isn't true? Are there technical Ilia Malinins ( = someone who gets much higher TES than PCS) and/or artistic Jason Browns in juveniles, intermediates, etc.

So it should be differences in the actual skills the different skaters demonstrate, rather than the total number of skaters at those very broad skill categories, that should determine whether they deserve PCS of 1s, 2s, 3s, or even 4s.

I was kind of hoping that it would just automatically turn out that way, without counting up how many skaters are accomplished enough to get a 2, or a 3 or a 4. That is, my hppe was that if you define objective criteria for getting in the 2s and above and then afterward count up how many skaters achieved that level, it woild turn out to be roughly 25%. If not, one could either adjust the criteria, or else use a different exponential base (than base 2) to match expectations with reality.

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

Judges don't think this way.

What you're asking them to do is to design a personal schematic for every possible score for each component before they've seen any of this year's skating.

Judges don't do that. They watch skating. They evaluate what they see, when they see it.

Even if we were going to ask them to decide on numerical weightings for the measurable qualities that they no longer need to judge themselves...

What do you expect them to be doing during and after each program, evaluating the qualitative aspects of the skating that can't be measured and turning them into numbers on the 0.00 to 10.00 scale?

THAT is what judges do. The computer can do the measurable parts by itself, with percentages that can be agreed upon by the ISU technical committee rather than asking each judge to come up with their own personal weightings in a vacuum of what they're actually going to see that year.


If they're measurable, then just measure them.

Let the ISU technical committee decide on the weightings, which will apply to all skaters equally regardless of which judges happen to be on the panel for that event.


I think what you're proposing will lead to more inaccuracies. Every judge, and therefore the mix of judges on every panel, would have their own personal weightings? So skaters would have no idea what kind of weighting things like speed vs. variation of directions will have for their panel at any given event.

At least if those were consistently established for everyone at the start of the season, skaters would know what to expect.

Everything that's measurable would be weighted the same for every skater.

The question is what should the judges actually be doing during each performance? How should they score the things that can't be measured? In the moment, when the skating is fresh in their mind. Not months earlier before they've seen it.


Yes -- anything that can be done in advance should be done one way, the same for every skater. It's just between the people making the rules and writing the computer programs, and the computer itself. If you're going to have these aspects be measured objectively and not let the judges give their own evaluations of what they actually see in terms of variety, for example, then don't give them extra work before the season starts that will have nothing to do with what we actually want them to do during the competition.

Assuming we actually want them to do anything at all.

Let's talk about what we want the judges to evaluate, not about how they can disagree with each other about how to combine the scores that the computer measures and they have no direct input into.



Let's talk about actual judging proficiency instead.

(I don't think that we're anywhere close to software sufficiently advanced to measure could theoretically be measured. By the time we do get there, decades from now, the whole scoring system and what kinds of skills skaters are doing might have changed significantly.)


Not systematically.

Judges may watch practices at important events to get a sense of what the skaters will be doing technically (tech panel members definitely do). The music is played at the practices. Depending what the skaters actually focus on during each practice session, judges may see a lot of the choreography, or they may see very little at all.

And if the skater performed the program at a competition (or show) that the judge was present at, or watched a video of, they may have seen a version of the program before.

But each performance will have differences. Including changes in the music if skaters feel the need.

At lower-level competitions, which may have many more skaters at different levels, even if there is official practice ice there may not be music played there, and judges would not have time to watch all the practices -- they may be busy judging a different event on the other ice surface, for example, while the skaters in the next event they're going to judge are practicing.

Some judges may have seen some of the skaters before, maybe some of the same programs before, but not in any systematic way.


The "real point" of a competitive program is to show off the skater's skating skills. Including their ability to skate to the music. But if the skater has a story in mind that helps them move in musical, expressive ways, that's not something that is being judged.

So if you're going to judge figure skating, just judge what you see, as you see it.

(Theatre on Ice or Showcase competitions may supply summaries of the program themes to the judges, but that's not what we're talking about with singles or pairs. Ice dance has occasionally required skaters to say what rhythm(s) they were skating to in the Short Dance, for example, but not what "point" they were trying to make with their program.)

Actually, when I wrote this I was thinking that it would be the ideal if each judge could determine these scales and weightings, out of their own vision of what matters more in Figure Skating; while guessing that actually most federations would provide them with values for the settings depending on their (generally political) objectives and who they want to win; which would still relieve a number of judges not that much at ease with that sort of numbering (which isn't part of what is expected from a Figure Skating judge); yet any reasonable weighting of the sort would produce much fairer results than what we see (at the top), even if chosen to advantage N or M, because we wouldn't have programs deserving 6 or even less scored in the 9s, they would just gain some 0.25 to 0.5 in comparison with a more balanced weighting. I suppose that having the whole ISU deciding a scoring and weighting for each measurable aspect of the programs that matter for Components scoring would indeed take years if not decades! For the rest, I believe that the "basic level" of automated scoring (for Jumps and Spins scoring and a relatively small part of Components) could be ready in months for tries; an intermediate level with Steps and body moves analysis in a year or two more; and the rest in a few more years, but not decades unless influence games between federations would hinder its implementation! Of course a "solution" would be that a Technical Committee would decide of what they want at the moment, make a package of it, organise a Congress in Phuket, have the delegates party one evening, tell them the next morning that there wouldn't be non-consensual votes that morning, then fill the Components scoring package into a bundle with some consensual measures to take and hop! have it voted by blinded, headache-struck delegates.

Of course, the non-measurable scoring would be done during the skates! Judges being freed from a number of criteria or sub-criteria (and Grades of Execution) to score, and able to focus during the skate, on the aspects requiring their expertise. This would probably be boring at low level competitions, I reckon, with most skaters receiving veeery low grades on these aspects (not all).

I'm sorry, I wrote "real point of the program" meaning interpretation-wise, not the whole point!

(Once again, thank you!)

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

About the "scale" for PCSs. the most straightforward thing to try is just raising the factors so that the top artists could get more nearly the same for PCS as the top techies can get in TES. (That Is assuming we tthink that things are drifting out of balance -- not everyone agrees that they are.)

Problems arise because the same scale, whatever It is and however it it capped, must serve the needs of all levels of skating competitions, from beginners to World Champions.The second stumbling block is that we would also want a greater separation at the very top between the divine gods of artistry and the mere legendary kings.

So some sort of exponential curve. as @DizzyFrenchie mentions, with ranges something like this.

0-1. This range represents what the bottom 50% of all skaters can do.

1-2. This is what the next 25% can do.

2-3. The next 12.5%

…

When we get up to the PCS range of 9-10, those marks are reserved for the top one-tenth of one percent (1/1024).

Even that wouldn’t be enough, though. All of the skaters that we see on the Grand Prix, Championship Series, and ISU championships are in the top .001 of all participants in skating competitions at all levels, so some further ratcheting would be needed.

This isn't at all what I've said?
Yesterday I was thinking that if US Pre-Preliminaries can deserve high 1s in Skating Skills, then they're rather better than the French Preliminary Medal, where skaters must have most Steps, Spirals, basic Spins but rarely compete at all even locally and can't skate a Basic Novice program, they don't have a Single Axel; the minimum total of Component score to get the Preliminary Medal is 6 by the way, I understand the factor is 1.67; and 9 as TES.

Actually, I was considering (and evoking) a scoring slightly Logarithmic, and with an x, not being a skaters' population statistics (although, as @gkelly proposed, we could encompass those who have barely ever put a skate on the ice, maybe 90% wouldn't get a 0.1; we might even include those who once slipped on verglas?) but the endeavour, talent and good coaching & Composition provided.
I think that a few years of leisure group skating once a week, can get most skaters at 1? As well as a single year of twice or thrice a week skating for more gifted and focused skaters? Then getting to two would need several skates a week, some private coaching (or competitive group coaching)... Then some top level competitive skaters just can't get from 7 to 8 whatever their endeavours, and many can't get from 8 to 9, and in any case it needs years of dedication, with a good number of weekly hours just dedicated to Skating Skills? Between 6 and 10 we're i fact in the tiny minority of skaters who manage to get ice time enough to get there, yet at 6 they still have much to learn, in fact more than what they've ever learnt, to get into the high 8s if they can and want?

 

[yfan1]

About the "scale" for PCSs. the most straightforward thing to try is just raising the factors so that the top artists could get more nearly the same for PCS as the top techies can get in TES. (That Is assuming we tthink that things are drifting out of balance -- not everyone agrees that they are.)

I think best thing to do is simply to multiply the TES and PCS, and divide by the factor of PCS (so divide by 80, for women, 100 for men, so on).

Ripping it out of a thread I read here, with your participation in it. https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/threads/multiplicative-pcs-scoring.86466/

 

[gkelly]

I was thinking of those skaters who have progressed to the level that they actually enter competitions that are judged by IJS rules. I assumed -- maybe this is wrong? -- that young children just learning how the glide on an edge do not actually compete until a little bit later on.

I can't speak to other countries, but in the US learn-to-skate competitions have become quite popular for skaters very early in their learning process.

Search youtube for Snowplow Sam competition and Basic 1 skating competition for examples of the lowest levels.
Here's one :

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

Decades ago the emphasis was on learning skills before entering competitions. But getting dressed up and, for many beginning skaters, getting the ice to yourself for a minute or so to show your stuff is fun and gives a goal to pursue. If they do go on to compete at higher levels, the experience will be useful. If not, maybe these levels are the peak of their skating experience.

Different coaches may have different opinions on how best to guide the early development of their private lesson students who are aiming for higher levels.

So far in the US these levels have been judged by the ordinal system, but that's going to change next year. Exactly how we don't know yet.

Search for "Pre-Preliminary Excel" for examples of the lowest level of competition that have (sometimes) been scored by IJS so far.

I was guessing/speculating that the "good performers for the skill level" would still be better than 50% of everybody.

In performance quality, maybe.

How should the program component criteria be defined to give better guidance on what kind of scores should be given to skaters with low technical skating skill but good projection and musicality, vs. stronger skaters more refined movement and positioning, but perhaps too shy or too focused on executing more difficult skills correctly to pay attention to the music and audience?

And for the tiny tots, should the level of cuteness factor in?

I was assuming that anyone who can do a double jump is indeed way ahead of 75%.or even 87.5% of all skaters, however "all skaters" is defined. Maybe I am underestimating the percentage of all skaters who get this far -- I am bedazzled by anyone who can do a double jump at all.

The numbers of participants definitely decrease as you go up the levels. But there are skaters attempting double jumps at levels where the total numbers are still relatively large (e.g., Preliminary).

I know less about what happens in other countries. But where recreational competitive skating is not so much a thing as it is in the US with the "Compete USA" (learn-to-skate/Aspire) levels and the lower Excel levels, skaters who get into figure skating as figure skating with the intention of training for competitive levels will be attempting double jumps at quite young ages, maybe within a year or two of starting serious training. And the "skaters" their age and older who are not at that level might just be people who skate around but don't take lessons or call themselves figure skaters.

I think that it would be OK to have a narrower range for large but low-level competitions. If the competitors can only earn 0.37 worth of TES, then the difference between getting 0.51 and 0.56 in PCS is significant.

In which case it would help the judges to have access to 0.1 increments within that 1.00-2.00 range, or whatever it might be for a given competition, rather than only differences of 0.25 per component.

Especially since there are usually fewer judges per event at this level and therefore high and low scores would not be dropped.

I guess I am also assuming that as a skater progresses through the ranks, the TES and PCS tend to rise together and more or less keep pace with each other.

Usually, as they get more skills, there's more they can do choreographically, and they may also start working with professional choreographers or presentation-focused coaches who help them develop skills to interpret music, and take outside dance classes. Also, with more experience they can get more confident on the ice.

Maybe this isn't true? Are there technical Ilia Malinins ( = someone who gets much higher TES than PCS) and/or artistic Jason Browns in juveniles, intermediates, etc.

Sometimes. Different skaters have different strengths and weaknesses, and they may really lean into their strengths.

But if they can't master double axels and triple jumps -- which is a large percentage of those who compete at juvenile and intermediate events and lower -- by the time they get to higher levels in the US the more artistically inclined have other disciplines (and the Excel track for singles skating) that they can switch to.

In smaller countries that divide competition levels primarily by age, they'll just stay with their age group until they age out of juniors and then decide whether to keep competing in seniors without having the jump content to skate legal short programs, or move on with the rest of their life. Which theoretically could eventually include adult competitions.

I was kind of hoping that it would just automatically turn out that way, without counting up how many skaters are accomplished enough to get a 2, or a 3 or a 4.

Good.

That is, my hppe was that if you define objective criteria for getting in the 2s and above and then afterward count up how many skaters achieved that level, it woild turn out to be roughly 25%. If not, one could either adjust the criteria, or else use a different exponential base (than base 2) to match expectations with reality.

So how could more objective criteria be defined?

That's what I'm really interested in, more than the math.

 

[Mathman]

Actually, I was considering (and evoking) a scoring slightly Logarithmic, and with an x, not being a skaters' population statistics,,,

What do you propose for "x"? I think that what is needed is a more aggressive, not a "slightly" logarithmic scale and that it would be better to call it exponential rather than logarithmic (depending on what "x" represents).

 

[gkelly]

Actually, when I wrote this I was thinking that it would be the ideal if each judge could determine these scales and weightings, out of their own vision of what matters more in Figure Skating; while guessing that actually most federations would provide them with values for the settings depending on their (generally political) objectives and who they want to win; which would still relieve a number of judges not that much at ease with that sort of numbering (which isn't part of what is expected from a Figure Skating judge); yet any reasonable weighting of the sort would produce much fairer results than what we see (at the top),

First of all, if each judge sets their own weightings, there would be a very wide range of weightings with no guarantee that you would consider each "reasonable." So I don't think this would make results any fairer.

Or any more transparent. Do you really expect skaters to look up the weightings of the judges on the panel at each event they enter to see whether this panel puts higher weight on variety of directions vs. speed, or vice versa? Assuming the individual judges' weightings would be published at all.

Why should judges set weightings for evaluations that they don't even make themselves? They don't determine what features should earn higher levels for non-jump elements, or determine whether those features were met or not. In 6.0 judging, judges took into consideration both the difficulty and the quality in spins and steps, but in IJS the difficulty determinations have been outsourced to a separate panel of humans who watch just for those features and make those determinations . . . without telling the judges what levels they awarded.

The judges (and even the tech panels) have no input into the base values of the different elements and levels or the values of the positive and negative GOEs. Or, for that matter, the factoring of the program components. All that is determined by the ISU and published in the Scale of Values and other documents.

If determinations of speed and other measurable factors are going to be outsourced to machines, why should the judges have input into how to weight them. Those determinations should be made by the same committees who come up with the Scale of Values.

Judges' job is to evaluate the skating that they see, not to design their own personal scoring system to be applied by computer measurements they have no control over.

What you're asking them to do is not judging.

Some of them might be interested in figuring out how to weight different measurable parts of skating that will be taken away from judges' assessment. Then let them join the relevant ISU committees or get the ear of people who are on those committees.
Or post in conversations like this one and hope someone at the ISU is reading.

For those who want to judge the judgeable parts of skating, let them do that.

even if chosen to advantage N or M, because we wouldn't have programs deserving 6 or even less scored in the 9s,

This is a totally different question.

What we want is better guidelines on how to determine which performances deserve 6 or less for each component -- designed by experts who have seen many more programs deserving of 6 or less and who are awed by the outliers that deserve much higher.

How do we define "deserve"?

Maybe there could be clearer guidelines on how to separate the "gods" from the "kings" among the outliers, as @Mathman dubbed them. But they're not likely to "deserve" less than 6.

they would just gain some 0.25 to 0.5 in comparison with a more balanced weighting. I suppose that having the whole ISU deciding a scoring and weighting for each measurable aspect of the programs that matter for Components scoring would indeed take years if not decades!

But you want judges to do it themselves, without years of study on the details of how this would work???

It's a different kind of expertise. If we do want weighting for each aspect of scoring that can be done by machines, let it be determined by experts in that kind of math and programming, who also have expertise in figure skating.

Not independently by many different figure skating experts most of whom have no background or interest in math or programming.

For the rest, I believe that the "basic level" of automated scoring (for Jumps and Spins scoring and a relatively small part of Components) could be ready in months for tries;

At what expense?

The ISU may be working on this and will try it out in test competitions within the next couple of years (i.e., alongside the current official human-centered panels) to see how it works, and then maybe adopt it for international competitions, at least the big ones.

What kind of equipment would be needed at the competition venue to implement automated system? What new officials would need to be trained to install and run it? How would judges and tech panels need to be retrained to stop worrying about the measured parts of scoring being given away to the machines and focus more on the remaining human-scored aspects?

How much would the equipment cost, and how much space would it need? On different sides of the ice? Can it be implemented in small local rinks, by federations or clubs with low budgets? Or would there be a two-tier level of competitions that use the shiny new machine stcoring system and those that can only accommodate the low-tech old-fashioned system. (I.e., the current IJS, which is already more expensive and more tech dependent than 6.0.)

Of course, the non-measurable scoring would be done during the skates! Judges being freed from a number of criteria or sub-criteria (and Grades of Execution) to score, and able to focus during the skate, on the aspects requiring their expertise. This would probably be boring at low level competitions, I reckon, with most skaters receiving veeery low grades on these aspects (not all).

The fun part can be figuring out how to distinguish meaningfully between skaters who are close in overall skill level but might be better at some things and weaker at others, within that low range. And when just to decide "They're all the same! Same score for everyone -- let the computers determine the winner."

But how many low-level competitions could actually afford to use a system that relies on computers and multiple cameras?

This isn't at all what I've said?
Yesterday I was thinking that if US Pre-Preliminaries can deserve high 1s in Skating Skills, then they're rather better than the French Preliminary Medal, where skaters must have most Steps, Spirals, basic Spins but rarely compete at all even locally and can't skate a Basic Novice program, they don't have a Single Axel;

"Basic Novice" internationally is more or less equivalent to the US Juvenile level.
The US has three standard competition levels below juvenile: Pre-Juvenile (allowed double jumps up to lutz), Preliminary (allowed two doubles out of salchow, toe loop, and loop), and Pre-Preliminary (allowed axels but no doubles).

Then there are "Excel" versions of each of these levels (and higher levels) that have stricter limits on what jumps are allowed.

And there are learn-to-skate levels (Basic 1-6, and competition levels now called Aspire 1-4 that include free skating moves such as half-jumps and two-foot or basic one-foot spins in Aspire 1 up to single lutz and beginning combination spins in Aspire 4).

There are no official guidelines on what skill levels deserve which program component scores. On average, though, the Pre-Preliminary through Pre-Juvenile skaters will usually earn scores in the 1s and 2s, with a fewer higher outliers especially by Pre-Juvenile, and maybe lower for a skater having a bad day.

Skaters at the higher Aspire levels would probably also deserves 1s, though those levels have not yet been scored by IJS.

Scores in the 0s would be for the real beginners.

the minimum total of Component score to get the Preliminary Medal is 6 by the way, I understand the factor is 1.67; and 9 as TES.

Different rules for different federations at these levels.

I think that a few years of leisure group skating once a week, can get most skaters at 1?

Probably, if "leisure group skating" includes actual lessons on technique, plus practice time. Not if it's just go to the ice once a week, do whatever you can however you want, have fun.

Again, there are no official guidelines. But I kind of expect 1.00 to indicate that the skater can do forward stroking with some power, forward and backward crossovers, all the different edges at least somewhat recognizably (back inside is more difficult), forward three turns and inside mohawks at least in the good direction. And basic spirals.

... Then some top level competitive skaters just can't get from 7 to 8 whatever their endeavours, and many can't get from 8 to 9, and in any case it needs years of dedication, with a good number of weekly hours just dedicated to Skating Skills?

Yes, it takes hard work to develop top-notch skating skill. And also natural talent, and training on good technique.

Between 6 and 10 we're i fact in the tiny minority of skaters who manage to get ice time enough to get there, yet at 6 they still have much to learn, in fact more than what they've ever learnt, to get into the high 8s if they can and want?

Well, if they've got skating skills worthy of 5.00 or 6.00 or more, they've probably learned all the difficult one-foot turns, and choctaws, and can aim for higher levels in their step sequences. What they need to develop is more mastery and comfort with those skills, so they can execute them with clean edges and turns, and stronger power and flow, effortlessly, with more difficult combinations and direction changes, control over body positions and variations that challenge balance more, and ability to time it all to musical nuances. Yes, still lots to work on.