Along this line ...then after all the base value of the technical points added up. Chan had 83.75. Takahashi had 78.79.
But his quads weren't well done at all.
Article:"Rewarding Failure Diminishes Sport"
- Thread starter skateflower
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But his quads weren't well done at all.
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- Aug 18, 2010
Who's your favorite pet?! Huh?!
They didn't reward Patrick for the fall either! Get it?!
So what? He still got sufficient TES to take the lead over everyone. What could be tweaked was only the PCS part which was only 1.50 over Takahashi's. No matter how anyone tweak it, it won't help Takahashi this time. He would not be a gold medalist. Takahashi knew it but some of his fans just don't get it.
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- Aug 26, 2010
When I say "casual fans", I mean:
1. They are "fans" (ardent devotees or enthusiasts) of figure skating. They are not someone that happen to watch briefly at the beginning of a LP on TV. They are ones that would purchase tickets to a skating competition for their own enjoyment.
2. They are "casual" because their knowledge in skating techniques is relatively "shallow, superficial, or not thorough". I, as a "casual fan", analyze skating results with "casual" inspection. I rarely comment or debate on the technical aspect of skating because I cannot tell a flip from a luz, a twizzle from a frizzle or bamboozle.
I never argue that a flawed element (e.g., hand-down, two-foot) should not receive a partial TES credit for its technical accomplishment. My concern has always been about its impact on PCS. Due to my lack of skating expertise, a "casual fan" like me trusts the calls of technical specialists and judges in the TES department. However, when it comes to performance or artistic impression/presentation, I do have a voice.
I hope I wasn't included in your reference of "some fans". As I told Wallylutz in the GPF Men FP thread, "I don't think many people questioned Chan's SS and TR." I have said it million times and I feel like I have to say it again: Doesn't a fall influence Performance and Interpretation to a certain degree? My argument about falls and other observable hiccups has always been about their influence on the 2nd mark (artistic impression), whether in this thread or others.
Who is my favorite skater? Who am I devoted to? I haven't figured it out yet, but I don't mind other people telling me. I thought what I devoted to was "fairness" of the sport, not a particular skater. I know Mathman likes Michelle Kwan. Is Michelle still competing? I guess Mathman's criticism on IJS comes from his devotion to the sport, not to a particular skater.
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- Aug 26, 2010
How much should a fall cost in PCS besides its negative GOE that reflects the technical imperfection?
My answer: It should be determined by “concurrent validity” (how close the current measure correlates with a validated measure). Say, if the majority of a random sample of skating experts ranked Dai over Chan with a holistic approach for their LP at GPF solely due to the fall, then the appropriate deduction for the fall needs to be big enough to reverse the ranking order produced by the current judging system. By gathering and analyzing more incidents of results that lack concurrent validity should help the ISU determine the appropriate deduction for a fall.
Has ISU been doing validity studies on its judging system? Say, if the majority of skating experts as well as the majority of skating fans give a ranking order different from the one produced by the IJS, then something definitely has to be changed. If the IJS results are consistent with one measure (say, expert opinions) but different from the other (say, fans’ opinions), then a discussion about its "content validity" should be initiated and the experts will decide whether to keep or adjust the scoring rules.
My answer: It should be determined by “concurrent validity” (how close the current measure correlates with a validated measure). Say, if the majority of a random sample of skating experts ranked Dai over Chan with a holistic approach for their LP at GPF solely due to the fall, then the appropriate deduction for the fall needs to be big enough to reverse the ranking order produced by the current judging system. By gathering and analyzing more incidents of results that lack concurrent validity should help the ISU determine the appropriate deduction for a fall.
Has ISU been doing validity studies on its judging system? Say, if the majority of skating experts as well as the majority of skating fans give a ranking order different from the one produced by the IJS, then something definitely has to be changed. If the IJS results are consistent with one measure (say, expert opinions) but different from the other (say, fans’ opinions), then a discussion about its "content validity" should be initiated and the experts will decide whether to keep or adjust the scoring rules.
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- Jun 21, 2003
In the formative stages of the CoP the ISU certainly did a lot of retro-scoring of past performances to see whether the new scoring system matched the actual results. For instance, I read that when they scored the 2002 Olympics under the preliminary scale of values it turned out that Goebel won over Yagudin. So they lowered the value of quads to make it come out right.
Then when Lysacek beat Plushenko in 2010 they raised the value of quads.
Nowadays it would be less straightforward because the programs are specifically choreographed to match up with whatever the current point values are.
Your post is quite interesting because if what is desired is a close match in terms of placements between a gut felling gestalt opinion of experts and the actual sum of point values, then why have the CoP in the first place? Why not just go with the experts opinions, as in 6.0? On the other hand if there is a big difference, who is right, the consensus of experts or the arithmeticians?
As for the different between the opinions of a panel of expert judges versus the opinions of fans, I am pretty sure that the ISU is not much interested in that question.
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- Jun 21, 2003
Always reserving the right to be wrong
, I think the consensus is something like this. The long program could have gone either way. Some people are frustrated with Chan’s errors and think his program component scores are too high for a performance that was far from his best. Many people thought Takahashi’s performance was a delight and would give him the nod on the basis of the emotional satisfaction that his program brings. If Daisuke had landed his quad cleanly I think he would have won the LP.The other view is that, in sober reality, Chan’s remarkable blade-to-ice skills, not to mention two quads, are just what the CoP is designed to reward. Chan is going to score a bunch of points no matter what because he does all the things that the CoP gives out points for. You can’t out-CoP Patrick Chan. That’s just the way it is, whether you are from Canada or Timbuktu.
But of course Canadian skating fans in general love their Patrick, just like Korean fans are enthusiastic about Yu-na Kim. Why wouldn’t they be? :yes:
Chan also did one more Triple-Triple than Takahashi, a difficult 3Lz+1Lo+3S. Plus, the Japanese skater didn't do a Double Axel while Chan had enough room, due to his extra 3-3, to include a 2A, which is worth almost as much as a standard 3T due to it being done late in the program. Not to mention the less visible errors that Takahashi made such as dropping the level on one of his spins to a Level 2. All things considered, Takahashi made enough mistakes such that Chan's demonstrated fuller content in jumps and everything else - thus higher base marks, compensated for poorer GOE on jumps.
Whatever. I could care less about base value most of that base value was do to things he didn't do correctly. If this continues more people will stop watching the sport.
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- Aug 18, 2010
Always reserving the right to be wrong
The other view is that, in sober reality, Chan’s remarkable blade-to-ice skills, not to mention two quads, are just what the CoP is designed to reward. Chan is going to score a bunch of points no matter what because he does all the things that the CoP gives out points for. You can’t out-CoP Patrick Chan. That’s just the way it is, whether you are from Canada or Timbuktu.
But of course Canadian skating fans in general love their Patrick, just like Korean fans are enthusiastic about Yu-na Kim. Why wouldn’t they be? :yes:
Mathman!:thumbsup: I love your clear summery!
That's where the controversy begins.
1. Have the judges marked Patrick wrong? - generally speaking, according to CoP, No.
2. Were the judges' views far apart from "casual fans" - as Skatinginbc defined, views? - many times, especially when Patrick Chan is in the picture
, Yes.How is that?
I think Mathman pull the bull by the horn. I've said it in GPF men's LP thread, a performance in a slow speed or standing still is different from a performance constantly on the edges of the blades with fast speed. What the skating experts valued and marveled are not necessarily what casual fans focused. People watch the whole performance, no doubt with some consideration on speed and blades, but the whole body are the center of the focus. The judges might consider the blades more than casual fans do. The judges focus on both blades and the whole body with the expertized views on how difficult it is to perform on Patrick's level in PE, CH, and IN with Patrick's level of SS. It could be that Patrick's PCS marks if skated perfectly would have been higher than any other skaters because of his SS. Therefore, I said it seemed that SS has priced in into the rest of the PCS marks.
On one hand, if you don't like it, I'll say, go for the SS like Patrick has
, and see if you can still keep the same qualities on the rest of the PCS. Chances are you cannot! One the other hand, I do agree that starting from this very view point, it has devided experts from casual fans. Also it has made casual fans hard to understand the scores. As the result, some fans jumped up and brought out all sorts of scadalous far cries, like politics, nationalism, corruption...
How to smooth and minimize the gap between the expert's views and the casual fan's views has become the center of the task.
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- Dec 3, 2011
I hope you don't mind if I post a few thoughts on this topic. Thanks for all your educated opinions, by the way! Please go on, don't mind me
- Although there were a lot of sloppy performances at the GPF, I think this is a bit of an anomaly because of some things that are happening in the field right now for men and ladies. This isn't normal. It will sort itself out eventually (hopefully ...). This isn't happening in pairs.
- I used to be a huge gymnastics fan. Now that's a sport that has been (IHMO) destroyed by bad COP and other federation meddling. Skating is lucky to have a well thought out code that recognizes the important aspects of the sport, reduces the opportunities for judging bias, and is transparent. AFAIK gymnastics never publishes their full scoring protocols. We're lucky that we can see exactly how the COP is being applied. Then we can critique it. Sure, it's not perfect, but the ISU seems to be willing to make adjustments when needed. I've been a casual skating fan for over 20 years, but I'm getting much more into it now that I can see how the scoring is done.
- I don't think the specifics of the rules have that much of an effect on public popularity. In order to be popular a sport has to have marketable stars. In North America there haven't been any in skating for years. That situation is improving in Canada, but in the US it might be another year or two (or more). And I don't really count ice dancing there because most people question whether that's even a sport.
- I also think that you have to maintain the integrity of the sport. The general public isn't going to understand that kind of a scoring system, but that's okay. They don't need to to become interested. I watched skating for years and years without understanding why one skater was better than another. It was enjoyable to watch, that was the key thing. Sure, splat-fests aren't that much fun to watch but I think the recent GPF is a bit of a bad example.
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- Nov 2, 2005
The truth of the matter is that a fall is just a mistake,just like step outs, hand downs, wrong edges, popped jumps, doubled, singled jumps, two footed, touch down , wobbly landing, under rotation, over rotation, off axis rotation, traveling spins, failure to hold position for three revolution, flat edges, etc
In absolute logic they are all mistakes. Only human biases and personal opinions based on visual aesthetics gives them any value. In all reality they are equally errors or faulty technique. If a fall is a failure than all is a failure.
It is obvious that COP doesn’t consider these as failures and only consider them as errors or mistakes. Most of the analogies given in this thread doesn’t aid in their argument. Most sports don’t give partial credit. The usually give full credit no matter how badly or ugly a goal was completed. I am sure figure skating fans would be more upset if skater got full credit for everything by just doing it no matter if the fell on it, two footed it, or travel around the whole rink.
In absolute logic they are all mistakes. Only human biases and personal opinions based on visual aesthetics gives them any value. In all reality they are equally errors or faulty technique. If a fall is a failure than all is a failure.
It is obvious that COP doesn’t consider these as failures and only consider them as errors or mistakes. Most of the analogies given in this thread doesn’t aid in their argument. Most sports don’t give partial credit. The usually give full credit no matter how badly or ugly a goal was completed. I am sure figure skating fans would be more upset if skater got full credit for everything by just doing it no matter if the fell on it, two footed it, or travel around the whole rink.
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- Aug 26, 2010
If the purpose of CoP was solely to produce identical results as the ones under the old system, then there was indeed no point for ISU to implement the new system. Yet ISU went ahead because it is a system more than just about the results. It gives feedback or detailed explanations about the scores. Also, it was based on the assumption that the old system was not perfect and therefore needed improvement.
Concurrent validity theoretically entails a comparison with a measure that has previously been validated. In behavioral studies, not many measures are perfect. Most are just good enough. So a perfect correlation is NOT a desired outcome when ISU did retro-scoring of past performances with CoP given that the old system was perceived as flawed. What they were looking for, I assume, was a positive correlation, somewhere between moderate and high.
By the same token, my suggestion of comparing the IJS results with expert opinions is not aimed for a perfect correlation since the validity of both measures are uncertain. Nevertheless, it is a good tool to identify questionable areas. Say, if 100% of experts think Dai should have won, then they should just go ahead and change the rule. If 55% of experts rank Dai over Chan, then there is room for DEBATE for it could be partially due to the measurement. And yes, they should debate, take a close look at it, and decide.
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There is no doubt in my mind that the consensus of experts should trump that of arithmeticians. It is the experts that determine the content and construct of a measure. And a valid scoring system is supposed to measure what they purport to measure.
Mathman!:thumbsup: I love your clear summery!
That's where the controversy begins.
1. Have the judges marked Patrick wrong? - generally speaking, according to CoP, No.
2. Were the judges' views far apart from "casual fans" - as Skatinginbc defined, views? - many times, especially when Patrick Chan is in the picture
How is that?
I think Mathman pull the bull by the horn. I've said it in GPF men's LP thread, a performance in a slow speed or standing still is different from a performance constantly on the edges of the blades with fast speed. What the skating experts valued and marveled are not necessarily what casual fans focused. People watch the whole performance, no doubt with some consideration on speed and blades, but the whole body are the center of the focus. The judges might consider the blades more than casual fans do. The judges focus on both blades and the whole body with the expertized views on how difficult it is to perform on Patrick's level in PE, CH, and IN with Patrick's level of SS. It could be that Patrick's PCS marks if skated perfectly would have been higher than any other skaters because of his SS. Therefore, I said it seemed that SS has priced in the rest of the PCS marks.
On one hand, if you don't like it, I'll say, go for the SS like Patrick has
One the other hand, I do agree that starting from this very view point, it has devided experts from casual fans. Also it has made casual fans hard to understand the scores. As the result, some fans jumped up and brought out all sorts of scadalous far cries, like politics, nationalism, corruption...
How to smooth and minimize the gap between the expert's views and the casual fan's views has become the center of the task.
Once again I get that Chan has great skating skills. Although I'd argue his musical interpertation is not as good as Dasiuke's. But does that mean that how Chan executes his elements shouldn't matter. Why even bother holding the competition if how Chan executes his elements matters NOTHING. Its not like Daisuke Takahashi is some slouch in the skating skills department himself. And one could argue he's the better performer.
If your going to argue that how one executes the elements doesn't matter, and lets be real that's exactly what the scoring system is saying. Why bother having the elements. To be quite frank, you might as well reintroduce figures, because its the same thing. And heck at least we didn't have to all watch Schuba wipe the floor with her butt.
Its not asking to much that the sport take into account how a skater executes their program in the PCS. I.e the performance/execution mark is the perfect place. Its not asking to much that multiple errors be penalized. Otherwise why bother even holding the competition. I don't even bother watching the men live, I know the results already. At least when Plushenko was dominating the sport, Plushenko was delivering on the ice. Patrick doesn't even have to skate well. Its frankly ridiculous.
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- Jun 3, 2009
This is actually an interesting point. In Canada, I believe they have taken away the fall deduction at lower levels, in order to encourage harder triples. I'd be interested to see what shifts to the rules could be made in order
Invisible to trained eyes or invisible to untrained?
Untrained. The idea that Mathman et al are promoting is that the sport/entertainment is weakened because it is unable to appeal to the casual fan. My question is how can you create a system such that the fan can enjoy it while not disrespecting the sport/athletes itself. People say common sense, but at the same time run rougshod over the details.
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- Nov 19, 2010
Skaters are like jugglers. Some juggle 3 balls, some 7. A few juggle 7 balls while riding a unicycle. Patrick Chan juggles 7 balls while riding a unicycle on a high wire. Sometimes he drops a ball and casuses an outrage when the judges deem him the winner. Occasionally, he drops 2 balls and wins because the other guy on the unicycle on the ground drops one. A riot ensues. When he wins clean while others drops theirs or fall over their unicycles, many grumble and insist that he dropped all his balls before.
But so I feel that arguing that its perfectly acceptable for a skater to win with multiple glaring errors actually disrespects the other athletes. Why bother competiting if your competition can just go out there throw difficult elements they can't do cleanly and still win. I have a feeling the other men are very frustrated that Chan doesn't even have to skate well in order to get high marks.
Right now the sport is pretty much saying just have a jam packed program and as long as you rotate your golden. Although of course thats not always the case some skaters do get hurt on PCS when they make multiple errors see Abbott. The judging isn't even consistent.
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- Aug 26, 2010
What are you jingling, juggling about? As you said, he dropped the ball. 
Just kidding!
Just kidding!Is it correct under CoP to give a skater 9's for P/E when he had many visible errors in his jumps? Or is it just me who think that a skater who fell shouldn't get 9's for Performance and EXECUTION? I think the judges should give Patrick 8s and 9s for SS, T, CH and I because they are all first rate even when he falls but his P/E mark should be lowerd when he makes three visible mistakes on his jumps, oen of them being huge crash, to 7's. This would give a chance for clean/almost clean Takahashi to win if Patrick makes mistakes on his jumps (and he usually makes a lot of them).
Apparently according to the rules Performance and execution doesn't mean performance/execution.
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- Nov 19, 2010
What are you jingling, juggling about? As you said, he dropped the ball.
That's the fatal error to some. Anyone who drops a ball is not supposed to win, and in Patrick Chan's case, not even in subsequent competitions, because he should have been publicly executed.
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