If you could change one rule in any discipline

[DizzyFrenchie]

I'm not sure what you mean here.

First of all, GOE rules have changed at times. When the +5/-5 GOE scale first came in (2018?), the guidelines required all of the first three positive bullet points to be present, along with one or two (or all three) of the others, for the element to start at +4 or +5, before any necessary GOE reductions. (The official terminology for negative GOEs is "reductions," distinct from the "deductions" that are taken off the whole segment score.)

Originally there was no cap on the starting GOE based on the presence of errors.

Then a few years later it was specified "To establish the starting GOE Judges must take into consideration the bullets for each element. If in an element there is any kind of mistake that requires a reduction, the starting GOE cannot be higher than +3." Is that what you're referring to?

And also "Errors with a grey background must not have higher than +2 starting GOE." (The errors with a grey background were moderate to serious errors for jumps and spins, but also included "Does not correspond to the music" for choreographic and step sequences, which could have reductions as small as -1.)

These caps were in effect last year, 2025-26, and I think also 2024-25. But not before that.

This season (2026-27), the guidelines have eased up a bit.
For positive GOEs, only the first two bullet points are now mandatory for +4 or +5 starting GOE; the "effortless throughout" bullet is no longer mandatory.
Also, this year's guidelines now state: "If in an element there is any kind of mistake that requires a reduction, the starting GOE cannot be higher than +4."
I.e., as of this year, if you have 4 or 5 bullet points including the first 2 but not the 3rd (effortless), even if there is an error requiring a reduction the starting GOE is now capped at +4 before the reduction.
The "Errors with a grey background must not have the higher than +2 starting GOE." wording from the negative GOE chart does still apply.

So if you're going to complain about judges not following rules, make sure you're comparing to the rules for the same season that the judges were judging under.

Sorry, I had forgotten this recent change in rules, since 2024 indeed the rules have become clearer!

 

[TontoK]

Do you propose not to call a jump at all and consider it part of choreography?
The reason I am asking is while I am generally on board the no credit for fallen jump ship, because falls are unambiguous and too many falls disrupt the program, so do many bad landings.
But I am afraid whether to give a full credit or no credit for a wrong edge take-off is exacerbated by inconsistent calling and borderline cases, when the panel couldn't see well or the edge is not clear. This might lead to tiny edge variations causing big score variations. In math we call this an ill-posed or unstable problem and generally tend to avoid those and try to approximate them by less exact but more well-posed / stable ones to avoid exactly this: big errors in the solutions caused by tiny errors in the data. It's like a badly tuned water tap that you turn a tiny bit and feel the water instead of changing the temperature a tiny bit go from icy cold to scalding hot.

Basically, I'm just stirring up because I get annoyed when people minimize the importance of proper edges on takeoff and landing, all the while sniveling that so-and-so was robbed by at least a point in PCS.

In my heart, I consider a flutz to be a failed element, and therefore unworthy of any points. But I'm realistic enough to know I won't win that battle.

For the record, I'm a fan of artistic skating. I just want it done to technical mastery of the elements. If skaters feel they must present a flawed element, I really wish they wouldn't.