Judging the "Old-Fashioned" Way

,,,so whenever fans disagreed with the judges, they could blame it on the judges getting it wrong due to politics etc. and boo with glee.

Click to expand...

gkelly said:

Off topic, but how often does a team with no home runs beat an opposing team who knocked out at least one?

I.e., the difference between landing a quad and doing enough other things right to win without one. One home run does not equal a whole performance/game. But the game is slower so there's plenty of time to cheer for each great play separately, whereas with skating the most intense cheering comes after the whole performance is finished.

And how often does a ball go out of the park but get called as a foul?
(=downgraded quad)

I don't think that the disconnect between judges' priorities and fans' priorities was really any less under 6.0 -- it just seemed that it was, so whenever fans disagreed with the judges, they could blame it on the judges getting it wrong due to politics etc. and boo with glee.

Click to expand...

gkelly said:

And that took being interested and willing to go to the trouble.

Click to expand...

This town ain't big, this town ain't small
It's a little of both they say
Our ball club may be minor league but at least it's Triple-A

"We sit below the Marlboro man, above the right field wall
We do the wave all by ourself
Hang ump, a blind man could've made that call"

....

"We don't worry about the pennant much,
we just like to see the boys hit it deep.
There's nothing like the view from the cheap seats."

Click to expand...

Mathman said:

^ By knocking it out of the park I was thinking more of the second mark.



I think you are underestimating the satisfaction that this brings to sports fans.

Edited to add: Just look at how much fun we have on this board doing that very thig.

Click to expand...

dorispulaski said:

Cheap Seats by Alabama
celebrates this kind of fandom.

Click to expand...

Mathman said:

That's me.

The view that I most disagree with is the one that says, all we need to do is educate the fans about the CoP.

I have memorized the scale of values. I know that a triple flip is worth 5.3 pouints. I know that if a jump is short by more than 90 degrees but less than 180 then it is discounted thirty per cent. I even know how to compute 70% of 5.3.

But I do not enjoy a figure skating contest the more because of this knowledge.

(I do like local club shows and competitions, though. It may not be the bigs, but at least it's triple-A....well, 2A. )

Click to expand...

Hernando said:

Are we approaching a situation similar to Janet and Trixe with fans so disgruntled by the scoring they change the channel or don't watch at all?

How is it possible for the majority of fans to think 2010 Natls was scored well when Mr Skating USA, Scott Hamilton didn't get it either.

Does anybody here seriously think that there is any way possible to educate enough fans so they know more about skating than Scott?

That seems to be the only possible way for CoP skating to have much of an upswing in USA.

Click to expand...

gkelly said:

So where does your angst come in? Do you see a problem with the current knowledge level of the judges? the knowledge level fo the fans? the disconnect between them?

This has potential for a simplified version of elements scoring. A lot of the specifics would still need to be worked out, after which it might not be quite so simple. But if the idea is that every judge is allowed to make his or her own determination of the value of each element, according to the rules, then there will often be major disagreements on how to score specific elements but as long as each judge is working from their best possible knowledge of elements and rules and visual perception of the elements, then getting different points of view is why we have judging panels in the first place instead relying on just one person.

For major international events. Obviously this wouldn't be possible or necessary at domestic events, and it might be cost prohibitive at smaller internationals.

Are you suggesting that one judge in a team would contribute a technical score, one would contribute a presentation score, and the scores would be combined into a single ordinal to be calculated by the majority system?

I remember hearing a similar idea floated by some figure skating officials back around 1998, but I foresee a lot of paradoxical unintended consequences with that approach. If that is what you were thinking of, I'll explain what I think the problem could be. If not . . . whoops, never mind.

Also, if you want to go back to the majority system, remember that you need an odd number of judges, or judge pairs as the case may be. So 10 or 14 judges, but not 12.

I know these are just rough examples. If you do want to work out the details, remember that the numbers have tocover a wide enough range to accommodate the weakest international skaters, who may struggle with double jumps etc. (or lower than that if it's to be used at even lower levels domestically), and with the envelope-pushing quad jumpers, and every level in between. And they need to be flexible enough to distinguish between multiple skaters who are close to exactly the same skill level, so when they all do the same elements the results will come down to very fine points of technique and, yes, individual judges' preferences.

The cutoff for a maximum score (6.0 or whatever you call it) would have to be well out of reach of the best jumpers of the current generation, and even so some fluky jumper would probably come along and break through the ceiling long before the powers that be anticipate that the scores need to be recalibrated.

How were you thinking that judges would determine their presentation scores?
Would breakdowns of the elements and different aspects of presentation be available after the fact, as in the current protocols, or only ever one mark for tech merit and one for presentation as under 6.0?

Interesting thoughts! Want to play with the details?

Click to expand...