Article by Janet Lynn

Mathman said:

The problem with debate on the Internet nowadays is that the person with the greatest command over the details of the rule book will always win.

If I say, gee, I really liked Joubert's program at 2008 worlds, all someone has to say is, "Look at the protocols, dummy. Buttle got 3.82 points for a level three step sequence. What is it you don't understand about 234.21 points beats 229.86 points?"

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What are you trying to debate or discuss about?

If you really liked Joubert's program at 2008 Worlds, you really liked it. No one's going to change your mind about that -- there's no point trying.

However, if you try to argue that it should have won just because you really liked it, then be prepared for debate and be prepared to lose. Even under 6.0 skating was never designed to be a fan popularity contest.

There's no debating about likes and dislikes. We each like what we like and someone else's opinion isn't going to change ours. We can certainly each discuss why we like certain programs and maybe help others to see performances from different perspectives, maybe learn to appreciate the good points of a performance in which only bad points stood out to us before.

There is room for debate about how to score certain components, according to the stated criteria -- keeping in mind that watching on video, from different camera angles, with the potential for multiple viewings, vs. watching live from different points in the arena will give different perspectives on the program. Review afterward might show aspects of the program that the judges missed at the time from their angle, but on the other hand viewing on video will inevitably miss or obscure a lot of relevant aspects that were salient to the judges at the time. And ultimately it's the judges' opinions based on the live performance as seen from the judges' stand that count.

There is room for debate about how the current rules should be used best to meet their stated objectives, and how the objectives could be stated better.

There is room for debate on what qualities the rules should value more highly and for how the rules could or should be rewritten to value those qualities better.

In many cases there is room for difference of opinion. We can debate and acknowledge each other's opinion and ultimately agree to disagree. (E.g., some fans or insiders might believe that the skater with the hardest successfully completed technical content should
always win, and others might believe that the skater with the most coherent artistic performance should always win. No set of rules is ever going to please both of those groups.)

If you want to discuss your personal preferences, there's no winning and losing. All opinions are equal.

If you want to debate how the sport can appeal to fans or the general public better, you need to do so in the context of knowledge of how proposed changes would affect the way the sport is practiced for all the athletes. Or acknowledge that you're fantasizing about an ideal product for fans and not really arguing in favor of changing the sport.

If you want to debate technical details about rules and scoring, you need to arm yourself with knowledge.

So if you're not interested in detailed technical knowledge, why bother to debate topics that rely on it?

Under any judging system, you can choose a favorite performance from a competition and explain why you thought it was the best. Others will probably have different favorites. But those kinds of discussions are not debates that can be won or lost.

Likewise debates about how the scoring system might be changed for the better are met with, "Look, this is the way it is. If you don't like it, go read the rule book some more until you do like it."

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I certainly don't do that -- I like to debate ways that the scoring could be changed for the better, both starting from the existing system or starting from scratch.

But I take the suggestions seriously and try to address what the actual impact on skating as a whole might be, whether they would be improvements or make things worse.

And when I throw out suggestions about changes I would like to see, I welcome others to point out reasons why they would never work in the real world of skating.

Certainly I fantasize about competition format changes I would like to see but I don't expect them to happen because they'd be more expensive to run.

Mathman said:

The problem with debate on the Internet nowadays is that the person with the greatest command over the details of the rule book will always win.

I have never won an argument with gkelly. I have never won an argument with wallylutz. I have never won an argument with mskater, blades of passion, and a dozen others.

If I say, gee, I really liked Joubert's program at 2008 worlds, all someone has to say is, "Look at the protocols, dummy. Buttle got 3.82 points for a level three step sequence. What is it you don't understand about 234.21 points beats 229.86 points?"

Likewise debates about how the scoring system might be changed for the better are met with, "Look, this is the way it is. If you don't like it, go read the rule book some more until you do like it."

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Poor Mathman, I understand and can relate to every word you said. Even when you said "win an argument", I know you didn't mean "win" literally but instead, in my interpretation, "to engage in a logical debate without being outnumbered by opinions restricted by the existing framework of thoughts". It is hard to debate something "outside the box" when others' thoughts are governed by the box. That's the beauty of the new judging system, though. Everyone has the same set of brain and therefore no bitching about scandals.

It's like the justice system. It is "fair" because everyone follows the same rule. It is designed more about superficial "fairness" than about finding the "truth".

If you are debating who should be the "true" winner of a competition, you will meet with "who-won-fairly" arguments. And again, that's the beauty of the system.

6.0 system was unfair because it made you "wait your turn". And if you pulled an early skate time then you might as well kiss your chances goodbye. Yeah, that's truth and fairness...

neither system is perfect because it was created by imperfect people, and is used by imperfect people. They have their biases, they have their ideas of what skating is, just like you or me. The CoP makes it more sport. Now, if you're content with the Disson crap then by all means, let's ditch the idea that it's a sport - the IOC wants it out for all kinds of reasons, mainly because it's judged more like a beauty paegent than a sport, and where do you think that leaves Skating? You all think we get crap for coverage NOW? Think of what happens should it lose it's Olympic Sport status. The days are gone where we can have it both ways. (If we ever did, which I honestly don't believe we have)

It is disconcerting when what informed fans (let alone "average" ones) appreciate in a skate is not what the judges are marking.

I always draw contrasts with baseball because that's the only other sport I have a decent familiarity with (though nothing like my husband, who had memorized all 1500 pages of the Baseball Encyclopedia by age 12). In baseball, fans get excited by hits, homers, great fielding, and effective pitching. Those are the same things the commentators get excited about and those are the things that win games.

Whereas in figure skating you have all these people who love things like those that Janet Lynn mentioned:

miles; pointed toe; stretched leg; line of body; flowing true edges and change-of-edges; long controlled glide that looks like it floats-- to music; footwork that makes the music come alive throughout the performance; an edge or turn that "whispers" (instead of ripping or grinding), the excitement of a classic sit, change sit, change sit, change sit spin to exacting music; a long blurred spin with musical crescendo. Oh, how the immeasurable soaring delayed one revolution axel made audiences feel as if they were flying with the skater!

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The relationship of skating and music is another thing she mentions that seems to escape the "box" of the COP. I'll add another one - a beautiful classic layback - something people love to see but that is hard to find today because apparently COP doesn't reward it.

As a skating fan I've "grown up" under COP and could list more COP favorites than 6.0. I used to find 6.0 judging mystifying (except for the 6.0 part), so I'm not arguing to bring back 6.0. I'm simply trying to articulate a certain disconnect that seems to exist between audiences and judges now. You don't have that in baseball or for that matter any other sport I can think of off the top of my head.

Spun Silver said:

As a skating fan I've "grown up" under COP and could list more COP favorites than 6.0. I used to find 6.0 judging mystifying (except for the 6.0 part), so I'm not arguing to bring back 6.0. I'm simply trying to articulate a certain disconnect that seems to exist between audiences and judges now. You don't have that in baseball or for that matter any other sport I can think of off the top of my head.

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Going with a sport I follow more this season than figure skating, the dreaded and most hated Football (love me some QBs and RBs and coaches and... yup). There are a LOT of things fans don't like - they don't like the new rules that make the game "easier" or less "athletic". I am one of those (seriously the new kick off rule is just plaing stupid. they don't want to "injure" the athletes too early, but really? they're all still getting injured. It kinda comes with the territory. This is a sport last time I checked, right?).

But the biggest complaint football fans and old skool commentators have? The refs not getting to make a call and have it stick. Every touchdown is now reviewed. Every coach gets to contest calls. And EVERYTHING that is significant gets put on replay and is reviewed. This was something that is looked at as a good thing, but it takes that audience reaction that some say is also missing in figure skating out. Can't yell at the ref anymore because if it's reviewed it's reviewed and taken care of. I might get vindicated when a ref calls a touchdown when really it wasn't and I caught it and they didn't, but then again, that's a big part of football: hating the refs.

So, yes, it happens in every sport. Technology gives a new unliked dimension. Officials try to appease the masses and the sport and the people holding the $$ and all the while the rules are changed every year and you have to keep up with it or just drop the interest. *shrugs* I've always enjoyed professional skating more, but the ISU took that over and killed it. I HATE pro-ams, I don't think they're needed, and I HATE that I can't watch stuff like Ice Wars and the World Pro...

None of which was brought on by the CoP. Pro skating became pro-am in 1998/99. Skating's ratings were already going downhill, and there were fewer and fewer weekends with it on tv. It's a niche sport. Always has been. Aside from the roughly four year period where it was a freak show thanks to the whack it's always been a niche sport in the US... and like it or not we're not the only ones in the game. Japan is seeing a huge boom... Russia is consistent... CoP has nothing to do with it. I say get figure skating it's own channel and be done with it... good luck finding sponsors though lol

Spun Silver said:

It is disconcerting when what informed fans (let alone "average" ones) appreciate in a skate is not what the judges are marking.

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I attribute that to two main factors.

1) A lot of what the judges are marking and that purists like Janet Lynn appreciate are not qualities that come across very well on TV, for example "flowing true edges and change-of-edges; long controlled glide that looks like it floats-- to music; ... an edge or turn that "whispers" (instead of ripping or grinding)"

2) TV commentators started out out by focusing on qualities that do come across well on TV -- sometimes better on TV than live thanks to closeups. So that's what TV audiences learned to love about figure skating. They didn't learn to appreciate speed and edges quite so much because the commentators didn't draw their attention to them often, and even when commentators did mention those qualities as strengths it was harder for TV audiences to see for themselves just because of the nature of the mediated experience.

In addition, US TV commentators were traditionally very selective in pointing out fine points of technique that always were important to judges.

E.g., if the commentators tell you that landing the jump on one foot is important but never tell you that rotation or takeoff edges were important, of course you're not going to be looking carefully at those details and you will be perplexed when an apparently clean performance with those unmentioned flaws loses to a more visibly flawed performance.

And then meanwhile the sport itself evolved in ways that made technical details of free skating even more important at a very fine level even before IJS. Of course they had always been important in school figures. And the commentary started only very slowly to reflect those developments, continuing to focus on the subset of skating qualities that 1) translate well to video and 2) don't require advanced technical knowledge to appreciate.

I'm simply trying to articulate a certain disconnect that seems to exist between audiences and judges now. You don't have that in baseball or for that matter any other sport I can think of off the top of my head.

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Again, I think it comes down to commentary. If the commentators respect the viewers as sports fans they'll gear the commentary toward appreciate the performances as technical as well as athletic and artistic feats, and viewers will learn to appreciate some of the finer details.

But probably general audience understanding of figure skating judging and technique will never be as knowledgeable as general audience understanding of baseball because most viewers have never had a figure skating lesson in their lives, whereas most have at least played baseball (or softball or kickball) in gym class and playgrounds.

gkelly said:

But probably general audience understanding of figure skating judging and technique will never be as knowledgeable as general audience understanding of baseball because most viewers have never had a figure skating lesson in their lives, whereas most have at least played baseball (or softball or kickball) in gym class and playgrounds.

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Actually Baseball confuses and bores the heck out of me... my dad is a huge fan but I just don't get it. If there isn't a human interest/underdog story that captures my attention I watch something else and I only ever watch it if he's watching. Apparently baseball is more than just hitting a ball with a stick. Who knew!

ETA: Interestingly enough dad is also the one who taught me a lot about the technical side of figure skating. Recently, while watching coverage from one of the GP events, he informed me he wasn't into the skating scene that much anymore. Not because of the judging either. Because he doesn't like the pro shows either. The main reason? None of the skaters have personality, and he doesn't "know" any of them. There are so few fluff pieces anymore that unless you're on teh boards and websites and learning every little detail and rumor you have no clue who these kids are. There's no human element anymore. You even get fluff pieces in the "big man" sports, so why not figure skating? Oh, yeah, we skating fans hated those too.... whoops. Guess we have no one to blame but ourselves?

Tonichelle said:

The CoP makes it more sport. Now, if you're content with the Disson crap then by all means, let's ditch the idea that it's a sport - the IOC wants it out for all kinds of reasons, mainly because it's judged more like a beauty paegent than a sport, and where do you think that leaves Skating?

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Here is what I think about that.

Figure skating, like all sports, falls into the category "Recreation and Entertainment."

If you skate for fun, for exercise, to learn new skills, and to socialize at your local club, that's recreation. If you skate in front of an audience and expect them to pay to watch your performance, that's entertainment. (Note that the performer bows to the audience, the audience does not bow to the performer -- he who pays the piper calls the tune.)

So where does big time competition fall? Perhaps more on the recreation side? You start out by wanting to learn to skate. Then you challenge yourself to acquire new skills. Then you challenge your friends -- I can skate better than you can!

When you get really good, someone organizes formal competitions with set rules, expert judges, and maybe even some prize money. So here we are at the World Championships, but still we have not strayed very far from, "I can skate better than you can!"

So from that point of view, I guess i am all wet in complaining that the sport is becoming estranged from its fan base.

Spun Silver said:

though nothing like my husband, who had memorized all 1500 pages of the Baseball Encyclopedia by age 12.

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Mathman said:

Quote so. Quite so.

End of discussion. hwell:

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Unlike skating competition, there are no judges or score keepers to say who wins a debate in this forum. It's you yourself that say you've never won a debate with gkelly or Wallylutz. You must be going by some accepted personal or general rules of debate to conclude and concede, unhappily as you may be. In skating competitions, the rules are spelled out for all to go by. If you don't like a competition result and can't win an argument about it, you should either study the rules so you may wield it effectively to your benefits, or you may write the rules to your liking and get everybody to accept them. However, I'd hate to have the smiling quality as a judging criteria as Ms Lynn seems to indicate.

I just don't have angst over my non-favorite winning a competition as long as it is fair and square by rules. It would not change my heart but I accept the result with no qualm or distress. In recent years at least, there has not been a wrongful winner to my awareness although, like many, I may disagree with fine points of particular marks, but generally and relatively, I agree with the judges overall. I also give them the benefits of presence, training, and objectivity as they are not so emotionally involved like fans are. There are those who argue judges score on political grounds but these are generally unsupported allegations mainly as the last or only resort to argue for their own preferred results.

And Mathman, you may not always win debates in the CS forum, I'm sure you win Mr. Congeniality and Succinct Humour awards hands down. There are different areas to excel and win, like in figure skating.

SkaterFinguting said:

It's you yourself that say you've never won a debate with gkelly or Wallylutz. You must be going by some accepted personal or general rules of debate to conclude and concede, unhappily as you may be.

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I'm not unhappy.

Here's the thing. GKelly is always so reasonable. No matter how lame an idea I throw into the pot, she always carefully considers it, pointing out the pros and cons and, as she herself mentions above, tries to see how such an idea, however hare-brained, might fit into the big picture.

Wallylutz, on other hand, beats me at my own game, which is adding up numbers. I ought to be just as good at adding up CoP points as the next guy -- but if the next guy is Wallylutz, I'm not. What's aggravating is that I can't even make him work up a sweat.

Tonichelle said:

Actually Baseball confuses and bores the heck out of me... my dad is a huge fan but I just don't get it. If there isn't a human interest/underdog story that captures my attention I watch something else and I only ever watch it if he's watching. Apparently baseball is more than just hitting a ball with a stick. Who knew!

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What's cool about baseball is that every pitch is an intense duel that can turn the game around. A baseball game has ebb and flow, continually building to little mini-climaxes, followed by resolutions that segue in turn to the next swell.

The greatest is a pitchers duel where somebody wins 1-0 on a single, a stolen base, a bunt and a sacrifice fly.

(Granted, home runs are kind of boring. )

Just to expand on my own post earlier...

gkelly said:

If you really liked Joubert's program at 2008 Worlds, you really liked it. No one's going to change your mind about that -- there's no point trying.

However, if you try to argue that it should have won just because you really liked it, then be prepared for debate and be prepared to lose. Even under 6.0 skating was never designed to be a fan popularity contest.

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On the other hand, if you want to argue that Joubert should have won because you believe that the things he did well should be considered more important than the things Buttle did well, maybe you'll convince others or maybe it will remain an agree-to-disagree situation. But there wouldn't be any real winners and losers of that debate -- that panel of judges and that technical panel gave scores that, when all the numbers were crunched, wound up with Buttle as the winner. With a different panel, even with the exact same rules, it's possible the results could have been different, at least for the long program if not overall.

If you really want to make a detailed case, you could look at all the scores and argue how you would have scored certain elements and certain components differently, and if you had been judging under 2008 rules your individual scores would have had Joubert in the lead. If we could analyzed the individual judges' scores, maybe some of them did too.

Or you could argue that 2008 rules didn't value quads sufficiently, rescore the technical elements under the 2011 scale of values, and maybe Joubert would come out ahead that way. (No, I haven't done that math.)

I.e., not only are results dependent on the particular set of officials on that particular panel and their individual preferences and scoring habits, but also on the specific rules of the time. Or expectations of the time. E.g., how often has it been said that Midori Ito would have won the short and long program at 1988 Olympics with 1990s judges on the panel?

So you could make a good case in favor of a different result.

But again, these aren't debates that can be won. Official results are official results. We might think the majority of judges got it wrong according to our own evaluation of the programs, but nothing's going to change the record book.

My point in the quote above was that "He should have won because I liked him best" is not an argument strategy that will win debates.

Rules can be changed in the future. We can discuss about what rule changes might be better for the sport. I prefer to think of it as brainstorming together than debating against each other, though. And none of us is on the ISU technical committees or the ISU council, so even if we all come up with a perfect solution that we all agree with, chances are it won't be implemented as we'd like.

^ Now I am sorry that I spoke in terms of winning and losing debates.

Specifically about the 2008 men's world championship, I didn't really have a favorite, but I was quite startled that the judges did not give Joubert first place. Joubert skated a clean program with a quad. Buttle did some artsy-fartsy stuff, very nice, but come on.

Then I looked at the protocols and saw that Buttle not only won, but he clobbered Joubert in almost every category. Oh well, what do I know? Numbers are numbers.

Mathman said:

What's cool about baseball is that every pitch is an intense duel that can turn the game around. A baseball game has ebb and flow, continually building to little mini-climaxes, followed by resolutions that segue in turn to the next swell.

The greatest is a pitchers duel where somebody wins 1-0 on a single, a stolen base, a bunt and a sacrifice fly.

(Granted, home runs are kind of boring. )

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that all just went right over my head, home runs are the only thing I know... (kinda like the average skating fan... they know landed jumps and fast spins... the rest of it is way above understanding... ALL sports have that aspect)

Mathman said:

I'm not unhappy.

Here's the thing. GKelly is always so reasonable. No matter how lame an idea I throw into the pot, she always carefully considers it, pointing out the pros and cons and, as she herself mentions above, tries to see how such an idea, however hare-brained, might fit into the big picture.

Wallylutz, on other hand, beats me at my own game, which is adding up numbers. I ought to be just as good at adding up CoP points as the next guy -- but if the next guy is Wallylutz, I'm not. What's aggravating is that I can't even make him work up a sweat.

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gkelly and Wallylutz are like the good commentators. They know their stuff and they know how to present it. I learn and don't complain and so far have no impetus to argue with them. Actually, they were the main reason I chose GS to join.

skateluvr said:

If you go to FSU, you don't see pages of argument like here.

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In fsu meaybe we are busy putting down almost every skater in detail and give bad/good reputation to the posters behind the scenes. You can read that a skater is awful but rarely why it is so. No time for arguments. (in jest, not to generalise)
Here I might get a phd in CoP in the future (far future).

SkateFiguring said:

And Mathman, you may not always win debates in the CS forum, I'm sure you win Mr. Congeniality and Succinct Humour awards hands down. There are different areas to excel and win, like in figure skating.

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What? No I believe he is overscored in pcs.

The 6.0 system was subjective, but unpretentious. The CofP program components is almost as subjective but more pretentious, and it seems like it can be used in a way that can make skaters unbeatable. In the old system, a better artistic skater would have an advantage of 0.2-0.3, maybe. If he fell or messed up a couple of times, a less artistic skater could beat him skating clean. Now, the more artistic skater seems to get a lead of 20 points that's almost insurmountable.

Do the judges really count the transitions, measure the angles of the skate blade or knee bend, etc. Or do they just kind of go: OK, skater A had deep knee bends and deep edges: 9.0. Skater B had medium knee bends, but the edges were still pretty deep, 8.2. Hmm-this skater had a good edge over here, but not so deep over there, 7.9. . .

Also, I don't think choreography should be included as a component. The kids don't choreograph their own pieces. Give that score to Lori Nichol and judge them on something else.

Poodlepal said:

The 6.0 system was subjective, but unpretentious. The CofP program components is almost as subjective but more pretentious, and it seems like it can be used in a way that can make skaters unbeatable. In the old system, a better artistic skater would have an advantage of 0.2-0.3, maybe. If he fell or messed up a couple of times, a less artistic skater could beat him skating clean. Now, the more artistic skater seems to get a lead of 20 points that's almost insurmountable.

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Not so. Looking at last season, high PCS did not win competitions for Verner, Contesti, Takahashi, etc. when they faltered in TES. They have however saved Joubert and Takahashi from embarassing placements on occasions when they bombed their programs.

Also, I don't think choreography should be included as a component. The kids don't choreograph their own pieces. Give that score to Lori Nichol and judge them on something else.

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Choreography is closely tied to a skater's skating ability. Most skaters are not able to perform the top skaters' programs even without the difficult elements. A good choreography showcases and highlights the skater's strength and an over- or under-challenging one will not put the skater in good lights. It is really a colaboration between a skater and his/her choreographer. It takes two to work out the best design and bring out the best of the skater and then the skater has to perform it well to optimize the marks.

What kind of annoys me about the new system is how sometimes, a lead in the SP or SD is insurmountable. That was the main complaint people had with figures, up until the short program was instituted. The leads people had in figures were almost insurmountable. It diminishes the excitement.

Of course, my annoyance with 6.0 was that it didn't matter if the lead was a whisker or a mile--a lead was a lead.

blue dog said:

What kind of annoys me about the new system is how sometimes, a lead in the SP or SD is insurmountable. That was the main complaint people had with figures, up until the short program was instituted. The leads people had in figures were almost insurmountable. It diminishes the excitement.

Of course, my annoyance with 6.0 was that it didn't matter if the lead was a whisker or a mile--a lead was a lead.

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A skater earns s/he earns by rules even if it annoys you or ruins your excitement. When there is a huge lead, it usually means the skater is way above everybody else in all or most areas, or s/he is able to bring it when everyone else falters. An on par LP performance will usually add to the gap, unless, in somecases, we have a superb skater with stamina problem who will then give back the lead in the LP competition. Of course, occasionally a skater will bomb the LP but this usually does not happen with a huge lead which indicates a strong competitor, not just one who happens to over perform that time but does not have the competitive nerve to follow up with a strong LP.