- Joined
- Jun 21, 2003
HERE is the third and final installment of Dirk Schaeffer's analysis of the CoP scores from Skate America and Skate Canada, contrasted with projected results under 6.0 scoring. Dr. Schaeffer is a "real" statistician who does not shy away from serious scholarship. But even so this paper is not only very readable, it is entertaining and full of good humor.
Dirk's point of departure is:
"When the ISU introduced its new Code of Points (CoP) scoring system at the Grand Prix series this season, it decided to use it as the only scoring system for those events rather than attempting to run both the CoP and the older, ordinal system simultaneously to allow a comparison of the two to be made. This was, perhaps, a wise decision on the ISU's part, since any such direct comparisons could only represent lose-lose situations. That is, if the two systems agreed, why switch? And if they didn't, how could it be shown that one was better than the other? But for skating fans, this was also an unfortunate decision, since it deprived them of just this key opportunity to make such comparisons."
I have several thoughts about the data that is presented in this article, and on the conclusions that the author draws. For now I'll just mention one thing that stood out quite boldly. The ISU contends that the random draw protects the anonymity of the judges. Even if this should be a desirable goal, Dirk demonstrates conclusively that it is dead easy to reconstruct exactly which judges were eliminated in the random draw, which were eliminated in the trimming process, and whose marks were actually used to determine the scores. So this is baloney on the part of the ISU.
I will go farther than that (although I like the CoP, just not the random draw part). Can you imagine the public relations disaster that would occur at the next Olympic games, for instance, if someone were awarded the gold medal on the basis of the computer randomly choosing an atypical subset of judges, when the majority of sitting judges voted for the other skater?
Mathman
Dirk's point of departure is:
"When the ISU introduced its new Code of Points (CoP) scoring system at the Grand Prix series this season, it decided to use it as the only scoring system for those events rather than attempting to run both the CoP and the older, ordinal system simultaneously to allow a comparison of the two to be made. This was, perhaps, a wise decision on the ISU's part, since any such direct comparisons could only represent lose-lose situations. That is, if the two systems agreed, why switch? And if they didn't, how could it be shown that one was better than the other? But for skating fans, this was also an unfortunate decision, since it deprived them of just this key opportunity to make such comparisons."
I have several thoughts about the data that is presented in this article, and on the conclusions that the author draws. For now I'll just mention one thing that stood out quite boldly. The ISU contends that the random draw protects the anonymity of the judges. Even if this should be a desirable goal, Dirk demonstrates conclusively that it is dead easy to reconstruct exactly which judges were eliminated in the random draw, which were eliminated in the trimming process, and whose marks were actually used to determine the scores. So this is baloney on the part of the ISU.
I will go farther than that (although I like the CoP, just not the random draw part). Can you imagine the public relations disaster that would occur at the next Olympic games, for instance, if someone were awarded the gold medal on the basis of the computer randomly choosing an atypical subset of judges, when the majority of sitting judges voted for the other skater?
Mathman
