2015-16 SOV Tables for Singles and Pairs released

[TMC]

For skating skills, performance, maybe choreography (or I guess if you want to be very strict, every component), decrease the component by 0.50/fall. Two falls, the most you can be given for those components is 9.00. Surely a code could be written into the software that would allow this, that way it would actually be adhered to.

I agree. I would probably deduct from SS, PE and IN (choreo & transitions only if multiple falls cause the skater to do a lot of "catching up", thus missing choreo/transitions)

I get that some people feel that URs are as, if not more egregious mistakes than falls. But look at it this way: if Hanyu had had 5 landed URs instead of 5 falls at CoC last season, would there have been as big of an outrage?

 

[tsuyoboogie]

Backward thinking.

There isn't any skater who has ever existed that thinks they deserve a ton of credit for a fall.

"Fans" aren't some single-definition group of people who just want to see skaters frolicking around at ice shows. People want to see the adrenaline, difficulty, excitement, and artistic fulfillment of great competitive programs.

My case, definitely. As a casual fan, I'm most interested in watching the Men, particularly because I find the level of athleticism they are capable of exciting. Realizing everyone has a different POV, I personally prefer to see skaters throw themselves into their jumps with full confidence that they are able to execute perfectly, even if the particular attempt results in a fall. I don't equate all falls with bad technique, especially those on the heel of an otherwise beautiful jump. I often find it much more frustrating to see skaters feeling/looking apprehensive about their jumps, then pop or obviously UR and/or two foot the landings. For me a sloppy UR jump appears more lacking in technique and can be just as disruptive to a program as a fall.

Just a newbie opinion...

I agree. I would probably deduct from SS, PE and IN (choreo & transitions only if multiple falls cause the skater to do a lot of "catching up", thus missing choreo/transitions)

I get that some people feel that URs are as, if not more egregious mistakes than falls. But look at it this way: if Hanyu had had 5 landed URs instead of 5 falls at CoC last season, would there have been as big of an outrage?

I know most would disagree, but I prefer Yuzuru's 2014 CoC FS over both 2014 NHK performances where his skating seemed uneasy, he popped/URed most of his big jumps and appeared to have lost his confidence and competitive fire. As a fan of his, NHK was an absolutely heartbreaking competition to watch.

 

[Interspectator]

To say that fans will loose interest in skating if there are too many falls can't be 100% correct, because the most heavily attended segments of the competitions seem to be the Mens and the Ladies events (where the most falls happen). I don't like seeing falls, but it's part of the excitement for me of watching singles skating; especially the Men's competitions.

 

[karne]

I get that some people feel that URs are as, if not more egregious mistakes than falls. But look at it this way: if Hanyu had had 5 landed URs instead of 5 falls at CoC last season, would there have been as big of an outrage?

I would still have been pretty annoyed, but the overall consensus seems to be that if you're a totally popular skater it's perfectly okay to UR , so I imagine the outrage would not have been as big overall. In fact, I don't think there was ENOUGH outrage over that result.

 

[matmuh]

I know most would disagree, but I prefer Yuzuru's 2014 CoC FS over both 2014 NHK performances where his skating seemed uneasy, he popped/URed most of his big jumps and appeared to have lost his confidence and competitive fire. As a fan of his, NHK was an absolutely heartbreaking competition to watch.

i agree, in the same sense its harder for me to watch his 2012 SA FP

 

[Sam-Skwantch]

I would still have been pretty annoyed, but the overall consensus seems to be that if you're a totally popular skater it's perfectly okay to UR , so I imagine the outrage would not have been as big overall.

I think that is pure exaggeration on your part. You seem to be skipping over the entire spirit of the conversation in order to drastically change peoples intended meaning by using pure speculation and downright outlandish reasoning.

The point being made is that had any skater placed higher than a skater who fell twice vs a skater who UR'd twice the result would seem much easier to support. All the other stuff you want to sprinkle in there is just going to insight unnecessary emotion.

 

[Li'Kitsu]

I think that is pure exaggeration on your part. You seem to be skipping over the entire spirit of the conversation in order to drastically change peoples intended meaning by using pure speculation and downright outlandish reasoning.

The point being made is that had any skater placed higher than a skater who fell twice vs a skater who UR'd twice the result would seem much easier to support. All the other stuff you want to sprinkle in there is just going to insight unnecessary emotion.

:thumbsup:

 

[GF2445]

I can't believe no one is complaining about the layout of the table- it's so glaring. It hurts my eyes!!!!

 

[Mathman]

Without casual fans, you won't have a spectator sport. You won't have a sport with outside funding.

But as long as there are people who want to skate and who want to compete against each other, there will be a sport.

I think there will be fewer and fewer people who will want to skate and compete against each other if figure skating abandons its interest in being a spectator sport.

 

[LRK]

Well said. Honestly, I think the top guys we have now are so competitive, they're gonna go for the hard stuff. They've risen to the top this way, and I just don't see them backing down now. But I would sure like to know that the one who hits can get the credit for it in the performance. Instead of having to worry about how many falls it's going to take for someone ranked a whole one or two spots above him to lose a placement. All that said, I don't find it any more enjoyable to watch Patrick hit his quads and fall on his triple axle.

I agree with that - and not just re Patrick. The thing is, skaters can land the quad - and keel over on a 2A even. Because they are tired, and the quad/s took it out of them. Or for any other reason. I'm fine with penalising falls more - but I don't know why only on quads? What that says is that it is less bad to fall on something easier. Yes, I know, the reasoning that skaters bite off more than they can chew, and this might discourage that, but still... I won't enjoy a fall on a 1T any more than on a 4T personally... (shrug)

ETA - Take Yuzuru's infamous five-fall Cup of China FS that has been mentioned already. The rule change would only penalise the falls he had on quads more - not the other ones. (I don't remember where he had his falls exactly, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't going for five quads. )

 

[Mathman]

To say that fans will loose interest in skating if there are too many falls can't be 100% correct, because the most heavily attended segments of the competitions seem to be the Mens and the Ladies events (where the most falls happen). I don't like seeing falls, but it's part of the excitement for me of watching singles skating; especially the Men's competitions.

I don't know. I guess I am just greedy. It seems like we could maintain the excitement and the athletic challenge without rewarding ill-performed elements.

Couldn't we insist on both complete revolutions and landing the jump before we shower our guy with CoP points?

But figure skating isn't just for the spectators. It's for the actual skaters too. I don't think they should change the rules just because some casual fans who don't understand figure skating will be happy. If fans want to see skating that will please them they should go to an ice show.

I don't think it is an either/or. If fans lose interest in competitive skating, there will be no ice shows either. This has essentially already happened in the U.S.

 

[TMC]

I don't know. I guess I am just greedy. It seems like we could maintain the excitement and the athletic challenge without rewarding ill-performed elements.

Couldn't we insist on both complete revolutions and landing the jump before we shower our guy with CoP points?

So much yes and a lot of it's so obvious by jove thrown in

 

[gkelly]

My impression is that some casual fans come to interest in skating from a sporting perspective and others from an artistic performance perspective. They tend to have very different expectations of what's "best," what they think should be rewarded, depending what kind of activity they perceive skating as.

If one side looks primarily at number and difficulty of jumps successfully landed, and another side looks primarily at the holistic aesthetic impact of each performance, then both sides will probably agree that falls are a bad thing and should be penalized.

But how bad? How severely penalized?

I expect individual fans' perspectives on these questions would evolve as they learn more about the sport.

E.g., if you ask a group of people who have zero knowledge whether it's better to land a triple salchow or fall on a triple axel, I'd expect them all to say landing the salchow is better. And their answers might not change if you contrasted landing a double salchow with falling on triple axel, or landing double axel vs. falling on triple salchow.

But once they know the difference between jumps, I'd expect most sports fans to consider 3A with fall more worthy than clean 2S, and most arts fans to consider any fall a significant blemish even in a much more difficult program.

If you ask a group of skating fans, let's say Golden Skate posters, the same question, I would expect the answers to be much more mixed, and more nuanced by including "Well, what else did the skater do, besides that one jump?"

And skaters, coaches, and judges will also each have opinions that look at more than just one jump or one fall.

Not everyone who cares about the sport -- participants or avid fans -- will agree on every decision. If the ISU dumped the technical committees and the current IJS and asked Golden Skate to come up with a better scoring system, there would be lively debates and ultimately there would need to be compromises before a final system could be agreed on.

Not even political compromises (although that might happen too), but tradeoffs between rewarding different values that don't always go together in predictable patterns between different performances.

 

[TMC]

^What a lovely & thoughtful post gkelly, thank you! You raise some very interesting points

 

[TheGrandSophy]

Then being the devil's advocate, what about just having the set number of elements / jumps that have to be in a programme and if you don't do the judge 'properly' i.e. rotate it and have the correct edges and land it you get 0 for that element. If you do both those things you get BV + or - GOE.

I know this is often condemned as too harsh, but it would make the most sense to the general public. If you don't complete the jump fully and properly, you don't get marks. If you do, we then decide how well you did it.

 

[Lys]

Totally agreeing with you gkelly

 

[Lys]

Then being the devil's advocate, what about just having the set number of elements / jumps that have to be in a programme and if you don't do the judge 'properly' i.e. rotate it and have the correct edges and land it you get 0 for that element. If you do both those things you get BV + or - GOE.

I know this is often condemned as too harsh, but it would make the most sense to the general public. If you don't complete the jump fully and properly, you don't get marks. If you do, we then decide how well you did it.

But... would it? To me (and I consider myself a fairly casual fan), it wouldn't make sense that three mistakes (fall + edge + rotations) equal to one mistake (let's say just edge), giving the same amount of points (0). As it wouldn't make sense to give 0 point to - let's say - fully rotated and right edge but with a fall jump and 6/7+ points to the same jump not fallen but with a messy landing anyway (two foots, step out, whatever else messing up that doesn't make it count as a fall).


That said, if we want to go to "making sense to the general public" route (and I'm fairly against that. General public needs to have rules that it can understand, imo, but the rules don't have to be made according an hypotethical I-don't-know-anything-about-this-sport dude), I don't think that the technical score is the main problem, tbh. The general public may agree or not and/or fully understand why X value is tot and Y value is tot-else, but if the rules are more or less clear, general public usually gets them (especially if there are good commies that can explain what they are seeing).
The main problem with general public (and not only general public, tbh ) is the pcs part, imo... as it is, that's really hard to get and understand.

 

[TheGrandSophy]

Well, if they are on the wrong edge, they haven't actually done that jump. They have done a completely different jump. So why get the BV for that jump? If they haven't landed the jump, then they haven't completed that jump. A messy landing or a rough air position etc is that jump but done badly.

I think things would make more sense though if scores were properly communicated in competition. Why, can't the reasons for scores in a basic way be communicated to the audience (and to TV audience thereby) before moving on? Casual fans are not going to check later for the scoring. In fact, they won't even know when, how or where to check. They just go away mystified. And even TV commentators seem to have limited understanding.

 

[StitchMonkey]

Well, if they are on the wrong edge, they haven't actually done that jump. They have done a completely different jump. So why get the BV for that jump? If they haven't landed the jump, then they haven't completed that jump. A messy landing or a rough air position etc is that jump but done badly.

I think things would make more sense though if scores were properly communicated in competition. Why, can't the reasons for scores in a basic way be communicated to the audience (and to TV audience thereby) before moving on? Casual fans are not going to check later for the scoring. In fact, they won't even know when, how or where to check. They just go away mystified. And even TV commentators seem to have limited understanding.

Because it is too much information overload.

I actually agree that giving people more of the why would be good.

I even made a crude example of a way to fit at least an abbreviated version of the details on screen.

http://i.imgur.com/wyT3R4v.jpg

The reaction seemed to be between meh, and too much info, and i tend to agree. People get overwhelmed very easily, and we don't want that. So I just don't know how to go about giving people the info they need without crossing the too much line.

I mean some people don't even like the running tally box, imagine if the box had all the elements planed and the values, people would squawk.

 

[Lys]

Well, if they are on the wrong edge, they haven't actually done that jump. They have done a completely different jump. So why get the BV for that jump? If they haven't landed the jump, then they haven't completed that jump. A messy landing or a rough air position etc is that jump but done badly.

sure, but that doesn't take away that giving the same points for 3 mistakes that you give for 1, it doesn't make sense to me
Which doesn't mean if you do 1 you shouldn't get penalized, of course! The main issue, after all, is how much penalize each mistake, and as gkelly wrote earlier, I doubt there will ever be a general consensus over that: different people, different ideas
To be honest, even if I consider myself a casual fan falling in the "sporting perspective" side, I'm not much fussed over it. What I'd like is clear rules for all (BV, and goe but also pcs), then it's an even field for all and all skaters can try to maximize their score according their own skills.

I think things would make more sense though if scores were properly communicated in competition. Why, can't the reasons for scores in a basic way be communicated to the audience (and to TV audience thereby) before moving on? Casual fans are not going to check later for the scoring. In fact, they won't even know when, how or where to check. They just go away mystified. And even TV commentators seem to have limited understanding.

That for sure If a casual fan watching has a way to understand what's going on, I don't think it would fuss much about a mistake there giving more points than a mistake or a clean element over there. As much as not-casual fans get annoyed over commies (I'm not yet at the point to get annoyed over skating commentators, but as a hard-core tennis fan, let me tell you I can't stand to watch a match with a commentary going on. It drives me crazy ), commies are the way to casual ones. Much more than new rules that generic public won't know/understand anyway (and it's the reason I don't think rules need to catch up with generic public "wanting", whatever that is)