2018-2019 Season - New rules

[BillNeal]

-5...+5?
Sports News From 2038
"Carolina Kostner, 51 wins Olympic figure skating gold medal."

Welcome Szayel008! Post long, post often!

I think by 2038, we would have had another two set of scoring changes. Perhaps AI will replace judges like one of the threads recently proposed

 

[Casual]

The point is that skaters will have only one chance to perform that type of element in their program. So skater who fail to perform that element clean will be properly punished for failing it (when he has no chance to try it again). And actually thats how things work in many sports.

I prefer how it works in snowboarding - the medal is won by the best score out of three attempts, or an average of the best two out of three.

Giving more than one attempt makes more sense for very high-risk elements. This way, the best athletes performing the most difficult "tricks" (which are more prone to failure) are not penalized in favor of mediocre athletes performing "clean" easy tricks.

It would be very boring if everyone skated clean but easy and safe.

 

[Roast Toast]

Yuzu calculating his score on the fly in the middle of a program under the new system.

 

[Baron Vladimir]

I prefer how it works in skateboarding - the medal is won by the best score out of three attempts, or an average of the best two out of three.

Giving more than one attempt makes more sense for very high-risk elements. This way, the best athletes performing the most difficult "tricks" (which are more prone to failure) are not penalized in favor of mediocre athletes performing "clean" easy tricks.

It would be very boring if everyone skated clean but easy and safe.

I will skip commenting because people find my comments out of logic. But to add - skateboarding is not an olympic sport, half pipe snowboard is.

 

[Casual]

I will skip commenting because people find my comments out of logic. But to add - skateboarding is not an olympic sport, half pipe snowboard is.

Misspelled, oops. That's the one.

 

[Sam-Skwantch]

I will skip commenting because people find my comments out of logic. But to add - skateboarding is not an olympic sport, half pipe snowboard is.

Skateboarding is going to be in the Olympics in 2020 :yes:

I have no problems with and follow your logic BTW

 

[Baron Vladimir]

Skateboarding is going to be in the Olympics in 2020 :yes:

Yeah. Half pipe skiing is what i wanted to say how the fall is reflecting in that sport, may i ask? Or fall in any other winter sport who ask for jumps elements similar with what figure skating asking for?

 

[Casual]

I'm conflicted on what to think about changing GOE scale to +5.

On the one hand, theoretically, it should help distinguish truly brilliant from merely good, and from mediocre and awful.

On the other hand, in current practice, the GOEs are sometimes used shamelessly for manipulating (inflating or deflating) the scores, even more so than PCS.

What's the point of changing the scoring system if ISU is not going to attack inconsistent/manipulative judging?

 

[Szayel008]

Welcome Szayel008! Post long, post often!

I think by 2038, we would have had another two set of scoring changes. Perhaps AI will replace judges like one of the threads recently proposed

I like to read discussions on the forum but do not participate in discussions.

I do not really like the new rules. I'm afraid that this will lead to the simplification of programs.
And judges will become more influential. :сарказм:

 

[Elucidus]

Horrible, horrible, horrible changes. Reducing BV and increasing GOE bonuses will lead to turning single skating to ice dance. And I don't want it.
Manipulative GOE bonuses are the FACT even now. When top skaters getting +2/3 goe for average elements while fameless ones getting +1 for brilliantly executed elements. It's a given and it's not gonna change unless instead judges there will be AI. But now it's still possible to overcome skater with high reputation by high TES and complex elements. It's hard but possible - which still makes FS at least a sport.
But what will be the case with new rules? When in addition to extremely reputational based PCS score manipulation will be extremely reputational based GOEs - which can give you HUGE amounts of points - almost half of all TES score?
Weight of BV (i.e. types of executed elements - essence of objectivness, of FS as the sport) will become negligible. Why trying risky 3Lz-3Lo when you can jump stable 3t-3t or even 3t-2t - and still get the same amount of points if you are judges favorite?
Overcoming judges favorites by new skaters will become IMPOSSIBLE unless these favorites would have many falls. And why they would? They just will choose Lysacek road - with simple and stable triples which can give you comparable to quads amounts of points - there will be zero incentive trying to add something difficult and risky - hence pushing sport forward. As a result current top skaters will remain in top for many years and new skaters will get long reputational queue when they are compelled to wait until someone retires. Like in ice dance.
Horrible, horrible, horrible changes.

To address men skating problems with high amount of quad falls - I would suggest something much more simple and effective. Just instead of -1 deduction for each fall - make it -5 deduction. That's all. BV and GOE are fine as they are now. Time and jumps reduction of mens programs are debatable but I can see logic there at least. Quad types restriction is utter bs though.

 

[chopinskate]

Also, WHO are these people making these decidions?! Do opinions of skaters, coaches and ticket buying fans, who make up the majority of the figure skating community, have absolutely no say in any of this ridiculousness?!

What do you think?

 

[Elucidus]

Also, I would like to suggest DECREASE PCS score weight to 0.5 for both men and women. Judges are too subjective and can't handle it properly. As it is now PCS score is a joke.

 

[Miss Ice]

Horrible, horrible, horrible changes. Reducing BV and increasing GOE bonuses will lead to turning single skating to ice dance. And I don't want it.
Manipulative GOE bonuses are the FACT even now. When top skaters getting +2/3 goe for average elements while fameless ones getting +1 for brilliantly executed elements. It's a given and it's not gonna change unless instead judges there will be AI. But now it's still possible to overcome skater with high reputation by high TES and complex elements. It's hard but possible - which still makes FS at least a sport.
But what will be the case with new rules? When in addition to extremely reputational based PCS score manipulation will be extremely reputational based GOEs - which can give you HUGE amounts of points - almost half of all TES score?
Weight of BV (i.e. types of executed elements - essence of objectivness, of FS as the sport) will become negligible. Why trying risky 3Lz-3Lo when you can jump stable 3t-3t or even 3t-2t - and still get the same amount of points if you are judges favorite?
Overcoming judges favorites by new skaters will become IMPOSSIBLE unless these favorites would have many falls. And why they would? They just will choose Lysacek road - with simple and stable triples which can give you comparable to quads amounts of points - there will be zero incentive trying to add something difficult and risky - hence pushing sport forward. As a result current top skaters will remain in top for many years and new skaters will get long reputational queue when they are compelled to wait until someone retires. Like in ice dance.
Horrible, horrible, horrible changes.

To address men skating problems with high amount of quad falls - I would suggest something much more simple and effective. Just instead of -1 deduction for each fall - make it -5 deduction. That's all. BV and GOE are fine as they are now. Time and jumps reduction of mens programs are debatable but I can see logic there at least. Quad types restriction is utter bs though.

100% this. This will mean skaters with more reputation but worse execution will win over clean skaters with better execution who are less well-known or are from less powerful federations. We already see this in how Kolyada was scored in WC2018 FS vs Tomono (clean program, just 1 pt above Kolyada with 2 falls plus 2 mistakes). -_-

 

[MajaHled]

Also, I would like to suggest DECREASE PCS score weight to 0.5 for both men and women. Judges are too subjective and can't handle it properly. As it is now PCS score is a joke.

No, that would be a bad idea, IMO. PCS are a joke, but even now we see programs with just jumps and crossovers in between winning titles. What would happen if PCS were made insignificant? I personally want to see programs with actual choreography, transitions etc. What needs to be done is that judges should get punished for national bias and all the other things making the scoring what it is. Which would be nice to see, but I'm also not holding my breath. Making it irrelevant will only push programs in a bad direction and the manipulation will just move to GOE, which will be more significant than ever. So problem not solved. (Also considering the fact that men and women reach very different numbers in TES, having the coefficient the same for both disciplines would make it more significant for ladies. Thought who knows how TES will look like after the rule change )

 

[gkelly]

Has it been stated what happens to the technical minimums for ISU championships? Is ISU lowering them or are they adjusting element base values so the technical minimums can stay the same?

I think they will lower the scores if it looks like not enough people will have met them to fill the fields at the championships. My understanding was that the minimums were always meant to be flexible to establish a minimum level of competency and too keep the fields a manageable size without requiring qualifying rounds, and IIRC they have been raised at least once since first being introduced.

 

[MajaHled]

I think they will lower the scores if it looks like not enough people will have met them to fill the fields at the championships. My understanding was that the minimums were always meant to be flexible to establish a minimum level of competency and too keep the fields a manageable size without requiring qualifying rounds, and IIRC they have been raised at least once since first being introduced.

I would imagine they'll need to change it, though with tying GOE to BV, I'm honestly not sure if the scores will go up or down. Sure, in men we have the removed jumping pass, but everyone will drop the easiest one. And since they want to make good triples comparable to quads, I would imagine ladies' scores will go up? But that largely depends on if/how they lower the BV of jumps.

 

[Neenah16]

Also, I would like to suggest DECREASE PCS score weight to 0.5 for both men and women. Judges are too subjective and can't handle it properly. As it is now PCS score is a joke.

I disagree. The judges may have misused the component scores but that does not mean they have no value, decreasing their value will definitely make it a jumping competition. When PC is used as it should you get huge improvement in performance like what happened with Boyang. He was given correct feedback by the judges through his low PCs and he is now a much better skater thanks to that.

PC should always matter even if only to few skaters because those are the special ones who want to give a complete performance and improve all skills equally and should be rewarded for it. If PCs were devalued those skaters will be pushed into improving jumps only because they want to be competitive. Also, why is the solution to the judges misusing PC is to punish the skaters who worked hard on it while the judges can just move on to misuse GOE or whatever other tools offered to them by the ISU ?

 

[moriel]

I disagree. The judges may have misused the component scores but that does not mean they have no value, decreasing their value will definitely make it a jumping competition. When PC is used as it should you get huge improvement in performance like what happened with Boyang. He was given correct feedback by the judges through his low PCs and he is now a much better skater thanks to that.

PC should always matter even if only to few skaters because those are the special ones who want to give a complete performance and improve all skills equally and should be rewarded for it. If PCs were devalued those skaters will be pushed into improving jumps only because they want to be competitive. Also, why is the solution to the judges misusing PC is to punish the skaters who worked hard on it while the judges can just move on to misuse GOE or whatever other tools offered to them by the ISU ?

The judges are misusing them right now.
I mean, i theory, it is good. In reality, PCs and GOE just give room to prop certain skaters and sink others, thats all.

 

[Neenah16]

The judges are misusing them right now.
I mean, i theory, it is good. In reality, PCs and GOE just give room to prop certain skaters and sink others, thats all.

My point is do not punish the skaters for the judges mistakes. If the judges are misusing the PCs and GOEs do something about them rather than take an opportunity for better scores from the skaters.

 

[MajaHled]

The judges are misusing them right now.
I mean, i theory, it is good. In reality, PCs and GOE just give room to prop certain skaters and sink others, thats all.

I also think that making sure the rules are being applied as intended would have been a better first step rather than changing the rules (although the rules do need to be changed, I think atually using them fairly would make a lot more difference). But making PCS insignificant is no solution. That's just tiptoeing around the problem trying to find artifitial patches for it (ones that won't work anyway, mind you) but not actually adressing it. I don't have enough faith in ISU anymore to even hope they will ever even attempt to fight unfair judging though.

And while PCS and GOE are indeed being given out like candy to some skaters and therefore they're effectively being discouraged from actually improving, as Neenah16 mentioned, it still produces a number of skaters willing to improve and being rewarded for it.