Educating the public

[fairly4]

quit making out to be dumb, and not knowing anything about the sport. we do, we can read , we read rules, cant help it
if you figure skating don't read rules, ignore rules to favor --politics and the ones you want and rig it to to keep the ones you want to win. inf favor skating , if you ignore ogm and skating
vm and dw skated about alike so so should be comparable in other words no higher than 70. like d/w

 

[Dragonlady]

quit making out to be dumb, and not knowing anything about the sport. we do, we can read , we read rules, cant help it
if you figure skating don't read rules, ignore rules to favor --politics and the ones you want and rig it to to keep the ones you want to win. inf favor skating , if you ignore ogm and skating
vm and dw skated about alike so so should be comparable in other words no higher than 70. like d/w

I have no idea what this says.

 

[ILoveFigures]

I have no idea what this says.

You're not the only one.

 

[spikydurian]

Here is an interesting article Judge For Yourself and printable Judge For Yourself 2012 Worlds which could help anyone understand single's skating.

Interesting. Thanks.

 

[jcoates]

NBC has a remarkable ability to turn knowledgeable commentators into complete idiots (e.g. Elfi Schlegel in gymnastics - she was intelligent and not annoying when she worked for CBC). In general I think the NBC producers believe that people don't want to know about technical details, and it's too complicated to explain anyway, so they might as well not bother.

I've been a skating fan for almost 25 years and I spent most of that time, until very recently, wishing I could tell the different jumps apart. It turns out that I needed to learn a bit about edges in order to do that. I think everyone has a different tolerance level when it comes to technical knowledge. Sure, some people probably aren't interested at all but that doesn't mean you shouldn't help the people who are. More knowledgeable fans are going to be more dedicated fans.

It's not just NBC. ESPN has had similar struggles in certain sports including tennis. Mary Carillo, the best respected tennis analyst in US TV for the last 30 years, chose to leave ESPN because of the rah rah focus on hype over substance.

 

[periperi]

Here is an interesting article Judge For Yourself and printable Judge For Yourself 2012 Worlds which could help anyone understand single's skating.

definitely going to give this a try. Thanks for links.

 

[Dragonlady]

I watched the Short Dances last night with two people who are not skating fans and who know nothing about figure skating. Many of their comments were very interesting, and apropos to this discussion.

One comment that really shocked me was when one friend said “This team is a LOT slower than the last team. I can read the signs on the boards and I couldn’t with the last team”. That’s how I gauge speed but I didn’t think that someone who doesn’t watch skating would pick up on this without prompting.

The non-fans quickly picked upon things like how close together the teams were skating (most impressed with V&M) the matching lines of D&W & V&M, and that V&M did everything in perfect unison even when they weren’t even looking at one another. They were utterly blown away at the speed with which D&W and V&M moved, changed positions.

What was even more interesting to me was that they noted that P&B were very sloppy with their feet and not nearly as precise or sharp the other top teams. They also noticed the lack of unison, and matching lines and couldn’t believe that they were ahead of Weaver & Poje.

When my daughter and I both commented on depth of edge, they asked us what that meant and why was it important and we pointed out the lean in their skating. My daughter said that skating straight up and down is so much easier than skating with that deep lean into the ice.

This is not the first time I’ve sat down with people who never watch skating and the one thing I’ve consistently noticed is that even people who have never watched skating can see which skaters are better, in a general way, and that it doesn’t take much to give them a rudimentary understanding of what is important in the judging. If only NBC would make an effort at it.

 

[Mathman]

I continue to believe that the main problem is not with educating the public about CoP but rather with some of the peculiarities of the system itself. Here is the most striking example.

A skater goes up for his quad attempt, twirls in the air, and comes down with a splat. The commentator says, "They will have to review that in slow motion to see whether he got the rotations before he fell."

What?! I just saw him fall with my own two eyes in real time, and so did everyone in the arena. There is nothing in doubt. Why do we need a replay of that failed attempt?

Then the commentator says, "If he got the full rotations in before he fell, then he will get big points for that element."

What?! Big points for what? Am I crazy, or did he just fall on his butt?

So then the commentator says, "See, in the CoP you get big points for completing the rotations, even if you fall. It is really, really hard to rotate four times in the air, just like it is really, really hard for a high jumper to jump seven-and-a-half feet and knock over the bar set at eight feet. If you don't believe me, it's right here on page 168 of the ISU rule book. Now, don't you feel educated?"

I think I'll switch over to golf.

 

[gkelly]

The commentators don't say that last part. We say that here to explain the reasoning.

Would you feel better if 1) the penalties for errors on high-value elements like quads were larger so that there would be little positive value left over after -GOE and fall deduction and 2) the commentators/educators said something like the following?

"If you don't jump, you get no points. If you attempt a jump, you get points based on the difficulty of the takeoff and the number of times you rotate in the air. You lose some of those points if there are mistakes on the takeoff, the rotation (e.g., only 3 1/2 when you were trying for 4), or landing. The most severe penalties are if you underrotate by half a revolution or more and also fall. If the jump as a whole is better than just satisfactory, you get extra points."

That pretty well explains what's being rewarded.

Right now I think that severe errors on rotated quads are not penalized enough, so I'd like to change the scale of values to make a fall on a rotated quad equal to or less than the base mark of a triple from the same takeoff.

Then the question is what should be worth more, a fully rotated quad with a fall or a downgraded quad without a fall?

I think it depends on how badly failed the non-fall jump was, which can be reflected by the range of GOE and the fall deduction in addition to the lowered base mark.

But I think that it's important to point out that in skating not even jumps are either/or elements. There's a range of quality to successful jumps, and there's a range of negative quality to failed jumps. There are different ways to fail that may occur on their own or all at once. The system needs to be set up to penalize compounded failures more severely than single failures -- e.g., it's reflective of what the skater actually did to penalize falling on a jump that wasn't even close to rotated and never came down on a back outside edge more severely than falling from the landing edge of a rotated jump.

If you insist on viewing jumps as binary elements, all or nothing, then you miss the point. Open your mind to embrace the range of possible results.

 

[Dragonlady]

If you insist on viewing jumps as binary elements, all or nothing, then you miss the point. Open your mind to embrace the range of possible results.

And as we have seen, with all or nothing scoring, the skaters will opt to NOT attempt the quads and go for something safer. The scoring for rotated but not landed quads exists for the purpose of encouraging skaters to take the risk.

 

[Mathman]

If you attempt a jump, you get points based on the difficulty of the takeoff and the number of times you rotate in the air. You lose some of those points if there are mistakes on the takeoff, the rotation (e.g., only 3 1/2 when you were trying for 4), or landing. The most severe penalties are if you underrotate by half a revolution or more and also fall. If the jump as a whole is better than just satisfactory, you get extra points."

That pretty well explains what's being rewarded.

I understand all that. But having achieved this understanding, I do not feel educated, I feel bamboozled.

This is a crazy and counter-intuitive system of values. Why is is the base value reduced for under-rotation, but you get full base value for a fall? (That was rhetorical -- I know the answer. Because the CoP says so.)

Look how good I can skate! True, I fell down, but look how good I can skate!! What, you can't see how good my skating is? Read more rules and you will see the light.

What I am objecting to is the view that if you don't like the scoring system the only possible explanation for your dislike is that you are ignorant of how the system works. When people suggest that maybe we should make this or that change, the response is -- "No, no (I must be patient with this sad fellow), we can't do it that way because that is not the way we do it. Don't you understand?" *sigh* We must make a greater effort to educate people."

As for falls...no no no, keep the shiny side down! ...I think the problem is what to do about half-falls, hands down, and saved jumps that disrupt the program as much as a fall does. My suggestion is

0% of base value for an outright splat.

25% of base value for near fall, hands down, etc.

50% of base value for step out, foot down, struggling to maintain balance.

75% of base value for not landing on a smooth running edge.

100% of base value for properly done element.

+GOE if there is something special about it.

I also think that skatinginbc's proposal to multiply the difficulty score by the execution score has merit, so that an element which is really badly executed will get next to nothing.

Athletes will do whatever the scoring system rewards them for. If we withhold rewards for badly executed elements, the quality of execution will go up. :yes:

 

[chloepoco]

I understand all that. But having achieved this understanding, I do not feel educated, I feel bamboozled.

This is a crazy and counter-intuitive system of values. Why is is the base value reduced for under-rotation, but you get full base value for a fall? (That was rhetorical -- I know the answer. Because the CoP says so.)

Look how good I can skate! True, I fell down, but look how good I can skate!! What, you can't see how good my skating is? Read more rules and you will see the light.

What I am objecting to is the view that if you don't like the scoring system the only possible explanation for your dislike is that you are ignorant of how the system works. When people suggest that maybe we should make this or that change, the response is -- "No, no (I must be patient with this sad fellow), we can't do it that way because that is not the way we do it. Don't you understand?" *sigh* We must make a greater effort to educate people."

As for falls...no no no, keep the shiny side down! ...I think the problem is what to do about half-falls, hands down, and saved jumps that disrupt the program as much as a fall does. My suggestion is

0% of base value for an outright splat.

25% of base value for near fall, hands down, etc.

50% of base value for step out, foot down, struggling to maintain balance.

75% of base value for not landing on a smooth running edge.

100% of base value for properly done element.

+GOE if there is something special about it.

I also think that skatinginbc's proposal to multiply the difficulty score by the execution score has merit, so that an element which is really badly executed will get next to nothing.

Athletes will do whatever the scoring system rewards them for. If we withhold rewards for badly executed elements, the quality of execution will go up. :yes:

I agree with your entire post ~ Mathman for President of ISU!!

 

[gkelly]

I understand all that. But having achieved this understanding, I do not feel educated, I feel bamboozled.

This is a crazy and counter-intuitive system of values. Why is is the base value reduced for under-rotation, but you get full base value for a fall? (That was rhetorical -- I know the answer. Because the CoP says so.)

No, that approach to valuing underrotation has been part of skating judging for far longer than IJS has been around. Probably as long as double jumps have been around. It's just easier to enforce with instant replay. And to quantify with IJS. Judges (and skaters who can rotate their jumps) have been rolling their eyes at "cheated" jumps for decades.

 

[Spun Silver]

Mathman, look at it this way. One day in the not too far distant future, the outcry and the dwindling audience caused by certain competition outcomes will lead to a change in the IJS, perhaps (hopefully) along the lines you just proposed. Then it will be "your" system that the experts here are patiently explicating.

 

[Mathman]

No, that approach to valuing underrotation has been part of skating judging for far longer than IJS has been around. Probably as long as double jumps have been around. It's just easier to enforce with instant replay. And to quantify with IJS. Judges (and skaters who can rotate their jumps) have been rolling their eyes at "cheated" jumps for decades.

I think that ISU judges have been rolling their eyes at falls for quite some time, too. It was the second part of my sentence that I was hoping for a fuller rationale for:

Why is is the base value reduced for under-rotation, but you get full base value for a fall?

I should have said it this way.Since you get a reduction of base value for under-rotation, why not apply the same principle to a fall?

Mathman, look at it this way. One day in the not too far distant future, the outcry and the dwindling audience caused by certain competition outcomes will lead to a change in the IJS, perhaps (hopefully) along the lines you just proposed. Then it will be "your" system that the experts here are patiently explicating.

Patience -- that's the key.

The point behind the joke is well-taken, though. I actually like the CoP OK, despite my grumblings.

It's just that, it seems like the more fans we lose the better pleased we are with our own cleverness. Maybe it's a lost cause already, but I think we are missing opportunities to make the sport more popular with fans who are less involved in the scoring details than we.

 

[Dragonlady]

Athletes will do whatever the scoring system rewards them for. If we withhold rewards for badly executed elements, the quality of execution will go up. :yes:

No it won't. The skaters will do what they did when they got heavily penalized for under-rotated/falls on quad attempts. They won't attempt the element because they can't afford to risk that many points. They will stick to what they can do well which is 3/3's.

When everyone was saying the quad wasn't being sufficiently rewarded and quad attempts were becoming fewer and farther between, everyone said the judging system needed to reward the attempt. I reminded them that the scores were reduced for failed attempts because people didn't like skaters winning with falls. So they stopped rewarding failed attempts and people complained they weren't seeing enough quads and the sport was regressing.

You can't have it both ways.

 

[gkelly]

I think that ISU judges have been rolling their eyes at falls for quite some time, too.

Not in the same way, I expect. Especially if a cutting-edge jump is actually rotated (i.e., there's evidence that the skater is physically capable of doing a jump that few or no other skaters have ever done).

If someone someday rotates a quadruple axel, and replay shows that indeed the skater was traveling backward on a back outside edge for a split second before falling, would you not be impressed?

It was the second part of my sentence that I was hoping for a fuller rationale for:

Why is is the base value reduced for under-rotation, but you get full base value for a fall?

I should have said it this way.Since you get a reduction of base value for under-rotation, why not apply the same principle to a fall?

Well, that could be one way to handle it.

But you still need to build in a way to distinguish between not even close vs. landed cleanly and then fell.

It's just that, it seems like the more fans we lose the better pleased we are with our own cleverness. Maybe it's a lost cause already, but I think we are missing opportunities to make the sport more popular with fans who are less involved in the scoring details than we.

Well, I don't think the way to make the sport more popular is to dumb down the values that are intrinsic to the sport.

It's actually probably easier for outsiders watching on TV to understand credit for rotating in the air than to understand credit for deep edges and quiet flow and counterrotated turns. And we certainly don't want to devalue those qualities because they are the essence of what makes figure skating figure skating.

 

[chuckm]

Skater may get credit for BASE value when they fall on a fully rotated jump, but they do get a deduction from that base value for falling, plus the -1 for the fall. Nan Song fell on a fully rotated quad (base value 10.3) and after the mandatory -3 deduction from GOE, he got 7.3 points, about 70% of the value. After the 1.00 deduction for the fall, his net gain was 6.3 points, approximately the points earned for a decently executed 3Z.

If you really gave 0 points for a fall on an element, skaters would become really cautious and attempt only those jumps they routinely land.

 

[Mathman]

No it won't. The skaters will do what they did when they got heavily penalized for under-rotated/falls on quad attempts. They won't attempt the element because they can't afford to risk that many points. They will stick to what they can do well which is 3/3's.

When everyone was saying the quad wasn't being sufficiently rewarded and quad attempts were becoming fewer and farther between, everyone said the judging system needed to reward the attempt. I reminded them that the scores were reduced for failed attempts because people didn't like skaters winning with falls. So they stopped rewarding failed attempts and people complained they weren't seeing enough quads and the sport was regressing.

You can't have it both ways.

I think we need to separate penalties for falls from the attempt to encourage more quad attempts after 2010. There were no changes in the penalties for falls.

The things that were changed were: more lenient penalties for mild under-rotation; higher base vaues; and (later) changes in the GOEs to give llower GOEs for lesser jumps than for quads.

We certainly have seen an increase in the number of quads. Perhaps the reason is a combination of these three rules changes. But the penalties for falls remain the same as always. So I don't see how penalties for falls has played a role in the decrease, then increase, in quad attempts.

If we wanted to ecourage quads even more, we could raise the base value (to 13.5 ), reflecting the extreme difficulty of this element. This would be the natural and straightforward solution. If you want to encourage something, give more points.

 

[Mathman]

Skater may get credit for BASE value when they fall on a fully rotated jump, but they do get a deduction from that base value for falling, plus the -1 for the fall.

Thank you. I always like to refresh myself on the rules.

Nan Song fell on a fully rotated quad (base value 10.3) and after the mandatory -3 deduction from GOE, he got 7.3 points, about 70% of the value. After the 1.00 deduction for the fall, his net gain was 6.3 points, approximately the points earned for a decently executed 3Z.

If you really gave 0 points for a fall on an element, skaters would become really cautious and attempt only those jumps they routinely land.

I don't want to be mean to Nan Song, but I am tempted to say, "poor baby."

This is the world championship.

Chan did 4T, full rotations, no fall.
Chan did 4T+3T, full rotations, no fall.
Nanyu did 4T, full rotations, no fall.
Takahashi did 4T, full rotations, no fall.
Amodio did 4S, full rotations, no fall.
Joubert did 4T, full rottions, no fall.
Ten did 4T, full rotations, no fall.
Abbott did 4T, full rotations, no fall.
Van der Perren did 4T, full rotations, no fall.
Kozuka did 4T+2T, full rotations, no fall.
Song did 4T+3T, full rotations, no fall (16.11 points)
Reynolds did 4S, full rotations, no fall.
Reynolds did 4T+2T, full rottionsa, no fall.
Fernandez did 4T, full rotations, no fall.
Fernandez did 4S. ful;l rotations, no fall.
Voronov did 4T, full rotations, no fall.

Do you think that these skaters would have played it safer if there were greater penalties for falls? For sure Nan Song would not have. He got 27.99 points for his two quads (both fully rotated, no falls) at Cup of China and 25.56 for his two quads (both fully rotated, no falls) at Eric Bompard.

Agsin, if you want to encourage quads, raise the base value. That was done in 2011, with results that we are witnessing now. This has nothing to do with penalties for falls, which are the same now as when Buttle won Worlds in 2008 and when Lysacek won the Olympics in 2010.