That is already true. Not counting data entry operators, who don't have a say in the scores -- they just do data input.Tech panel would do the same exact thing. To avoid national bias there should be no 2 persons on the panel from the same country.
By "voting" do you mean discussing, as the tech panel does now?The panel of 9 judges would be split in 3 panels of 3 judges each, and they will vote and reach a single mark (conclusion, see lower) so each single national biased mark/opinion will be outvoted in the panel.
What the tech panel does is review video replay of the elements that were called for review during the performance.
During the review, the two technical specialists will say what they saw in terms of jump rotations and edges. If those two agree, great. If not, the technical controller will weigh in to break the tie.
The same process might be used if they need to review a spin, for example to determine whether the skater got into a position for 2 full revolutions (or 8 revolutions for the 8-rev feature) or got into the spinning position in less than 2 revolutions after a flying entry, or whether a particular variation meets the definition of "difficult," etc.
These are essentially yes-or-no questions, although in borderline cases different individuals may see things just differently enough to disagree on whether a jump landed at 90 or 95 degrees short, or whether a spin held a position for just under or just over the required revolutions.
So they quickly say what they see, discuss only if there's something especially confusing about what the skater did, and then the decision that at least two of the three agree on becomes the official call.
How would something similar work for judging?
If "voting" just means entering their scores and taking the score agreed by the majority, that's essentially what we have now. (Except that what is actually used is the trimmed average.)Each panel can judge everything, as now.
OR we can have each panel specialized, one for GOE for jumps, one for GOE for spins and step sequences, one for components.
If you mean that subsets of the judges would discuss each element during the brief review period between the performance and the announcement of the scores, then I think you would definitely need to divide them into smaller groups and have each panel discuss only the subset of scores they are assigned to.
This would be taking place at the same time as the tech panel reviews. So the decisions that the tech panel comes to about the jumps (which are the only tech panel calls that the judges get to see) might not all be ready for the judges until toward the end of this brief period. If the jump judge panel needs to wait until all the tech panel jump calls are complete, that could double the length of the review process (tech panel, then judges), which could make the wait for scores a lot longer than 2 minutes.
If the judges are going to discuss, they would also need headsets, on a different channel than the tech panels or than the other judging subpanels, so they wouldn't interfere with each other's discussions.
Judges already have the option individually to lower the GOE of an element for an error that they saw but that was not called by the tech panel.The judges could not improve the call, just diminish if the tech panel called a jump clean but the judges see it under, it will be under, but not the other way around.
So a halfway measure to increase the chance that skaters will be penalized for errors even if not called by the tech panel would be to encourage judges to give the maximum relevant GOE reduction if they see a downgrade/underrotation or wrong edge. As long as the judges have access to their own video replay, they can individually go back and check the jumps they saw problems with during the performance.
For e, <<, and < calls, the tech panel calls do also affect the base values. So what you're asking for is for a panel of jump judges to weigh in, beyond their GOE assignments, and duplicate the tech panel reviews for these elements with the possibility of overriding those calls/non-calls?
Again, do you want a subset of judges to verbally discuss every possible bullet point for each element they're responsible forIdeally, each panel would go through all the bullet points and vote on those, and the computer will give the GOE. I think they should have enough time to do that in 2 minutes (because each panel looks at just jumps/ spins&step sequences and components)
Or only the elements they want to "review"? And should they each mention the positive bullets they awarded and then discuss any that only one or two of the judges mentioned, to come to a consensus of whether the panel of three should award it or not? S
Same for reductions -- each judge mention what reduction(s) they took for the element, and how much they took off for each error since most GOE reductions have a range of, e.g., 1-3 or 2-4?
What about the program components?
If the same judges are awarding program component scores and also discussing multiple elements, they will need a little extra time to input their component scores before or after the elements discussion.
If there will be a separate PCS panel, that would save time. But are the judges on that panel supposed to discuss each of the bullet points for each component and how good they thought that skater was at each of those areas?
Remember, component scores are not yes-or-no decisions.
Judges could say that they thought the skater was Good at one criterion, Very Good at another, only Average at another, etc. And then would they have to convince each other to come up with a single score from the panel for that component?
This would be a valuable process to go through during judge training, or maybe in the roundtable meetings after an event, but would take much too long during an actual event.
It would be quicker not to have discussions but to give judges an interface to score each bullet point separately and then let the computer take averages to come up with that judge's overall Composition or Presentation or Skating Skills score.
Or change to protocols to show the individual bullet points from each judge. Which would probably make each skater's protocol take a couple of pages instead of the current half page, but it would give the skaters (and the public) more detailed information about what the judges thought about their program construction and their skating and performance qualities.