Yeah.
Different decisions at different points in the sports history as to whether margin of victory in each phase of competition should count, or whether only the final rankings in each phase should matter.
Do the numerical differences in the scores reflect the consensus of perceived difference in the performances accurately enough to make it more fair to preserve them than to flatten them out into even increments?
Is it important to allow as many skaters as possible to be within reach of the title, or the podium, heading into the final phase? Does allowing many skaters to control their own destiny when the standings are close in the first phase make up for the fact that sometimes one skater leaves everyone else in the dust in that first phase and can afford to coast in the final?
Whichever approach you take, there will always be some competitions where the other approach will appear more intuitively to match the differences in the skating.
I don't think factored placements make much sense in the IJS.
Back when there was a competition consisting of figures, a technical program and a freeskate it was an interesting question.
Looking at skating today, with the SP and LP basically separated primarily by duration just adding up the points seems to make sense.
This is ISU's best idea of what the public wants but it feels as if they are living in the past. Their use of technolgy feels dated as they haven't even figured out a way to let the fans know how these point total scores have been arrived at.
Sorry, but the vast majority of people who might tune in to watch a skating competition have no interest in searching the internet the next day to see the breakdown of the scoring. Even announcers, who get blamed for the diminsihed interest are not given the information quickly enough to explain it to the fans.
I doubt if that is an accident and it feels like just another attempt by ISU to keep the fans in the dark (and to cover themselves).
Once a score is posted there is no reaon why announcers don't have it right in front of them, and not just the point totals but the breakdown by judges (even if they are anonymous, why can't Scot let us know judge #3 really hammered a skater, or judge#4 marked a skater higher than the rest.
Why should casual fans get interested in a system that remains so secretive and is a mystery to them?
The history of the sport is full of politics and cheating and it really hasn't changed. That is not my opinion but ISU's own confession and even their declarative statement about the reasons for anonymous judging.
Some posters think skating has been cleaned up but ISU admits that nothing has changed. A system that was introduced due to a scandal and is designed to ty and keep cheating to a minimum and most importantly to prevent getting caught again is as strange as it's supporters who IMO know very little about sports and why fans care for a sport.
The CoP has made this clear and a system based on secrecy might catch on is less open society's but never in USA.
Will the day come when we will see soccer referees wearing masks so fans don't know their identity?
Will we ever see basebal when the balls and strikes are kept anonymous and fans will just have to assume a batter walking back to dugout must have been called out on strikes?
How about NFL football where penalties are called but not explained to the fans. Maybe like skating, fans will just have to assume or guess that a team was offsides or maybe there was a holding call.
If that ever happens football fans will go the way of skating fans and simply watch something else.
Some have said times change to justify the lack of interest in skating but we certainly see othe sports BOOMING. These are sports that are open and let the fans in on the decision making as it happens. There is no screcy or holding back information.
Would NFL football be better if fans had to go online the next day to see what penalties were called
The bottom line is that the CoP can not quantify the execution of the elements. Who's to say that a particular 3A deserves a GoE of 2 or 3? Judges are human and can vary so there is no definitive score by adding GoEs. Skater X's 3A had 2 arms up; skater Y had l arm up and skater Z did the impossible by holding his hands on his hips. The arm placements are gimmicks and have nothing to do with definition of a particular jump. (They should be remembered in the Skating Skills of the PC scores)
