- Joined
- Jun 21, 2003
My take: while skating bodies philosophically buy into the idea that artistic components are independent factors in scoring, they are somewhat fainthearted in the actual application.
I think the judges do not have uniform competence in judging the artistic components. All of the judges can tell a rocker from a Mohawk, but not all have a background in music and dance.
Which is why I focus on two aspects (as per my previous posts) that could go a long way to addressing the issues:
1) separate the technical judging from the artististic judging (which, in the most rigorous version, would include some mechanism for preventing the two groups from sharing scoring information),...
Again, recruiting and certifying the artistic panel might be a challenge.
As for the sharing of information, my eyes were opened by the discussion going on over on the Canadian dance thread. It seems that not only do the judges hobnob among themselves, they also solicit information from coaches as to what areas the coaches' students are superior to their rivals in, and what specific weaknesses those rival skaters have that the judges ought to on the lookout for.
One post in particular (by Doris Pulaski) mentioned that at one competition two members of the tech panel buttonholed one of the judges to make sure he understond why one couple should be placed ahead of another.
Lori Nichol (don't get me wrong, she is my favorite person in all of skating ) gives seminars to ISU judges about how to score Choreography. In this instruction she uses tapes and examples of her students, who are still in competition, doing exemplary choreography. "See, that's what good choreography is!"
This seems to be accepted by everyone in the sport, including skaters, fans, and federation and ISU officials. Indeed, your coach is not doing his job if he is not constantly pimping you to the judges.
If this is true, there is not much point in worrying about tweaking the CoP.
and
2) a procedure for artistic scoring that would force a scoring differentiation between skaters.
Ordinals.
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