shanshani

would anyone want to help me with a tedious data entry project? basically I would need you to input judges' scores into a spreadsheet. it's pretty easy, it's just time consuming for me to do alone. the point is to create a way to track individual judges' biases by keeping a record of how they scored individual skaters across multiple competitions. (spoiler alert: even though my project is only partially complete it's already becoming apparent that most US judges and nearly all Russian judges are terrible. there are also several judges that are so laughably, provably biased they really, really should not be judging competitions)

yeah, the tech panel is in dire need of more transparency and oversight. at least I can see individual judges scores. can't see what decisions each panelist did or did not contribute to re: judge oversight, I agree, I don't think one oddball score, especially on a random skater (eg not home country or direct rival of home country), is reason to can a judge. but if there's a pattern...there's statistical methods to detect judging bias. I'm working on a project to do so right now, basically a revision of a similar project last season. It's very labor intensive though so I won't have full results for a couple of weeks. but so far the number of most likely biased judges outnumber the number of fair judges significantly, at least among the judges that have a decent amount of judging data to their names...

Is the tech panel independent of federations? I often see the same names show up on the tech panel as I've seen on past judging panels for instance the tech controller at ACI has been on past judging panels for many competitions

the gymnastics system sounds great. the isu can use the fees to fund an improved tech camera set up like all good ideas that would improve judging though, the isu isn't going to go for it

even more so in person. the pictures don't do it justice. there's a reason the entire arena lost their minds when he took off his jacket

every time I look at the videos of Yuzu's fully rotated toeloops and think about how they got called UR I feel myself getting more pissed off. I would even say it's one thing to overlook a mistake that should have been penalized, like the billion uncalled URs and edges which have occurred over the past years of competition. I can understand giving someone the benefit of the doubt. it's another thing to penalize someone for something they straight up did not do. I hope the japanese fed or someone files a complaint.

I recall some people were complaining about uncalled URs in the men's short at ACI. Does anyone have video of the specific jumps? Kind of don't want to go combing through the competition thread

hm, thought I did. does it work now?

Here's the volunteer sign up sheet. Please sign up if you intend to participate! Here's the video repository thanks @Yuzu_legend and @yuzuangel for the suggestions

as they very well should be. Why were they even under review in the first place? we know tech panels skip reviewing actually underrotated jumps because they looked ok in real time. honestly, the fact that this happened with an entirely North American technical panel is pretty suspicious when Yuzu is the biggest rival of arguably the biggest currently active North American skater (Nathan). Imagine if you had an entire technical panel composed of RUS, UKR, and KAZ reviewing ladies. Would you really trust the objectivity of such a group? (answer: no. former soviet bloc judges are provably biased almost to a person--I have data to back this up. north american judges are slightly better, but most of them are provably biased too)

mounting it myself sounds scary haha. I gave it to the shop and now I have to cross my fingers and hope for the best. I was more forceful with communicating what I wanted so hopefully they just follow what I said. sometimes I feel like they don't trust me because I'm a beginner skater, but I've been right about all my equipment needs and issues so far I looooove the toepicks. I definitely jump higher with them, my takeoffs feel more secure, they're just great. plus you could probably murder someone with them. giant toe picks for the win the ice at sixteen mile was definitely good. was look at all the little holes and gouges and uneven spots and wetness on the ice at my home rink today and thinking about how crappy the ice is here by comparison

my own phone cost me far less than my worlds ticket ticket prices go up, budget allocated to fair judging does not

On the other hand, Yuzu does have to retire eventually, and competitions and Olympics will then be a thing of the past. After that, he may have to do a little wandering just like the rest of us. (Although probably with much more financial security, I must admit.) I don't say that to be a downer, just to point out that the shape of a life changes, and just because Yuzu has something he's wholeheartedly committed to now, doesn't mean he always will, and just because you may not have that now, doesn't mean you always won't. Of course, maybe after he retires he'll just wholeheartedly throw himself into coaching and trying to beat whichever coach has the record for highest number of Olympic medalists coached.

one benefit of it being in the short is that the short requires less energy though. if he's tight on stamina in the long, the short might make sense

wtf, deliberately trying to get away with URing is borderline cheating. this is why the ISU needs to switch to some kind of automatic rotation detecting system. set an amount of degrees you have to turn in the air for something to count as “fully rotated” and then deduct on a proportional basis for every degree short. the quad girls can still get partial credit for sort-of doing a quad but only people who don't go over the acceptable amount of PR+UR get full credit for their jumps.

that sounds awesome! do you have access to a camera that can do slow motion? your best bet for seating is on the left hand side of the judges or on the right hand side of the judges on the opposite side. I notice those are the places skaters tend to jump most frequently

Sure. Would you like to administer that?

really what needs to happen is that official selection needs to be taken out of the hands of the national feds and put into the hands of an unbiased international body. also, there needs to be some kind of easily searchable and analyzable repository of each judge's judging record (I'm working on something similar but I only have meager technical skills so it will be a pale imitation of what should be). I think tech panel votes needs to be publicly accessible as well--right now, we don't know who voted for which call, so we don't know who exactly to hold responsible for bad calls. Yeah, definitely. Doing the right thing often requires sticking your neck out, putting in extra effort, or some other kind of special exertion. (And if there are bad institutions, you will be punished for doing the right thing, so the people with integrity will be weeded out early anyway.)

I don't know that I buy the conspiratorial version of what's going on behind the scenes, but it bears noting that the institutional structure of judge selection (they are selected by their own federations, who will prefer judges that promote their interests) actively encourages the promotion of judges who act as stooges for their federation and discourages the selection of unbiased judges. Bad institutions breed corruption by incentivizing bad behavior, disincentivizing good behavior, and promoting bad actors over good ones. Plus, people are good at rationalizing their own behavior ("oh, well it's not that big of a deal if I give my own skater a couple of extra points and dock a couple of points off direct competitors. everyone does it, those points probably aren't going to make a big difference anyway, plus my fed might not send me to another competition if I don't do it"). You don't have to be cartoonishly evil to do bad things or behave corruptly--a lot of evil in the world is a result of moral mediocrity, cowardice, and rationalization rather than outright maliciousness.

Anyone who is going to a future competition or has good jump footage from ACI, please contribute to our crowd sourced technical camera project I am so serious about this that I will put it in my signature so everyone will be reminded to shoot footage of jumps

saved space

@wingman @yuzuangel @Yuzu_legend

Autumn Classic 2019 (no high frame rate available. please shoot in 240fps--slow motion--if you can, guys!) Yuzuru Hanyu FS 4Teu3S (appears to be 30fps), 4T called UR another angle (appears to be 30fps) Yuzuru Hanyu FS solo 4T (appears to be 30fps), 4T called UR Yuzuru Hanyu 3A3T (appears to be 30 fps), 3T called UR

In light of the very questionable technical calling at the 2019 Autumn Classic International, and the epidemic of inconsistent technical calling in general, I thought it would be a good idea if we all work together to capture high quality, high frame rate video of jumps at future competitions. For instance, here is the type of video I'm talking about (though note this was a jump done in practice). It was shot in 240fps and 1080p on a Samsung Galaxy S10, so required no special equipment. If we could capture this kind of video for all jumps done by top competitors in competition, we could more convincingly dispute particular bad calls as well as more accurately assess the quality of tech calling in general. By compiling evidence of bad calling, we can show that the tech calling practices now are a serious liability for the sport and more effectively pressure the ISU into changing them (for instance, by adding more cameras). In order for this to happen, we need to work together. If you are attending a competition this season and are sitting near jumps (the most common places for athletes to jump are along the corners of the rink), please consider filming them during the competition, ideally in 240fps, which most high end phone cameras these days should be able to manage. Ideally, please film at least the nearby jumps of anyone who could plausibly be a medal contender, then post them in this thread. If you have or see footage of competition jumps (for instance, on twitter), please also post it in this thread and label it with the athlete, the competition segment, the jumping pass, and the frame rate. If you are interested in filming at future competitions, please say so! The more angles, the better. Again, this requires no more specialized equipment than a high end phone. If you intend to participate, please sign up here so we know which angles are covered and which aren't. You can find the repository of tech videos here

Just passed a giant Yuzu billboard on my way back from the airport. A nice bookend for my trip! Bad judging vengeance later. You better watch out, judges!