General Skating Chat

[MrPudding]

1 minute ago, Xen said:

...Can I laugh at some of them? Honestly, the only ones that kind of make sense are Phil Hersh's for the singles events....

 

My avatar is my reaction to this article 

*throws this aside*

[xeyra]

6 minutes ago, Xen said:

...Can I laugh at some of them? Honestly, the only ones that kind of make sense are Phil Hersh's for the singles events....

 

Well, it's long-shot predictions, after all. Some took them more seriously than others. Plus there's some bias always. 

[breadstal]

20 minutes ago, MrPudding said:

 

Their predictions

Some of these choices  

[Katt]

Its icenetwork, of course its bias. Lol they didn't even mention P/C or V/M, and none of japanese skaters May be FS keep getting popular and bigger in japan and they're mad 

 

The only non bias is Wei Xiong (as always).

 

 

[Xen]

30 minutes ago, Yatagarasu said:

 

We'd have to go look but I do remember last season someone went through the PCS scores and the person who had the highest ones even with mistakes, was actually Javier Fernandez. He's probably the most overscored top skater in PCS that we have. 

As for the second, I'd bet it's on all of them. 

And we cannot, not really. I mean ID used to be pretty popular but that popularity went lower and lower and one of the principal reasons was the whole subjectivity in scoring. I am for example completely burned out on it; I still watch the top six but I have no attachment to any ID pairs because it's a recipe for heart-ache. To add this component to all the disciplines will just make me go lol no. I love skating but suffering through politicking to this extent in all events is simply not going to happen as a case of self-preservation. 

I think it's this: https://planethanyu.com/topic/44-general-skating-chat/?do=findComment&comment=52374

Xeyra had one, though actually the ones in the past season with the most perfect IN, and PE scores were Javi and Yuzu.  Though they didn't get much of them until Worlds.

[Vivienne]

43 minutes ago, MrPudding said:

 

Their predictions

 

I just see this as a politicking job 

[Yatagarasu]

5 minutes ago, Xen said:

I think it's this: https://planethanyu.com/topic/44-general-skating-chat/?do=findComment&comment=52374

Xeyra had one, though actually the ones in the past season with the most perfect IN, and PE scores were Javi and Yuzu.  Though they didn't get much of them until Worlds.

It wasn't on PH at all, we didn't exist at the time  

About the ~ predictions ~ it's IN plus long-shots. It's just good for a nice giggle.

[xeyra]

17 minutes ago, Xen said:

I think it's this: https://planethanyu.com/topic/44-general-skating-chat/?do=findComment&comment=52374

Xeyra had one, though actually the ones in the past season with the most perfect IN, and PE scores were Javi and Yuzu.  Though they didn't get much of them until Worlds.

 

I just realized the image link to the 2015-2016 table is broken on this post. Fixed!

[xeyra]

Actually, now that I looked at the tables, I didn't actually sum up the individual 10s per PCS category so here's some revised tables.

 

 

ETA: Replaced 2015-2016 table with correct totals since Excel decided to spaz and added stuff it shouldn't have. 

[¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

4 時間前, Xenさんが言いました:

This is why, despite my lament towards the PCS scores being less than 50%, I'm not sure I'm okay with PCS points being too dominant. PCS is possibly even more subjective than GOE scores, and this would allow the big feds to be even more dominant. There was mention a couple pages ago that some people in the skating judging world do not think Asians can be expressive/artistic-well, whatever that means. But I can imagine that some might be a bit annoyed by how many asian bell-curve destroyers there are right now in skating. The last world podium had 3 asian men, the next quad cycle for ladies is probably going to be Japan vs Russia, China's always a threat in Pairs..

 

3 時間前, Valkyriaさんが言いました:

I'm with you on the weight of TES and PCS being 50/50, which is what the CoP was initially built for. Since the tech increase has caught up to the limits imposed at the beginning and "broken" the system, they should have a look at the PCS multipliers so the ceiling gets raised to be even again with current TES. I still think working these kinks out of the current system + a more defined/stricter way of awarding GOE and PCS for judges would benefit the sport more than reworking it alltogether *le sigh*

 

+ that one post about TES and PCS being 60/40...or was that 40/60? I can't seem to find that post anymore although I clearly remember seeing it. Odd.

 

Some say that PCS shouldn't be raised due to creating an even bigger playground for politicking to frolick about in, and some say they should be to balance out the tech advancement. And some, like @Valkyria lean towards the second opinion even while understanding the first. As for me...well, if no one's ever gotten 100 on PCS yet...or even a 99, I don't think...and most of those who score above the 90 threshold these days are there because of politics, I personally feel that 100 is good enough. I mean, I think they ceilinged it to that in the first place precisely because they acknowledge that artistry isn't quantifiable and as such what number to give is entirely up to the discretion of human judgment, so 100 is about as good as 200. Tech, on the other hand, is all about numbers, so they can't place a limit on it, but the idea behind it was those who go for tech usually end up sacrificing artistry, you can't have too much of one without sacrificing the other. That's simply logic, or the law of the universe, if you will.

 

Which seemed true for awhile, which was why the system worked, for the most part anyway, until Hanyu hurricaned over everything (absolutely no offense meant to those affected by Harvey and Irma, I'm just using the term as a figure of speech because it seems well-suited for the subject matter--my apologies if anyone here finds it inappropriate) with his perfect tech technique and ideal physique and pioneering perfectionist mentality which allowed room for artistry to shine even while the tech is sky-high still. Heck, the guy turned his tech into art. Which goes to say that it can be achieved if you manage to somehow check all the boxes, some of which are criteria dictated by Mother Nature herself, such as genetics and a person's very nature. This creates a huge discrepancy between him and others and with him pushing the envelope and others answering him and pushing it along with him, and with a dash or two of maneuvering in the background, suddenly everyone and their grandmothers with impressive enough tech (or less impressive for some but for some reason is seen as impressive anyway) are scoring above the 90 mark or super close to it, easy-peasy*.

 

So even if the ceiling for PCS is raised, it'd still essentially be the same, only with bigger numbers. And because ISU can't rein in their judges without jeopardizing their own interests, this push-pull argument will just go on and on and on and on without a clear agreement on which side of it has the stronger logic. ISU probably knows this, which is why they just steamrolled over everything and came out with what they did. For better or worse remains to be seen, though early consensus seems to lean heavily towards the latter. Personally, I don't see there ever being a single foolproof system for a sport like figure skating where a huge part of both its appeal and repulsiveness is brought about precisely by the subjective element in it. So it's just going to be what works at a certain time and when it stops working, gives way to revisions or something new altogether, with a lot of debate each time that happens. xD

 

*To be fair, I seem to recall that he (Hanyu) was allowed to pass the 90 threshold in the LP back when his artistry was still too unrefined to really deserve it, too--though it was still a lot better than what Chen is putting out now, given Hanyu's tech back then was less challenging in comparison--when the judges first started to show signs of dropping Chan for Hanyu...which seemed to push him towards refining it enough to finally truly deserve it (proof that ego can be good, when applied correctly)...though a few might argue that he's sometimes a tad over-rewarded still. Subjective, like I said, even for the great Hanyu--though only to a limited extent. I guess that's the best any skater can hope for. Limiting subjectivity to a narrow extent, I mean. Speaking of working to deserve scores they're getting, I was kind of hoping Chen would do the same but perhaps not this cycle seeing there's so much at stake...

 

4 時間前, Xenさんが言いました:

It did get mentioned in a different forum, that if we go for an artistic program, it's highly likely to be dominated by the north american , canadian, european skaters similar to the status quo in Ice Dance, as the prevelance of warhorses indicate, tastes are conservative and defined by western/anglo-saxon preferences. Honestly, minus the Shibutani's (who are backed by the USFSA), have we seen another asian face in ice dancing crop up in the top 5 teams, in either seniors or juniors even? Let's not even get into Latinos, Africans etc....

 

3 時間前, Valkyriaさんが言いました:

Besides that, you bring up the issue of culture and/or racial bias and how it plays into the areas of scoring that are subjective, which is much more serious, imo. I get different tastes, but there are more ways to be expressive and "artistic" than what one personally likes: it goes back to training and supervising judges to limit these biases, but since ISU itself works in biases depending on where the wind blows... I don't see how it could go away. And once again they're shooting themselves in the foot, since one of the areas where FS is actually popular is East Asia. So yeah ¬¬

  

Hmmm, barring some archaic and culturally ignorant parties who seem to think western culture is the only culture (or maybe they just think they have the right to since it's western people who came up with the sport in the first place), and those seem to be in the minority, judges, western and eastern alike, all seem to favor SEIMEI quite extremely, scoring and lauding it as the greatest men's LP of all time, until they had to grudgingly pass the title officially to H&L when a clean version of it finally came along (with high PCS and everything), while possibly secretly still thinking SEIMEI rocked harder. And since that door has already been kicked wide open by our neighborhood friendly freak force of nature, and since ISU already allowed singing to be used in the performance music (showing that they are open to new things if skaters choose to present it--preferably well, if they want some kind of acceptance), we may see some change in the future in this aspect as well, if only skaters are brave enough to venture into the brave new world and teach the judges that there can be more than one. The skaters themselves don't even have originate from the culture itself even (though to present it well, they should probably study it in-depth). Didn't White and Davis danced to something Indian once? And more oriental pieces seem to be coming out of the wood work too...

[Xen]

34 minutes ago, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

 

 

+ that one post about TES and PCS being 60/40...or was that 40/60? I can't seem to find that post anymore although I clearly remember seeing it. Odd.

 

Some say that PCS shouldn't be raised due to creating an even bigger playground for politicking to frolick about in, and some say they should be to balance out the tech advancement. And some, like @Valkyria lean towards the second opinion even while understanding the first. As for me...well, if no one's ever gotten 100 on PCS yet...or even a 99, I don't think...and most of those who score above the 90 mark these days are there because of politics, I personally feel that 100 is good enough. I mean, I think they ceilinged it to that in the first place precisely because they acknowledge that artistry isn't quantifiable and as such what number to give is entirely up to the discretion of human judgment, so 100 is about as good as 200. Tech, on the other hand, is all about numbers, so they can't place a limit on it, but the idea behind it was those who go for tech usually end up sacrificing artistry, you can't have too much of one without sacrificing the other. That's simply logic, or the law of the universe, if you will.

 

Which seemed true for awhile, which was why the system worked, for the most part anyway, until Hanyu hurricaned over everything (absolutely no offense meant to those affected by Harvey and Irma, I'm just using the term as a figure of speech because it seems well-suited for the subject matter--my apologies if anyone here finds it inappropriate) with his perfect tech technique and ideal physique and pioneering perfectionist mentality which allowed room for artistry to shine even while the tech is sky-high still. Heck, the guy turned his tech into art. Which goes to say that it can be achieved if you manage to somehow check all the boxes Mother Nature has set, some of which are dependent on genetics and a person's very nature. This creates a huge discrepancy between him and others and with him pushing the envelope and others answering him and pushing it along with him, and with a dash or two of maneuvering in the background, suddenly everyone and their grandmothers with impressive enough tech (or less impressive for some but for some reason is seen as impressive anyway) are scoring above the 90 mark or super close to it, easy-peasy.

 

So even if the ceiling for PCS is raised, it'd still essentially be the same, only with bigger numbers. And because ISU can't rein in their judges without jeopardizing their own interests, this push-pull argument will just go on and on and on and on without a clear agreement on which side of it has the stronger logic. ISU probably knows this, which is why they just steamrolled over everything and came out with what they did. For better or worse remains to be seen, though early consensus seems to lean heavily towards the latter. Personally, I don't see there ever being a single foolproof system for a sport like figure skating where a huge part of both its appeal and repulsiveness is brought about precisely by the subjective element in it. So it's just going to be what works at a certain time and when it stops working, gives way to revisions or something new altogether, with a lot of debate each time that happens. xD

 

 

  

Hmmm, barring some archaic and culturally ignorant parties who seem to think western culture is the only culture (or maybe they just think they have the right to since it's western people who came up with the sport in the first place), and those seem to be in the minority, judges, western and eastern a like, all seem to favor SEIMEI quite extremely, scoring it as the greatest men's LP of all time, until they had to grudgingly pass the title officially to H&L when a clean version of it finally came along (with high PCS and everything), while possibly secretly still thinking SEIMEI rocked harder. And since that door has already been kicked wide open by our neighborhood friendly freak force of nature, and since ISU already allowed singing to be used in the performance music (showing that they are open to new things if skaters choose to present it--preferably well, if they want some kind of acceptance), we may see some change in the future in this aspect as well, if only skaters are brave enough to venture into the brave new world and teach the judges that there can be more than one. The skaters themselves don't even have originate from the culture itself even (though to present it well, they should probably study it in-depth). Didn't White and Davis danced to something Indian once? And more oriental pieces seem to be coming out of the wood work too...

So in summary, the ISU is just trying to per-emptively reign in the feds a bit in preparation for a generation's retirement? Okay, I can kind of see that, but as the politiking doors are wide open now, I'm not sure if said doors can be shut so easily. We might not have another Hanyu in a while in the men's, but maybe the next rule wrecker will come from the ladies?

 

As for the 60/40  pcs thing, it wasn't really a post, just a post linking to a certain blog where a certain someone bemoans that PCS counts for so much less than desired. And in this, I will probably agree with you that I don't see the point in raising PCS even higher, not just because no one has gotten a 100 yet,  but artistry is harder to quantify, the most you can do is have comparative scale similar to what we have now.

1 hour ago, xeyra said:

Actually, now that I looked at the tables, I didn't actually sum up the individual 10s per PCS category so here's some revised tables.

 

 

ETA: Replaced 2015-2016 table with correct totals since Excel decided to spaz and added stuff it shouldn't have. 

The number of 10's given for SS and TR is a bit interesting, but I do see that within the span of 1 season, the number of 10's awarded in PE, CO and IN has decreased significantly, especially in relation to clean/unclean programs.  So perhaps ISU has managed to reign in something?  Or judges found their conscience? Though this is just the larger feds, I think I'll have to go check the scores for smaller fed skaters, such as Misha, such as Denis Ten, to see whether it is really followed consistently.

[¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

7 分ぐらい, Xenさんが言いました:

So in summary, the ISU is just trying to per-emptively reign in the feds a bit in preparation for a generation's retirement?

 

I guess it can be taken that way...? Though that wasn't really the point I was trying to get at. It's a valid conclusion, still.

 

7 分ぐらい, Xenさんが言いました:

but as the politiking doors are wide open now, I'm not sure if said doors can be shut so easily.

 

The way I see it, the space between the doors has always been yawning, one way or another. ;o)

 

[Xen]

14 minutes ago, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

 

I guess it can be taken that way...? Though that wasn't really the point I was trying to get at. It's a valid conclusion, still.

 

 

The way I see it, the space between the doors have always been yawning, one way or another. ;o)

 

No I don't think that was the point either =D but I did think a bit more about why I didn't find the PCS scores of Javi, Yuzu and even Patrick having perfects that surprising. That's because they kind of are the more balanced tech and artistry skaters of the current gen. Well Yuzu especially, but Patrick and Javi do get classified as more artistic skaters, so I'm not shocked by their higher PCS. And relative to some of the new guys, they are. Actually Boyang's PCS scores are closer to what I'd expect as the norm. And the real norm we'd have to dig past the large feds and the top 6...then we'd have to check how PCS scores evolved since 2010 and pre-Sochi.

 

But if I look at say Shoma, Nate and Boyang, and think of them along the athletic and artistic scale, I can see where they would most likely fall. And if you look at the Junior men coming up, even with Vincent Zhou etc you can still kind of see it. The closest I would put to balanced, might be Shoma actually, but he's not exactly quite Yuzu or Pchan level in skating skills or technical mastery. If Boyang works on his artistry, sure he could possibly achieve more than even Shoma. Among the younger guys, the only one I'd kind of see is possibly Cha Junhwa,  possibly Deniss (but he's a small fed skater), maybe Shimada if he recovers? But overall, slim pickings for skaters who could combine both art and sport and do extremely well on both. So it's more probable and efficient that skaters pick one side and gun for that?

[Murieleirum]

20 minutes ago, Xen said:

The number of 10's given for SS and TR is a bit interesting, but I do see that within the span of 1 season, the number of 10's awarded in PE, CO and IN has decreased significantly, especially in relation to clean/unclean programs.  So perhaps ISU has managed to reign in something?  Or judges found their conscience? Though this is just the larger feds, I think I'll have to go check the scores for smaller fed skaters, such as Misha, such as Denis Ten, to see whether it is really followed consistently.

 

Except with Javi with IN. Oh, yeah, that Interpretation of Elvis Presley... brough tears to my eyes... so deep... so captivating... so sophisticated...

 

I'm sorry, I'm not a Javi hater at all, I love Javi, I love his charisma, I believe he is one of the top skaters currently and deserves his medals. But. Javi's 10 in Interpretation aren't worth as much as Yuzuru's 10. It's another level of depth of interpretation. Even only for the music that was chosen to be interpreted. 

[Valkyria]

1 hour ago, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

 

 

+ that one post about TES and PCS being 60/40...or was that 40/60? I can't seem to find that post anymore although I clearly remember seeing it. Odd.

 

Some say that PCS shouldn't be raised due to creating an even bigger playground for politicking to frolick about in, and some say they should be to balance out the tech advancement. And some, like @Valkyria lean towards the second opinion even while understanding the first. As for me...well, if no one's ever gotten 100 on PCS yet...or even a 99, I don't think...and most of those who score above the 90 threshold these days are there because of politics, I personally feel that 100 is good enough. I mean, I think they ceilinged it to that in the first place precisely because they acknowledge that artistry isn't quantifiable and as such what number to give is entirely up to the discretion of human judgment, so 100 is about as good as 200. Tech, on the other hand, is all about numbers, so they can't place a limit on it, but the idea behind it was those who go for tech usually end up sacrificing artistry, you can't have too much of one without sacrificing the other. That's simply logic, or the law of the universe, if you will.

 

Which seemed true for awhile, which was why the system worked, for the most part anyway, until Hanyu hurricaned over everything (absolutely no offense meant to those affected by Harvey and Irma, I'm just using the term as a figure of speech because it seems well-suited for the subject matter--my apologies if anyone here finds it inappropriate) with his perfect tech technique and ideal physique and pioneering perfectionist mentality which allowed room for artistry to shine even while the tech is sky-high still. Heck, the guy turned his tech into art. Which goes to say that it can be achieved if you manage to somehow check all the boxes, some of which are criteria dictated by Mother Nature herself, such as genetics and a person's very nature. This creates a huge discrepancy between him and others and with him pushing the envelope and others answering him and pushing it along with him, and with a dash or two of maneuvering in the background, suddenly everyone and their grandmothers with impressive enough tech (or less impressive for some but for some reason is seen as impressive anyway) are scoring above the 90 mark or super close to it, easy-peasy*.

 

So even if the ceiling for PCS is raised, it'd still essentially be the same, only with bigger numbers. And because ISU can't rein in their judges without jeopardizing their own interests, this push-pull argument will just go on and on and on and on without a clear agreement on which side of it has the stronger logic. ISU probably knows this, which is why they just steamrolled over everything and came out with what they did. For better or worse remains to be seen, though early consensus seems to lean heavily towards the latter. Personally, I don't see there ever being a single foolproof system for a sport like figure skating where a huge part of both its appeal and repulsiveness is brought about precisely by the subjective element in it. So it's just going to be what works at a certain time and when it stops working, gives way to revisions or something new altogether, with a lot of debate each time that happens. xD

 

The thing with the PCS ceiling being fixed is that it encourages skaters to go for the jumps as a surefire point grab in the TES, since the PCS take a much longer time to develop for a lesser reward, in detriment of more "artistic" and/or intricate programs. Raising the bar would give a boost to skaters that lean more towards the "artistic" side so they have a chance not to be left behind by underdeveloped jumpsters (ergo ~saving~ the artistry and leveling the two parts of a score), while also rewarding those who take the time and effort to go for the complete package.

 

Of course, this is all an ideal situation. Nothing pertaining to PCS can ever truly work as long as politicking is rampant, but that's not a problem inherent to the system but to the people. As it is, I don't think there's a way to get rid of that, unfortunately