HIGHER, Faster, Stronger

[BigW]

John, what's EASS stand for? Glad to see this is being done now. Eliminates the whole second guessing one's self, and really does make for a more honest, fair, and accurate call, period.

[BigW]

Taking only the complaint that, "scores are too high"...relative to what? Scored last week? Scores last year? Honestly, who cares? We use a box-based build-up system where numbers are assigned by achieving certain criteria. That's the reason there's no such thing as a "perfect score". Scoring a 20 out of 20 only means you maxed out the criteria relative to where your competition was.

The numbers only matter for the sake of raking the corps in each caption. That's it.

Thank you, John. To add to this, the spreads between teams, the spread from the top number to the bottom number and how those relate to each other, those are the essential elements.

Edited July 31, 2014 by BigW

[Jeff Ream]

For what it's worth, granted that's not much, but I have been judging at various levels for 30 years and for me the best description and guidance I have ever seen in the judging world regarding how to judge, what each caption should evaluate, etc. has been the WGI Percussion Manual. Very enlightening stuff, especially in regard to Effect. Definitely required reading as far as I'm concerned for anyone wishing to enter into the judging community.

Dan

hands down Thurston and team spell it out for all in a very easy to read guide. I am about to give a numbers management presentation this weekend, and i can promise you, that was a handy reference

Edited August 1, 2014 by Jeff Ream

[Jeff Ream]

Joe,

I have to be honest and agree with Jeff that your posts are confusing. On the one hand your saying scores are to high, on the other you want to set a base of 50 which would suggest that the top scores would in fact be high. Unless you're assuming that a judge would use the bottom box of 50 to whatever the top of that box should be in a championship setting.

I'll also agree with Big W that it's not wizardry. You evaluate a performance. As you do this you're narrowing down a frame of what and how a group is achieving and determining what box criteria and descriptors the group is achieving. Essentially getting yourself into a range of about 15 points depending on what is defined for that particular box. Then narrow down further where in the box, low, middle, high. Then who do I have that may be in the same general number area. Was this group better or worse, and by how much which is defined on the back of the sheets by looking at the value of a tenth. Jeff and John have explained and Dan is right that the WGI book does explain this well. Once your at this point, it's really up to that judges experiences and professional call.

Currently DCA and many circuits are using the EASS system which allows the judge to evaluate a group of teams and then be able to adjust and tweak numbers accordingly before finalizing their numbers and turning them in. What this has done is eliminate the phrase "I would've had you higher/lower but you were on too early or late" Because of this change I personally believe the numbers are probably more accurate or reflective of what a judge feels than ever before.

for the record, I never said scores are too high. i explained why scores end up where they do. personally seeing 80's win the title sucks.

[Jeff Ream]

Taking only the complaint that, "scores are too high"...relative to what? Scored last week? Scores last year? Honestly, who cares? We use a box-based build-up system where numbers are assigned by achieving certain criteria. That's the reason there's no such thing as a "perfect score". Scoring a 20 out of 20 only means you maxed out the criteria relative to where your competition was.

The numbers only matter for the sake of raking the corps in each caption. That's it.

IMO a 20 usually says "i started too high"

[N.E. Brigand]

Quickly, back to the minimum score issue. The minimum number can be whatever the circuit or organization wants it to be. Again, I have no idea what the DCA minimum score is now. A guess? Somewhere between 48-52 points. Why was this done? I can't tell you in DCA or DCI's case. In scholastic circuits, it was done partly to keep numbers in line with the traditional grading system to make it easier for the students to know how good or not they were. ("We scored an 88, kids. That's like a solid 'B' for tonight's effort.....")

This year, DCI's Open Class corps, reportedly at their own request, are being scored on DCI's World Class sheets. So there were some low 30s early in the summer. About a month ago, hostrauser had a really interesting post about astonishingly low scores, even in the build-up, post-tic era. I'll try to find it.

[N.E. Brigand]

Here it is: Flotsam and Jetsam. Apparently one corps scored a 3.6 in 1992. And another won with 26.5 in 1988.

[BigW]

Here it is: Flotsam and Jetsam. Apparently one corps scored a 3.6 in 1992. And another won with 26.5 in 1988.

That's quite interesting.

And not surprising. I'm familiar with the DCI sheets of that era. Anything below a 9, though, kind of makes me wonder. IIRC, anything below a 10 was something like "Box Zero", and it was reverse printed in black with something like "UNREADABLE/NOT UNDERSTANDABLE" in all caps and some kind of "Don't ever go here and use this box for Lord's sake!" note with it. I need to see if I have one of those sheets in storage at my parents.

With the descriptors in place on those sheets, if you were even remotely understandable and remotely made any sense to anyone at all, you could get a score around 23-24 IIRC. I saw many small Boys and Girls Clubs type of corps in the Garden State Circuit around 1995-1996 and I can tell you none of them would have deserved a sub-10 number at their very worst. I can't even imagine what went on to get that kind of number. Maybe some penalties!?!?!?

[BigW]

for the record, I never said scores are too high. i explained why scores end up where they do. personally seeing 80's win the title sucks.

Yes- perception from everyone involved counts for a lot!

You can statistically skew any rating system. Judging is much like grading a test.. Took the generic grad Level "Tests and Measurements" course BITD, and they pretty much said you could create a test where a 60 is an A, for instance and showed you how to do it. I took some tests like that in college and I just remember this incredible headache afterwards and feeling mentally worn out and harrowed.

[Dan Detweiler]

That's quite interesting.

And not surprising. I'm familiar with the DCI sheets of that era. Anything below a 9, though, kind of makes me wonder. IIRC, anything below a 10 was something like "Box Zero", and it was reverse printed in black with something like "UNREADABLE/NOT UNDERSTANDABLE" in all caps and some kind of "Don't ever go here and use this box for Lord's sake!" note with it. I need to see if I have one of those sheets in storage at my parents.

With the descriptors in place on those sheets, if you were even remotely understandable and remotely made any sense to anyone at all, you could get a score around 23-24 IIRC. I saw many small Boys and Girls Clubs type of corps in the Garden State Circuit around 1995-1996 and I can tell you none of them would have deserved a sub-10 number at their very worst. I can't even imagine what went on to get that kind of number. Maybe some penalties!?!?!?

I'm sorry BigW, but I have been trying and trying and I just can't figure it out. What the heck is "IIRC"? I'm sure it's something obvious but you used it in response to one of my posts and I didn't want to look like an idiot asking, so I didn't. Now you used it again and I just can't stand it! What am I missing (besides the boat)

Dan