Spartacus Effect?

[Lance]

madscotty, again, you saig this:

Madisons placements were bumped down 2 slots at finals by the judges as revenge

Is it possible for judges to vengefully bump Madison down 2 slots at finals without it being inherently dishonest or cheating?

[cowtown]

DCI influence judges, judges influence corps, corps influence DCI repeat

What mad Scotty is putting on the judges might be better put on those that hire, train, assign and retrain (or not) the judges and the DCI culture in general.

It really comes back to the OP topic on this thread, if there wasn’t a culture that rewarded trends, hence influenced, show designs we wouldn’t be talking about ‘spartacus effect’ nor would be see all the band wagon – copy cat shows. So either DCI does dictate through the judges, placements what they want to see and will reward or most of the show designers are creatively bankrupt rip-off artist.

placements are usually correct (more so than spreads) and most fans that have a few years under their belts can see this on the field. It’s really obvious. Where it gets tricky is within the pack or tiers of corps and deciding those placements order (kind of like 12-14 last year). Then you need a better eye, ear and a good sense of judging to notice any editorial meddling in placements. Still, when they are close, it’s so subjective that it almost becomes arbitrary and that’s assuming you can filter out personal basis. I know in my mind who got the benefit of the doubt last year and who didn’t in a few tight placements….and I can also come up with the ‘political correlation’ off the field that I think would ‘justify’ those nods and knocks.

judges are human, anyone that has marched will know that some judges seem to love you on the sheets as others seem to hate you but usually within a narrow acdceptable range. and anyone with a long enough history in this activity will see some nonsensical placements and understand that it’s all part of that wonderful world of pageantry judging. Here’s an example I use often to describe that, Nancy Kerrigan (the ice skater) had bad teeth early in her career – her score and placements shot way up once see got them fixed. That may seem unfair as her teeth had little to do with how she skated or the show she skated but in reality, it was just a part of the entire package. She then met the image that USA skating wanted to promote with her as their champion, her theeth were political. And yeah, I did just compare DCI to dirty skating judging –that’s the danger as skating still hasn’t really recovered yet. Again, the judges are not going to radically decide shows and put a 10th place show in 4th but they can and do gently influence the activity on behalf of DCI (the corps that have the power and votes and the direction they want to move DCI towards).

This sort of collusion is difficult to prove, not really sure it needs to be proved, its pageantry judging after all. If you look at judges that diverged from the system/ placements and were let go as DCI judges, DCI will say their divergence showed they couldn’t judge correctly while the judges will say DCI is rigged and didn’t like them calling it as they saw it. Who do you want to believe?

I always find it odd that by season’s end, scores settle for the most part across all captions in placement. In sports you often see anomalies – like the 20th rank football team will be 4th in QB sacks because they had a great line coach. You get very few of those in DCI.

Personally, my main concern with the judging is how it effects the activity and how it’s sold to the kids and not so much placements for specific corps

If you are in this for scores and placements, get out now because as some point you will be burned. Period.

(1995 was a funny years for placements, I’d put Devils in first with what they did on the field but that was not a very Disney show )

[cowtown]

madscotty, again, you saig this:

Is it possible for judges to vengefully bump Madison down 2 slots at finals without it being inherently dishonest or cheating?

yes

[BillH]

yes

How? Please elaborate.

[Lance]

yes

After thinking about it, I guess it's possible that it wasn't "cheating," because scores are given at the judges' discretion...though I think that if you asked most judges if vengefully choosing to score a corps lower than they deserved was cheating, they'd say yes.

There's no way around it being dishonest though. In order to score somebody lower than they deserve, you have to go against what you know to be true.

Again, madscotty's statement was this:

Madisons placements were bumped down 2 slots at finals by the judges as revenge

I'd like to think that judge's aren't that petty, but madscotty may very well be right. I'm not against him saying what he thinks, but I also appreciate it when people own up to what they say rather than demanding apologies for somebody else calling them out on it.

[cowtown]

See my post above-above, its all part of pageantry judging – a show doesn’t met the criterion of the direction that the activity wants to move itself so it fails within the context of the greater organization/ activity and gets dinged in placement

DCI decides what is wants to be and rewards those that attempt to achieve it

Vengefully even works for me…if they are bucking trends and currents DCI vengefully rewards them

don't know if its right or wrong but it is

[Lance]

That may very well be true, cowtown, but it doesn't have anything to do with whether or not madscotty was implying cheating and dishonesty on the judges' parts.

[chaos001]

[cowtown]

After thinking about it, I guess it's possible that it wasn't "cheating," because scores are given at the judges' discretion...though I think that if you asked most judges if vengefully choosing to score a corps lower than they deserved was cheating, they'd say yes.

There's no way around it being dishonest though. In order to score somebody lower than they deserve, you have to go against what you know to be true.

Again, madscotty's statement was this:

I'd like to think that judge's aren't that petty, but madscotty may very well be right. I'm not against him saying what he thinks, but I also appreciate it when people own up to what they say rather than demanding apologies for somebody else calling them out on it.

It’s not cheating or dishonest; it’s maintaining the integrity of the activity

The only ones that might be cheated are the people that don’t understand this and that’s on them for thinking otherwise – it’s also very dangerous to DCI because most fans and MMs think the system is fair / merit based....DCI does nothing to dispel this, it could blow up on them if they radically blow it – it seems you are becoming aware this, I call it 'the age that scores don’t matter’ (but they always kind of matter…different topic) and given long enough around this activity, we all get to that age

[byline]

what i have said, repeatedly, is that judges feel that part of their job is to steer corps staffs to designs they approve of. this is something you seem to agree on, having said you seek out judges opinions and use them to shape your own show design. i think it's bad, because it does affect fair play (judges shouldn't be invested in product, only in adjudicating performance), and becauise it limits the pool of minds who can influence design, and thus limits creativity. i attribute this not too cheating, but too a culture that stifles creativity.

I agree. As I said before, when I described the critique system to a figure skating judge, her eyebrows just about flew off her forehead. As she correctly pointed out, how can it not be a conflict of interest to have the very people who are supposed to be judging a program, and doing that with as much objectivity as is humanly possible, be the same people who are advising corps staff as to what the content of their show should be? And, if the staff don't make those "suggested" changes, then those same people punish them with their scores? Or reward the ones who do take them up on it? It's amazing that more people don't see the inherent flaws with that type of system. Judges should be "hands-off" when it comes to advising corps on the content of their shows. They should, simply, be adjudicating what they see and hear on the field, not playing a direct role in what is actually performed on the field.