Spartacus Effect?

[Lance]

It's not dishonest to know that, based on scoring criteria, a corps deserves to score above other corps, but to give them a lesser score?

But you're right about one thing. I'm getting to where I don't care about scores at all. I know what I like when I see it and hear it.

[Lance]

It's not really off topic. A lot of people think that unsound judging occured as a result of the Spartacus Effect.

[byline]

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.

Bravo! That's essentially what I was trying to say, but you said it far better than I did.

[Widge]

Many posters seem to be making this far too complicated. As to whether crowd pleasing shows are the way to go , I agree with Rick Valenzuela's philosophy.

At a show there are a dozen judges, and a few thousand fans. If you can leave the field with the few thousand on their feet cheering...then you are probably doing something right.

This seems to be working for Phantom, and Crown. Blue Stars, Bluecoats and g-men also had crowd pleasing shows that scored well in '08 . I for one hope that the trend continues.

[Lance]

This is the last thing I'll say wrt the conversation I've been having with cowtown.

If I'm scoring one of my student's essays, and I willfully give it a lower score than it deserves based on revenge for something completely outside of the scoring rubric, then I'd have no logical choice but to admit that I was being dishonest about the score. That's exactly what madscotty implied: based on scoring criteria, judges knew the score Madison deserved, but chose to vengefully lower that score based on some motive outside of the scoring sheets. It's pretty simple logic.

Anyway, as I've said, I hope Phantom has little effect on the decisions others corps make. I've explained why a few times.

[cowtown]

It's not dishonest to know that, based on scoring criteria, a corps deserves to score above other corps, but to give them a lesser score?

No, they didn’t meet the criteria successfully or as fully compared to others...it really become circular. There are so many factors in a score you can pretty much justify anything (with in reason).

[cowtown]

outside of the scoring sheets. It's pretty simple logic.

OK, now I see where you are hung up, nothing is outside the scoring sheets even if it’s not specifically listed on the sheet. Right or wrong is another debate.

[Lance]

No, they didn’t meet the criteria successfully or as fully compared to others...it really become circular. There are so many factors in a score you can pretty much justify anything (with in reason).

Then that would be based on scoring criteria, and completely justified. It would not be a lowered score based on revenge if it can be justified with scoring sheets.

Your logic is sound for what you're saying, but madscotty said something completely different.

[cowtown]

Madscotty is in phase 2, anger. I’ve moved on to stage 5, acceptance.

[Richard]

Many posters seem to be making this far too complicated. As to whether crowd pleasing shows are the way to go , I agree with Rick Valenzuela's philosophy.

At a show there are a dozen judges, and a few thousand fans. If you can leave the field with the few thousand on their feet cheering...then you are probably doing something right.

This seems to be working for Phantom, and Crown. Blue Stars, Bluecoats and g-men also had crowd pleasing shows that scored well in '08 . I for one hope that the trend continues.

You need to take into consideration that "crowd-pleasing" is about 8,000 times more subjective than the current DCI judging system. The judges at least judge based on the criteria on the sheets. The crowd judges on what appeals to them personally. There's a HUGE difference there.

@byline: I agree that what you've pointed out appears to be a major flaw in the DCI judging system. However, when a staff enters critique after getting a sheet with a lower-than-expected number on it, the first thing they want to know is "Why are we getting this number?" If the judges do not provide any feedback on the show, then they cannot answer this question. The staff is left with a potentially mysterious shortcoming in their program that it may take them a few days to diagnose, provided they can recognize it. You make it sound like judges go into critique and say "restage the trumpets for their feature in the 2nd production". At the next show if it's restaged, +0.5, if it's not -0.5. Good judges won't judge like that. Perhaps the staff feels that the trumpets did not perform their feature very well that night and a better performance will alleviate some of the design questions. Or maybe the colorguard blew off some forms that ruined the staging. At the next show, with nothing changed except performance level, the scores should improve provided there are quality judges. I'm not saying this is always the case, I'm just trying to play devil's advocate. The influence of a single judge is not as cut-and-dry as you make it sound. Ultimately, as MikeD said, it's at the staff's discretion as to whether they change something as a result of a score/critique they received.

This requires faith in the judging community, which, from the looks of this thread, is significantly lacking here on DCP. Sure, politics will always play a part and no judge is perfect, but on the whole they do a pretty good job. I liken it to MLB umpiring, where no ump's strike zone is perfect, but overall they get the majority of the calls correct. Isn't that the best we can ask for?