DCI Judging

[mwetzel1]

Judges are human beings. Even among themselves, they don't often agree on what they like or don't like, which is natural.

If we had 2 separate judging panels in 2 separate and isolated booths evaluating the same 12 Corps performances on a given competition, theoretically the scores, spreads and placements should be the same, correct ?

But they wouldn't be. Sure, among the mix of groupings of 3-4 Corps, they'd probably be grouped together, but otherwise thy'd be wide discepancies in the scores and placements among each grouping in my opinion.

For instance, among the grouping of Boston, Phantom, Blue Stars, Glassmen, in my view we'd see different placements, spreads and scores among the 2 panels.

Same performances..... 2 sets of judges...... different scores.

No conspiracy. All judges experienced and trained well. No favorites. no biases.

Just different likes and dislikes, and different takes on the same show performances, that's all.

Thus, in my view how a Corps does in competition is every bit a function of who the Corps draws as Judges in competition as much as their performance that night.

Can't prove it, obviously... but we can't disprove it either. But if folks think the 2 sets of judges would have these placements and scores and spreads the same among these groupings,in my view they'd find out otherwise. But of course, we'll never really know one way or the other.

But you can check the recaps from San Antonio and expand the GE captions and see that judges judging the same caption indeed have different placements. Sometimes by as much as two spots.

[oldschooldbc]

Each year, there is always some discussion about a slotting conspiracy among DCI judges. If 2008 was not proof enough, I think this year is reasonably strong evidence that the judges do not slot, nor are halos granted to last year's champion. I know it is fun to have a conspiracy story, but seriously, DCI judges can pick out winners (even if a large portion of judging is subjective).

I see far more potential for this in the GE category, than in music or visual, especially in visual.

In visual, if there is poor carriage, footwork, alignment, spacing, etc. it is easy to spot. If a diagonal is out of alignment, or if the marchers are phasing out of tempo, it is wrong. So unless Mr. Magoo is up in the judging box, you should get a fair score.

In music, if there is poor pitch, balance, volume, tempo, etc., then professional judges can pick that out. If the score call for a B-sharp and someone plays a C, it is wrong. So unless Ludwig van Beethoven (after he went deaf) is in the box, you will get a fair score.

But GE is so very subjective. If there is any slotting going on, it is probably in that category.

Many High School associations forbid the use of GE in the judging process, because of its subjectivity. In Texas, the UIL contests do not use GE; the bands are evaluated solely on execution, not on effect. Judges aren't even supposed to use degree of difficulty, as part of the process, when judging execution.

In Texas, we have a joke: a band could march around in a big square for 9 minutes, play "Mary Had A Little Lamb", and win the state championship. (Actually, this is not far off from the truth. I once saw a band play "Jingle Bells" and "Take me out to the ball game" for their UIL show. They earned a 1 for superior performance. And GE was not part of the scoring system. What a joke.)

I would hate to see DCI or BOA go that far, but I think they need to do all that is possible, to remove subjectivity from the process. DCI needs to encourage corps to give exciting, dynamic performances - while still make the process as fair as possible.

[BRASSO]

Each year, there is always some discussion about a slotting conspiracy among DCI judges. If 2008 was not proof enough, I think this year is reasonably strong evidence that the judges do not slot, nor are halos granted to last year's champion. I know it is fun to have a conspiracy story, but seriously, DCI judges can pick out winners (even if a large portion of judging is subjective).

Disagree. If we had 2 separate judging panels both in isolation from one another judging a competition, they'd be different scores and placements, particularly among Corps that tend to be close to one another in placements and scores.

Why do I believe this ?

Well, my belief is that among the 8 judges in each panel ( total 16 judges ), we'd have some of the judges agree, but it is mathematically probable that at least TWO of the judges judging a similar caption would have very divergent opinions and scores, and that this would alter the placements, scores and spreads among the two separate 8 judge panels. I mean this is only logical. Perhaps 5-6 judges judging the SAME caption among the 2 panels would agree, but at least one, maybe more, would simply disagree and by a lot in their evaluation of the same performances by the same corps, on the same night. And thus, the placement scores and spreads would be different re. the same Corps being judged in competition on the same night. So, it seems to me that who a Corps draws on the judging panel is every bit as impactful on that corps placement and score as was their performance, and that this would not be conspiratorial, but simply a natural occurance that one could, and should ,expect.

Edited July 21, 2009 by BRASSO

[corpsband]

Disagree. If we had 2 separate judging panels both in isolation from one another judging a competition, they'd be different scores and placements, particularly among Corps that tend to be close to one another in placements and scores.

Why do I believe this ?

THIS I BELIEVE! I think your half-right (ah that's better!). The scores would be different but I think the placements would (mostly) remain the same. There may be one or two corps who are so closely matched that the exchange spots but IMHO that does not indicate a problem with the judging. It just reveal that it is indeed subjective.

[2000Cadet]

Maybe DCI should have robots as judges. Perhaps they can be more objective than mere humans (unless there's a glitch in their program which makes them subjective).

[soccerguy315]

Maybe DCI should have robots as judges. Perhaps they can be more objective than mere humans (unless there's a glitch in their program which makes them subjective).

"X corps is still looking for 1 tuba, 2 baritones, 1 mallet percussionist, and 1 computer hacker to hack the judging robots..."

[GGarrett]

Maybe DCI should have robots as judges. Perhaps they can be more objective than mere humans (unless there's a glitch in their program which makes them subjective).

This is not far from what i truly suggested a few years ago... ... sadly the technology is far from being created.

[BRASSO]

Maybe DCI should have robots as judges. Perhaps they can be more objective than mere humans (unless there's a glitch in their program which makes them subjective).

My guess, if we had robots as judges, the 2006 Cavaliers would have been the first Corps in DCI history to score a perfect score of 100.000 with " The Machine ".

Edited July 21, 2009 by BRASSO

[Jeff Ream]

honestly, what we;'ve seen the last 2 years is a better crop of talent top to bottom coupled with better design and the ability to make good fixes along the way. with those two things, you see more shuffling of placements day to day than we're used to.

[Josiahsop08]

Slotting and Seeding aren't the same thing. Both happen, but are different. Seeding implies that a judge with use one corps as a benchmark and then add or subtract tenths for the following corps to get their placements right (horrible practice but totally FACT and apparent). Slotting is the assumption that corps A is better than corps B, therefore their seeding should follow accordingly. This should be illegal - period.

If a judge sat there watching and judging the show, then read the back of the sheet and applied a number based on those observations that matched the actual box criteria ..... you would have bigger point spreads ... more ties in subcaptions .... and a lot more to complain about when recaps are released. At least it would be an accurate and fair assessment of what the judge actually saw and heard rather than a comparison to the corps who went on before or after them. The game is stacked from the getgo .... just based on the order of performance.

Surely, if a corps was last years champ and comes out way off the mark ... I can see the corps getting real numbers (for a couple of weeks - then ranking comes into play). If that same corps comes out and is just as good as they usually are, the same game goes into effect and there's no questions asked. This results in very little shakeup in the top 7 or so. Some of them might flip a spot or two, but that's about it.

The last thing to remember, the top 4 corps are all splitting caption wins. Although a BD might be ahead of the pack by 1.65 that doesn't mean they're locked. It means that the top 4 corps are so strong that whomever get's the cleanest and sells the show the best will be the champ. Everything below 3rd place is slot and rank. Sorry but history supports this.

at troop a judge told our caption head at the Atlanta show we have to get box 4 to receive box 3 in brass the judge said "Brass just isnt your thing". But really? if Jim Jones heard this he would be spinning in his grave! thats not what Jim jones wanted when coming up with the idea for dci! Judges have the idea certain corps should be scoring low because they did in the past and are afraid to shake things up. Thank goodness troop is actually getting what they deserve possibly a spot in finals! :doh:

Edited July 21, 2009 by Josiahsop08