judges

[SomeOtherJoe]

I honestly thought that Steve's scores tonight must have been "refreshing". There were certainly some things jumbled up compared to what most might have expected, IMO. I did not see the show, but I also don't see anything that should have led you to your opinion. either.

I'm curious what you thought was "jumbled up."

[Cardman]

Answer: Yes, there is favoritism among the judges. They are human, after all. Everyone has their preferences.

[jwillis35]

Heck yea there is favoritism. Just look at the scores. That's simple. There's favoritism from: Name recognition, and historically good corps. Why you think since 2003 there's only been 4 champions?

I personally wish it wasn't this way, but of course it's not gonna change. It's sad that they don't really care about the lower corps...so they just give them a score, and say who cares who gets the 10th-12th spot.

This is REALLY inaccurate. It's not DCI's job to spread the wealth at whatever cost. That would be a lie and a gift to corps that don't deserve it. Despite the talk of slotting and favoritism, not much of that shows up on the sheets. But clearly it's not the job of DCI to make sure everybody gets their turn so we have more champions. The Blue Devils have 13 titles, Cadets 9, Cavaliers 7, SCV 6. Each of these corps won titles with incredible performances, regardless of whether you like the show.

You may not agree with the scores, and there are years where I don't as well, but that's not an issue of slotting or favoritism or just "hey, let's let so and so win." That is a product of the scoring system where the collective body of judges have determined the score of one over the other.

You may think it's more democratic when there is more parody and more people winning, but in reality if that was taking place due to a lie, just to let it happen and have more winners, then politically it becomes more of a monarchy or dictatorship where placements are assigned and corps are told to like it, regardless of how good they might be. It's a funny thing about policy, we often think we are being more democratic and caring of all when we think this way; "hey it's frank's turn, and how about Fred, he should win next, and then Sue, yeah in two years that should be Sue's year." Ahhh! Aren't we so nice? Yes. But not democratic anymore. The later constitutes feel-good dictatorship where placings are granted, not earned, based on want or need, not performance on the field.

It's not a feel-good game. It's a competition. Points must be earned on the field. So do it better than others.

[dcibrando]

I know some of the judges have corps they like and some they dislike more than others (just like we do)... does it factor into their judging at times, who knows... maybe so.

I've always wondered what would happen if at one show the lineups/order of performance changed, no corps name was announced, and they were all in the same tshirts or something... what the difference in scoring would be.

[PeeJay]

I do not believe judges favor a corps. They judge what they see. And that comes from someone who isn't exactly happy about the scores his corps is receiving now. It's easy to criticize these people. Why don't some of the people posting here try to judge next season?

[littlebirdy]

This is not jsut about him, it's about all judges and all the instrument makers.

And there's the hard part. Those guys make the best judges! I would prefer if every judge were an extremely knowledgeable person in their field, with a possible company bias, than a shmoe who aged-out of corps x and took judging classes.

I know that each judge is knowledgeable, but there is a reason judges get let go from year to year, right? People on DCP are studying what judge is judging which caption and who they like and how that is going to play into the ranks and the scores and blah, blah, blah. The casual drum corps fans in the stands don't care, and neither should we. It's fine to see it and go "Wow! Experienced guys! Cool." But crazy to look at a line of judges and say "O, Cavaliers are going to win today."

Point: Let's just assume judges are unbiased until proven otherwise.

[GUARDLING]

I know some of the judges have corps they like and some they dislike more than others (just like we do)... does it factor into their judging at times, who knows... maybe so.

I've always wondered what would happen if at one show the lineups/order of performance changed, no corps name was announced, and they were all in the same tshirts or something... what the difference in scoring would be.

Slight difference I think if any.....I think the only time you would see a switch is in a case that on any given night it could have switched any way ( In other words corps close to begin with.)

[Plan9]

This is REALLY inaccurate. It's not DCI's job to spread the wealth at whatever cost. That would be a lie and a gift to corps that don't deserve it. Despite the talk of slotting and favoritism, not much of that shows up on the sheets. But clearly it's not the job of DCI to make sure everybody gets their turn so we have more champions. The Blue Devils have 13 titles, Cadets 9, Cavaliers 7, SCV 6. Each of these corps won titles with incredible performances, regardless of whether you like the show.

You may not agree with the scores, and there are years where I don't as well, but that's not an issue of slotting or favoritism or just "hey, let's let so and so win." That is a product of the scoring system where the collective body of judges have determined the score of one over the other.

You may think it's more democratic when there is more parody and more people winning, but in reality if that was taking place due to a lie, just to let it happen and have more winners, then politically it becomes more of a monarchy or dictatorship where placements are assigned and corps are told to like it, regardless of how good they might be. It's a funny thing about policy, we often think we are being more democratic and caring of all when we think this way; "hey it's frank's turn, and how about Fred, he should win next, and then Sue, yeah in two years that should be Sue's year." Ahhh! Aren't we so nice? Yes. But not democratic anymore. The later constitutes feel-good dictatorship where placings are granted, not earned, based on want or need, not performance on the field.

It's not a feel-good game. It's a competition. Points must be earned on the field. So do it better than others.

Spot on!

[RBarron10]

Oh don't get me started on the judges ... if you know me many of you know how I feel about the "guys" in the green shirts. I see scores this year in the lower tier group fluxing 2 or 3 points from one show to another. One night a corps is 6 points behind BD and the next over 9 points. Looks like BD is the early front runner, I"m okay with that, but look at the scores from about a week ago how close the 8-12 tier was and then look at it day by day. A few corps climbed forward and one kept sliding back.

I never have gotten the judges, it's a subjective system, but there is a lot of favortisim in judging and a lot of that has to do with how judges have been treated by certain corps over the years. I call it "Political Performance". You might not agree with me about my feelings about judges, but I've been in this activity touring since 1992 ... what the fans might think is good (and I'm counting HS band directors in that crowd to) ... sometimes (I said sometimes) does not translate to good scores by the judges.

[BOBSMYTH]

...You may think it's more democratic when there is more parody ...

I think that many people would be in favor of more parody.

I always enjoyed both the Bridgemen and VK.