Score Rollercoaster

[gabe211]

Here's a cool little website for scores. Not as detailed as BK's but prettier :)

http://ranzha.cubing.net/dci/world.html

[nhsalan]

I was laughing with some "experienced friends" that I teach with the other day about folks freaking out about scores dropping or gaining outside of what people see as the "normal" progression of several tenths to a point on any given day.

I went back and checked some score archives and saw times in the 80's when top six corps fluctuated by as much as 4 or 5 points over the course of a day or two. That was looking at DCI shows only (not regional show scores (i.e. DCM, DCS, DCE, DCW), compared to DCI scores). Some of the lower placing corps saw fluctuations even greater than that over the course of a few days.

In that era, we didn't have the internet for instant comparison of shows and recaps. The current internet junkie fans would be calling for heads to roll were scores to fluctuate by those amounts today. If the scores DON'T fluctuate, people complain about slotting, if they DO fluctuate, people scream of a conspiracy to push one corps or keep another down.

Just find the whole thing rather humorous when taken in the perspective of a 30 plus year career in the activity.

Back to your regularly scheduled discussion.

[drumcorpsfever]

Where everything is made up and the scores don't matter!

[BDCorno]

Back when I judged in the mid 1980's, we did an interesting exercise in which we watched a number of corps across the spectrum of excellence and scored them. It became very plain to see that there was less disagreement in terms of score, the better the group. "Box 5" type groups had very slim variance from judge to judge, and once you got down in the "Box 3 units", scores really deviated wildly. The lesson is that it takes more evaluative and observational skill to deal with groups that had multiple flaws. Easy to pick out a missed note here or a bit of intonation there, when the group had very little to criticize. Same thing applied to winter guards. Judges really earn (or not earn) their money trying to make sense of, and fairly score, a mediocre group. The criteria and "box" system is designed to help prevent too much variance, but there is a hell of a lot of scoring room in that middle range.

For example, friend of mine has a kid who marches in the Colts, and they had a span already in which their score went 64-62-60 over three shows, then 64-65-67-68. Short panels on all the shows, and to be fair to the judges, groups in this range are less consistent with their performance level. There are sooo many factors early season anyway, in terms of stamina, show changes being made, new people being plugged in, logistic issues, etc.. On the judges side, first viewings, first shots at a particular caption/corps for the season, trying to establish some sort of relativity nationally, etc.. I usually take anything before San Antonio with a grain of salt. That's about the time everyone is firing on enough cylinders to get a real comparison.

Edited July 4, 2014 by BDCorno

[GUARDLING]

Back when I judged in the mid 1980's, we did an interesting exercise in which we watched a number of corps across the spectrum of excellence and scored them. It became very plain to see that there was less disagreement in terms of score, the better the group. "Box 5" type groups had very slim variance from judge to judge, and once you got down in the "Box 3 units", scores really deviated wildly. The lesson is that it takes more evaluative and observational skill to deal with groups that had multiple flaws. Easy to pick out a missed note here or a bit of intonation there, when the group had very little to criticize. Same thing applied to winter guards. Judges really earn (or not earn) their money trying to make sense of, and fairly score, a mediocre group. The criteria and "box" system is designed to help prevent too much variance, but there is a hell of a lot of scoring room in that middle range.

For example, friend of mine has a kid who marches in the Colts, and they had a span already in which their score went 64-62-60 over three shows, then 64-65-67-68. Short panels on all the shows, and to be fair to the judges, groups in this range are less consistent with their performance level. There are sooo many factors early season anyway, in terms of stamina, show changes being made, new people being plugged in, logistic issues, etc.. On the judges side, first viewings, first shots at a particular caption/corps for the season, trying to establish some sort of relativity nationally, etc.. I usually take anything before San Antonio with a grain of salt. That's about the time everyone is firing on enough cylinders to get a real comparison.

still pretty much the same as you get in groups the groups tend to have the same pluses and when you get lower the same issues, It can be hard