WGI CG judging problems vis-a-vis DCI CG judging this summer?

[xandandl]

With all but the TOB CG's just about wrapped up, DCI CG last auditions and camps swing into full gear this week to meet their brass and percussion lines in pre-tour Spring Trainings next month.

Meanwhile, the judging community has its own hassles to balance given some of the scoring and ways to the numbers distributed this weekend. While top units flip-flopped by tenths here and there, a perview of the recaps show quite the roller coaster between judges doing the same caption in the same set of the same class for other units..

One has a unit as fourth in class, the other as nineteenth. Sounds like the old VFW and AL conventions that DCI sought to avoid back in '72. Has judging really become more consistent, particularly in amorphous considerations like "dance," "movement," and "general effect?"

Although DCI is supposedly a separate organization, the CG caption parrots WGI terminology, definition, and assessment both by statute and by the personalities who judge both organizations. As some DCP posters this winter have been citing so and so is teaching such and such in WGI so that means this corps or that will have a better guard, doesn't it logically follow that the inconsistencies of WGI will shadow into summer numbers for DCI as these same judges will be used?

Yes, this is a speculative thread for your discussion and opinion. Here's a guard with whom I have no affiliation and the numbers from the Finals recap. Quite a hill and valley tour for sure. Will DCI judging be different???

Caption I, with 2 judges caption II, with 2 judges caption III, with 2 judges ...four judges assessing GE

S HS 87 9 86 10 17.30 10 81 19 83 15 16.40 17 16.85 14 85 14 84 14 16.90 14 82 19 83 17 16.50 18 16.70 16 86 16 86 13 17.20 14 89 10 89 9 17.80 10 17.50 11 81 19 95 4 17.60 9 84 18 83 18 16.70 18 83 17 84 16 16.70 17 84 17 86 9 17.00 12 34.00 14 85.050 15 0 0.00 85.050

Edited April 11, 2016 by xandandl

[mingusmonk]

I'm not involved in guard. But I can say what has been directed on the percussion side of things (with the advent of 2 distinct GE judges in perc, this has been a topic of sorts).

"Don't focus on the higher number (or the better ordinal). The higher number is no more or less accurate that the lower number. The averaged final number is the accurate number! This is why we added more judges! Consistency!"

Make of it what you will.

Edited April 11, 2016 by mingusmonk

[xandandl]

I'm not involved in guard. But I can say what has been directed on the percussion side of things (with the advent of 2 distinct GE judges in perc, this has been a topic of sorts).

"Don't focus on the higher number (or the better ordinal). The higher number is no more or less accurate that the lower number. The averaged final number is the accurate number! This is why we added more judges! Consistency!"

Make of it what you will.

your point is germane.

But DCI onlyuses one judge for a section of the corps which is sometimes as much as almost 1/3 of the corps. Variance as given in the OP would mean one contest up and one contest down.

What would be the consistency you speak of if applied to DCI? Same placement every contest? Doesn't the presume some pre-judging?

[BRASSO]

No, one can not state there is any improvement in the judging system used today than in the pre DCI years. This is because there is no compelling evidence that the judges of today are any more likely to agree in their scores and placements any more than they struggled with in the pre DCI years. One look at the DCI recaps from last season and we have ample evidence on many occasions of judges evaluating the same caption in a show having completely dissimilar evaluations from one another. Not unusual, as they are being asked to judge completely dissimilar performances, and units do not perform similar works to be judged. Its all pretty subjective really. And once we introduce the element of politics into the equation, it makes the scoring and placements pretty much a totem pole where the 95% of all the units are pretty much locked into placement positions within 2 or 3 placement positions of the pfrevious season..... despite the wholesale turnovers of thousands of marchers among all the competing units most seasons.

Edited April 11, 2016 by BRASSO

[Tobias]

Not sure their is a way to control it. They are opinions from individuals and we ALL have our tastes. Big shows are a task for judges as they must really try to evaluate and rank lots of groups. Throw in some big performance inconsistencies (amazing runs, terrible runs) and the judges task can be daunting. Overall the more judges, the more things even out. Another huge issue is this small of community of instructors off season who are DCI judges judging their colleagues' corps in the summer can create alliances perhaps even indirectly that affect their general impressions, scoring especially at the top where the groups are so ridiculously strong.

[xandandl]

No, one can not state there is any improvement in the judging system used today than in the pre DCI years. This is because there is no compelling evidence that the judges of today are any more likely to agree in their scores and placements any more than they struggled with in the pre DCI years. One look at the DCI recaps from last season and we have ample evidence on many occasions of judges evaluating the same caption in a show having completely dissimilar evaluations from one another. Not unusual, as they are being asked to judge completely dissimilar performances, and units do not perform similar works to be judged. Its all pretty subjective really. And once we introduce the element of politics into the equation, it makes the scoring and placements pretty much a totem pole where the 95% of all the units are pretty much locked into placement positions within 2 or 3 placement positions of the pfrevious season..... despite the wholesale turnovers of thousands of marchers among all the competing units most seasons.

I don't know what happened here but this quote attributed to me is nothing I have said.

[BRASSO]

I don't know what happened here but this quote attributed to me is nothing I have said.

For the record, those were MY words, not Xandandl.. My mistake in the bracketing snafu with the posting I did. I screwed up. My apologies to x and to all.

Edited April 11, 2016 by BRASSO

[N.E. Brigand]

My mistake in the bracketing snafu

I thought all the bracket-busting was done for this year.

[xandandl]

I thought all the bracket-busting was done for this year.

Yes Villanova!

Now, Go Islanders!!!

Hurry up with announcements Cadets.

[Pete Freedman]

- IMO the main purpose of judging is to motivate corps members to excellence. Accuracy is primarily important to achieve that end. In other words, accuracy isn't as important is people think. DCI should always seek to improve accuracy, but not if that effort creates conflict that undermines corps members' experience. This new rule seems likely to risk undermining motivation if the scores appear to be arbitrary. It's an unnecessary risk on DCI's part.

- Judges are human. Pick two experienced piano teachers and have them judge 12 top pianists on difficulty and execution. Demand and Achievement, whatever you want to call it. Their results will correlate (hopefully!) but not perfectly. And I think the difference between judges is easily enough to change placements a bit. So judges are a bit humble and defer in part to earlier judges decisions - thus committing a little bit of prior performance bias.

So, should judges be denied knowledge of prior performance in order to force them to be brutally honest, but inconsistent? I don't know. 2017 will be the first year the corps members will march knowing how inaccurate the judges were this year (will have been, for grammar nazis).

On the other hand the judges will have the aggregate brass/percussion/visual/GE scores (or some such) to base their bias on. So we may see the captions within each of these areas merging to be more similar than they were in the past.

Anyway, if accuracy/honesty undermines student faith in the system, then many will wish this hadn't been done.

Edit: clarification.

Edited April 12, 2016 by Pete Freedman