"Glide-Pathing" or, IOW, "Position Slotting"

[garfield]

But our fans are louder so we deserve it.

It's not about you or your corps or whether or not you deserve it.

(And Madison's fans are louder, BTW.)

[GUARDLING]

This is something I've noticed for years. I used to track the scores in a spreadsheet and graph the progression throughout the season, and it becomes very clear there.

I think it would strike an outsider as ridiculous that no matter where they start, the scores just magically move along until finals night, when the top corps in each caption is just magically at or near a perfect score.

What would happen if we suddenly decided to add 3 weeks to the season? Would the top 10 or so corps, who end up with scores of 100, truly all be equal to each other? I don't think so.

Yes corps get better, At the rate of scores moving especially at a certain time in the season? maybe, maybe not, do they automatically move? sure, do corps get better, well one hopes so. We put way to much weight on the actual number verses the actual spreads or placements. Numbers are only numbers. Does anyone really believe any corps of 150 people only makes less than 10 errors in design or presentation to score a 99 or above? hardly.

[corpsband]

...and unless 'x' happens, or until 'y' happens, they proceed along the same glidepath per slot to finals night?

It appears to be not just the leading corps, it's all corps in all slots. If that's a correct assessment, judges need to be concerned for their jobs because this whole thing, therefor, can be pretty easily computerized and DCI would save tons of money not paying judges.

Is there any provision for "IMO, the whole group of corps sucks this year (like the first year of widespread A&E) so I'm going to mark them all down"?

Shouldn't there be?

i know you want more variability but:

there 150 members on the field - individual errors don't necessary accumulate into ensemble errors

judging is subjective

judges are human. like everyone, they see the world through the lens of their own personal makeup, experience, and beliefs.

there is probably a built-in limit to how much improvement a given corps can make per tour day.

it's not surprising that scoring has a rate limit.

judges are still told rank first then rate

most of the membership is already arriving pre-trained from HS marching bands, dampening the variability you might see with a population that contained more true rookies

there are probably many other factors i'm forgetting.

in any case conspiracies are notoriously difficult to hide.

Edited July 26, 2016 by corpsband

[BRASSO]

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What would happen if we suddenly decided to add 3 weeks to the season? Would the top 10 or so corps, who end up with scores of 100, truly all be equal to each other? I don't think so.

Also... what would happen if the Blue Devils went to Costa Rica from June 15th to August 6th. They did community outreach during the day, practiced intensely their field show every evening. Then got on a plane August 7th, flew to Indy, and went to Quarters, and competed in their season's 1st show. What score would they get ? If BD is like most years, we'd have to believe they'd score somewhere at least in the mid 90's or so... even if they never competed against anyone till these Quarters. The mid 90's would be a pretty good score for the 1st show of the season by a Corps, no ?

Edited July 26, 2016 by BRASSO

[ShortAndFast]

That's exactly the question: What is the cause when the annual correlation is so high?

DCI judges can look at the calendar just as well as you and I can. Everyone expects that the winner in mid-August is going to be around a 98 and that's exactly what happens. There's little point in a scoring system that is not calibrated to this year's performances. The adjudication decisions are 1) who wins, 2) how big are the spreads to the subsequent units.

I think you know all this! What's the question you're really trying to ask?

[emc2]

But our fans are louder so we deserve it.

That is interesting at tanglewood do you play ex/loud loud, or do you adjust the sound for people to enjoy.

[Ghost]

That is interesting at tanglewood do you play ex/loud loud, or do you adjust the sound for people to enjoy.

?

[RedTeam]

What I am growing tired of seeing is that the same 12 corps going to finals every year and much is based on this type of scoring. DCI says they want to grow drum corps, but they are driving these kids to NOT be loyal and stay with one corps during their drum corps career. As the kids see it, they may start out in one of the typical bottom seven corps, but if you want to perform on finals night, you need to move to another corps. That doesn't grow the sport of drum corps, it only grows the top 6 or 7 corps. My son marches for Colts and another member went to Cadets this year for that reason. My son is actually a better player and marcher, so in reality, can make it in one of the top corps. But, he loves the staff and family feel of the Colts. However, with the way they score, they tend to start everyone within a point or 2 of where they were at the start of the prior season. So the lower corps can NEVER catch up, no matter how much they improve. It is especially frustrating to the corps that fall in the 13 and 14 spot each year which is where the Colts fall most years.

Now, I'm not an expert, but I believe The Academy has a top 12 show this year. Will the judges deny the Scouts, Boston Crusaders or the Crossmen a spot? I'm not sure. I guess we will see.

[Ghost]

Looking at the numbers of each placement, and forgetting the corps in each spot, it's pretty clear to me that the judges are "glide-pathing" the final scores to be within a percentage point or so of the placement scores from last year. IOW, pushing the scores along throughout the season on a glide-path that will let them end up close to last year. DrumCorpsRadio's columns 'C' and 'H' show how remarkably close each position is to last year's position scores. It appears that we can say with a high degree of confidence that the 2016 winner will score 97.6 to 97.7.

I'm not interested in doing the sweat equity, but, if someone took some corps and wrote down their first and last show scores going back 4-5 years, is there a chance those corps would seem to gain about the same number of points over a season?

[skevinp]

DCI judges can look at the calendar just as well as you and I can. Everyone expects that the winner in mid-August is going to be around a 98 and that's exactly what happens. There's little point in a scoring system that is not calibrated to this year's performances. The adjudication decisions are 1) who wins, 2) how big are the spreads to the subsequent units.

I think you know all this! What's the question you're really trying to ask?

I can't speak for anyone else, but a concern I have always had about it is that the trajectory ends too close to 100, not leaving judges enough room to maneuver by championships.

Also the attenuated and floating nature of the scoring range means that the top x corps are scored within a range of x points or so, which also does not leave the judges much room to work between corps.

Perhaps they have reasons to prefer it this way, though. If corps, judges, and DCI are all happy with it, I am happy to defer to their judgment.