Poll: Should the 'q' call for jumps be eliminated?

[VGThuy]

The author of this article is among the crazy Fanyu bunch on Twitter (who just wished "bad karma" on U. S. skaters) so it's not surprising at all. I do think the q thing needs to go though as it's very prone to be abused.

The Q seemed like some weird idea they had where they thought skaters should have another call that wasn’t too harsh (which kind of tells us they’re starting to think the overemphasis on quarter rotation is overtaking every other thing that is important in a jump and in skating), but now it is being used as a substitute when they think the jump is clean enough but want to see lower GOEs where in the past a skater would have probably received no call at all since the benefit of the doubt would have went their way.

 

[AngieNikodinovLove (ANL)]

And while we’re at it I would love to just get rid of the underrotations and downgrades as well.

Let’s just create a new element.... jump/spin combo

 

[Vagabond]

The Q is arbitrary, capricious, and infuriating and will probably be around forever.

 

[zigzig]

It's just another way to manipulate scoring and is used super arbitrarily with no rhyme or reason. DUMP IT.

 

[Marco]

I think it's insane to invent a tag so exact but not require some technology to make the call. I simply feel there are more q's because callers felt they weren't sure whether to call those jumps full or <, so they met half way, give themselves buffer to avoid challenge.

 

[misskarne]

It should be scrapped and the calling rules revert to the 2018-2019 rules, which were spot on.

Not calling < and << correctly only serves to punish good technique and we just shouldn't be aiming for that.

But it also requires a wide-scale change in attitude including in the fandom. Too many times the reaction to a known strict tech specialist is "oh no, my UR-ing fave is going to get hurt!" rather than "yesssss, accurate calling!"

 

[Karen-W]

But it also requires a wide-scale change in attitude including in the fandom. Too many times the reaction to a known strict tech specialist is "oh no, my UR-ing fave is going to get hurt!" rather than "yesssss, accurate calling!"

No, what it requires is a change of attitude on the part of the ISU and ALL tech panels, plus the judges, to make sure that jumps are accurately called at every single event. As many others have pointed out, leaving this in the hands of human beings results in fans snarking, rightly so, about human error and biases sneaking into the calling of the elements as well as the application of GOE.

Seriously, it cannot be that difficult to come up with the technology necessary to correctly assess rotation and eliminate so much of this ridiculous bickering among fans.

 

[On My Own]

Why does it matter if the attitudes of the fans changes or not? It's just a sport and those attitudes can be ignored.

 

[Deleted member 221]

I continue to push back at the idea of putting jump entries and rotations under a microscope of false precision, while ignoring pretty much everything else. Inflated GOEs and PCS are a far bigger problem than jump rotations and takeoff edges, IMO.

I'd like to see more transparency in the scoring system overall before we continue hyper-focusing on jumps.
E.g., have the callers identify which features a skater received credit for. Instead of level 1, 2, 3, 4 - call out the specific features, which can be numbered. E.g., LSp134 (instead of level 3) or LSp1346 (instead of level 4). The skater knows what they did and did not get credit for. Instead of giving a GOE, judges could check the boxes corresponding to things like difficult entry, exceptional height, etc. So you'd see 3Lz and then a series of numbers from each judge.

I'm not sure what to do about PCS, other than independent judges separate from the tech panel and perhaps a couple of judges devoted only to a single component.

Why are we obsessing if (for example) Trusova's quad lutz is pre-rotated, but ignoring that her transitions score seems to magically increase with each quad she does?

 

[olympic]

I am glad that there is a poll on 'q' because I had been thinking about it.

GET RID OF IT! It is a call based solely on a quarter turn, theoretically nothing more and nothing less, which is so limited and stupid because < or << will already catch the insufficient jumps (of course, if properly used). It is also another rule that can be politicized - In summary, little benefit and a lot of downside.

The ISU should instead pass a rule to decouple PCS not only from TES, but the different components themselves, so it is possible to have wildly varying scores in SS, TR, CH, IN. The only way to effectively combat what Eteri has wrought. IOW, skaters like Kaori, Mai could theoretically play catch up with a skater like Trusova in their overall scores, who would outscore in TES but the JPN ladies can come back in the PCS

 

[Theoreticalgirl]

Adding my .02 here, as a person who lands jumps:

GET RID OF THE Q.

The only markers should be when the jump failed to meet the requirements for rotation and in the case of lutzes and flips, the takeoff edge. The rulebook says a jump landed on the quarter meets the requirements for rotation, which lines up with the general physics of the matter. Why we need to indicate this seems like a waste for tech panels (who have to spend time calling and assigning them) and merely stokes wackjob fan theories.

 

[screech]

I don't mind the Q. I see it as more of a warning for the skaters that they may need to work on that jump some more, or potentially risk having it < in the future.
It's like getting homework marked in school - if you don't do too well on a certain concept but still get a passing mark, say 55% (and yes, I know some places weirdly have a passing mark being 60 or higher, but in Canada it's 50...), you know you need to work on that concept more for the final exam if you want to be sure to show understanding, otherwise in the future you may risk failing.

 

[AngieNikodinovLove (ANL)]

Let’s have Q equal queer so we can reward those skaters amazingly.

 

[Theoreticalgirl]

Let’s have Q equal queer so we can reward those skaters amazingly.

Fully on board for a Gay Bonus.

 

[Coco]

I wonder if the Q is a concession to the reality that callers don't always have the best camera angle. Maybe they should focus on getting more camera angles for the callers?

 

[AngieNikodinovLove (ANL)]

Fully on board for a Gay Bonus.

Lol instead of the 10% bonus for jumps in the second half for non-queer people all Jumps get a 10% bonus for queer skaters, lol

 

[VALuvsMKwan]

I bet you with the advent of more objective sensors, if used on the current crop and past skaters, I bet the results would be eye-opening, even for those self-proclaimed experts at seeing URs. Now whether they’d admit it…

But I’d question whether those sensors would successfully objectively measure exactly what angle when the blade left the ice.

Also, I love how the article goes on and on and adopts an incredibly condescending and mean-spirited tone towards Vincent Zhou but doesn’t even at least do the Koola King/Tessa and Scott sekret baby blogger thing by providing a hundred gifs and jpgs per example to hammer their point home. But they did talk about his Lip for extra measure because they couldn’t kick him hard enough in the first 45 pages they wrote (but I think that pic underminded their argument so they knew better than to post more).

Either way skating is feeding into people’s obsession compulsion and it’s overemphasis on certain things is painting skaters as much worse than they are.

I perceive so much evidence of that in just this thread, much less the rest of the board - and Kwan knows that I am OC.

 

[aliceanne]

And while we’re at it I would love to just get rid of the underrotations and downgrades as well.

Let’s just create a new element.... jump/spin combo

Flying backspin

 

[thvu]

I'm another for getting rid of the q. For that matter, get rid of the ! too. While tech panels are supposed to give skaters the benefit of the doubt, in practice, q and ! have been utlized beyond that principle. It's gotten to the point where technical panels are actively giving skaters leeway when it comes to jump rotations and edge calls. It's lowered the bar to a point where calls are no longer assessing what's actually happening on the ice.

I know I keep saying this, but both Q and ! have become plausible deniability for technical panels. Skater falls on a badly underrotated jump? Q call. No loss of points because the fall already brought GOE to -5. Or Kaori’s lutz that has never taken off of an outside edge? ! Call. (Or just don’t review it and pretend there’s a proper outside edge.)

 

[Orm Irian]

I can see the value of the 'q' call as a way of giving feedback to the skater that there's an issue, if not a comparatively huge one, that they need to work on - and also as a way of communicating to the judges in competition that while the benefit of the doubt has gone to the skater, there is doubt, and that needs to be reflected in the GOE. But as with so many other things, the problem is not the mechanism but how it's being applied. I thought when it was introduced that there was a risk it would be used to give big names and big feds a pass on underrotations while simultaneously being used to increase scrutiny and penalties on small names and small feds purely because of the existing patterns prevalent in international judging. I didn't foresee one or two skaters being so disproportionately advantaged for no discernable reason! Keep it or drop it, but whichever you choose, retrain the tech panels. Or build a new cohort.

(BTW, I think more people might have got the satirical element of that analysis if the author had titled it 'A modest proposal' instead of 'A humble proposal'. If you're going to reference, do it directly.)

 

[AxelAnnie]

No, what it requires is a change of attitude on the part of the ISU and ALL tech panels, plus the judges, to make sure that jumps are accurately called at every single event. As many others have pointed out, leaving this in the hands of human beings results in fans snarking, rightly so, about human error and biases sneaking into the calling of the elements as well as the application of GOE.

Seriously, it cannot be that difficult to come up with the technology necessary to correctly assess rotation and eliminate so much of this ridiculous bickering among fans.

Not holding my breath waiting for them to do that....that would eliminate all the wink and a nod cheating

 

[soogar]

I think they should eliminate it and just have the q reflected in grade of execution. These jumps happen on a curve anyway and I think it is nitpicking to see where a skater is on the curve to evaluate a jump. If the jump takes off and lands smoothly in the right direction, it probably looks good from a spectator perspective.

 

[briancoogaert]

I think Q call should be eliminated.
In fact, I would eliminate edge calls and UR calls. I mean, if a Lutz is a Flip, it's a Flip. If it's L!, you can use -GOE.
Same for UR. Use -GOE.

 

[bardtoob]

The problem with eliminating 'q' is that the judges neither have time nor have had recent practice judging rotations ... That, and judges are typical blind, any way

 

[Holy Headband]

I don't understand the purpose of having a special call for 45-degree underrotation that suppresses the grade of execution as distinct from the underrotation call.

All q calls should be treated as underrotations IMO.

Then again, I think bad jump attempts of all kinds should be treated more harshly by the rulebook than they currently are. Receiving 5 points for falling on a quad is absurd. Getting partial credit for a Lutz when you did not execute a Lutz is absurd.

I general, I think any edge or underrotation call should reduce the base value of the jump and cap the GOE at 0.

(I also think spins and step sequences should be worth considerably more points than they currently are, and some of the blatant score-fixing in certain disciplines would be mitigated by a -3 to +3 GOE scale, but I'm getting sidetracked now.)

However, it doesn't matter what the rules say when the judges can misinterpret them however they want to put someone like Scherbakova with her tortured pseudo-quads and prerotated triples ahead of Higuchi at her best.

 

[ninjapirate]

To have a separate category for 45°, as distinct from 40° or 50° is just silly. Are the judges using an onscreen protractor?

Because in practice you'll have 40 degree jumps called UR and 50 degree jumps called clean.

I support the q rule because what really matters aesthetically is if the landing fish hooks.

 

[Marco]

Because in practice you'll have 40 degree jumps called UR and 50 degree jumps called clean.

I support the q rule because what really matters aesthetically is if the landing fish hooks.

But the current system also means a jump landing with 44 degrees under, 45 degrees under, and 46 degrees under will be called under 3 different tags.

And for the avoidance of doubt, judges will always call it a "q".

 

[caseyedwards]

Yes because there is too much ULTRA SCRUTINY

 

[Tak]

This is very interesting topic. The basic question is "How obtrusive should Technical Panel be?"
If analogy can be made to law enforcement, Technical Panel run the gamut, some are extremely obtrusive (Geheimstaatpolizei, more widely known by the acronym GESTAPO level), others more like your neighborhood police and some are extremely lenient (like the infamous Prefect Renault's Casablanca Police, which just might let you get away with murder).
IMHO, the obtrusiveness of Tech Panel must depend on seriousness of the perceived offense. Falls (equivalent to dead body being found) must be investigated, it may not require any further penalties. Negative GOE (equivalent to larceny) should be investigated. IMHO, q and ! are minor offenses (equivalent to loitering or jay-walking). Since there are 3 Tech officials and for major competitions 9 judges, at least 7 out of these 12 must agree to assess actual numerical penalties. Tech panel is free to assess q or !, but if majority will to prosecute is not reached, then these are shown as (q) or (!), a slap on the wrist, a reminder to the skater and coaches to improve, and no numerical penalty is assessed.

 

[gkelly]

No, what it requires is a change of attitude on the part of the ISU and ALL tech panels, plus the judges, to make sure that jumps are accurately called at every single event. As many others have pointed out, leaving this in the hands of human beings results in fans snarking, rightly so, about human error and biases sneaking into the calling of the elements as well as the application of GOE.

Seriously, it cannot be that difficult to come up with the technology necessary to correctly assess rotation and eliminate so much of this ridiculous bickering among fans.

So work on inventing something.

If you really want it to apply to ALL technical panels -- including those at, say, US and Canadian and Japanese and Russian domestic qualifying competitions and Palau de Gel d'Andorra and Brazilian Nationals etc. etc., then it better be both inexpensive to acquire and usable in local rinks with limited space as well as in large arenas.

Chances are that first there will be some expensive technology used for major international events and national events in countries where skating is popular, but inaccessible for many other events that some of the same skaters will compete in.