Weighed scoring system (Closed for comments)
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Hello,
After discussion with many riders, it seems that we need to attribute a little more points to difficulty in flatland. While I do not disagree with this, making judging easy for judges is also really important. Thanks to everyone for their input at Unicon. Here's what it is right now.
DIFFICULTY (0 to 10 points): Score is given for technical difficulty of the tricks and combos landed during the battle/preliminary.
CONSISTENCY (0 to 10 points): Score is given for number of landed trick/combos on total of number of tricks/combos attempted during the battle/preliminary.
VARIETY (0 to 10 points): Score is given for variation in the types of tricks done during the battle/preliminary.
FLOW (0 to 5 points): Score is given for cleanliness and style of rider during the battle/preliminary.
LAST TRICK (0 to 5 points): Score is given for technical difficulty, novelty, creativity, and flow. The rider is not obligated to use all attempts or to try the same trick every attempt. Only the last attempt will be scored. Other failed attempts do not subtract from the score.
TOTAL (0 to 40 points)
Here is what it could be. Judges write down scores for every category from 0 to 10, so it's easy for judges to score riders appropriately. Giving a score on 10 is much easier than on 5 or 15, etc. but we could weigh down the score so it would be like this.
DIFFICULTY judges score /10 (but worth 30% of total score) (score * 30 / 10 = weighed score)
CONSISTENCY judges score /10 (but worth 22% of total score) (score * 22 / 10 = weighed score)
VARIETY judges score /10 (but worth 22% of total score) (score * 22 / 10 = weighed score)
FLOW judges score /10 (but worth 12% of total score) (score * 12 / 10 = weighed score)
LAST TRICK judges score /10 (but worth 12% of total score) (score * 12 / 10 = weighed score)
Comparing old with new
DIFFICULTY from 25% to 30% of total score
CONSISTENCY from 25% to 22% of total score
VARIETY from 25% to 22% of total score
FLOW form 12.5% to 12% of total score
LAST TRICK from 12.5% to 12% of total score
For people saying it would be too difficult to calculate, it would be very easy, only 5 multiplications if you do it by hand... or I'm sure Robin could implement that in the reg/scoring system, and I can also make a Google Drive Sheet with all the maths already into it.
To sum it up. It becomes even easier to score because everything is /10. Difficulty is worth more, which I think makes most happy, consistency and variety a wroth a tad less and flow and last trick stay relatively the same.
Let me know what you think. Keep in mind % are changed easily and it could be 26%, 21%, 21%, 16%, 16% for example.
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Other possible point attributions:
30% Difficulty
20% Consistency
20% Variety
15% Flow
15% Last Trick
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We've talked about it and the general idea is great!
Simply for the part of making it easier to judge. This would be a nobrainer for me.
Not sure about the % itself. The one thing I notice is that a high variety % keeps riders who are exceptionally good in a specific part of flatland pretty low, take Ivar (who by now worked on it) or Pablo etc. I am not sure this is a good thing.
Riders who do have a good variety should have an advantage with these points, but riders who specialised in one thing should still be able to compete with them. So I would weight difficulty more, as you said, but also variety.
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I don't completely agree on your view Ian, I think giving points to riders that try to explore a bit of every part of what's possible in flatland is a good thing, i do agree with you that it takes a bit down very specific riders, but do you think you'd be saying the same thing about someone that land only flip tricks ? I'd say that's sick but i think he should also train on some other things, and so is it in trials, you might have some troubles if you're only good on skinnies, or if you can't jump high. Same on street, if you only use the rails, or don't use it at all then i think you're missing a bit of it
I do think though you can get some variety points and still have your very own style and type of tricks :)
About the count of points, i think having difficulty being around a third of the score is a good thing.
Difficulty, Flow --> Quite subjective, judge dependant.
Consistency --> There's defenitely something to change here when it comes to combos and so 3 tricks and 1 long combo = 4 tricks landed in the actual system so i think it would be nice to have a system that allows a combo to be worth 2 tricks, super hard to define i know, i'm just throwing some ideas
Variety --> Should we define a list of categories of tricks (flips, roll combos, tyre tricks, coasts, spins, others) and give an amount of point for every category the rider has been picking from ? But how many points for one category ? The higher number of points per category the more advantage it will give to a various rider (which i think is good). I guess there are two options, giving eather 2 or 1,5 pts per category, judging with this method. 2 pts means getting a 10/10 is accessible, 1.5 means you'd need 7 categories to reach 10/10 which is quite difficult knowing in one minute you usually land around 10 tricks..
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I think 20% is still substantially important, 1/5 of the score for variety.
My perspective on how flat should be scored changed a bit recently.
Whenever it feels like a rider should win and the overwhelming majority of spectators/other riders think too, the rule should make that rider win as well. We just have to figure out a scoring system that allows that.
I also think that flow is very important. It's a battle afterwards, and not two solo runs in parallel.
Alexis, you say difficulty and flow are judge dependant. Of course, and that's good, and it why we need judges, good judges. If criteria were all predefined and points attributed beforehand, anybody could be a judge, everything would be formatted, and it would suck.
Defining trick category is possible, but difficult. You mentioned flips, rolls, tricks on tire, coasts, and spins, but there are still twists, leg around/side variation, foot jams, crank jams, stand up trick, walks, glides, and many others like mounts, exits, what category is seat drag, or a whip?
As mentioned by Steven in the other discussion about flat combo definition, it might restraint the growth of the sport, and personal style in flat.
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Alexis, I actually would think the same if a rider only does fliptricks because he would probably be extremely good at it and develop new techniques that drive the sport. By forcing riders to go every direction you are limiting the development of new tricks, because there's stuff you need to learn and less time to focus on the stuff you want to explore. If you asked me a year ago I would have agreed with you but I think now, that what you do should not matter, but how hard it is and how good it looks. Do craaazily good fliptricks for a minute and I will be fascinated, do all the different tricks almost as good and I will be fascinated too.
So to allow riders to explore new stuff the best thing would be to not care about trick categories at all -> and therefore variety at all. Let them do what they want to do, flatland is not about certain tricks but about how you deliver them, and by telling riders which category of tricks they need to do you limit that exploration.
Ivar for example has placed pretty low for a long time, for a big part because he had a low variety. By now everybody probably recognizes that him keeping going in that direction of low variety got him to a point where he creatively finds new movements and tricks and now combines that all.
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I think we should be careful with defining too much. In my opinion, this happened in freestyle and this seems to take a similar path. If you try to put exact numbers to how much something is worth (e.g. by adding certain values to different categories of tricks or counting landed/failed tricks only for consistency, you're limiting the judges subjective opinion but also influence riders in what they will be doing in the competition - and not necessarily in a good way (e.g. less combos). And then you end up as a judge thinking that one rider was better than the other and your points show the opposite. I believe that the intuition of the judges is most of the time better than the points...but obviously that's very subjective. Especially, I wouldn't recommend a system where each judge gives points from 1-10 for each category and the points are weighted later. In freestyle it's that way and it leads to a lot of confusion because you look at your points as a judge but not necessarily the one with the most points is in the lead (although you think he/she should be there).
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And I forgot one thing, have you thought about merging consistency and flow into one category, for example called mastery? How much you land would go into that category but also if you need a lot of pre-hops/idling, barely landed a trick and needed correction hops,...maybe this would simplify the system. That's just s thought though that came into my mind...
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The whole point of the proposed change is to reflect the judges feeling of who was better with the actual points as good as possible. How to weigh the different categories is up for debate (as I would like to lower variety's impact) but I think the general idea works. If you open it up too much it gets extremely subjective, which might work with very experienced judges but as I'm not only thinking about the biggest competitions here but smaller ones too, as soon as you have less experienced judges it would be a mess. Giving them the easier task of working in categories and points 1-10 is more precise. The only downside is that a single judge can not tell from his points anymore who he gave the most points. But technically, that's not even needed. He can still tell who he gave the most in each individual category, that's more important to compare.
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Couple of comments:
1) It makes a lot more sense to score on a 1-10 scale. It shouldn't be too difficult to calculate the points after and if the judge enters the points on a computer or ipad it'll get calculated immediately. I think it's a nobrainer as it makes it much easier to judge and also allows more flexibility in how to weigh the categories (given the judge still just has to look at the same 1-10 scale).
2) Regardless how the weighing is done it'll change the competition. I see a risk here that you're focusing on individual riders, rather than what kind of riding is wished for. I think it would be better to have a discussion about what the competition should reward and then make points based around that.
3) Riders will change what they show based on what's in the rules and how the judging is done. In X-style most of the top riders end up doing completely different tricks because that competition rewards it. In freestyle there's more overlap between riders. Flatland can make a choice here and people will figure it out.
4) With the new scoring system more categories could be added, like originality. That could be a category where it's very hard to score high points but which is explicitly set up to reward riders who push any single category of riding, even at expense of variety in their routine. It'll also ensure flatland can still be a place to show new tricks.
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Maire is bringing up some good points. Especially for when judging a battle, the scores aren't required to be written down as of now and it would make it complicated to think of a rider's performance on 10 when a category is worth 30.
Although,edging flow and consistency is a no no. They used to be together and it made no sense. One is purely objective while the other is only subjective. It used to be like this and we separated the category. If you merge them together, you have to give half of the space for consistency and half for flow, which comes back the same as to having them separate... Or you let the judge decide what's worth a lot or not in that category and then there's no consisty of the scoring system.
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bump
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Wouldn't it still be fair, even in battles? The judges would still compare one rider's consistency vs. the other rider's consistency and so on. So once the judges have compared both riders in every category the winner is determined... The only thing is: That would require the judges to write down scores in battles from now on.
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Actually having to write down score for battles wouldn't be bad. The bad thing is having to write them down and them do a mathematical equation for every category, or judge on 30, 25 and 12.5 which is difficult.
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Not writing down scores in battles means there's no way to see if whatever decision about scoring criteria makes into the judges assessment in battles. But wouldn't the judges just have a computer or tablet that quickly calculates the scores anyways?
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Not always I think, but this would become a requirement then I assume. Which should be fairly easy to do.
Everyone has access to a notebook or tablet, so the only thing missing might be a small app or much easier, an excel sheet, which could be provided to everyone who plans on running a competition via the iuf website (I assume)
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so... I will create a proposal soon, but it seems like out of all the voting members, only 3 have spoken on what they think about this. Which option seems better?
Option 1
30% Difficulty
20% Consistency
20% Variety
15% Flow
15% Last Trick
Option 2
30% Difficulty
22% Consistency
22% Variety
13% Flow
13% Last Trick
Option 3
26% Difficulty
21% Consistency
21% Variety
16% Flow
16% Last Trick
Option 4
20% Difficulty
20% Consistency
20% Variety
20% Flow
20% Last Trick
Option 5
25% Difficulty
25% Consistency
25% Variety
12.5% Flow
12.5% Last Trick
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I would personally lean towards Option 1 or Option 3. Here's a comparative with the old system.
OPTION 1
OPTION 5
(OLD SYSTEM)
OPTION 3
30%
DIFFICULTY
25%
DIFFICULTY
26%
20%
CONSISTENCY
25%
CONSISTENCY
21%
20%
VARIETY
25%
VARIETY
21%
15%
FLOW
12.5%
FLOW
16%
15%
LAST TRICK
12.5%
TRICK
16%
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I guess there's a bug with showing tables. Here's what it should have looked like.
https://i.imgur.com/gbwbDHc.png
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bump
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wake up people. Hello? Am I alone in this committee?
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I prefer option 3. I think consistency, difficulty, and variety should be closer in importance in a competition where you're literally trying to determine who is the "best" flatland unicyclist. Showing you can do a variety of tricks is a demonstration that you've covered all your bases and you are skilled in different areas. I don't think we should seriously downplay the importance of variety.
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Id prefer option 3 if some % was taken off final trick. Just my opinion but I think final tricks are worth too much as it is
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I agree with Steven.
I think flow and final trick should not be weighed the same. The flow throughout the whole run seems more important than landing one last trick. Something like this maybe?
Difficulty 27%
Consistency 22%
Variety 22%
Flow 17%
Last Trick 12%
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Adding to my comment in the street thread. Final trick may be 1 trick scored out of 41 tricks landed in a flatland run. That makes it 2.4% of the total tricks landed in a single run (or 4.7% if only 21 tricks are landed and I have completely overestimated)
I know last trick is usually harder than ones landed in regular runs, but how much harder? Because at the moment we have 2-5% of the landed tricks worth 15% of the score
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We also have to take into consideration that riders don't attempt the hardest trick anymore for last trick since they understand it's only worth about 10% of the score and so is more of a tie-breaker than anything. That being said the last trick is one of the most exciting thing that happens in the competition and it seems to be a determining factor in the flatland battles from the feels of the competition while on paper it is a very very little amount. That's why I would like to see last trick worth more... as well as flow, because I think style is taking a more and more important place in flatland unicycling.
Could also be
Option 6
Difficulty 27%
Consistency 22%
Variety 22%
Flow 17%
Last Trick 12%
Option 7
26% Difficulty
22% Consistency
22% Variety
15% Flow
15% Last Trick
OR
Option 8
25% Difficulty
20% Consistency
20% Variety
20% Flow
15% Last Trick
OR EVEN (to follow like break dancing battles where they give each category the same value)
Option 9
20% Difficulty
20% Consistency
20% Variety
20% Flow
20% Last Trick
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I like option 6
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Option 6
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Or (sorry to spam)
Option 8 for its simplicity to know how much each category is worth. 27, 17, 12 are pretty weird numbers. 25, 20, 15 are easier to remember. I like simplicity.
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I also like option 8.
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Last chance to make this into a proposal... I can make the proposal, but need someone from this subcommittee to give me the best text.
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This has been passed in a separate proposal