BOA scoring insanity?

[Saxophonebird]

First let me state I know nothing about music or marching, but I love to look at the scoring results. I thought band competitions were silly until I found out there were stats! I just can't understand the scoring for my daughters band at San Antone BOA. We were ranked 6th highest in individual music but 28th as an ensemble. Visual was even worse 5th highest individual but 47th ensemble. How can we be so good on the field but so poor from the pressbox? Anyone have any ideas on how these scores make sense???? Thanks

[Rubisco]

There were some pretty big disconnects between the individual and ensemble performance judges in prelims for some reason. There was also some pretty bad numbers management, either that or flat-out indecisiveness. (In individual visual alone, I caught several regular ties and a three-way tie.) I don't completely blame the judges for all the ties, though, as there were a TON of groups to keep track of, several of which were very close in ability level.

[drummerjoe]

  Saxophonebird said:

First let me state I know nothing about music or marching, but I love to look at the scoring results. I thought band competitions were silly until I found out there were stats! I just can't understand the scoring for my daughters band at San Antone BOA. We were ranked 6th highest in individual music but 28th as an ensemble. Visual was even worse 5th highest individual but 47th ensemble. How can we be so good on the field but so poor from the pressbox? Anyone have any ideas on how these scores make sense???? Thanks

 

Well it is possible for two players to have perfect posture and marching technique but be a beat off from one another. While this is unlikely, it is a situation in which a perfect individual score would occur but the ensemble score would be essentially 0.0 .

[whitewing09]

  Rubisco said:

There were some pretty big disconnects between the individual and ensemble performance judges in prelims for some reason. There was also some pretty bad numbers management, either that or flat-out indecisiveness. (In individual visual alone, I caught several regular ties and a three-way tie.) I don't completely blame the judges for all the ties, though, as there were a TON of groups to keep track of, several of which were very close in ability level.

 

 

What's wrong with giving ties? This is raw score that they're giving. It's not like a judge necessarily has to rank how the bands did (in direct relations to other bands). They just have to record how they felt the band performed and maybe they believed that two bands performed very similarly.

Edited November 12, 2011 by whitewing09

[Rubisco]

  whitewing09 said:

It's not like a judge necessarily has to rank how the bands did (in direct relations to other bands). They just have to record how they felt the band performed and maybe they believed that two bands performed very similarly.

 

Ummm... Yes, actually, they do. That's their job-- to rank the bands. Yes, it is sometimes difficult when bands are close in ability level, but ranking them is what is supposed to be done. When a judge has a rather high number of bands in ties, it's indicative that the judge boxed himself in. That's why I said it was probably bad number management.

[Xenon]

  Rubisco said:

Ummm... Yes, actually, they do. That's their job-- to rank the bands. Yes, it is sometimes difficult when bands are close in ability level, but ranking them is what is supposed to be done. When a judge has a rather high number of bands in ties, it's indicative that the judge boxed himself in. That's why I said it was probably bad number management.

 

That also means that the judge essentially removed himself from the judging system. His caption no longer matters because of the extremely small range that he scored across.

 

While another judge could score across an extremely large range and make his caption worth more than it is supposed to be worth and lessen the impact of the other judges.

 

This is exactly why rank total scoring exists. By ranking the bands instead of scoring them, all judges have exactly the same weight and cannot underweight nor overweight themselves.

[whitewing09]

  Xenon said:

That also means that the judge essentially removed himself from the judging system. His caption no longer matters because of the extremely small range that he scored across.

 

While another judge could score across an extremely large range and make his caption worth more than it is supposed to be worth and lessen the impact of the other judges.

 

This is exactly why rank total scoring exists. By ranking the bands instead of scoring them, all judges have exactly the same weight and cannot underweight nor overweight themselves.

 

 

Is that the reasoning behind UIL converting raw score into rankings?

 

I could see this problem existing in UIL where the scoring system is out of 1000, but how would this pose a significant problem in BOA where the scoring system is theoretically out of 20 (realistically out of 8, but most bands don't receive scores below 12)?

[Xenon]

  whitewing09 said:

Is that the reasoning behind UIL converting raw score into rankings?

 

I could see this problem existing in UIL where the scoring system is out of 1000, but how would this pose a significant problem in BOA where the scoring system is theoretically out of 20 (realistically out of 8, but most bands don't receive scores below 12)?

 

What is the difference between having 0000-1000 vs having 00.0 through 20.0? The only significant difference is that there is a decimal point there that is mostly meaningless from a math standpoint.

 

JudgeA could think all the bands were great and have a score range from 17.5 through 19.0 for a full range of only 1.5 points because he boxed himself in after the 17.5 band went on 1st in Finals and the 19.0 band went on 2nd in Finals....

 

JudgeB gave himself more room with 16.5 and 19.5 for a full 3 points difference and all the other bands were spread amongst that range. This gives JudgeB twice as much influence over the overall scoring compared to JudgeA.

[takigan]

But of course the drawback to using ordinals instead of raw scores is that the true ability gaps between the bands are lost. A band could get unanimous 1st place scores from all judges creating a massive point total gap between 1st and 2nd place while in reality the 1st place band was only a tiny bit better than the 2nd place band, but all the judges agreed they were the best. A band that only has a slight advantage in music over the other bands but falls far behind them in marching could still place very high under this system.

 

There are algorithms that could be introduced into the judges' scores that could reign-in and flatten out the spreads of those wild judges in caption-style judging formats, but I don't see that happening because that would seem to imply the contest doesn't trust the expertise of the judges they've hired.

[whitewing09]

  Xenon said:

What is the difference between having 0000-1000 vs having 00.0 through 20.0? The only significant difference is that there is a decimal point there that is mostly meaningless from a math standpoint.

 

JudgeA could think all the bands were great and have a score range from 17.5 through 19.0 for a full range of only 1.5 points because he boxed himself in after the 17.5 band went on 1st in Finals and the 19.0 band went on 2nd in Finals....

 

JudgeB gave himself more room with 16.5 and 19.5 for a full 3 points difference and all the other bands were spread amongst that range. This gives JudgeB twice as much influence over the overall scoring compared to JudgeA.

 

I think that my idea got confused a little.

 

When I said it was alright for there to be a few ties. I did not say that I advocate more conservative and "boxed in" scoring. I was trying to say, out of 40-50 bands, a few bands tieing in a range of 8 points was alright. I don't think that tieing a few bands and boxing onself in are synonymous (I think that a judge can tie a few bands out of 50 and still keep a large enough range not to box himself in). I think it's justifiable in the case of such a large set because no one is perfect, it's really hard to weigh 50 bands against each other, especially when the competition is spread across two full days. I don't think the judge necessarily has to go back and change those specific scores, just the satisfy this idea that we necessarily have to keep a clean ranking system. A few ties isn't too bad.

 

IMO: In all it's situational. Judging a prelims is SO much different than judging a finals, therefore I wouldn't try justifying this for a finals.

[Anthony V]

  Saxophonebird said:

First let me state I know nothing about music or marching, but I love to look at the scoring results. I thought band competitions were silly until I found out there were stats! I just can't understand the scoring for my daughters band at San Antone BOA. We were ranked 6th highest in individual music but 28th as an ensemble. Visual was even worse 5th highest individual but 47th ensemble. How can we be so good on the field but so poor from the pressbox? Anyone have any ideas on how these scores make sense???? Thanks

 

Leander has an excellent program. You've nothing to be ashamed of at all! I watched you guys live, and I enjoyed your show very much! In my humble opinion, there were some placements I didn't agree with (notably Haltom, Marcus, James Martin, Vandegrift, Plano East, and Hebron), but it matters more what you take off the field than what you put onto the field. Never forget what matters most!

[drummerjoe]

  anthony v said:

Leander has an excellent program. You've nothing to be ashamed of at all! I watched you guys live, and I enjoyed your show very much! In my humble opinion, there were some placements I didn't agree with (notably Haltom, Marcus, James Martin, Vandegrift, Plano East, and Hebron), but it matters more what you take off the field than what you put onto the field. Never forget what matters most!

 

Leander was really great, I loved their show this year. Vandegrift and Haltom were the two placements I found the most odd.

[BassBonesTX]

Don't worry about scores. The individual judges do their best to rank and can't see everything (that is why they run around the field a lot). The ensemble judges do their best to rank as well but you are getting two different perspectives. I believe they are in the box with GE judges and those judges are more likely to watch the group they are more familiar with (guard director watches guard, band director watches winds, etc). Unfortunately this system doesn't always get the system right but I still find it a little bit more accurate than UIL. I thought the scores were a little weird at first but then I remembered that the judges are all human.