Monica at Save Skating has an interesting post suggesting a scoring change in regards to technical versus artistic scores (which are now essentially grouped under "program components"). This addresses many complaints people had after nationals about the program components scores of the top competitors all being so close to each other, despite apparent differences in artistry levels. Monica suggests keeping the technical component scoring as is, and replacing the program components mark with another type of score for artistic measurement.
There's no reason for the second mark to follow a point system that was never designed to measure art. Not only is the resulting score meaningless but, with rare exceptions, it is virtually the same for all major contenders. A Sasha Cohen or Mirai Nagasu cannot stand out as artists unless they land every jump perfectly.
Artistry cannot be sliced up like salami into components. Art must be judged as a whole, because it always adds up to more than the sum of its parts. And performances are made up of intangibles the audience feels but cannot put into words. Under the 6.0 system you didn't need to be a technical specialist to know what it meant when a performance earned a perfect mark. Now there's no equivalent.
I can see the argument that program components is not necessarily the best way to measure artistry (despite the choreography category) - someone can do well in skating skills and transitions, etc. while not connecting well with the music. Monica suggests having a separate judging panel for artistry alone. That would actually be quite an interesting move. And perhaps it would allow for a 10 or something catchier than the points they use now.
On the other hand, I can see the argument for keeping both scores on a points system - even though an artistic judgment is not really objective, points are much easier to justify (or hide behind, as the judging is now anonymous) than just a single 5.9 or a 5.5.
I guess it's just been hard to go from a system that was so basic to a system that is much more difficult to understand...mainly because we at home cannot see the various scores the skaters are getting or their downgrades and various grades of execution. It was important to revise the old system, but it's been a few years and it appears that, try as they might, it's still difficult even for the commentators to explain what is going on with the scoring. I hope NBC employs its own technical specialist before the Olympics, because they are definitely going to have to be on more of a lookout for downgrades - Mirai Nagasu and many other top ladies are very likely to have a few at the Olympics.
If you love the current scoring system or have another suggestion for revision, please feel free to leave in the comments!
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