Of Hady Mirza And Laserguy, What's in common Options

[goldrush]

When Hady Mirza sank to his knees in disbelief of his triumph in the Asian idol contest,I was equally flabbergasted and shock!After gaining my composure over the result and studying the outcome,yet again a winner is created not by his ability but through some fault of technicality.You see ,the system of voting in this case gave the handicaps a huge advantage.Each sms must carry 2 votes instead of one.So imagine a voter cast a vote for his/her country favorite plus the weakest of the lot,then the resultant votes garnered by the underdog would be quite overwhelming. Obviously the underdog here is Hady.No voters in the right mind would cast his/her vote for the next best competitors for fear of a close fight.So if every voters cast a vote for his/her country’s representative plus a vote for the weakest contestant, the total votes for the underdog (Hady) would be ......all the countries plus his own!Certainly the system of voting needs to be addressed or else future worthy winner may succumb to a similar fate.

Now turning my attention to our recent VRC competition ,a similar pang of injustice can be felt over the category A winner.Sorry I’m not trying to cause any unnecessary uproar or an impending rumble but the credibility of the judges is at stake.When a judge or here two judges do a MISS judge(misjudge) I’m afraid we need to address the judging system.When obvious flaws are not detected or a fish does not conform to the standard of competition,such a fish can never be crowned an eventual winner ...worst if it is awarded a champion.If an expert or experienced hobbyist or even a novice can detect an obvious flaw/defect,the weary judges’misses cannot be construed as just human error.I must apologise to Laserguy,that I’m not trying to be a sore loser or something like that but when I see the fault of the system of judging,we can learn from this recent episode and avoid future misunderstanding and prevent such amateurish school boy howler.In the future it would be good if the pre selected winners by the judges be further examined by a panel of independent organizing committee members before the official announcement of the winners is made.At least a further filter is created to dispute any disagreement or discrepancy in awarding a potential winner.Once again my sincere apology if goldrush appears too harsh and too intruding in the above matter.

[white horse T1]

there is a famous phase in survival: THe Tribe has spoken.....

aiillll what laio ai ai ai

[desireless]

Apart from the "surprise" element, which was experienced by both parties, I see no other similarities.


Two things...

1)
This kind of "why this fish win ah?" sentiment is constantly present. In every competition, we always wonder why this fish win and some better fishes didn't. Or, "I thought the 3rd looks so much better than the 1st?", etc etc. But always remember, these are in accordance to OUR own standards and our judgement. Most of the time (EXCEPT for commercial shows), judges are experienced hobbyists and they are able to see things that we can't... which is why they are the judges and we are not.


2)
Judging system is different for every competition. There are certain factors which are focused on in certain competitions but not in others.

For example, Comp A has this:
Colour: 25pts
Uniqueness: 20pts
Finnages: 5pts

In comp B, the point system is like this:
Colour: 20pts
Uniqueness: 15pts
Finnages: 15pts

So a very good fish with a slight flaw in the tail (maybe the judge in both competition wants to give zero for finnages), but scored max points for other factors, CAN be a winner (or even champ) in comp A, but stands no chance for comp B.

This kind of thing we have to learn to accept. And it is exactly why point system is most of the time not announced to the public.

[CP]

First White Horse, then Desireless, now CP.Do you see a certain pattern here...............

Hady and Laser got one difference lah......Hady win once but Laser consistent in almost every comp.You see, the four of us always participate together, but why is it that each and every time he wins something yet none of us has won anything?We spend roughly the same amount buying average fishes, and have the same identical fish upbringing.

He just have the knack of identyfying a potential fish.He told us about the little flaw that the fish has prior to sending, but is somehow confident enough to go ahead knowing that it probably has a good chance.

Maybe he feels that its other attributes more than compensate its minor flaw?

[bekko]

Before I go back and look at the competition photos again to find out what all this discussion is about, I would like to quote a small excerpt from an article on worldwide judging styles by Russ Taylor:

"Parts summers" refers to approaches that define the quality of the goldfish as being the quality of the individual features taken in isolation, assessed and then aggregated to get an overall judgment of the fish. Let me stop here and say that nobody uses a method that would literally apply the extreme interpretation of
this reductionism approach. But various methods have more or less of this flavor to them.

"Gestalt appreciators" look at a goldfish as an aesthetic composition, a work of art in fins and scales. So, the emphasis is on how the goldfish works as an integrated whole rather than as a collection of features. Devotees of this view hold firmly that the whole is far greater than the sum of the parts. This type of approach is much more accommodating to unusual but exceptional goldfish, but can be harder to explain and teach than a more mechanical formula based upon set features.

And, later in the same article, he says:

"....they were very concerned with the naïve application of detailed point scoring techniques. The main problem was that there is a whole lot of detail you can't get into a standard, but that nonetheless has to be considered in judging. He said judges trying to rigorously apply a "tear apart" points score, as he called it, were surprised to find the wrong fish winning. But they wanted a method that supplied scores on individual fish, to capture a judging record that could be used to address exhibitor concerns over the ranking decisions."

-steve

[goldrush]

I guess it is just part of the game(Carlsberg).Controversial decisions in all competitions are nothing new.When a football coach blast the referee for not giving a blatant penalty,his typical sarcastic remark may goes something like this:

"yah he is a good referee in normal days but unfortunately today he left his eyes at home!!!!! "

Please don't take it to heart of what I have spoken.Sometimes you need abit of theatrics and controversies to spice up a forum,a discussion and in this case a competition.At the end of the day when the dust has settled we still move on and look forward to another healthy competition.


Steve good summary of judgement criterias and skills.The beauty is to look at the fish as a whole with its overall merits rather than condemn the fish with its inherent demerits.

[white horse T1]

First White Horse, then Desireless, now CP.Do you see a certain pattern here...............

You see, the four of us always participate together, but why is it that each and every time he wins something yet none of us has won anything?

ah hmmmmmm............