-----Original Message----- From: Karl L. Wuensch "Looks like Skategate is more about psychology (and political science?) than about statistics. Still, I am ignorant about the nature of the data provided by judges -- do they provide both a RATING and a RANKING? If so, I might well agree that the rating would have more informational content than the ranking, even if both were properly considered to be ordinal data."
It just so happens that I came across this explanation of judging on the nbcolympics website (http://www.nbcolympics.com/x/f/frame.htm?u=/news/683689.asp). The alleged interval data is based on the following scale: 0 = Not skated 1 = Very poor 2 = Poor 3 = Average 4 = Good 5 = Excellent 6 = Perfect and faultless These certainly are not equal intervals and strangely enough the 3 out of 6 is considered "average". There are more specifics about what to use as a basis for judging technical merit and presentation on the site. The judges rate every skater on both technical merit and presentation. Their ranking follows directly from the rating unless there is a tie between two skaters in which case the presentation score supercedes the technical merit as basis for the ordinal. So, the ranking does flow directly from the rating unless there is a tie, in which case the presentation supercedes technical merit in determining the ranking. I don't know what happens if both marks are equal for both skaters. I think there is an argument to be made that the ratings have more informational content than the rankings. I would guess (although I don't know) that, ironically, the ordinal system may have been instituted in the first place to make cheating by individual judges less likely since an extreme rating would have less impact on the average overall marks than the rating turned into a ranking. Rick Rick Froman John Brown University Siloam Springs, AR 72761 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
