Jeff said,

"It is simply not true that a director, or at least a competent one, 'relies
heavily on the measurements of that machine to make their judgments
determining the timing of the actions.'"

Competency aside, in USFA tournaments it in fact happens often. I have even
seen it done by a well respected former Olympic medalist who is now a
fencing master at a major annual tournament.

If you attended the recent World Cup in Las Vegas then you saw some very
poor refereeing (and poor fencing as well). This was the opinion of several
fencing masters who were there.

Blessings,
Rez Johnson

"Standing guard on old, forgotten roads, that no one travels anymore."
The Fencing Master, by Arturo Perez

Rez Johnson, M d'A
Headmaster: Mississippi Academy of Arms
President: United States Traditional Fencing Association
Certified Fencing Instructor: (USTFA, TFI, AAI, USFCA)
Certified Fencing Master Apprentice: (USTFA, USFCA)
Teaching Classical Fencing and Historical Swordsmanship since 1980
Modern Sport Fencing Coach from 1980 - 2002

Mississippi Academy of Arms
P.O. Box 955
Pelahatchie, MS 39145-0955

E-Mail: 1@MSFencing.org
Academy Website: http://MSFencing.org
USTFA Website: http://TraditionalFencing.org


-----Original Message-----
From: classicalfencing@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:classicalfencing@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Jeff Savit
Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2005 6:07 PM
To: classicalfencing@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [CFML] Re: Just a thought...

I'm afraid that I have to start by saying that Maitre Sullin's paper is
flawed. It claims that the machine "has resulted in serious problems
with the sport, so much so that it is in constant danger of being
eliminated from the Olympic games." Oh, *that's* why fencing is a
minority sport, not the vast societal changes of the past century! Then
why wasn't sabre widely popular pre-electrification in 1984? It makes
the serious error of equating the scoring machine with the flick, even
though the machine was used 40 years before the flick emerged. It is no
more sensible to say that the purpose of fencing is now "to make a light
go on" than to say that it used to be "to make a man raise his hand."
The problems of inaccuracy and even claims of cheating are airily
dismissed. It is simply not true that a director, or at least a
competent one, "relies heavily on the measurements of that machine to
make their judgments determining the timing of the actions." It is not
true that the pressure needed to depress the tip has decreased: it
remains 500g for foil and 750g for epee, just as it has for decades.
That's a simple error of fact.

I mean no disrespect to Maitre Sullins, and recognize that the above is
not consistent with opinions of many on this list, but it does no
service to a community to repeat weak or counter-factual material
uncritically. I see that Sullins has made a nice post recognizing the
box as "a rational response", and I agree with his point that
technologies are not necessarily value neutral. However, it's important
to recognize that dry officiating itself yields systemic errors. In dry
judging, a hit is one that is seen by a judge - not one that would have
drawn blood If It Were Sharp. This under-reports hits to low lines and
encourages hits that stick long enough to be reliably seen. These are
obvious forms of sampling bias. The introduction of electrical scoring
is a rational response to the difficulty of accurate determination of a
material hit - not just to cheating. A paper that discusses the
implications of electrical scoring would be interesting, but the paper
cited below does not start from a position of impartial evaluation, to
say the least.

All of this said: it doesn't seem that a not-yet-existing system with
multiple cameras would solve the "problem", let alone do so at low cost
(an important factor) or in a way consistent with CF ideals. At least
the spring-loaded tip proves that thrusting force was exerted by the
point on the target. Just how would a motion pictures do that? Not to
mention the probable need for multiple operators to track moving
opponents. I think that, for CF adherents, dry judging is an integral
part of the experience, subjectivity and all, and that a technological
replacement would lead in the same direction as the one already in
place.

Irrelevant aside: the paper shows the risk of depending on technology
for spell-checking: the word "real" is used where "reel" is intended
("wrap around a real system"); MS Word doesn't know this is wrong. Yet
another case where technology has to be carefully watched...

regards, Jeff


> From: "kaiser_von_moss" <kaiser_von_moss@...>
> Subject: Just a thought...
>
> I've just read "A Hit, A Very Palpable Hit: Electronic Scoring and the
> Loss of the Art of Fencing" by Mr. John Sullins, and as I read, a
> thought crossed my mind: Electric scoring is, nowadays, obsolete
>



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