comfrank
Knows what a fatty is.
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2008
- Location
- Wilson, NY
The KCBS weighting coefficients for appearance, taste, and texture are, respectively, 0.5714, 2.2858, and 1.1428. If you do the arithmetic, you will find, as I am sure most of you already know, that these numbers imply that texture is worth twice as much as appearance, and taste is worth twice as much as texture (and thus four times as much as appearance). Well...not quite. Taste is worth 2.000175009 times as much as texture. If it were to be worth exactly twice as much, the fourth digit after the decimal in the taste coefficient should be a 6, not an 8. Why did they make it an 8 instead of a 6? I'm guessing so that a set of three nines would be 36 rather than 35.9982.
I don't have a problem with weighting taste twice as much as texture which is in turn twice as much as appearance. What I have a problem with is the coefficients implementing this weighting scheme. Two point two eight five eight?!?!? Come on, you've got to be kidding me. Why on earth would anyone choose such ridiculous coefficients? I've got a better set. How about these: 1, 4, and 2.
With the current system, scores ramge from a total of 0 (for an unjudged entry) to 180 (for five sets of perfect nines). The problem is that to rank order entries in between these two extremes you need to compute scores to four digits past the decimal. And even if a computer does the actual computation, that's still a lot of numbers on the score sheets. If you used 1, 4, and 2 as weights, then a judge giving three 9s would contribute 63 points to a team's score. Five sets of perfect 9s would equal 315 as the top possible score for an entry, and you would never need to go past the decimal point to rank an entry. Moreover, taste could now be *exactly* twice as important as texture.
Even if you don't like 1, 4, and 2 as weighting coefficients, you could certainly choose more sensible ones such as .5, 2, and 1, or .25, 1, and .5.
Could someone who has more history with the organization please explain to me the reason for these goofy coefficients?
Thanks,
--frank in Wilson, NY
I don't have a problem with weighting taste twice as much as texture which is in turn twice as much as appearance. What I have a problem with is the coefficients implementing this weighting scheme. Two point two eight five eight?!?!? Come on, you've got to be kidding me. Why on earth would anyone choose such ridiculous coefficients? I've got a better set. How about these: 1, 4, and 2.
With the current system, scores ramge from a total of 0 (for an unjudged entry) to 180 (for five sets of perfect nines). The problem is that to rank order entries in between these two extremes you need to compute scores to four digits past the decimal. And even if a computer does the actual computation, that's still a lot of numbers on the score sheets. If you used 1, 4, and 2 as weights, then a judge giving three 9s would contribute 63 points to a team's score. Five sets of perfect 9s would equal 315 as the top possible score for an entry, and you would never need to go past the decimal point to rank an entry. Moreover, taste could now be *exactly* twice as important as texture.
Even if you don't like 1, 4, and 2 as weighting coefficients, you could certainly choose more sensible ones such as .5, 2, and 1, or .25, 1, and .5.
Could someone who has more history with the organization please explain to me the reason for these goofy coefficients?
Thanks,
--frank in Wilson, NY