O2cm banned from NDCA events?

JudeMorrigan said:
As far as the paper trails, my am instructor could look up his score sheets from competitions in 2008 on o2cm if he wanted to. I am skeptical that any paper trail issues that may exist are insurmountable. To be honest, I'm actually skeptical that they're anything more than procedural.
Click to expand...

For high-stakes events, I'm less skeptical.
 
JudeMorrigan said:
How do you mean?
Click to expand...

Basically, you can physically watch pieces of paper. You can watch them being transported and otherwise handled. You can keep them in plain view of many people who are unlikely to collude while their contents are tallied into a result. You can double-check the tally without fear that the contents have changed. You can lock them up and feel certain that they will hold the same information when unlocked and re-inspected. Furthermore, paper is cheap, insusceptible to power/battery problems or network glitches, and everyone understands exactly how it works.

Electronic records have none of those properties.

For e.g. amateur college comps, electronic records sure are convenient, and there's not very much incentive for anyone to muck with them. Even at fairly high levels of accomplishment, participants mostly have lives and careers apart from competition and regard their dancing as recreation.

For competitions that purport to identify the best professional ballroom dancers in the world, I expect that the calculus of economics and prestige is much different. If a relatively cheap electronic intervention could undetectably influence the outcome (and especially if it could do so in such a way as to make the alteration part of the official historical record), I imagine that somebody would attempt it sooner or later.
 
JudeMorrigan said:
- An easily accessible record of all of your scoresheets from forever
- An easily accessible record of *everyone's* scoresheets from forever
- Entry lists that update in real time as people register, so you can see who else is registering a competition ahead of time and what events they're registering for (I can see how some pro-am competition organizers might not be entirely thrilled with the idea of the last two)
- Live updates of heat times and recalls on your cell phone, with scoresheets that can posted within minutes of the awards ceremony at particularly on-the-ball comps. These are awesome not just for the competitors, but for people who can't make a particular comp to follow along with their friends.
Click to expand...

As a ProAm student, I love all of these features. :)
 
DL said:
For e.g. amateur college comps, electronic records sure are convenient, and there's not very much incentive for anyone to muck with them. Even at fairly high levels of accomplishment, participants mostly have lives and careers apart from competition and regard their dancing as recreation.

For competitions that purport to identify the best professional ballroom dancers in the world, I expect that the calculus of economics and prestige is much different. If a relatively cheap electronic intervention could undetectably influence the outcome (and especially if it could do so in such a way as to make the alteration part of the official historical record), I imagine that somebody would attempt it sooner or later.
Click to expand...
- Electronic signatures and records are considered acceptable in places in the business world where there's *far* more at stake than at the largest ballroom competition. Now, Larinda is a judge, so I assume her question about whether or not o2cm has an option for electronic signatures was a pointed one. That ought to be fixable though rather than something that inherently disallows electronic record-keeping.
- At the championship level, am dancers are as much career dancers as they are in the pro ranks.
- USA Dance Nationals is hardly small potatoes, at least so far as ballroom dancing competitions are concerned
- I think you're significantly underestimating the difficulty of hacking. I do not know what sort of encryption o2cm uses, but if it uses any at all, an "electronic intervention" would *not* be cheap.
- Doesn't compmngr have allowances for electronic entry of marks and electronic records anyways? It seems like most of the NDCA comps I've been to have had paper sheets, but Douglas Associates certainly says electronic entry is an option for compmngr, and I see nothing in the NDCA rulebook that disallows its use. ("If the organizer is using COMPMNGR written by Richard Douglas, a computer Disk with the above information may be sent in lieu of the written paperwork.")
 
Yep, O2CM will work with judges marks on paper, but someone has to type the marks into the O2CM system.

And as far as "Electronic Scrutineering Files". O2CM shows a worksheet as to how the judges' marks were translated into placements.

So what's missing?
 
Joe said:
You "paper" people are aware that O2CM is perfectly capable of scoring paper marks, just as much as COMPMNGR is--right?
Click to expand...
Yeah, I was under the impression that the systems were pretty comparable in that regard, but I am not a judge. (Duh.)

On the paper vs. electronic thing, I'd also like to add that well-written software (I have no particular idea if any of the software under discussion qualifies) should signficantly reduce the chances of inadvertant human error in the process of recording and tabulating of marks. That's certainly not a criticism of anyone. Goodness knows I code up the simplest of tasks since I know that if I have to repeat it often enough, I will eventually fat-finger something. In general, that seems far more likely to me than someone hacking the system.
 
JudeMorrigan said:
- Electronic signatures and records are considered acceptable in places in the business world where there's *far* more at stake than at the largest ballroom competition. Now, Larinda is a judge, so I assume her question about whether or not o2cm has an option for electronic signatures was a pointed one. That ought to be fixable though rather than something that inherently disallows electronic record-keeping.
- At the championship level, am dancers are as much career dancers as they are in the pro ranks.
- USA Dance Nationals is hardly small potatoes, at least so far as ballroom dancing competitions are concerned
- I think you're significantly underestimating the difficulty of hacking. I do not know what sort of encryption o2cm uses, but if it uses any at all, an "electronic intervention" would *not* be cheap.
- Doesn't compmngr have allowances for electronic entry of marks and electronic records anyways? It seems like most of the NDCA comps I've been to have had paper sheets, but Douglas Associates certainly says electronic entry is an option for compmngr, and I see nothing in the NDCA rulebook that disallows its use. ("If the organizer is using COMPMNGR written by Richard Douglas, a computer Disk with the above information may be sent in lieu of the written paperwork.")
Click to expand...

I did my master's work on a similar problem (voting). At the time I was primarily interested in computer security in my undergrad and grad computer science coursework. I'm a professional software engineer and have continued to stay in touch with security issues. As for the specific mention of electronic records in the financial system that arose while I was typing this, I am well aware of them; and I'm guessing that (although I don't work directly in that industry and am not intimately familiar with its intricacies) I understand their use better than most DFers (though conceivably not as well as some). I don't really want to debate this topic at length on DF.

I'm not defending the current dance competition rules as written, one software package over another, the NDCA, or anything else. I'm not asserting that the current NDCA policy is self-consistent nor even particularly good (nor bad). I don't know anything about the relative features of the software under discussion.

My (very narrow) point is merely that paper has certain merits that electronic records (even "signed" ones; never mind a whole side discussion regarding degrees of cryptographic sophistication) lack. It's a conclusion I -- at first reluctantly -- reached after careful research and thought, and have retained over many years during which I have given it further critical consideration. It's also the assertion I personally will stick with on DF.

Therefore, I am sympathetic with this point below, from early in the thread:

Larinda McRaven said:
[...]
1 - the lack of hard copy records of judge's marks, signed by the judges themselves.
..... As stated in the rule book, "Organizers are required to retain the original judges' score sheets for a period of thirty (30) days following the close of the event, in the event of a discrepancy in the scrutineers final markings."
[...]
Click to expand...

*shrug* -- Take it for whatever it's worth.
 
Both O2CM and Compmanager work with paper forms. In both cases, you have someone manually entering them into a computer, and in both cases you have the (recommended) option of keeping the paper forms in case of any discrepancies. If they have concerns about a paper trail, all they have to do is say "No judges entering marks on a PDA". Most collegiate comps that use O2CM don't use PDAs and retain all of the benefits that JudeMorrigan listed, as well as maintaining a paper trail.
 
I would imagine that errors from copying by hand thousands of marks every day are more significant errors than hacked scoresheets or failed software crashes.
 
DL said:
*shrug* -- Take it for whatever it's worth.
Click to expand...
You'll note that she amended that later. The full quote from the rulebook is:

Within ten (10) days after the competition, the organizer shall deliver to the Ballroom Department via Certified Mail the following:

1.The Master Scrutineer Sheets bearing the Officials Signatures.
2.The list of Judges and their Code Letters.
3.The list of Finalists in each Featured Event.
4.A Copy of the Program, corrected and completed.
5.If the organizer is using COMPMNGR written by Richard Douglas, a computer Disk with the above information may be sent in lieu of the written paperwork.
6.Pro/Am Results are not required to be sent with the above.
7.Organizers are required to retain the original judges' score sheets for a period of thirty (30) days following the close of the event, in the event of a discrepancy in the scrutineers final markings.
8.A complete list of all Competing Professionals and Pro/Am Professional Competitors who participated in the event, along with their current NDCA registration number, and separate lists for each featured competitive event.

NOTE: These detailed procedures must be followed for each competition for which Final Recognition is desired. Upon compliance with all of the above requirements, and approval of the event by the Ballroom Department, a letter granting FINAL RECOGNITION will be sent to the Organizer.
Click to expand...
The rulebook only has allowances for electronic results from compmngr, but it does allow them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Dance Ads

Advertise on Dance Forums Reach dancers, teachers, studios, event organizers, and dance-friendly brands. View ad options
Back
Top