How the standard changes.

The route a change takes.

1. Proposal

   Anyone may submit a change in writing, naming the section or element, the problem it causes in a real event, and the replacement text.

2. Public comment

   Accepted proposals are published for a 30 day comment period before any vote. Comments and the council's responses are published alongside the proposal.

3. Board vote

   The board votes in the open and records the count. A director with an interest in the outcome declares it and does not vote. No board is seated yet, so nothing has been adopted and Version 1.0 remains a draft.

4. Publication

   Adopted changes ship as a new version with a dated changelog. The superseded version stays online at its own address, so a past event's results stay readable against the rules it actually used.

For hosts

Will scoring slow the show down?

It is the first question every promoter asks, and a fair one. A class of twenty already takes a panel long enough. Here is what changes on the night and what does not.

• Do the callouts change? Not the stage work. The quarter turns and the mandatory poses are the same, and the Council has no view on the running order. What changes is what a judge writes down: a score for each judged element instead of a place on a sheet. Because a score does not need the class ranked, the callouts can shrink to fixed groups and a few comparisons at the end. The next answer shows how.
• What does a scored prejudging look like?
  One way to run it, for a class of twenty. The Standard requires none of this except that scores lock before anything is said; the stage is the show's.

  1. Lineup. The whole class stands at the back and turns together, a minute or two, so every judge sees the range before scoring anyone.
  2. Scoring groups. Athletes come forward five at a time in number order, run the quarter turns and the mandatory poses, and leave. Nobody chooses who comes forward, so a group says nothing about who the panel rates. Judges enter scores as the poses happen, since each element is seen best in certain poses.
  3. Scores stay open. A judge enters scores group by group but locks only when the class is done, so an 8.5 given in the first group can be revised privately after seeing the fourth. Nobody sees anyone else's scores in the meantime.
  4. Comparisons, if asked for. After the last group a judge may ask to see two athletes side by side, usually near the top, where tenths decide places and the two stood in different groups. The chair calls it without seeing any score. It is a look, not a discussion.
  5. Lock, then arithmetic. Every judge locks, the high and low come out, and the placing is the order of the totals.

  A show may skip the comparisons and still run to the Standard. The lineup and a comparison or two at the top are what protect against a judge drifting between the first group and the last, and against two close athletes who never stood together.
• Isn't scoring twenty athletes slower than placing them? A judge cannot place twenty athletes without assessing all twenty, so the looking is already being done. The difference is what the judge has to carry. A place is relative: to put someone fourth, the judge holds the other nineteen in mind and re-sorts every time a callout moves somebody. A score is absolute: the athlete is scored against the written wording once, and the score stays put. That is less to hold in your head, not more.
• How many scores is that per judge? One per judged element per athlete. The Council's default tables score seven to nine elements a division, so a class of twenty at eight elements is 160 entries per judge. On a phone, each one is a single move of a slider, and most are made while the athlete is standing in front of the judge anyway. What does not exist yet is a stopwatch: nobody has timed a full prejudging scored this way against the same class placed on paper. That measurement is the honest answer to this question, and the first show to run it should publish both clocks.
• Do we need as many callouts? Usually fewer. On paper, callouts are how a panel sorts the whole class, including places nobody will remember, because a placing needs every athlete ranked against every other. Under a score the placing is the arithmetic, so nobody has to call out the middle of the class to settle twelfth from thirteenth. What remains is the handful of comparisons a judge asks for before locking.
• What about ties? No tiebreak callout and no huddle. A tie goes to the higher score on the division's highest weighted element, then the next, down the table, exactly as published before entries opened.
• Where does the show get time back? After the class. Paper sheets need a runner, a tabulator, the drop applied by hand and a second check before anything is announced. Locked scores are totaled the moment the last judge locks, so the wait between prejudging and finals goes with it. So does the line of athletes at the judges' table asking what to work on: every athlete gets their own scoresheet, element by element, within twenty-four hours, and the judges get to go home.
• What does it cost the first time? Some speed at the first show, while judges learn the wording for each band. The wording appears under the slider as it moves, so a judge reads it rather than memorizing it. A show worried about a very large class may score fewer elements in that division: the rubric is the show's to set, as long as it is published before entries open.
• Can we try it without betting the show on it? Yes. Keep the paper placings as the official result and have the panel score alongside them for one show, then compare both results and both clocks. Or start with a single division. Neither run makes the claim until the scores are the result, but either will tell a promoter more than this page can.