User:V 0 1 D/Draft:Lens Theory
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Lens Theory is a proposed methodology of examining combos through the use of varying points of view, and explicitly defining the rules for those points of view. It was proposed by V 0 1 D in 2021.
Original Text
- Written by V 0 1 D
Preface
It is well known that pen spinning is viewer only through specific points of view from individuals and communities, and that these points of view vary wildly between said people and communities. In the past it was assumed but not known that this was the case, for instance in the differing approaches of the early Korean community (Pencil Turning Cafe and PDS), which focused on refinement, the early International Community (UPSB and UCPSB), which followed various trends and the early French community (FPSB), which focused on creativity and experimentation. This culture difference became more apparent during UCPSB, when feuds started between the UCPSB members there and the FPSB members also using the site in 2006 when FPSB was in a transitional period, leading to action needing to be taken by the board's administration to put an end to the arguments, and to accept different points of view on pen spinning.
This was a good enough indication, but by the time competitive spinning had progressed to the world stage, the large variations in how pen spinning is viewed and considered became a provable issue. In the Pen Spinning World Tournament 2007, the rules defined several criteria, which were summed together among all judges to produce a final score. This had the unanticipated effect that the overall result would not match the consensus of individual judge's results, as occurred in the final round of KTH vs Eriror. Many judges in that battle ruled in favor of a small lead for Eriror ahead of KTH, but one judge chose to instead put KTH at a significant lead over Eriror, cancelling out the small leads of the other judges and deciding KTH as the first world champion. Future organizing of competitive events learnt from this mistake, and instead moved to consensus of individual results, formally acknowledging that inconsistency between judges can be so large as to change the result of an entire competition. Further competitive events that chose to ignore this precedent faced similar issues, as in the Pendolsa World Tournament 2017 when Pixels vs Beige resulted in a win for Beige despite judge consensus favoring Pixels.
Outside of summed results, other cases exist such as the Pen Spinning Olympics 2020 final round battle of Neir'da and Allwars, where the scores between the judges had such a large variation that it was difficult to ascertain whether they were statistically different from random, with Allwars having judge scores that varied from 8 to 28 out of 40. The large variation in scores makes it increasingly difficult to ascertain whether a judge is reliable or no, as with a hypothetical board of perfectly fair judges and perfectly fair criteria, the same results should be reached. The current systems in judging appear to make no mention as to the individual point of view of a judge, which would seem to indicate that they aim to reach this hypothetical perfectly fair scenario as closely as possible, as best as they can manage. However, despite attempts to improve judging over the years, this has consistently led to failure, such as in the Pen Spinning World Tournament 2015 when many judges had to be thrown out of their position after the first round results came in.
It seems only right that points of view should be examined when it comes to pen spinning, such that they can be better understood for the creation of more satisfying competitive processes, plus adding an additional layer to current analysis of pen spinning.