On Dave and the Strictly Week 6 scores

[danieldwilliam]

Well, it had to happen eventually. The Dave Myers Juggernaut of Dance unseats someone who probably didn’t deserve to go.  All around the country feckless Strictly watchers who listened to that buffoon Brand and didn’t vote will be wondering how it could possibly be allowed that two people who were not at bad at dancing could have been in the bottom two.

A bit of drive by psephology.  It’s obvious that Abbey must have finished bottom or second from bottom in the public vote. If she finished bottom her aggregate score would have been eleven. What is a little less obvious is that quite a few of the top ranked dancers must also have finished quite a way down the public vote leaderboard.  In order to avoid the dance off Dave must have finished at least 5^th in the public vote. This would give him 11 points overall. He avoids the bottom two by being the most popular of those finishing on 11. Similar stories for Mark and for Fiona. Which implies that one or two of the better ranked dancers have finished quite a way down.

Of course, the gap between the top of the public vote and the bottom of the public vote might very narrow. 

I’m guessing here but it looks to me like Dave and Mark are polling very strongly and we can expect a few more upsets in the next few weeks.

Comments

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I think that the most significant factor here is that people only vote if they think their preferred candidate is in danger - i.e., in the bottom half or so of the leaderboard. That means that Rachel, whose fan base kept her out of the bottom two in week 5, was at risk because her score was so good that her fans thought they could relax. Et cetera.

I think it will always be like this, as long as (i) the scoring mechanism is not transparent, and (ii) voters cannot be convinced that everyone is at risk. It's possible that Abbey's appearance in the bottom two might have gone some way towards the latter, but basically we are an apathetic bunch and continually subject to cognitive bias.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I tend to agree with you. I think the unknown factor is the spread of votes and thus the impact of various levels of apathy. If the votes are close then even low levels of leaderboard induced apathy might prove significant.

(The efficient market hypothesis bookies analysis project is not looking good by the way.)

I think most people would expect the impact of popular hoofers to even out and for a combination of dance leaderboard placing and the judges final decision to mean that the finalists are more or less whom you would hope and expect in a competition that is largely about dancing. My observation is, that with a couple of jokers, we could see a situation again where potential finalists are put up against each other and the final ends up being misshapen as a result. Well, misshapen in my view.

I am, for the record, not finding Dave that amusing any more. Even Darcey’s reaction to Dave and Mark is no longer raising a smile.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I have been over Dave for a long time, and I am also now over Mark. I am not quite over Fiona, although it wouldn't take that long. I wasn't in love with either Rachel or Deborah, but I do think they both deserved a better chance than they had.

On the plus side, I am a lot more pro Ben than I was before his paso. That was great.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I find Mark growing on me. He seems to be improving week by week. This is, of course, from a position of predicting him to be the first to leave. I shan’t be sad when he goes and I wouldn’t vote for him but I find myself liking and appreciating him more.

I am totally “meh” about Fiona. She seems an nice enough person but not very interesting. She’s okay as a dancer, a bit variable. I don’t think she’s trying to push the envelope particularly.

I thought Deborah had gone too early. I’d have like to see her stay a few more weeks and get better, or not.

The more I saw of RR the more I liked her.

I didn't see Ben's dance - I think I might have been tangoing with a small boy.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I think Mark is a nice, funny guy with a lot of guts and energy. I don't madly enjoy watching him dance.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

And it feels like the margins are quite narrow – if RR can be kept out of the dance off last week but fail this week I think that tells me that not a lot of swing is required.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

It's dancing! Of course a lot of swing is required.

God, I hope rhythmaning isn't reading this :-)

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I thought he was more a jazz man.

Nice.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

He is. We have a long history around the word swing.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Say no more, guv'nor.

Say.

No.

Mo-oore.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

O rly?

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Ya rly.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I think people might now realise that anyone is at risk.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I watched Saturday's show but was busy listening to music last night, and completely forgot. So I was surprised when I looked at the results earlier today.

It does seem like anyone is at risk - it clearly doesn't take much.

[hano.livejournal.com]

I'm in mourning. I wanted RR to stay all the way through. Granted she's nearly as terrible a dancer as I am, so her chances of staying were pretty slim, but even so, I'll miss her.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Kristina is still in.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I thought this week she was about to turn a bit of a corner.

Alas, we'll never know.