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Originally Posted by Citrus Dad
(Post 1405401)
I'll start with my premise, which I think many of you may have missed (and I was remiss in addressing earlier). I haven't yet seen a counter argument to what I've proposed other than saying "I want to do what I want to do."
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I have, heck I have typed a few of them
Quote:
Originally Posted by Citrus Dad
(Post 1405401)
That's not a rationale position that states how what's happening now promotes the objectives of FIRST. I don't accept status quo bias--that what we've stumbled into so far is the best outcome. Make your case, don't just say that we should just stick with the status quo. To be honest, the attrition rate of FRC teams, which I've seen discussed in other threads, indicates that there are problems that we need to address. Lets' start fixing them. Come up with some good ideas. I've put out mine. Instead of shooting them down, propose something else.
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Gonna be honest here, FRC and especially Chief Delphi are heavily against the status quo, with how fast our program has grown even since my first season (more then twice the number of active FRC teams) some have said that we are the vocal minority on here but I think we are more a slightly skewed sample size ( there is a higher representation of top tier teams on here then rookies just starting out).
To bring back my point, it speaks volumes to me about how short of a time you have been around that you think people on delphi are sheep who just baaah and don't challenge the status quo. If you look at major rule changes in a season, or changes to FRC as a whole you can find either the people behind them, or a thread debating it, sometimes years before it happens, on
delphi. If your idea appealed to even 10% of our community they would vehemently support you and not allow you to be arguing against us pretty much alone. I take that to mean this is less about us fearing change and more about your overall ideas not being very appealing overall
Quote:
Originally Posted by Citrus Dad
(Post 1405401)
So here's my principals:
1) A preferred way to encourage participation in the FIRST program, and thus in STEM education, is to allow all teams the broadest level of participation in elimination alliances.
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An interesting idea here, I feel like this is one of the points where I agree with you but for a different reason then you provided. I agree that inclusion in elimination alliances is a good think but not to encourage participation in FIRST but to encourage continued participation and dissuade disillusionment. I am not going to get someone to sign up and pay $5000 by guaranteeing them a place in eliminations, however I may get someone to pay $5000 for a second time because they felt they got their moneys worth the first time.
This may seem confusing but to put it simpler you can easily convince people to pay $19.99 for a product the first time but if that product stops working before you feel it should it is harder to convince you to pay $19.99 for the next version of the product.
So I agree with you but for different reasons then what I feel you intended, as you have said you are a policy maker but I am a capitalist so I look at what consumers want.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Citrus Dad
(Post 1405401)
2) As a corollary, less experienced and less competitive teams learn a tremendous amount from being able to ally with more experienced, competitive teams through a series of elimination matches.
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How does one measure how much one has learned? The only way is through testing or observation. I feel if we look at teams who currently make eliminations who are less competitive or less experienced they already are more competitive then the field who does not make eliminations, so we have circular logic of a good team getting better because they already were good regardless of if they learned from an alliance partner. You honestly may be right as we have seen teams come in their rookie year get picked up by a world caliber team and become a force to be reckoned with (2056), but the point is they already were good at FRC before 1114 took interest in them, I will come back to this point on a later one of your points.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Citrus Dad
(Post 1405401)
3) Teams drafting their own second bot creates an insular environment which degrades the atmosphere of coopertition. A team doing so appears to be implying, even if that's not the intent, that it is better than any other team, that it is not interested in learning from other teams that might in in other alliances, and isn't interested in sharing its expertise and resources with other teams.
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This may be one of the single most insulting things I have read on here masquerading as something in the name of gracious professionalism. Your statement is basically saying that teams are out to hurt FRC by picking the best bot available to them. "How dare they do whatever they can to reward their sponsors, mentors, and other team members!" I went back and got a hold of teams who missed eliminations at Panther Prowl "because of backup bots" and everyone who has responded to me thus far has had the same general attitude, missing eliminations inspired them to try to make a more competitive bot next year so it won't happen again. I find that better for our program and their teams.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Citrus Dad
(Post 1405401)
4) With these objectives in mind, I suggest these changes to be used by event organizers (I can understand the concern about event autonomy, but FIRST can issue guidelines):
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No they can't, if they try and teams don't like it they will either not host an offseason, or just build a field themselves as the field it the only thing that FIRST can deny them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Citrus Dad
(Post 1405401)
a) Offseason event should decide the intent of their event as to the level of competitiveness. IRI and Chezy Champs stand as the most competitive. Others like the Rookie Rumble will decide that maximum participation among all teams is the objective.
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I did not find IRI and Chezy the most competitive offseasons, I did find them having the highest level of competition but not the most competitive. This is a difference in opinion here, I have seen peewee football games much more competitive then NFL games, how competitive an event is is about how close together the skill of the participants are to each other, not how skilled the group is overall. Think about it as a more competitive event as a small range of skills (the skill of the most skillful being closer to the skill of the least skillful), while IRI has a higher ceiling of skill.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Citrus Dad
(Post 1405401)
b) in the less competitive events, to maximize the interaction among teams and the ability for the greatest possible number of teams to play in the eliminations, alliance captains would not be allowed to choose their own second robot unless there are no other 'bots running.
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Two big problems with this I brought up the issue of triplets registered to one team in an earlier post but this also punishes teams for seeding lower. If my team is rank 7 in theory I have a much lower chance of picking up my more competitive practice bot then I do at rank 1. Also this doesn't guarantee more unique teams in eliminations it one guarantees that teams second bots are less likely to be with them, for example nothing stops my team from picking 180's back up bot (which we did twice) and they could in turn pick up ours. So no new teams in eliminations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Citrus Dad
(Post 1405401)
c) Another great option is to require alliance captains to teams other than other alliance captains. I specified rule changes above that would dissuade teams from losing late matches to avoid become an alliance captain.
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And I brought up how fundamentally wrong that rule is. I am starting to think you don't like me as you seem to ignore whenever I try to have a civilized discussion with you :(
Quote:
Originally Posted by Citrus Dad
(Post 1405401)
5) If teams tried to do these on their own they would be unilaterally "disarming" because other teams would choose more competitive drafting strategies, and a deep literature in political science and economics shows that few will choose this approach. If you really, really don't believe this, I can start sending you citations from the literature. I know of no studies that say otherwise.)
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Alright I think what you are trying to say here is if every team tried to employ your suggestions without the event making them rules someone would go rogue and look out only for themselves. I could see that happening and agree if something major is only suggested and teams can choose to ignore it someone may try.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Citrus Dad
(Post 1405401)
6) Hal Varian (1986) [now Google CIO] showed that we will underprovide a preferred level of charitable contributions or cooperative giving if we avoid compelling everyone to participate and leave the provision to individual choice. This means that if we want to encourage meeting the first two objectives, the event organizer needs to compel all teams to follow these rules so that everyone gains greater benefits and reaches a higher level of satisfaction with the outcome.
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How does punishing my rookie drive team for being on a second robot allow everyone to gain greater benefits and be better satisfied with the outcome? I feel that they are implied to be part of everyone but I could be wrong.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Citrus Dad
(Post 1405401)
Yes, this does limit individual freedom of choice. But the sequential draft already restricts a team's ability to choose whichever team they want, and the selection refusal rule adds even more of a restriction. We often limit freedom of choice in many situations to improve overall societal benefits. The speed limit is just one example.
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No sequential draft does not restrict a teams ability to choose whichever team they want, your system directly limits 1 more team minimum for everyone. No believe it or not speed limits do not improve societal benefits, I could quote literature and studies that show on places with no speed limits their are less accidents as people do not know how fast a driver may be traveling so are more likely to pay attention and not assume someone is going to be going with the flow of traffic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Citrus Dad
(Post 1405401)
An important difference in offseason--for almost all teams, moving on the World Championships is at stake in the Regionals and Districts. That is never the case in the offseason, so it has a much different competitive flavor. Think of the NFL preseason games vs regular season and the level of competitiveness.
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One could argue then that if your ideas are so good they should be applied to the regular season as the regular season should inspire more, but then as I have stated that would mean punishing teams like MORT and Goodrich martians, and bringing questions on teams who build twins yearly (801 and 1592).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Citrus Dad
(Post 1405401)
As to contacting event organizers, I am encouraging other teams who see the benefits of this approach to contact their chosen events and persuade those events to use these rules. It is not my place to be the event "police" and monitor what each event is doing. I used the Fall Classic as an EXAMPLE of a situation and I don't feel its my responsibility to follow up with them. (I follow up with events that we compete in where I think that changes would be beneficial.) So please do not ask me to contact anyone about this comment.
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I am going to be honest if any event we were looking into or did attend implemented your rules I would actively argue for us not to reward that event with our presence or funds.
