[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

I'm talking about their mistaken belief that relying on the perceptions of a "reasonably astute observer" would remove sufficient doubt to allow teams to discern what was meant in a variety of complex cases.

It was awfully cut-and-dry to me, and to most people I've spoken to.

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

That's 3 or 4, plus grasp, grapple & grab; there are probably other places as well.

No, grasp, grapple, and grab were included in your quotes, and the bumper ones were essentially the same question. Thus, four cases as far as you were able to drum up. Blue is blue (and this was intended as 'close enough, don't worry about dye lot numbers'), bumpers have to be supported on the ends, vision interference is vision interference, and grasp/grab/grapple mean what they mean. I hardly think that's "so many different situations" that leave "a lot of big ambiguities".

Hyperbole doesn't help your argument.

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

Are we supposed to infer that because FIRST uses the same test in all cases, there's a likeness between them?

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes -- they're alike in that they're all extremely obvious if you're not trying to game the system.

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

In law,

I'll stop you there. We are specifically instructed not to lawyer the rules. Talking about how judges define legal tests is directly contrary to what you're supposed to be doing when you look at these game rules. (And besides, if you're going to drag judicial practice into this, Potter Stewart's "I know it when I see it" is a much better analogy to the "reasonably astute observer" test.)

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

In essence, the problem is not to 'grasp' but to 'grasp in the opinion of a reasonably astute observer'. It might have been better to have said 'at the discretion of the referees'. That way, we know that there is uncertainty—but we know where the uncertainty lies. There would be no question of a team arguing that some reasonably astute observers justifiably believe this legal, and feeling wronged because the officials did not recognize the well-founded opinions of those other observers.

I'm a bit astounded at this line of reasoning. Are you seriously positing the argument that anyone reading the phrase "a reasonably astute observer" as used in FRC documentation would interpret it as any observer that considers themselves reasonably astute?

I mean, I suppose you could read it that way, but I can't for the life of me imagine why anyone would do so, as doing so would render the rule so subjective as to be meaningless (and thus it cannot possibly be the intent of the GDC).

This, by the way, falls right into the positivist trap. I can just imagine the question to the Q&A: "When you say 'a reasonably astute observer', what do you mean by 'a'? Does it mean any reasonably astute observer, a particular reasonably astute observer, or an observer that is considered by the team or the person themselves to be reasonably astute? Also, in assessing observers, what is the difference between reasonably astute and unreasonably astute (or reasonably unastute?)"

Reading requires interpretation; finding the correct interpretation means asking yourself, "what does the author most likely mean in this case?" I have a hard time believing that anyone would read "reasonably astute observer" as used in FRC documentation and come to any conclusion other than a generic layman observing the relevant phenomenon.

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

Interpretation of "reasonably astute observer" comes down to this: is it supposed to a question of what the referee thinks, or a question of what the referee thinks the community of reasonably astute observers thinks? (Same for inspectors, where the call is instead theirs to make; note that inspectors have the leisure of time to discuss the call with everyone.)

I think that any reasonably astute FRC team member can safely assume that FIRST chooses people that they consider to be reasonably astute to serve as judges, referees, and inspectors. I am flabbergasted that anyone would spend an iota of brainpower trying to figure out precisely what aggregate gestalt makes up the relevant "reasonably astute observer" pool, and somewhat amused by the notion that some people think it would matter vis-a-vis the rules to a game.