[Tristan Lall]

Some might be interested in this previous discussion on how closely to read the bumper rules (from 2010). In that thread, I said:

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

Now, returning to something that came up earlier: why are we enforcing provisions in the rules that are mostly useless? After all, not every rule is of equal importance or equal impact. The bumper rule, among several others, contains a number of specifications that are not especially important to gameplay, safety or other stated FIRST priorities. Teams are often understandably frustrated, for example, when confronted with a rule that makes an arbitrary but functionally immaterial distinction between parts. Inspectors can hardly take joy in having to tell a team that their careful engineering is for naught, because they used pneumatic tubing that was smaller than the only permissible size. And although you can blame the team for not reading the rule (which was plainly written in the manual), ultimately, it's a matter of having better rules, so that these issues don't come up in the first place. These are issues that the GDC needs to consider.

Another argument that comes up often in these sorts of discussions is that in real life, you can't possibly follow every law—so why is it necessary in FIRST? Well, FIRST isn't a perfect simulation of real life (nor is it realistically intended to be one, I don't think). In real life, nobody rewrites the body of law every year—but in FIRST, only this year's rules matter. In real life, precedent has a specific role in law—but in FIRST, precedents are not binding, infuriating as that might be when you pass inspection at one event and fail at the next. And most importantly, the laws of the real world deal with things of critical importance like liberties and rights—but in FIRST, the rules, and the procedures for applying and complying with the rules are drastically narrower in scope. Personally, while I might advocate for leniency in some areas of social policy (given the importance and consequences of those aspects of law), I tend to take a harder line within the limited scope of the FIRST rulebook.

While I still hold those opinions, particularly that the rules should generally be read as standalone specifications that do not depend on a knowledge of past practice, I think it's fair to revisit the question of precedent under the current circumstances. After all, it might be suggested that FIRST's ongoing intent has been to keep the bumpers mostly similar from year to year, and that the omission of staples was inadvertent and based on an unspoken presumption (on the part of the GDC) that teams could keep doing what they'd done previously, as long as it didn't contradict the GDC's updated intent. Another example of this is the definition of what constitutes an acceptable bumper fastening system: that definition has evolved over the years, but simply looking at the 2014 rulebook, it's not clear exactly what FIRST means or what it will accept. That kind of thought process would be an easy mistake to make, particularly if the GDC were concentrating on other, more important details.¹

If that's true, does it imply that a "proper" reading of the rules is only likely with specific knowledge of the past (e.g. that staples used to be specified as options for bumper construction, and are thus unlikely to arouse the concern of the officials or the GDC)? I hope not; firstly because there are relatively few people with that knowledge (or the inclination to amass such esoteric knowledge), and there's no need for them to be the gatekeepers to the rulebook; and secondly, because the downsides of codifying everything to a widely acceptable degree of precision are minimal when you have absolute control of the rule-writing process, so there's no need for half-measures that introduce widespread uncertainty.

Everyone's interests are served by simply clarifying the rule's intent (via Q&A), and if necessary, issuing updates that make that intent clearer and which can guide the teams and officials alike. The fact that this might reiterate past rulings is immaterial, and the fact that this might contradict past years' rulings—while not immaterial—at least shouldn't be reason for great consternation.


¹ And make no mistake, several of the most important ongoing deficiencies in the bumper rules have been corrected in the last couple of years. The bumper rules are still far from perfect, but they're not nearly as bad as they used to be.