Quote:
Originally Posted by Citrus Dad
I'm making a point about offseason events vs official Regionals and Districts. Off season events are often less competitive and more "friendly" and I'm arguing for a different set of rules in that case.
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But you're arguing about a specific offseason and not offseasons as a whole. You can't define each offseason's intent because you're not on the planning committee for every offseason in the world. That's the difference between FIRST official events and offseasons - FIRST defines the standard for districts/regionals/CMP and the event organizers have to stick to them. Offseason event organizers have the option to choose their priority in what type of event they'd like to do. Most times, that is pretty clearly stated.
For example: I'll tell you about something we did at MKM this year, because we had EXACTLY the number of teams for 4-team alliances. We wanted everyone to have a full alliance, so basically asked, "Hey, if you're outside of the top 8, and you're not busted, please don't decline." That way, no alliance was screwed out of a 4th robot unless there was a serious issue.
If we allowed declines but still encouraged 4-team alliances, a team could decline #1 to 'force' their way as the 4th robot on the #8 alliance. It was our intent to get everyone onto an alliance for elims, but it just wouldn't work if people declined to try and make their way onto their chosen alliance as a 4th. Cutting the 4th robots entirely would have put 8 teams out of play, which we really didn't want to do. We wanted everyone to play, but we didn't want shady backwards declining taking advantage of that.
Did someone come up to me and tell me 'your declining rule is bull$#!t'? Absolutely.
(To be fair, it was a friend, and they were half-kidding).
But we stated the intent and we went with it, because it's our offseason. Quite honestly other than that one comment, we didn't hear anything negative about it. We wanted everyone to get a chance to play. If we'd had 30 teams it wouldn't have been an issue, but it was a special case we had to adapt for. We decided what our priority was, stated it, and went with it.
Another offseason might have made a different choice and that's entirely their right to.
Each event determines its own way.
If you disagree with me, that's fine. I'm happy to take feedback, as that was a day-of-decision that we made through several discussions as a planning committee. But unless you're planning your own offseason, you're not going to be able to decide the 'point' of the event, event-specific rule changes, or the intent of them.
I think it seems like what you're asking, is a disclaimer describing an offseason event's priority/purpose so you can decide where you want to go/what events to skip. Is that not effectively communicated by offseasons in your area? It seems pretty well-stated around us, at least.