[Chubtoad]

My team was approached during the Annapolis regional to "cooperate" during a match. The deal was that we would leave each others stacks, and play strictly defensive strategy. We woudl get as many bins in scoring posistion as possible and everyone would try for the ramp. We all agreed with no-one objecting. My team was forced to pull-out before the match due to a mentor angrily disagreeing with us. The opposing alliance won the match and if we had kept the agreement it might not have been so. The risks for winning vs. losing are the same. The drive team on my team had looked at it at that time as working with other teams, and spreading the word of FIRST through cooperation.

We made sure that they other alliance knew that we weren't going to do it. I fully disagree with any team holding instances of agreement against other teams. I find it appaling that members of the FIRST community would think to "blacklist" other teams. I feel it is wrong for teams to hold this against other teams because they might be doing it for reasons that aren't as anti-first as some of you might think.

I am still torn on the subject of whether or not this should be done. At the time we did not think it had any malicious side-effects but as I have read this thread I realize that there are some. I think that determing who shall win a match is ENTIRELY wrong.

I think it is better to maximize points than to realize that your going to lose and knock over your own stack to bring down the opposition's points. It has been done before and I have not seen such huge discussion over it.

I think since reading this thread I would not participate in such agreements anymore since obviously a large portion of the teams competing do not think that this is acceptable strategy. But I would NOT sign a petition which woudl end up punishing teams that did not sign it. Such petitions and blacklisting has occured in history and is one of the BAD POINTS of our nations history.

To each his own.