[Tristan Lall]

I see Ken's point here; a "no communication" rule might be difficult to enforce. While I don't think cheering should necessarily constitute deliberately giving the drivers information (at best, they're communicating information with regard to their approval vs. disapproval, rather than a particular action, strategy or status of the game), I do think that "3^rd base coaching" should be discouraged, or prohibited outright. Though the impact of the extra coach on any particular game is not easily quantified, I think that it might be easier from an enforcement point of view to simply ban it all (except cheering with no discernable message beyond "go team go"¹), and then deal with violations later, or permit it all, and make it clear that you may communicate as you please, be it with signs, hand signals, carrier pigeons or megaphones. By choosing an extreme position, we avoid the difficulty of requiring the referees to judge the level of interaction, and, if they feel it appropriate, to assign a penalty. The fact that the intent of the existing rules is not straightforward, and that no rule exists to explicitly cover several plausible situations (e.g. hand signals, shouting) just makes this type of call more difficult. (And it's perfectly understandable that, given a judgment call with shaky support from a strict interpretation of the rules, that many officials will likely choose to err on the side of leniency, which is simply a manifestation of the "permit everything" case, only now, someone has cause to complain about the decision.²)

I'm going to single out Cory's post here, because I don't agree that the intent is so clear-cut. Of course FIRST doesn't want interference with robot controls; that's the first, and most important reason why radios are banned. The second reason is to avoid drivers or coaches with an extra voice in their ears; that's also straightforward (judging by the Q&A response above). The point of contention is whether or not other forms of communication are valid; there exists a precedent for preventing deliberate signalling from the stands—but it was based on liberal interpretation of the rules. By the same token, there exist many precedents permitting teams to signal from floor level; shouting "up", "down", or gesturing at objects and locations, for example. So the question is, how much communication is too much, and how can FIRST craft a rule in such a way that it is obvious? If it's anything less than obvious, it makes more work for the referees, and can easily breed animosity over differences of interpretation, should such a situation arise.

Additionally, I take issue with the idea that the rules have to be thick like a phone book to be comprehensive. Though all-encompassing rules have a way of being long-winded, the trick is to (attempt to) be absolutely clear in one's choice of language, so as to communicate as much intent as possible, and to cover as many situations as possible, without wasting space on text that doesn't add any more meaning to the rule. In all seriousness, that offhand remark about lawyers (was it really Dean that said it; I don't remember) is being taken in a rather destructive direction—the fact that lawyers write long, drawn-out documents is a reflection of their understanding the consequences of not being precise. In truth, engineers ought to recognize the same—and very likely, most do, loath as they are to admit it. The fact that a rule is long, or that it specifies contingencies for unlikely situations doesn't make it a bad rule; it may be less fun for us to read, but at least you can't justify debating a call when the appropriate rule is specific, and the referee doesn't need to make an interpretation on the spot.

¹ For greater certainty, I'm not advocating an end to cheering, nor a draconian approach where one official monitors the crowd. Just a low-key statement in the rules that would have teams remind their members to avoid acting as spotters for their drivers.
² That their decision is final isn't important; of course people will express their dissatisfaction.