View Single Post
  #12   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 08-11-2005, 01:52
Tristan Lall's Avatar
Tristan Lall Tristan Lall is offline
Registered User
FRC #0188 (Woburn Robotics)
 
Join Date: Aug 2001
Rookie Year: 1999
Location: Toronto, ON
Posts: 2,484
Tristan Lall has a reputation beyond reputeTristan Lall has a reputation beyond reputeTristan Lall has a reputation beyond reputeTristan Lall has a reputation beyond reputeTristan Lall has a reputation beyond reputeTristan Lall has a reputation beyond reputeTristan Lall has a reputation beyond reputeTristan Lall has a reputation beyond reputeTristan Lall has a reputation beyond reputeTristan Lall has a reputation beyond reputeTristan Lall has a reputation beyond repute
Re: This year we need instant replay

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cory
It's my opinion that under no circumstances whatsoever should video produced by a team be used or even cosidered when making a decision.

Even if a ref stood there and watched the team taping, and everything was legit, this just should not happen. ever.

[edit] Plus, what if an alliance has nobody taping their robot when something questionable happens? Yes, a slim chance of happening, but totally unfair.

If you initiate an instant replay rule, it needs to be standardized across the board, ie: every single match needs to be taped from standardized view points, by a single entity. There's just no other way to make it fair, and this is clearly too large a monetary burden, as well as taking too much time, which precludes instant replay from ever happening in the first place
I just threw that idea out as something of a compromise, to see what both sides' reactions would be.

The point isn't to make it totally fair; in fact I think that we've certainly agreed that that's infeasible. The reasoning is that anyone who wants to dispute an error must prove that an error took place, or forget about it—there's even less room to argue, because you know that if you don't have proof, the referees will ignore you completely. On the other hand, if you do have conclusive proof, and the head referee thinks that it's a big deal, the ruling can be modified. If you don't want to take advantage of this, simply don't use a cameraman.

Actually, the idea is similar to the appeal in baseball, in that it's only granted at the discretion of the official, it may change nothing, and there are consequences for using it injudiciously (i.e. you can't appeal again, for one reason or another).

With a one-minute time limit from then end of the match to the beginning of the appeal, the only trickery that could reasonably occur in such a short span of time would be for a team to substitute extraneous footage. Even that would be somewhat difficult to pull off convincingly, and would depend on a conscious decision to cheat, requiring the collaboration of several team members (at least the on-field rep. to appeal, and the cameraman to show footage) and their alliance partners (to agree). That's why I don't have a problem with a team showing the referees their video, under these relatively controlled circumstances. Impartial observers making recordings would obviously be superior, but it isn't really necessary, nor is it practical.

Now, maybe a better question is raised by Andy (and by Ken earlier): can we expect video replays to have sufficient definition to make them useful for anything other than determining rough positions on the field? A video from the cheering gallery, with a regular handheld camera ought to be sufficient for some purposes, but for fine detail (like zip-ties hanging down into a loading zone), the footage is largely useless. In fact, maybe that leads to the best question: will introducing replays simply result in a lot of inconclusive judgments, which then simply revert to the referees' original decision? That certainly would diminish the usefulness of a review process.

I'm not sure that I agree with Andy's contention that "If instant replay comes around, these volunteers will go away". I'm not offended by video replay, and I can't reasonably contemplate choosing not to officiate, simply because of its presence. If it is allowed to be used as a delaying tactic, or is used injudiciously for baseless accusations, then I can see it being troublesome—but I don't think that anyone wants either of those things, and I think that if a compromise were desirable, one could be achieved without wasting too much time between matches, or giving the officials too much to deal with.

Now remember, I'm not convinced that this is a good idea, myself; I just want to see if we can find a good enough reason to throw it away (rather than resorting to our distaste for the video goal judge, or appealing to the status quo).