This topic brings back MANY memories of 2005 and some posts I made, both good and bad, regarding referee capability and consistency across all events.
I distinctly remember asking/demanding that FIRST and the regional staffs do something ahead of time to better educate and certify that their volunteer referees were knowledgeable of all game rules and prepared to enforce those rules equally at all events. I've read and witnessed many other similar sentiments in the years since then. This effort in 2008 to "standardize" refereeing represents a positive step forward, and I feel we should all put our full support behind FIRST in getting this new program to work. We should also give them time to see if these changes do bring improvement before providing any criticism and feedback, constructive or otherwise.
All that being said, if the "course materials" of this refereeing education were made public, I do believe it could help drive teams better understand what "style" of gameplay is expected by the GDC. It could make referees' jobs even easier as more teams will know how to play the game from the outset.
Now only if we could get some distributable "driver's ed" videos produced by FIRST that demonstrate appropriate and inappropriate robot behaviors relating to the current year's game. A picture is worth a thousand words. I'd guess some teams would love to help out in making these videos prior to the season, but that's quite difficult given the secretive nature of the game design sessions, so it would be up to FIRST and the GDC to arrange for such a thing. If that is too much to put on their plate, then we'll just have to go without such visual aids.
I'm very interested in seeing how this training plays out this year. Good luck to all in making it work!
