[EricH]

Originally Posted by Matt H.

There is a need for some kind of video review system--although many would say this is too complex or expensive consider the regionals as they stand now. Video from the regionals is transmitted around the world and many regionals are held in stadiums where video replay is a common feature of events. First most definitely has the technical skills to pull this off.

Matt, I'm going to refer you to a thread from after the 2005 season. I just want you to read the first five pages or so--after that, the thread got really ugly. It's got a pretty good discussion of the topic of instant replay and why it should and shouldn't be used in FIRST.

On to the original topic of this thread...

Originally Posted by M. Krass

Generally,

• Officiating staff -- all of them -- must be retained from year to year and have investment in the program beyond two days per year of involvement.
• The officiating staff must be more involved in early development of game rules so as to weed out as much ambiguity as possible. Referees have no place determining intent during a FIRST match and shouldn't be asked to do so.
• They must know the rules. Institutional knowledge will improve understanding of a complex rule book, but there is no excuse for a team of referees that doesn't know the rule book chapter and verse, so to speak. I spend a considerable amount of time ensuring that our robot complies with every rule and I don't think it's too much to expect that the referees would spend as much time learning the rules for their part.
• Teams absolutely must be informed after each match of which rules they violated. I don't care about the schedule. Imagine a football game wherein they never announced what the action was that drew a penalty, nor who was responsible and how the crowd might react to that. Ambiguity is a sure fire way to create discontent with the staff.

On some points, I agree. On others, I do not fully agree. I definitely agree with the first point, but would like to say that that is not always possible, so some refs will be new every year. As to the second point, Aidan Browne is a ref and on the GDC. As I remember, Dave said at kickoff that Aidan was not happy during game development several times. Now we know why.

I definitely agree on knowing the rules. I think that's what the instructional course is for. I also agree on the fourth point. Every penalty should be explained, at least to the teams. When the penalties are announced in football and soccer, the players are told even if the audience is not.