Let's hear it for the Refs !

[jvriezen]

I'm disappointed with all the posts that are roughly of the following form:

"I'm not complaining about the refs, I know they are volunteers, and the job is hard and they miss some things, but in this this match, the ref blew the call and as a result, we lost the match by less than the 5 point foul that should/should not have been called. It ended our season, caused pain and misery, blah, blah, blah, video replay, better ref training, refs were awful, etc. etc. "

Consider a different style of post, one that I've never seen before:

"We were the #1 alliance and picked the team 9999 as our first pick. But in SF2-3 which was a very close match they made a very poor decision to go for one last high shot from the middle of the courtyard (and missed) and then didn't get on the batter in time and as a result we lost. Team 9999 has been around a long time. The mentors and drive coach should have been more aware of the correct strategic move in that case and the driver should have known what to do. As a result we lost the match and were eliminated, blah, blah, better mentors, blah blah."

In most cases, folks that feel like a ref's choice caused their team's loss are very willing to post the video link, refer to the exact time of the occurrence, and provide their detailed analysis of why the ref 'messed up.' You wouldn't do this to your own team mate if they messed up, you wouldn't do it to an alliance member or team. You'd not post the video link if the ref clearly messed up but did so in your favor. You only post ref issues when they directly negatively affected YOUR team.

If you feel a ref has made a bad call, go to the question box (which I'm sure most have done in these cases) and if you need someone to commiserate with and validate your take on what happened, feel free to do that with your team mates in a a very limited way, but don't publicize that you think a ref messed up on CD where hundreds or thousands will see it, including the ref or other refs or potential future refs.

Ref's don't want to see their calls analyzed in a public forum, if they did, the refs would be posting videos here and saying "In this match at 1:30, did I make the right call?"

If you think the current referee crew is doing a less than adequate job, contact the volunteer coordinator (preferably after the event -- they are busy!) and politely state your case. If they get enough complaints AND have more ref volunteers than they need, they'll likely go with the ones that don't have complaints.

You don't publicly call out your own team mates for their mistakes on CD, and in a real sense, we all (including the refs) are on the same FIRST organization team whose purpose is to inspire and change the culture outside
of FIRST.

We all (I hope) cheer for the refs when they get recognized on the field during opening ceremonies, but I know this community is very capable of expressing much more substantive appreciation to them in other more meaningful ways. I'll start:

A big thanks to all the FRC Referees that give so generously of their time to help provide a massively fun way to spend two or three days for so many students and adults.

[SenorZ]

???
So, someone who volunteers to ref a world championship event attended by hundreds of teams from around the world, all paying thousands of dollars to register (IE excluded), plus thousands of dollars to travel to the event, shouldn't expect public discussion of their mistake?

I agree that the volunteers are doing an amazing job 99% of the time. A higher percent than me! But when you put yourself in a position of power, you have to expect some dissent and criticism.

There were 8 divisions with about 125 matches each, plus elimination rounds and then Einsteins. And only a handful of questionable calls that may have swayed alliance selection. All in all, a fantastic feat. And one worthy of congratulations.

But immune from gripes? Never gonna happen.

[nathanwalters]

I don't think any of these types of posts are in any way meant to play down the immense contributions of time and energy that volunteer refs give to FIRST. But being grateful for all the refs do and having an open discussion about the validity of calls are not mutually exclusive. Saying that all refs should be immune from public criticism is absurd.

Most posts of this nature that I've seen have been predominantly constructive. Yes, people can get heated and angry if a bad call (something completely beyond their control) negatively impacted their team. But most posts also contain suggestions for FIRST in future years, such as to clarify ambiguous terms in the manual. Simply saying "Oh well, bad calls happen" and ignoring the issue doesn't fix anything and isn't constructive. By having these open conversations and providing suggestions to mitigate problems in future years, we help make future games more enjoyable for everyone involved.

Originally Posted by jvriezen

Ref's don't want to see their calls analyzed in a public forum, if they did, the refs would be posting videos here and saying "In this match at 1:30, did I make the right call?"

If refs don't want their calls analyzed publicly, perhaps they shouldn't be making said calls in front of thousands of people.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by nathanwalters

By having these open conversations and providing suggestions to mitigate problems in future years, we help make future games more enjoyable for everyone involved.



If refs don't want their calls analyzed publicly, perhaps they shouldn't be making said calls in front of thousands of people.

That last statement is out of line. But it's true. That's why I didn't volunteer to ref at CMP, on top of having reffed 4 events already.

Let me put it this way: The only reason I reffed 4 events was because there weren't enough refs, period. And I rather suspect that half of the reason there weren't enough refs is because if they make a call (or no-call) that is the slightest bit controversial, 47 CDers who haven't reffed FRC jump all over it and complain about something that was perfectly clear from the stands (but, if you REALLY think about it, was unclear, or perfectly clear the other way from the refs' point of view). [/hyperbole]

And, the GDC didn't help--no offense to any GDC folks reading this, but if you don't consider referee sightlines when you're designing field elements, you need to. There really isn't an excuse for the sally port opening to block the outerworks refs' view of sally port crossings that they're supposed to be scoring!

A better way to discuss calls is:
Here's the video, here's what the refs called, why would they call that? 7 times out of 10, it's something that you didn't notice. 2 times out of 10, they're using judgement where a rule allows them to. And the remaining time, they might have actually made a mistake (not seeing, wrong rule, something like that). That's something that refs (and teams) can discuss and learn from.

[cadandcookies]

I'll agree with you on a couple of things-- many accusations against referees are needlessly personal and nonconstructive, and refs, like all the other volunteers that make our competitions possible, deserve our respect.

However, I don't think that this means issues with refereeing should stay between teams and the volunteer coordinator or internal to teams. Many issues that appear to be the fault of referees really trace their roots to combining the jobs of scoring and refereeing into one job when it really, for the sake of everyone involved, should be two. FIRST has never seemed to recognize this except for in years where it was impossible/impractical to do automated scoring (2015), so I think people are more that within their rights to continue to point out issues with reffing and suggest solutions to the issues of inconsistent or incorrect reffing.

And yeah, part of this is stemming from the fact that I've been on both sides of wrong calls. Pointing them out and learning from them can be constructive even if it isn't particularly so in most cases.

So yes, thank you to all the refs and other volunteers in stressful roles. I've filled a much larger variety of roles in FTC than in FRC (where I've only been field reset), but one of those has included being a referee, and I think it's completely illogical for me (in such a public-facing role) to expect my decisions to be out of the public light.

When I volunteer, I am putting myself in a position to be responsible for helping teams have a good, fair experience at the tournament. When I screw up, I appreciate someone letting me know so I can correct my behavior in the future. Many screw-ups are caught on the spot, but some slip through and only come to light online.

At the end of the day, I'm volunteering to improves teams' experiences at their regionals. Yeah, some people are a little rough when they don't feel you contributed to that, but that doesn't mean you should ignore them. As my leadership instructor told me: "Ya gotta listen for the song beneath the word."

I haven't refereed in FRC (I have in FTC, but I feel like that's a bit of a different ball game), but none of the complaining on CD dissuades me from putting on the stripes. I fully anticipate that one day, probably sooner rather than later, I'll find myself a zebra and will probably blow a call. When that happens, I full expect my fellow volunteers will let me know and I'll do my best to avoid making the same mistake twice. After that point, well, Chief Delphi is going to be Chief Delphi.

[alicen]

Hi, I'm a ref. I reffed at two events on opposite coasts this year in back to back weeks.

Yes, we do a hard job.
Yes, we sometimes get calls wrong.
Yes, I want to hear when I've gotten something wrong, because I would like to be able to explain what I saw vs what you saw.
Yes, the GDC could 'fix' a lot of these problems by giving scoring aspects back to non-ref volunteers.
Yes, most posts I've seen on CD have been "This call happened to us, we think it was wrong, what do you think?".
Here is a quote from something someone else wrote that I didn't feel was constructive or helpful in one of those threads:

This should have been a field fault and had the match replayed.

I was not impressed with the referee quality at CMP this year.

No, I don't think that ref calls shouldn't be talked about on CD.

Here's something else.
As a ref, I defer to how my head ref interprets the rules and calls them. In my experience reffing under different head refs, some things are slightly different, more or less lenient, etc and so on. This isn't usually that big of an issue for regionals/districts, but when you mix all those refs from all over at CMP and then have rules that are ambiguous or can be read different ways after 7 weeks, then some calls will appear bad to some and fine to others.

On another note -- I love wearing the zebra stripes because I can have a bit of fun seeing students nervous as to why I'm in their pit, then exhale relief when I just want a picture of their robot
However, this season I was thanked for being a volunteer (without any prompting) exactly once, and it happened to be a Thursday morning in my 'street clothes'. I'm not saying treat your volunteers like they walk on water, but that one girl saying "Thank you for volunteering!!" as I walked away honestly made my weekend even more enjoyable.

[connor.worley]

Being a volunteer isn't an excuse to be bad at your job.

When a ref gets a call wrong, why should all the repercussion be placed on teams? Their season could be over, and they won't hear so much as a "oh sorry, I made a mistake" in response. The goal is inspiration and volunteers are obviously working towards that but FRC is a competition. The inspiration happens because it is a competition. When you mess up on the competitive aspects, you mess up the inspiration.

A couple of choice quotes from the past six years:

"I did get the call wrong, but I didn't want to waste time replaying the match."

"Technically [the team that drove into your frame perimeter] should have gotten a red card, and they did break parts of your robot, but I don't think it would have mattered."

And totally rude behavior towards anyone in the question box.

[The Swaggy P]

Originally Posted by connor.worley

No. Nobody has the right to make mistakes left and right without any scrutiny. Being a volunteer isn't an excuse to be bad at your job.

When a ref gets a call wrong, why should all the repercussion be placed on teams? Their season could be over, and they won't hear so much as a "oh sorry, I made a mistake" in response. The goal is inspiration and volunteers are obviously working towards that but FRC is a competition. The inspiration happens because it is a competition. When you mess up on the competitive aspects, you mess up the inspiration.

Well said my man. Very well done.

[Sperkowsky]

It was funny. Yesterday I saw a post from a member of 16. He said he never knew how needed video replay was until his team had a bad call at their expensive.

I have volunteered in many positions and will be reffing in the off-season. And guess what I am the same person who will say this year's reffing was terrible. Was it all the refs fault? No. Some of it was the game. But, when you go to the question match after wrongly losing your last elimination match of the season and the ref says to you that she thinks they were wrong but they have a schedule to keep... I think you will have a different reaction.

[rich2202]

Originally Posted by connor.worley

Being a volunteer isn't an excuse to be bad at your job.

I agree, but sometimes that is First's only option.

I was chatting with Refs at Champs, and they said they could have used more Refs. One Head Ref complained about a Ref not being up to the task.

IMHO, each seasoned team (teams at least a few years old) should be required to put a Mentor through Ref Training. All the Refs would be required to ref a few practice matches. It would give the Head Ref the option to sub-out a Ref if a Ref is not up to the challenge. The trained Mentor gives the Team a different perspective on the game.

BTW: I also think that every team (including rookie teams) should put a Mentor through Robot Inspection certification, and have to complete the inspection checklist for their team's robot before Stop Build. It would help to identify problems in advance, and guide building of the robot next year (make certain things more easy to inpsect).

[Cothron Theiss]

Originally Posted by rich2202

IMHO, each seasoned team (teams at least a few years old) should be required to put a Mentor through Ref Training. All the Refs would be required to ref a few practice matches. It would give the Head Ref the option to sub-out a Ref if a Ref is not up to the challenge. The trained Mentor gives the Team a different perspective on the game.

I think teams that feel that their season or their inspiration has been slighted by a poor call by the refs should start looking at how to supply more refs or volunteers to the event or competition events in general BEFORE they bring out complaints of bad calls. Also, a long term solution to the problem of not having an abundance of refs at events might be for Chairman's Judges to start looking at which teams are providing mentors to be trained and volunteer as refs or other volunteer positions during competition season. If every team hoping to win a RCA supplied one mentor to be a ref at the event, I think the event coordinators would have a much easier time making sure the event is staffed by enthusiastic and competent refs, and the teams might leave with a better experience.

Just my opinions, feel free to make them your own.

[spydan]

Originally Posted by rich2202

IMHO, each seasoned team (teams at least a few years old) should be required to put a Mentor through Ref Training. All the Refs would be required to ref a few practice matches. It would give the Head Ref the option to sub-out a Ref if a Ref is not up to the challenge. The trained Mentor gives the Team a different perspective on the game.

I think it would also help if all teams read the rules... Then you would not only have Mentor understanding, but Student understanding as well.

[catmanjake]

Originally Posted by rich2202

I agree, but sometimes that is First's only option.

I was chatting with Refs at Champs, and they said they could have used more Refs. One Head Ref complained about a Ref not being up to the task.

IMHO, each seasoned team (teams at least a few years old) should be required to put a Mentor through Ref Training. All the Refs would be required to ref a few practice matches. It would give the Head Ref the option to sub-out a Ref if a Ref is not up to the challenge. The trained Mentor gives the Team a different perspective on the game.

BTW: I also think that every team (including rookie teams) should put a Mentor through Robot Inspection certification, and have to complete the inspection checklist for their team's robot before Stop Build. It would help to identify problems in advance, and guide building of the robot next year (make certain things more easy to inpsect).

If any of the above as far as mentors going through Robot Certification or Ref training is truly available, I would appreciate someone private messaging me how to go about this. I know I seen calls this year that i wasnt sure about but it was more about trying to find out why something was or wasnt called versus complaining about a call. Anytime a team member (student or mentor) questioned something, i tried to find info on CD or on Questions and Answers website.

Our team went to a practice regional and a handful or so teams were told their robots were not in compliance. This was vety near the end of build season. I know most of them were new teams or 2nd year teams that had not dealt with bumpers before. I could see myself going through inspection training and then visiting local teams on a weekly or do schedule to give them insights into how well they are doing to pass an inspection.

Let me know your thoughts.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by catmanjake

If any of the above as far as mentors going through Robot Certification or Ref training is truly available, I would appreciate someone private messaging me how to go about this.[...]

Our team went to a practice regional and a handful or so teams were told their robots were not in compliance. This was vety near the end of build season. I know most of them were new teams or 2nd year teams that had not dealt with bumpers before. I could see myself going through inspection training and then visiting local teams on a weekly or do schedule to give them insights into how well they are doing to pass an inspection.

Let me know your thoughts.

Inspection and ref training typically is released in late build season, and is only available to inspectors and refs respectively.

So, your best bet is to figure out who your area's LRI typically is (seeing MN, you'll want to PM Jon Stratis), and say "Hey, I would like to inspect next year, can I run through some practice in the offseason?" And then you volunteer in VIMS for a regional. Similar for the refs, though for that you'll just contact your local offseason about volunteering as a ref. (If they can't take you, ask who the head ref is, and contact them directly. Works wonders.) Then you put in in VIMS. Side note, don't do both at the same event. Trust me, it's not fun, particularly on practice day.

That being said, I know that the local pre-bag scrimmage in my area had one ref (me, having passed the training the previous night) and two inspectors (my dad, and myself). The purpose of that scrimmage is to get teams on the field and tell them what they need to fix, while they have a few days to do the fix. We found some possible pretty serious issues there, and I saw every one of those teams in competition later that year. Very few of them still had those issues, because they Knew about them, and they could Plan to deal with them.

[bdaroz]

Originally Posted by rich2202

IMHO, each seasoned team (teams at least a few years old) should be required to put a Mentor through Ref Training. All the Refs would be required to ref a few practice matches. It would give the Head Ref the option to sub-out a Ref if a Ref is not up to the challenge. The trained Mentor gives the Team a different perspective on the game.

BTW: I also think that every team (including rookie teams) should put a Mentor through Robot Inspection certification, and have to complete the inspection checklist for their team's robot before Stop Build. It would help to identify problems in advance, and guide building of the robot next year (make certain things more easy to inpsect).

I completely agree with both of these. I'd really like FIRST to consider not making the ref/inspection training materials "hidden" or secret (or whatever non-public status that have now). And who knows, perhaps they'll get a few more volunteers out of the process as well.