Team Update 2/28/12

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Taylor

I'm not disagreeing with this statement.

I think it's an attempt at becoming more like the sports model FRC is trying to emulate. In basketball, we as spectators know the score immediately after the ball goes through the hoop*. We don't have to wait on the referees conferring on whether the basket counted or not or if they're going to count penalties. Scoring and results are real-time and theoretically more exciting**.

*I know, in professional American football, the officials have to verify all scores. Honestly, this system inhales audibly.

**I know, it's exciting to sit on the edge of seats, waiting for the official score. However, this provides an atmosphere of the scores being dependent on the officials rather than the teams' play.

The bigger problem is that in sports referees have years of experience officiating a game that almost never changes...and they still routinely make brutally wrong calls.

We have a game that nobody has refereed, with volunteer referees, and penalties will be assessed in real time now. I'm really curious how they plan to handle multiple referees signaling the same infraction. It has been very common in the past for more than one ref to see a violation occur and flag it. This is normally resolved after the match when they confer and eliminate the double penalties.

How does this get handled now? Do individual refs signal penalties and then the head ref sorts them out in real time and signals them in to the scorekeeper? Does each ref have a clicker or something that automatically assesses the points?

[edit] I see in the above linked document about hand signals that referees "enter the foul on tablet". What does that mean? tablet like iPad tablet, or tablet of scoring sheets? If the latter, why are they bothering, if fouls will not be tracked after being called?