Sippin' on the haterade

[Bongle]

To enforce more parity, all they would have to do is announce "FIRST is primary about students. Mentors, remember you're only here to help, not do it for them". If they emphasize that philosophy (which would be great), mentor-ran teams would not disappear overnight, but their legitimacy would decline, and teams will change; the competition would become a much less hostile atmosphere between alleged elite teams and normal teams.

I disagree - since there is already animosity between student-run teams and teams that they perceive to be (but may not actually be) helped "too much" by their mentors, then actually having a rule or proclamation against mentor-run teams would make the animosity even worse, since these accusers would be able to claim the elite teams (who they know nothing more than hearsay about) are "too" mentor-run.

Having an ambiguous ruling would be like the post-Oshawa coopertition team update - it would officially change nothing and change nobody's opinion, but both sides of the issue would use it as ammo. Also, having the ruling enforced entirely by social pressure would be pretty brutal on the teams that get on the wrong side of the mentor witchhunt.