2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

For the same reason the waitlist exists in the first place, or at least what I have always imagined that reason to be. To allow teams who otherwise might not have the experience to compete in the championships, which is a lot of fun and very inspiring, indeed.

If you truly think this is a problem, get rid of the waitlist entirely and be done with it.

I'm not really talking about Jared's opinion, just my own. (I happen to agree with what I think he said, but he's plenty capable of speaking for himself should he choose.) For myself, I'm curious about how you're measuring inspiration. If wildcards are ok, what's inherently wrong with, say, a points-based (a la districts) waitlist system? Why is getting rid of the list entirely better than inviting via performance rather than lottery?

The negative lesson learned here for me is that FRC is hitting the point where attending Worlds has the potential to be less inspiring to teams than actually qualifying. I don't think it's there yet, but this year's 8 matches is definitely going that direction. I don't envy FIRST is the decision of how far to diminish the Worlds experience for one set of teams in order to accommodate those that achieved less success in that season.