Saving Seats Epidemic

[EricH]

Originally Posted by JB987

Just a question that hasn't come up yet in this post...how absolute shall the adherence to the rule be? If we follow the letter of the rule, then a scout who runs to the rest room and is gone for only a couple of minutes is out of luck? Same would be true for anyone in the stands? There are teams like ours that have scouts (laptops) linked via ethernet or otherwise need proximity with the other scouts to exchange paper match data. Perhaps this is one of the strongest arguments for at least reserving seats for scouts?

I think in most cases, if you are saving one seat for someone whose rear was in there for a while but had to run to the restroom or to some other point in the stands for a couple of minutes, or even scouting data to the pits, and you said something to the effect of "Yeah, my buddy Joe is due back from the restroom in a couple minutes and needs to sit here because he's scouting" then most people will be gracious about it. Especially if you point them to a nearby empty seat (say, a row up or down). Letter of the rule violation? Yeah. Spirit of the rule violation? I don't think so.

I think where most people have the issues is when small group takes up large block of seats and doesn't let anybody else sit there, not where one seat in a group of people opens up briefly and is saved for that sitter's imminent return.