Referees refusing to change score

[budzilla]

It is always tough to keep track of everything going on in an FRC game, but I think the refs are stretched too thin this year. With all the scoring combinations to track and the devastating value of a assessed penalty, I think it's just too much of a ref influenced situation.

An odd call (against us) and possible missed assist (in our favor) marred F1 and F3 of Oregon City. Our alliance ended up winning, but I don't feel good about how things played out. Video reviewing might have cleared things up.

It's a fun game to watch, but why you won or lost was sometimes a mystery. When the overly busy refs are combined with 50 point fouls, it can make for a disappointing day even if you are the winner. I thanked every ref I could and told them I would not want their job.

Just my 1.3 cents worth and looking forward to the Wilsonville district in 2 weeks.

[BigBen]

We had a qualifying match this last weekend against one of the two undefeated (and VERY strong robot) team where one of our alliance 3 assist high goals was not included in the final score. Watching the replay the scoreboard showed 10 points added to the score at the time the goal happened, then it immediately dropped back to the previous score. Those 40 points never made it back onto the scoreboard.

When they announced the final score, we had won by 13 points, big cheers all around because our alliance was not expected to be able to beat them. Then there was a protest by the opposing alliance that a foul had not been counted, which was true and valid due to a data entry station malfunction, they were credited with 20 points and the win and the final score announced a second time. When our alliance questioned the rescoring of the game after the final score had been announced, we were told it was corrected due to the malfunction.

At this time our team members on the field were told by spectators that there was also a scoring error where an entire scoring cycle for our alliance was dropped and they again went to the ? asking for the scoring to be checked again, and were told that they had already checked the score, that we had received all of the assist points and that they couldn't go back and change it anyway since the final score had been announced. Frustrating to no end that the video we had within 3 minutes of the end of the match clearly showed the scoring error, but nothing we could do about it without antagonizing the judge any further. Tough pill to swallow as that one outcome would have greatly changed the team statistics and the whole alliance selection process. We noticed this type of scoring error several more times throughout the rest of the qualifying matches and even in the tournament, but in those matches I believe the error was corrected either before the final score or with the alliance going to the ? when they were made aware of the error.

I am sure we didn't get the consideration due to the multiple times questioning of the final score, even though it was for different reasons and actually very valid. I can imagine though what it must be like from the judges/refs perspective, I don't know if I could do as well as they were doing under the circumstances and overall I think they did an excellent job and called it as fair as they could.

I agree with some of the above posts that the refs are just overtaxed this year. The number of times we have seen penalties not called simply because the ref was focused on the ball possession/field zone combos and data entry into the computer is ridiculous. Robots are getting pinned for much longer than 5 seconds because they don't back off until the ref starts visibly counting, which sometimes happened after 10 seconds of pin because they were looking elsewhere. The other major issue is the lighting of the pillar being controlled by an official, that sometimes has not lit the pillar for upwards of 20 seconds after a goal was scored. Some of these scoring cycles are very quick and those seconds matter. With the exception of one match that was replayed when the pillar didn't light quickly enough, even though it could be argued that in that specific case would not likely have had an effect on that score due to a large score differential, none of the matches where it could have really impacted the original game were replayed. Granted that is most likely due to the affected alliances not asking the right questions to the judges in protest, but come on, it really shouldn't come down to that.

Personally, I think something as simple as one more official per team focusing on the ball, keeping track of just the assists/scoring and lighting of the pillar when the score happens, to allow the refs to do their job of policing the field would have stopped many of the issues we have seen over the last few weeks of competitions.

[hardcopi]

We had one match where they didn't count any of the autonomous for our alliance. The refs waited a full match before answering our question and just said that they couldn't remember. That was not fun.

This past weekend we had a couple matches where for 15-30 seconds the refs didn't click the button so we couldn't get the ball. We were told since it was a ref error and not a field malfunction we couldn't get a replay.

Still even with that said the game today is MUCH better than 3 weeks ago. We had events the last 3 weeks in a row. It was so amazing to see the kinks worked out that next year I'd like to see us just do the last couple weeks of the season.

In St Joe last weekend fouls rarely decided a match and when they did it was pretty obvious (parts getting ripped off other bots, etc). Rarely did a foul happen that everyone said "What was that for?".

[Shu]

Originally Posted by BigBen

Personally, I think something as simple as one more official per team focusing on the ball, keeping track of just the assists/scoring and lighting of the pillar when the score happens, to allow the refs to do their job of policing the field would have stopped many of the issues we have seen over the last few weeks of competitions.

This is it exactly. I have seen way too many assists not credited and we have also had goals not scored at all. In most cases, the refs are not able to go back and recall everything that occurred during the match to make the proper call. I hope something is done about this at least before championships.

[Grim Tuesday]

Originally Posted by Shu

This is it exactly. I have seen way too many assists not credited and we have also had goals not scored at all. In most cases, the refs are not able to go back and recall everything that occurred during the match to make the proper call. I hope something is done about this at least before championships.

It seems especially odd that these positions were not included this year, as in other years without automatic scoring, like 2011, there was a dedicated Scorekeeper position.