Where's the Gracious Professionalism?

[J-Blondie]

I agree that it is terrible to lose in situations like that. However I think GP also means having compassion to try and understand the entire situation whether you're involved or standing at the sidelines. I mean at SVR, I'm sure that the head ref feels terrible about the situation that he had to resolve. But the response to his decision was immediate name calling and blaming him when it was found out later that the information on what call to make came from HQ. It's just something to think about. A lot of refs understand what it's like to be on a team. Those who had to make decisions on the fly and had to do their best and then come home to face such negativity, name calling and general rudeness I'm sure won't be willing to come back next year. It's a bad experience on both sides which is what I'm trying to help people understand.

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by J-Blondie

It's a bad experience on both sides which is what I'm trying to help people understand.

That's certainly an understatement. I think everyone understands that many factors have lead to this game becoming difficult to both score and adjudicate. Both teams and volunteers have suffered immensely because of it. However it's imperative that FIRST as an organization and a community learn from the plethora of mistakes made in recent history, so as not to repeat them.

Originally Posted by J-Blondie

I also ask that any complaints to specific situations or events remain in the other threads

I wasn't intending to bring up any specific events, but since you brought up SVR, I'm more than happy to discuss it (or any of the other incidents to which I alluded to) with you outside of this thread if you'd prefer it.*

People have every right to be upset and I'm certainly more sympathetic to the kids who were robbed of the experiences they deserved, than the people who took it from them. The students and teams acted with Gracious Professionalism in nearly all the cases I am aware of. I don't know if I can say the same of those responsible for the decisions, whomever they may be.

*Feel free to PM me.

[J-Blondie]

I brought up SVR because it seems to be what everyone is the most angry about. And like I have said a bunch now, winning is great. It matters in a lot of ways as I highlighted in my original post. But winning or losing out doesn't need to turn you into an ugly vengeful person either. I'm going to stop replying at this point because I'm just repeating myself and I seem to be misunderstood about a lot of what I'm trying to say. That or most people just don't want to hear it.

Final words: Just be nice to each other, have compassion and deal with problems that may or may not arise. Mistakes happen, learn from them. Terrible things happen and hurt EVERYONE INVOLVED. Just think before you post and remember what you are representing when you do post.

[David8696]

Originally Posted by J-Blondie

I brought up SVR because it seems to be what everyone is the most angry about. And like I have said a bunch now, winning is great. It matters in a lot of ways as I highlighted in my original post. But winning or losing out doesn't need to turn you into an ugly vengeful person either. I'm going to stop replying at this point because I'm just repeating myself and I seem to be misunderstood about a lot of what I'm trying to say. That or most people just don't want to hear it.

Final words: Just be nice to each other, have compassion and deal with problems that may or may not arise. Mistakes happen, learn from them. Terrible things happen and hurt EVERYONE INVOLVED. Just think before you post and remember what you are representing when you do post.

I just want to note the fact that the issue at SVR wasn't even about winning. It was about a team being forced to sit out their final match of the season due to an unreasonable decision by a referee. And while I agree that winning is not the only reason to participate in FRC, I would make the argument that having the opportunity to play is. The reason we have a robotics competition is for robots to compete. And when a team is unjustly deprived of that opportunity, I consider it an outrage, and I think it would be more graciously professional not to express a certain measure of dissatisfaction in sympathy for a team who was deprived of the opportunity to compete in their last match of the year.