Dangerous precedent set by Q&A 461: Loaning Parts/Assemblies to other teams

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by George Nishimura

Was it not possible to highlight the problems then, or is there an issue that there is no means of communicating or highlighting these problems? Or did they ignore any communication?

There are six weeks of team updates to the rules addressing any edge cases, mis-wordings and misinterpretations left in the manual. I haven't followed everything so closely this season, but we know Frank reads CD, the GDC reads the Q&A and they're both probably reachable through email.

I like to think of the manual being in beta during build season. As users, we can contribute by filing bugs/issues. If that's not possible, then I think we should think hard about making that possible. The GDC aren't ominiscient.

If they ignored any warnings, then I would feel more compelled to blame GDC.

I realize there are some issues that cannot be solved post-reveal, but I don't believe the ramp/cangrabber loan issue the original question was addressing is one of them. It's regretful that this discussion is only happening now, and seems to be a point of confusion still.

Side point: I agree wholeheartedly with your points about the unhealthy behaviour.

Without putting too fine a point on things, the mentors I'm talking about are just tired when it comes to trying to influencing the GDC.

For the most part, they have come to the conclusion that there is little to be gained by complaining publicly about this or that feature of the game design, preferring back channel communications or suffering in silence depending on how strongly they feel about the problem and whether or not they think FIRST is open to hearing their input.

One mentor has actually started a tradition of writing a "Dear Frank" letter shortly after the kickoff with specific predictions of how things are going to play out during the season, hoping to gain some street cred for influencing future years.

For my part, I take comfort in the observation that the FIRST community (you and me) are robust to occasional bad games. We've survived terrible game designs and even worse Q&A decisions. It's all going to be fine. We'll get through this. Together.

Dr. Joe J.