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

[jee7s]

Originally Posted by FrankJ

I think Jon's post is a reasonable interpretation of the Q&A. He is a LRI & has been an LRI at worlds. If you have a question at your competition on how the rule is interpreted ask your LRI. Have your robot reinspected (required by 2015 rules) making sure the added components & source are documented.

Frankly (and that's not meant to be a pun, FrankJ), if things are enforced as Jon suggests, it's a problem since it's not in line with this Q&A response. If Jon reads this, I agree with your interpretation at a moral and common sense level, but the Q&A response explicitly disallows a lot of what you say you would allow. To me, Jon's interpretation is UNreasonable given the text of the Q&A.

I vehemently disagree with the Q&A response, but the response is also pretty darned clear cut and explicit. Having various volunteers at various events "interpret" the response with the "intent" of fostering a positive experience is just as bad as volunteers "interpreting" the rules in the strictest manner possible a la Dallas. We don't need interpretation of bad rules to make a good event, we need the rules to be good in the first place.

The path to hell is paved with the best of intentions. While I don't think anyone is trying to make things evil here, I'd suggest it is more righteous to consistently enforce the letter of a bad rule everywhere than to create a scenario of mixed or muddled expectations from event to event.

IMHO.