The Fraud of FTC Worlds - How FTC & FIRST have failed me forever.

[EmileH]

Although I firmly believe that most (if not all) head referees are reasonable people and would replay a match if they saw that the call was incorrect, the FRC game manual states that Referees cannot receive any input from video, images, media, etc.

5.5.3. REFEREE Interaction
The Head REFEREE has the ultimate authority in the ARENA during the event, but may receive input from additional sources, e.g. Game Designers, FIRST personnel, FTA, and technical staff. The Head REFEREE rulings are final. No event personnel, including the Head REFEREE, will review video, photos, artistic renderings, etc. of any MATCH, from any source, under any circumstances. T14 If a DRIVE TEAM needs clarification on a ruling or score, one (1) pre-college student from that DRIVE TEAM should address the Head REFEREE after the FIELD Reset signal (e.g. PLAYER STATION LED strings turn green). A DRIVE TEAM member signals their desire to speak with the Head REFEREE by standing in the corresponding Red or Blue Question Box, which are located on the floor near each end of the scoring table. Depending on timing, the Head REFEREE may postpone any requested discussion until the end of the subsequent MATCH.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by dodar

I understand giving slack, but my point still stands. The choice was/is still made full knowing the responsibilities held by being a referee.

Would you prefer that even fewer people accept that responsibility because of wanton criticism of their decisions?

[Fusion_Clint]

I agree that the ref's have a difficult task to do and mostly do a great job. Instead of becoming disillusioned with FIRST, take this opportunity to make it better.

I have been at more than one FTC event where it was stated up front that there will not be any replays no matter what, which is the wrong message to send. If it is important enough for the students to bust their hump on, it is important enough for the correct decision to be made.

At State and higher level matches in FTC there is FIRST video that can be reviewed. I think a challenge system should be implemented to help the Referee's get the call right. No one wants a full season of blood, sweat, and tears to go down because of a mistaken call.

[Lil' Lavery]

Are there any sports that have a challenge system that allows you to challenge penalties? The NFL allows challenges regarding events that happen on the field (was a ball caught, did a player go out of bounds, etc), but not penalties. MLB allows challenges to calls at the plate (safe/out), and there isn't really a direct parallel to penalties in baseball. The NHL and NBA have no challenge system.

Challenges to scoring errors may be valid, but referee penalties opens a nasty can of worms.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Would you prefer that even fewer people accept that responsibility because of wanton criticism of their decisions?

I'd rather not have people in power positions be above scrutiny.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by dodar

I'd rather not have people in power positions be above scrutiny.

Nobody is above scrutiny. There's a difference between scrutiny and public shaming, however.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Nobody is above scrutiny. There's a difference between scrutiny and public shaming, however.

And in which of my post was I publicly shaming any ref or volunteer?

[Rangel]

This story reminds me of what happened to us and our alliance for the Newton division 2011. Us, bomb squad and rush had our first quarterfinal won thanks to the minibot race when we noticed our tower was disabled. The refs had been saying in qualifications that we were deploying very close to the line so we lowered the deployment by an inch or two to ensure we weren't above the line. As it turns out, CNN was doing a story on us and the camera man comes over with video showing we weren't above the line. However, we were aware no video was allowed so we ended up taking the loss and didn't deploy our minibot the next match for fear of getting the penalty again and ultimately had Rush race who unfortunately wasn't fast enough to win the race. That year stings a bit since it was arguably our team's best robot but we've moved past it long ago. Later the ref who disabled the tower approached us and apologized if in case he made the wrong call. Sometimes calls are good and some are bad. It does happen and I hope you guys are able to move on from it.

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by ksafin

Here's where I add the fact that YES, I'm fully aware that video footage and replay is not allowed to be shown to referees to contest a call.

Is that actually in the FTC rules? (FRC rules don't apply to FTC.)

[gblake]

Folks,

When I read the OP, I come away with the poster focusing on the decision not to replay the match, and not on the initial mistake.

Discussing the ins, outs, ups, and downs of volunteer or professional refs is a distraction from the point I think the OP wanted to make. In the story he told in his post, no one disagreed explicitly about whether or not the penalty assessment was a mistake.

Instead, I think the root of his frustration that the match wasn't replayed (or that a corrected score wasn't recorded) when all four teams involved agreed a mistake had been made.

The assumption (that might be 100% wrong) folks have been making, is that the FTC folks in charge of keeping things moving along, decided they preferred advancing into the next matches, over a replay or other adjustment of the recorded (but wrong) result of the match being discussed.

Moving the conversation back onto the topic of event-schedule-vs-correctness might be more valuable than rehashing the referees-are-human topic.

Blake

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by gblake

Folks,

When I read the OP, I come away with the poster focusing on the decision not to replay the match, and not on the initial mistake.

Discussing the ins, outs, ups, and downs of volunteer or professional refs is a distraction from the point I think the OP wanted to make. In the story he told in his post, no one disagreed explicitly about whether or not the penalty assessment was a mistake.

Instead, I think the root of his frustration that the match wasn't replayed (or that a corrected score wasn't recorded) when all four teams involved agreed a mistake had been made.

The assumption (that might be 100% wrong) folks have been making, is that the FTC folks in charge of keeping things moving along, decided they preferred advancing into the next matches, over a replay or other adjustment of the recorded (but wrong) result of the match being discussed.

Moving the conversation back onto the topic of event-schedule-vs-correctness might be more valuable than rehashing the referees-are-human topic.

Blake

Blake, I 100% agree.

This season, at every FTC competition after Minnesota State Championship that I went to, I was frankly somewhat shocked by the focus on "just getting through" the even as opposed to the experience of teams, which is in my mind what event schedule vs. correctness comes down to. I was an FTA at two qualifiers and the Minnesota state championship this season, and had to call several replays in that time (working, of course, with our head referee to determine that was necessary). It sucks to replay a match, both in terms of scheduling and because it means you have to admit that somewhere, something went wrong, but the #1 priority needs to be giving teams a fair chance to succeed or fail on their merits, not because the referee messed up a call or because the field broke at an inopportune time.

I know there was talk in some earlier FRC threads about a "Putting teams FIRST" section in the volunteer manuals, but I think that needs to extend to FTC as well. Some of the volunteer behavior I witnessed and heard about at North Super Regional and Championships is in no way acceptable, and ultimately that comes down to us needing to train our FTC volunteers better, and making sure volunteers are in positions that fit their temperament. We collectively need to raise the quality of our FTC events, especially at the Super Regional level.

[smurfgirl]

Originally Posted by gblake

Moving the conversation back onto the topic of event-schedule-vs-correctness might be more valuable than rehashing the referees-are-human topic.

I am not sure if things have changed since the 2008 experience I mentioned in my post, since that is the last time I went to the championship event, but my understanding is that the decision not to replay matches at the final level was (is?) out of the hands of the individuals volunteers including the head ref.

[mjames31]

Originally Posted by T^2

The whole point of being an engineer is to overcome the inadequacies of nature, particularly human nature.

I feel like in order to this, FIRST should allow video coverage to be reviewed, just like in baseball and football. Indeed, cameras can see many things the human eye cannot, and with the 2 match limit for arguing, one would hardly have time to fabricate anything fake.

[dtengineering]

So my high school basketball team was playing in a game that would qualify us for the provincial championship. We were up by a point with seconds to go. Our center shoots the ball, misses, the other guys grab the rebound drive down the floor... the buzzer rings and their shot goes in. They win by a point. They go to the provincials.

Was it the fault of:

A) The ref for making a bad call?

B) The center for shooting when a possession game would guarantee a win?

C) The defense for not stopping their breakout?

D) Me for missing a foul shot (not to mention a few field goals) earlier in the game?

E) Our entire team for letting it get so close that it could be decided by one bad call?

F) The universe for not being fair?

I understand, you've got a good case. Why don't you talk to the FRC teams who were on Einstein when the field control system was interfered with and failed a few years back? I think they have a good case that a world championship title was unfairly interrupted. Maybe you want to talk to the English soccer team about the "Hand of God"? There's plenty of video evidence that Maradona actually comitted a foul rather than scoring a game deciding world cup elimination match. (It's an older reference but maybe a bit more significant on the world sporting scene than my high school basketball tournament experience!)

If you're looking for sympathy... well, I am sorry to hear that a mistake was made. I appreciate the frustration, but chances are the ref feels just as bad about making a bad call as you feel about the call being made. If it is any consolation, I'm pretty sure that my life has not been greatly damaged by what I truly believe was a monumentally incorrect call by a basketball referee over 25 years ago. I'm sure you'll get over this in time.

If you're looking to make the point that life is unfair... well, let's just hope that is the worst unfairness that life deals you.

Jason

[T^2]

Originally Posted by dtengineering

Why don't you talk to the FRC teams who were on Einstein when the field control system was interfered with and failed a few years back?

Those teams received compensation, as well as acknowledgement from FIRST that the problem existed. Granted, the issues that year extended beyond Einstein.