FRC rules around seating need to change.

[wazateer1]

Originally Posted by GreyingJay

Another option, tangential to this issue: give guests special colored lanyards and instruct ALL teams to treat these people as VIPs. (Maybe they do this already, I don't know.)

My favorite thing about myths is they usually had some kind of visible outcome in the culture they originated in. One of my favorite typical myths is that of the "god in ugly human form". Travelers started telling myths of Gods who would pretend to be humans, ask for a night to stay, when they didn't receive it lay down some serious hurt, and when they did grant riches or long life or strong children or something. Most people think the lesson was that gods are fickle, but the truth is that this public mentality meant the hospitality of Ancient Greece was unparalleled. Turns out, treating every stranger like a "god" in disguise gives major credit to your culture. And who knows, maybe some of them will actually grant you "riches".

[Chris is me]

If your takeaway from the VIP stories is "we should make VIPs easier to identify so that no one is accidentally a jerk to them", I think you're missing the point of the story.

Edit: wazateer1 beat me to it.

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

Originally Posted by gblake

- Scouts who wish to use a scouting system that is incompatible with the current FIRST rules, will be wise to choose a more appropriate scouting system.

For me this is the big one that I don't think the current rules is an appropriate accommodation for. There are many seating areas that are just not acceptable for scouting and is the reason teams like ours and many others have to come early to get the necessary seats and then worry about losing these seats during lunch and breaks. If the scouters can't see the robots on the field or can only see them for half the match, what is the point in scouting? In the event that scouts can't see the field properly, what is a team supposed to do for scouting? At that point the data becomes pretty bad and could be even worse than not scouting at all.

[GreyingJay]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

If your takeaway from the VIP stories is "we should make VIPs easier to identify so that no one is accidentally a jerk to them", I think you're missing the point of the story.

Edit: wazateer1 beat me to it.

What I meant was much more along the lines of what wazateer1 said. Treat everyone nice because you just never know, and it's the right thing to do besides.

[bduddy]

Quite frankly, a blanket "no saving seats" rule is not reasonable in the face of many common scenarios, such as:

-Teams or their guests arriving at different times
-Parts of teams temporarily leaving their seats for, say, lunch, the pits, or even the bathroom

There needs to be new rules that properly balance these needs against the understandable concern to not have the entire seating area partitioned on Thursday, with no room for guests or later attendees. I'm not sure what it is, but...

[gblake]

Originally Posted by bduddy

Quite frankly, a blanket "no saving seats" rule is not reasonable in the face of many common scenarios, such as:

-Teams or their guests arriving at different times
-Parts of teams temporarily leaving their seats for, say, lunch, the pits, or even the bathroom

There needs to be new rules that properly balance these needs against the understandable concern to not have the entire seating area partitioned on Thursday, with no room for guests or later attendees. I'm not sure what it is, but...

Quite frankly, in your first point, you appear to making an assumption that (IMO) is not reasonable. The assumption I think I see is that if some non-trivial parts of teams, or some non-trivial numbers of team guests, arrive later than others; that the rest of the world has to allow them all to sit with whatever part of that team sat down first, and/or allow them all to sit at the most favorable location any team member claimed.

What the rule says (implies) is that when folks arrive late, they can either form a new group that sits wherever seats are open, or the entire group (both the original- and later-arrivals) can move as much as is necessary to find a large-enough block(s) of seats.

This is precisely the point. I am more than confident that whoever wrote the No Saving Seats rule was 100% aware of your first scenario, and wrote the rule to expressly forbid a "saving seats" response to it.

If people stop saving seats for folks who are arriving "later" , I think the second point you make will very nearly disappear. There might be a few things left to iron out (especially around the lunchtime topic), but I predict the big picture will be much improved.

Blake

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by s_forbes

For what it's worth, I've never had an issue sitting inside of another team's "reserved" seating to watch a few matches. Most teams want to be able to have their members sit together during eliminations, and some mark off where they intend to sit. If you ask to sit in their empty seats during qualification matches, they almost never object. The vast majority of people in the stands are pretty reasonable.

I'm fairly confident that you will have better seats by communicating with other teams in the stands than by having FIRST sanction off a section where you are required to sit.

I have had HOF teams deny me seating in their area.

[FarmerJohn]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

After volunteering for 4 days straight doing field reset our field (Newton) was not chosen to reset Einstein. It was disappointing but, we got to watch great finals matches and I proceeded after cleaning up the field a bit to find Einstein seating. Being I only needed 2 seats one for my mom and one for me I figured this should not be too big of a problem. I found 2 of the best seats that were not going to be reserved for teams on Einstein and sat in one knowing the rules well I did not put anything there to reserve the seat and I proceeded to text my mom to come by. However, right then I got stormed by a team whose seats I apparently "Stole." For reference this team was taking up 6 rows of seating in the lower level of the dome with many many empty seats. I explained calmly that the seats were empty allowing me to sit in them which they did not take kindly to. I was screamed at, called names, and felt physically in danger when a student jumped over a seat to sit next to me. Taking what I explained to hopefully be my mom's seat. I ended up leaving the seats in favor of worse ones next to a team that would not irritate me for the entire night. Worse seat better people.

I'm going to be skeptical here. I don't think this is an accurate representation of events. A lot of this seems exaggerated. I'm not saying you're lying, and you do bring up a legitimate concern, but I highly doubt that you were screamed at, called names, and physically endangered.

Here's what I think most likely happened: You took some convenient seats that belonged to some scouts - probably had some supplies around the seats, but nobody in them directly - and the team saw you. They then said something along the lines of "Hey, we were sitting here" and proceeded to sit around you, not doing anything to kick you out of your seat. You got mad you couldn't get the seats you wanted (and the seat you were saving, even though you're complaining about saving seats?) and decided to post about it on chief.

This thread has the right idea, but I don't think things happened the way you claim they did, and I don't think this is as big of a problem as you claim.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by FarmerJohn

I'm going to be skeptical here. I don't think this is an accurate representation of events. A lot of this seems exaggerated. I'm not saying you're lying, and you do bring up a legitimate concern, but I highly doubt that you were screamed at, called names, and physically endangered.

Here's what I think most likely happened: You took some convenient seats that belonged to some scouts - probably had some supplies around the seats, but nobody in them directly - and the team saw you. They then said something along the lines of "Hey, we were sitting here" and proceeded to sit around you, not doing anything to kick you out of your seat. You got mad you couldn't get the seats you wanted (and the seat you were saving, even though you're complaining about saving seats?) and decided to post about it on chief.

This thread has the right idea, but I don't think things happened the way you claim they did, and I don't think this is as big of a problem as you claim.

Who are you to discredit me?
What do I gain in exaggerating these events?
Were you there?

I will not justify myself as I do not have to.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by FarmerJohn

I'm going to be skeptical here. I don't think this is an accurate representation of events. A lot of this seems exaggerated. I'm not saying you're lying, and you do bring up a legitimate concern, but I highly doubt that you were screamed at, called names, and physically endangered.

Here's what I think most likely happened: You took some convenient seats that belonged to some scouts - probably had some supplies around the seats, but nobody in them directly - and the team saw you. They then said something along the lines of "Hey, we were sitting here" and proceeded to sit around you, not doing anything to kick you out of your seat. You got mad you couldn't get the seats you wanted (and the seat you were saving, even though you're complaining about saving seats?) and decided to post about it on chief.

This thread has the right idea, but I don't think things happened the way you claim they did, and I don't think this is as big of a problem as you claim.

"I think your story sounds ridiculous, so you must be completely lying about what happened"

Even if he embellished a little bit, this isn't exactly an out of the blue occurrence at the Championship, and I would think the dozens of posters replying in agreement would reinforce this. I certainly don't think that the OP was claiming he was kicked out and screamed at when actually nobody engaged him at all.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by FarmerJohn

I'm going to be skeptical here. I don't think this is an accurate representation of events. A lot of this seems exaggerated. I'm not saying you're lying, and you do bring up a legitimate concern, but I highly doubt that you were screamed at, called names, and physically endangered.

Here's what I think most likely happened: You took some convenient seats that belonged to some scouts - probably had some supplies around the seats, but nobody in them directly - and the team saw you. They then said something along the lines of "Hey, we were sitting here" and proceeded to sit around you, not doing anything to kick you out of your seat. You got mad you couldn't get the seats you wanted (and the seat you were saving, even though you're complaining about saving seats?) and decided to post about it on chief.

This thread has the right idea, but I don't think things happened the way you claim they did, and I don't think this is as big of a problem as you claim.

I saw some team mom go full starfish, laying out over rows of seats, while she start speaking in tongues trying to save seats at championships.

I will believe almost anything.

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by FarmerJohn

I'm going to be skeptical here. I don't think this is an accurate representation of events. A lot of this seems exaggerated. I'm not saying you're lying, and you do bring up a legitimate concern, but I highly doubt that you were screamed at, called names, and physically endangered.

Here's what I think most likely happened: You took some convenient seats that belonged to some scouts - probably had some supplies around the seats, but nobody in them directly - and the team saw you. They then said something along the lines of "Hey, we were sitting here" and proceeded to sit around you, not doing anything to kick you out of your seat. You got mad you couldn't get the seats you wanted (and the seat you were saving, even though you're complaining about saving seats?) and decided to post about it on chief.

This thread has the right idea, but I don't think things happened the way you claim they did, and I don't think this is as big of a problem as you claim.

You should be glad I have a policy of not giving out red dots.

[s_forbes]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

I saw some team mom go full starfish, laying out over rows of seats, while she start speaking in tongues trying to save seats at championships.

Of all the stories I've read online, this sounds like the truest.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by gblake

Quite frankly, in your first point, you appear to making an assumption that (IMO) is not reasonable. The assumption I think I see is that if some non-trivial parts of teams, or some non-trivial numbers of team guests, arrive later than others; that the rest of the world has to allow them all to sit with whatever part of that team sat down first, and/or allow them all to sit at the most favorable location any team member claimed.

What the rule says (implies) is that when folks arrive late, they can either form a new group that sits wherever seats are open, or the entire group (both the original- and later-arrivals) can move as much as is necessary to find a large-enough block(s) of seats.

This is precisely the point. I am more than confident that whoever wrote the No Saving Seats rule was 100% aware of your first scenario, and wrote the rule to expressly forbid a "saving seats" response to it.

If people stop saving seats for folks who are arriving "later" , I think the second point you make will very nearly disappear. There might be a few things left to iron out (especially around the lunchtime topic), but I predict the big picture will be much improved.

Blake

You're solution is unreasonable and even unworkable. You're saying that if teams can't get their entire group there in line at 5 am they are FOL and they should expect that to stay together they will as a group have to get up and move, as a group, to another large block of seats (that most likely doesn't exist elsewhere within view of the field). In other words, only small teams are rewarded by remaining small so that they can continue to sit together.

That doesn't sound like a recipe for "making it loud."

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by gblake

Setting aside whether or not those are imperatives, and whether or not the current rule needs to recognize them; the current rule does accommodate all three just fine, so long as the venue is an appropriate one.

- Adult mentors can monitor students in whatever sized groupings the adults care to use.
--- Adult mentors will be wise to adapt the size of student groups they monitor to be compatible with the available blocks of open seats.
- People (teammates and supporters) wishing to sit together can move as far away from the field as is necessary to find a large enough block(s) of open seats.
- Scouts who wish to use a scouting system that is incompatible with the current FIRST rules, will be wise to choose a more appropriate scouting system.

If event planners are forced into using a venue that won't have enough usable seats (expected attendance, plus some extras), the event planners should put in place special rules/plans that will produce reasonable compromises; otherwise the current rule seems fine to me.

Did I overlook anything?

Blake

Yes, you did.

1) Are you the sole arbiter of "Adult mentors can monitor students in whatever sized groupings the adults care to use"? That's a non-answer. You MUST leave the discretion of that grouping to the mentors in charge, not to YOUR definitions. Many mentors want to keep their charges together in a certain location. You have to leave them the tools to accomplish the task, not proscribe them for you own selfish need to sit where you want.

2) How do you accommodate large teams that can't find a sufficiently large contiguous block of seats that will accommodate all of the students? It's not possible to do this without saving seats.

3) So you believe that scouting systems are entirely superfluous to the FRC experience? In other words the only important people on FRC teams are the pit crew and the drive team and everyone else be $@#$@#$@#$@#? The reality is that all of the successful teams have complex scouting systems that require close proximity. Why you would want to end technological innovation and the associated educational benefits that it creates simply because you want to be able to sit where ever you want sounds incredibly selfish.

And you still haven't addressed my first point: tragedy of the commons problems are only solvable through rational resource allocations. They are never solved through "lets be nice." We have to address this straight up.

BTW, I see that you are in FTC, not FRC. You don't even have standing on this particular issue because these issues of scouting and team size aren't relevant to FTC.