Appropriate penalties for off-the-field ethical/behavioral violations

[Mike Ciance]

Originally Posted by Steve W

Unfortunately I don't subscribe to that idea. Can you back up your statement with facts?

I will use speeding as an example. There is a posted speed limit. If there is not strict enforcement of the limit and there are no penalties for breaking the law then you will find that over time a majority of drivers will exceed the limit. You can see it on the highways all the time. Even with enforcement people try to find ways around it. Radios, cell phones and radar detectors are all used to help one break the law. I believe that rebellion comes when unfair and unwarranted rules are imposed without consideration of the individual or mass. They are usually self serving rules as well.

you also must consider the group of people that are on the road vs the group of people involved in FIRST, and the difference in situation and objective.

on the road, people speeding is life-threatening, and any accident, even minor, has a bad impact on the experience of everybody else on the road because it slows traffic, crippling the objective of driving, which is to get places faster. in FIRST, a team getting a slight advantage is not life-threatening. it may have an impact on how the placement of teams in the outcome, but that is not the true objective of FIRST. FIRST is about learning. i have yet to see a situation where one team cheating has significantly hindered the learning of another. as long as some form of disaproval is shown from FIRST, and some action is taken to counter the advantage, such as point deduction or a late start during subsequent rounds, the main objective of FIRST is still being very much achieved. in fact, everybody will learn a little from one team's mistake. in the end, everybody can still compete, the team who commited the foul goes home with some shame little animosity towards FIRST, and most importantly everybody has had the valuable learning experience. we need to get rid of all the hostility and concentrate on what why joined FIRST to begin with.