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

[Arefin Bari]

Originally Posted by Aignam

Lest we forget that some joined FIRST to experience something unlike anything else---a competition without that brutal contact sport-esque competetiveness. Cheating undermines the entire concept of FIRST. How can you defend cheaters---the antithesis of this organization? There's nothing inspirational about cheating, there's nothing gracious about cheating...Sure, extremely harsh penalties may seem out of place in FIRST...but we're all about preparation for the real world, aren't we? And in the real world, real cheating has bigger, harsher consequences. I think getting disqualified would be a better lesson than learning that you can get away with anything if you play your cards right. We're fostering science and technology, not white-collar crimes.

We all have been saying what the penalties might be for the cheaters and also what is our opinion in general. now lets state the problem...

"What do you feel is appropriate and how should this be enforced? Who who do the enforcing and should there be any limits to the penalties." - Steve W.

few respective members said that we should penalize teams, and few other respective members said that we should just let it go, because we dont want to lose teams. most of us said that FIRST should be enforcing these and few said that there should be limits (they posted the limits that we should have). (PLEASE correct me if i am wrong).

Here is a question for all of you (it was mentioned before, but i didnt see any response)..

"How would you know if a team is cheating? and if you do know, how would you prove it?"

as I mentioned earlier in my other post, that is when "Honesty" comes into play.

-Arefin