This year we need instant replay

[Revolverx7]

Originally Posted by Bill Moore

...Let's play Devil's Advocate for a moment:
How many teams, in videotaping their matches, would be willing to rush up to the referee after they win a match, and provide video evidence that they actually should have lost the match?

If you claim to want "accurate playcalling" for a competition, you must be willing to do this. Otherwise, you just want "accurate playcalling" when it benefits the preferred team. (Preferential referee accuracy)

Instant replay should be used just as vigorously to prove you lost a match as to prove you won one. That's a tough pill to swallow, but it is an honest one.

I think that sums up exactly why there should not be instant replay.

Penalties last year hurt us all, I was DQ'ed last year in the second match of the finals in Philidelphi. That hurts, but instant replay wouldn't have changed the refs minds, no matter what the ref is going to stick to his original call because more often then not they are going to interpret play and the rule the same play no matter what angle they saw it from.

I think that the problem with all the penalties last year was that the interpretation of the rules were different at every competition and even changed sometimes right in the middle of one. To stop this there needs to be a unified decision for such crititcal rules as 'ramming' and 'aggressive driving'.

[Stu Bloom]

Originally Posted by jjack

I agree that there should be some sort of review. Last year in Vegas there was a match we were in that had a questionable penalty, we asked to have it reviewed and the judges refused. The penalty was a 25 point penalty and it lost us the match.

I may be mistaken here, and please pardon me if I am wrong (I have slept a few times since April), but I don't recall any "25 point" penalties in last years game ...

And Jack, PLEASE go back and re-read Tom's post above yours ... ESPECIALLY his last sentence.

Now let's get on with 2006 !!
(How about that clue Dave ???)

[Stu Bloom]

Originally Posted by Revolverx7

... I think that the problem with all the penalties last year was that the interpretation of the rules were different at every competition and even changed sometimes right in the middle of one. To stop this there needs to be a unified decision for such crititcal rules as 'ramming' and 'aggressive driving'.

What I feel is even more important is CLEAR communication between the head referee and the drivers/teams. At all of the events I volunteered last season I was fortunate to work with very wise and experienced head referees who took the time in the drivers meetings to very carefully and clearly spell out exactly what was expected and what would be called with regard to rough play and ramming (including examples). The entire referee crew was on board and we called these infractions as intended and explained by our leader. We had some GREAT competition with very few disputes - just the way it should be.

Gracious Professionalism at its finest - Competing like CRAZY on the field, then working together like professionals off the field to make these events the best they can be for everyone involved.

[Kyle Fenton]

I wouldn't mind an instant replay, if it is possible. But only for viewing, not for deciding on calls.

BTW
They did this in Battlecry IV, and it came out pretty good.

[Bill_Hancoc]

What is needed is not more cameras and other things but more refs. maybe one more ref watching each match would help things out a bit and ease the pressure on each indivual ref. The people who were saying to never argue with the refs are right, arguing with officials of any kind is a losing battle. they carry the title "Official" so this means they are appointed by the event cordinator to enforce what they saw as right or wrong, they also have the advantage-they dont have to play by the rules ie. they can disqualify you. I have the highest respect for refs even tho i may or may not agree with the call they made. Refs also have to deal with the mentor who is overly attached to the team and knows that the ref made a bad call and he feels he is right and the other team should be disqualified. I met one of these mentors once and was highly offended by his/her actions. Im not going to say what team he/she was from or anything else about them. Refs have to deal with these people each time they DONATE THEIR time to help further the advancement of highschool students across the country but so we can have fun. Refs should be given much more respect than some give them. I salute you referees.

also to the person who stated that any team should be able to tape their match and use it for official purposes i agree completly. Even if you play by all the rules and dont edit the tape or some other unfair way of getting ahead. The refs may see somthing that you did that is illegal and call it on you. and by human nature, you are video taping your robot you didnt bring the camera to tape other bots so you hide yours mistakes and highligh the other teams without knowing its human nature.

[Wetzel]

Originally Posted by petek

Speaking as a RR ref, thank you Wayne! I think you may have pointed out one area which FIRST can address: too many rules. At RR, the focus was on throwing penalties only where people's and robots' safety was at stake. If this was FIRST's prime directive to the refs, I think most of the calls for instant replay would go away.

Refereeing Triple Play was hard work. So much happens so fast all over the field, it is easy for the refs to miss things. I know there were a couple of times that tetras broke or were descored in front of me that I didn't see until it was too late to know for sure how it happened, because I was watching to see if the human players were touching the robots, or there was heavy robot contact distracting me. My hat's off to everyone who volunteered to ref this year!

I hope I was able to convey that when I gave feedback on 2005 and it is better for 2006, from a ref perspective. We don't LIKE to make these calls, but we call 'em as we see them. With 10 people watching things, most things get seen.

For all the reason posted above, I concur in the NO vote.

Wetzel

[Mike Schroeder]

Actually what we need, is for teams, and the people on the teams, to get their kit and their rule books, and in six weeks build a robot that, PLAYS THE GAME, not plays defense, or offense, or outfense or any fense for that matter, just plays the game,

Then, after six weeks, we need, teams to cool off, they just worked hard, take a break, for a week or...3

After you hibernate, Its time for the weird part to start, you go to a competition and compete, you play the game, with the robot you built to play the game, and you try hard, stir in luck and (now this is that weird part i was talking about starts) you take what is given to you, good, or bad, take Forest Gump for example he stepped in a big pile of *stuff* and said, well *stuff* happens

There is my little rant

[Bill Moore]

Originally Posted by Big Mike

There is my little rant

"Big Mike"/Little Rant?

Isn't that one of those oxymoron thingies?

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Jay Trzaskos

Remember they are volunteers, and they are doing the best they can.

The more often we see the above stated publicly, the more we must take care to remember that it should continue to remain an expectation, not an assumption. I am counting on them to make the necessary preparations for a competition so they are as invisible to the action as possible, and the vast majority of their decisions do not adversely affect the ability of the kids who are participating to extract maximum enjoyment out of the event. Any decisions that lead to controversy should be explained to minimize any bitter feelings or misunderstandings among the involved parties. The best refereeing crew is one that performs its job completely unnoticed by the event's participants.

I like to take a middle ground approach between the two extremes of

A.) A ref crew that is fully shielded from scrutiny/constructive criticism/accountability by their volunteer status.

and

B.) A ref crew that is required to perform flawlessly, and all necessary steps must be taken to correct any mistakes that do occur.


If a referee takes his/her job seriously and does as much as he/she possibly can in the time he/she has between her regular job/family/home life to prepare for this job, e.g.

A.) Reading and understanding the initial game rules and all subsequent updates

B.) Talking with other referees both before and during the competition season to develop a consistent interpretation and application of these rules from match to match, event to event,

C.) Evaluating his/her performance between events looking for ways to improve,

...then that referee can be confident that he was doing his job to the best of his ability. People certainly make mistakes, and that's ok, but proper preparation and attention to detail minimize the frequency of such mistakes. I don't think that's too much to ask of any person willing to be a volunteer referee.

I humbly suggest that if a potential volunteer ref doesn't have the time or patience to take on a significant portion of these responsibilities beforehand, then he/she should not volunteer for that position and instead help the event out elsewhere where such preparation is not as critical to doing a good job.

Devil's Advocate - If the above expectations were ever officially endorsed/tracked by FIRST (and not simply assumed), and we did observe a marked decrease in the number of volunteer refs because so many were unable/unwilling to live up to these expectations, as many claim would happen, then I would conclude this would be true evidence that room for improvement exists in the overall level of preparation among referees. One way to combat any mass exodus of volunteers would be to encourage FIRST to develop simpler game rules which make it much easier for these volunteers to do their jobs. Another would be to have FIRST kick regional committees (and themselves?!?) in the pants to seek out and lock down refereeing volunteers sooner rather than later. If, as Andy says, refereeing is truly one of the hardest jobs at a competition, then perhaps finding shoes to fill those positions should be treated with a greater sense of urgency by the event's planners? Is any of this possible? Do people try to do this already and it's just too dang hard to achieve any real progress? I don't know, but I hope we're at least trying.

While a referee is only accountable to himself for the decisions he makes, I feel he IS accountable to the competing teams if ever asked to COMMUNICATE the reasoning behind any *controversial* decisions. A referee has a right to his opinion, and according to the rules, his decision is final, so Jay/JVN are correct - never ask a ref to change his mind. It is an unproductive exercise - accept the call and move on. But a ref should never dismiss a team's explanation request and miss out on the opportunity to LEARN from the situation. If a coach or student politely asks a referee to explain his reasoning behind a call, I feel that ref is obligated to provide it. If that referee has prepared for the competition in the manner I described above, he should feel no guilt or hesistancy to explain the call to anyone who questions him in a respectful manner. And maybe, just maybe, through his conversation with the team, a ref may realize every so often that he was mistaken in that instance, and he will be more attentive in the future to see that the same mistake is not repeated? Woodie sez: communication is key. So it should be written, so it should be done.

Finally, to stick with the original thread topic regarding instant replay, I know replay will most likely never be used as a tool to reverse referee oversights (isn't that a more diplomatic term?), but I was wondering how feasible it would be to eventually implement video screen replay of the most exciting highlights of the matches, either after every match (preferable, but unlikely), or perhaps at a few evenly spaced times throughout the day (more likely)? I feel this would add more excitement to a competition and would permit some of the people who are slaves of the pits to possibly *catch up* on some of the action they might have missed. This video could even be presented one time per day, perhaps right before the awards ceremonies. You would have to have a pretty slick video editing person to accomplish this, no doubt. Just a thought.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Big Mike

Actually what we need, is for teams, and the people on the teams, to get their kit and their rule books, and in six weeks build a robot that, PLAYS THE GAME, not plays defense, or offense, or outfense or any fense for that matter, just plays the game,

Reminds me of "The Maltese Cat" by Rudyard Kipling. Several times in the story, The Cat says something to the effect of "We play the game." The other team lost because they were not playing The Game. So, let's make instant replay unnecessary by playing the game and not defense or offense or anything that violates a rule or results in a ref huddle. If the 1 team does something illegal, it's more likely to get caught if 4 -5 robots are just playing the game. Play the game. Avoid breaking rules if possible (and it's always possible). Refs have an easier time and can make better calls. Instant replay is unnecessary.

[Wetzel]

Offense and defense are two parts of a game. If you are trying to score points you are on offense. Good solid play also requires some defense.

You can't have a game without them.

Wetzel

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Wetzel

Offense and defense are two parts of a game. If you are trying to score points you are on offense. Good solid play also requires some defense.

You can't have a game without them.

So what were they doing for the 2001 FRC?

[fancy013]

Yes! we do we want to see how we did, i want to see mistakes, and etc...

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Billfred

So what were they doing for the 2001 FRC?

In a backhanded sort of way, you might consider E-stopping out* a form of defence....

*For those who don't know, the 2001 game was 4-on-0, where the object was to score as much as possible. Scoring multipliers were applied if your alliance ended the match early by pressing all four E-stop buttons. This is also the reason why every set of FIRST rules since that year has included something to the effect of "The E-Stop buttons are intended for remote shut down during a match in the event of safety hazards and will not otherwise affect match scoring or duration."

[Bill Moore]

Originally Posted by T. Hoffman

The more often we see the above stated publicly, the more we must take care to remember that it should continue to remain an expectation, not an assumption.

Trevor, I agree. Anyone who walks into the competition with little or no preparation is doing a disservice to the community. If a volunteer doesn't have time to properly prepare for their role, then they should find another aspect of the competition where they can help with less preparation.

Originally Posted by T. Hoffman

Any decisions that lead to controversy should be explained to minimize any bitter feelings or misunderstandings among the involved parties.

Here, I have an objection. Most decisions don't become controversial until someone brings it here to vent in the public forum. Even after decisions are explained at competitions, we see folks who disagree with the interpretation and carry often venomous attacks onto CD. More often than not, the call made can be interpreted as the referee described, but someone thinks they were cheated, and no explanation will suffice. There have even been posts in these forums by referees to share with the community what was shared with the disgruntled team members. This is uncalled for.

Have bad calls been made during competitions? Yes.
As many as are represented by the threads you can find here? Not by a long-shot.

Every time I hear "we need instant replay" it usually is followed by "because we got cheated this way or that". It's never because the other team or alliance got cheated.

Replays for judgement calls = BAD
Replays of matches to see good moves = GOOD