Crushing Balls?

[aaeamdar]

Here is a post-by-post account of whether people correctly answered the original question:

#2: did not correctly answer question
#3: did correctly answer question
#4: did not currectly answer question
#5: offtopic
#6: offtopic
#7: offtopic
#8: mix, but certainly provided useful insight
#9: re-affirming #8
#10: offtopic
#11: offtopic
#12: offtopic
#13: offtopic
#14: offtopic
#15: offtopic
#16: mostly correct

First and foremost: when I say "offtopic" I do not mean bad in any way, and I definitely should have been less whiny about "in 15 posts no one answered the blah blah". These posts (the ones I characterized as "offtopic") were often useful and interesting to read (and I did read all of them). Many of them gave indirect insight into the question asked by the OP. However, I will maintain that none of them directly answered the question - I'm not making a judgment. I'm not trying to say that since you didn't answer the question, your post was useless, and again, I apologize for my somewhat snippy attitude about the 15 posts part.

But, I do have to disagree that people have been answering the question. Yes, I read all the posts before replying. And in my judgment, only one person gave a correct and direct answer to the question. This is in comparison to the two people who gave answers that were wrong.

You also seem to be suggesting that the OP was not asking a question about the rules (when you said "You'll note that the question asked is not 'Is destroying game pieces against the rule'"). I must confess that this is a substantially different interpretation of the original question than my own, and it could be a valid one. However, my interpretation, based in part on the fact that he was asking in the "Rules/Strategy Forum" was that he was asking about the rules, and that when he said "counted against us" he was referring to possible penalties. But I could be wrong.

As to your third paragraph:

Originally Posted by ScottOliveira

While it is certainly advisable for everyone to read the game manual, not everyone has the time to go digging for the specific rules, and this forum allows them to try to get answers with minimal time. And it is also a place for more experienced FIRSTers to give their own insight into how rules are actually applied.

On your first point ("not everyone has the time"), I am afraid that I must beg to differ. Every team should have at least one person with a thorough understanding of the manual. Not such that they have it memorized (though that would certainly be useful) but such that they know where to look for things. From kickoff, 6.5 weeks, which is 45 days, or 1080 hours (or thereabouts) until ship. I fail to see how this does not leave adequte time for one person on the team to read the manual several times over.

As to the second part of your point,I couldn't agree more, and in fact, this is my objection to the first and third replies to the original question. They were, in fact, incorrect. This is why all discussions of rules need to be based on the manual. CD is a great resource for everyone to pool their resources and share insight - and when people muddy the waters by giving incorrect answers, that doesn't help, it hurts.

To sum up my rather lengthy point: I did in fact read all of the replies to the topic. I do apologize for the snippyness about no one answering in 15 posts, and I hope that no one takes my labeling of some posts as off-topic to be a criticism. However, I do stick by the idea that discussions of the rules (and such was my interpretation of the OP's question) need to be based on the manual, and that incorrect responses do not further the discussion.

-Paul Dennis