Perennial Q&A Answers

[Gary Dillard]

BTW, for those who don't know, as far as "the buck stops here", when it comes to the final decision on robot rules at the championship, Al is "here".

Well, since it appears noone is going with me, it looks like I will have to "take a long list of rulings from every season and submit them every single year to make sure it gets documented for the current season". Just seems absurd.

It seems to me that the rules are equivalent to laws in our society. The GDC makes a new set of "laws" every year to supercede the previous year's "laws", but the ones that have exactly the same wording are effectively the same "law".
And every year they issue (through the Q&A) interpretations of those rules for clarification; sometimes through the season they change the rules to make it more clear or correct, but more often they let the rule stand and just state how it should be interpreted. And yes, sometimes they change their interpretation of the same law from year to year, even overturning it. Then the new interpretation is used.
This is equivalent to the courts deciding how a law should be interpreted. They pass a ruling and that stands until another ruling supercedes it. If the law changes, then their previous interpretation is invalid and they have to re-interpret the new law. And yes, sometimes they change their interpretation of the same law from year to year, even overturning it. Then the new interpretation is used. But if a previous interpretation of a law has not been changed, it is still valid.

This year's rules are this years rules, period. And always have been. But they can often be interpreted different ways; I'm just trying to make that more consistent year to year without "bogging down the courts" asking the same question about the interpretation of the same rule again and again.

Of course, I always thought that The Manual was the rules; apparently that is not the case, since according the the Q&A, any latest communication from anyone at FIRST in any form is the official rule.