Improving Officiating at FIRST Events

[Madison]

I am certain that the folks at FIRST are concerned about providing a consistent experience to all teams and are making an effort to get that to happen. This season's instructional course for referees represents a good step in that direction; but coupled with the ambiguity of what constitutes a violation of many of the rules, it is ineffective. More needs to be done.

FIRST has had good success in retaining the institutional knowledge of regional directors, field technical advisors and other staff at the 'executive' level of events. Officiating staff should be considered to be of the same importance as these other key volunteers and absolutely must have existing knowledge of a team's experience as they work through a competition season. Their knowledge must be maintained and informed by the experience of operating on a team.

It is absurd to think that the time and effort invested into a competition season by so many teams -- most of whom attend only a single event -- is ultimately at the mercy of someone who's only connection to FIRST and to the game is a conference call, an online training course and two days spent at an event. The competition is a means to an end and no amount of bad officiating is going to take away what kids learn during the season, thankfully, as otherwise these competitions would be a joke.

Generally,

• Officiating staff -- all of them -- must be retained from year to year and have investment in the program beyond two days per year of involvement.
• The officiating staff must be more involved in early development of game rules so as to weed out as much ambiguity as possible. Referees have no place determining intent during a FIRST match and shouldn't be asked to do so.
• They must know the rules. Institutional knowledge will improve understanding of a complex rule book, but there is no excuse for a team of referees that doesn't know the rule book chapter and verse, so to speak. I spend a considerable amount of time ensuring that our robot complies with every rule and I don't think it's too much to expect that the referees would spend as much time learning the rules for their part.
• Teams absolutely must be informed after each match of which rules they violated. I don't care about the schedule. Imagine a football game wherein they never announced what the action was that drew a penalty, nor who was responsible and how the crowd might react to that. Ambiguity is a sure fire way to create discontent with the staff.

I'm not going to pretend that I'm not exceptionally angered by the officiating at the Oregon Regional this weekend, but that we have a student dedicated to watching the referees is absurd. Something ought to be done to eliminate inconsistency in officiating in as many ways as possible and the only way to make that happen is to talk about how discrepancies appear and figure out ways of eliminating them in the future. A training course is a step in the right direction, but we need more.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by M. Krass

I am certain that the folks at FIRST are concerned about providing a consistent experience to all teams and are making an effort to get that to happen. This season's instructional course for referees represents a good step in that direction; but coupled with the ambiguity of what constitutes a violation of many of the rules, it is ineffective. More needs to be done.

FIRST has had good success in retaining the institutional knowledge of regional directors, field technical advisors and other staff at the 'executive' level of events. Officiating staff should be considered to be of the same importance as these other key volunteers and absolutely must have existing knowledge of a team's experience as they work through a competition season. Their knowledge must be maintained and informed by the experience of operating on a team.

It is absurd to think that the time and effort invested into a competition season by so many teams -- most of whom attend only a single event -- is ultimately at the mercy of someone who's only connection to FIRST and to the game is a conference call, an online training course and two days spent at an event. The competition is a means to an end and no amount of bad officiating is going to take away what kids learn during the season, thankfully, as otherwise these competitions would be a joke.

Generally,

• Officiating staff -- all of them -- must be retained from year to year and have investment in the program beyond two days per year of involvement.
• The officiating staff must be more involved in early development of game rules so as to weed out as much ambiguity as possible. Referees have no place determining intent during a FIRST match and shouldn't be asked to do so.
• They must know the rules. Institutional knowledge will improve understanding of a complex rule book, but there is no excuse for a team of referees that doesn't know the rule book chapter and verse, so to speak. I spend a considerable amount of time ensuring that our robot complies with every rule and I don't think it's too much to expect that the referees would spend as much time learning the rules for their part.
• Teams absolutely must be informed after each match of which rules they violated. I don't care about the schedule. Imagine a football game wherein they never announced what the action was that drew a penalty, nor who was responsible and how the crowd might react to that. Ambiguity is a sure fire way to create discontent with the staff.

I'm not going to pretend that I'm not exceptionally angered by the officiating at the Oregon Regional this weekend, but that we have a student dedicated to watching the referees is absurd. Something ought to be done to eliminate inconsistency in officiating in as many ways as possible and the only way to make that happen is to talk about how discrepancies appear and figure out ways of eliminating them in the future. A training course is a step in the right direction, but we need more.

Complaining about the referees does no good and undermines their authority. This is not what we want to teach the students.

If you have a suggestion (or suggestions) as to make it better, then please post them here and be specific.

I'm not picking on you as I understand your frustration ... I am instead trying to turn your frustration into positive action.

[Paul Copioli]

Madison,

I suggest you bring this up directly to FIRST, specifically Aiden Brown. I am sure he will welcome all suggestions and ways to improve. He and Dave Lavery were at St. Louis this weekend and were very interested in the referees and the scoring system. By the way, the reffing at St. Louis was excellent. They did a great job explaining the violations and were consistent with their calls.

There were some discrepancies with counting lines and counting trackballs, but I suspect that will get worked out soon.

In any case, the most effective way to get things done regarding this is directly with Aiden. Specific examples and situations are always best.

-Paul

[EricVicenti]

I agree that the referees have been very inconsistent. After each match, the penalties are always unpredictable. I also found it ridiculous that, at least in the Oregon Regional, there were no refs on Thursday. So when the refs started on Friday, they were not familiar with many of the penalties.

[Richard Wallace]

I had the privelege of meeting and talking with Aidan behind the scoring table at St. Louis this weekend. He recognizes that our real-time scoring procedures are not 100% accurate yet, and let me assure you that he is NOT willing to accept things as they are. However, being a world-class engineer, he is not willing to insert ill-considered fixes, either. He and the GDC will get to the root causes of scoring problems and they will be addressed, but action without data is just not the right way. Aidan is getting his data, and analyzing it. Please be patient and understand that real-time scoring systems are just as challenging as robot design.

[Madison]

Originally Posted by Paul Copioli

Madison,

I suggest you bring this up directly to FIRST, specifically Aiden Brown. I am sure he will welcome all suggestions and ways to improve. He and Dave Lavery were at St. Louis this weekend and were very interested in the referees and the scoring system. By the way, the reffing at St. Louis was excellent. They did a great job explaining the violations and were consistent with their calls.

There were some discrepancies with counting lines and counting trackballs, but I suspect that will get worked out soon.

In any case, the most effective way to get things done regarding this is directly with Aiden. Specific examples and situations are always best.

-Paul

Thanks, Paul.

I was a bit afraid that any discussion I tried to have about what could be done would be inappropriate at this time in the season. Everyone's busy and I have no doubt that everyone involved is absolutely dedicated to making things as good as they can be. I am interested in watching the season progress and, from that, developing a more substantive set of ideas about what steps can be taken to make things better for everyone.

It's difficult to point out specific examples in many cases because, again, teams were not being told that they were penalized. My knowledge of what confusion there was comes from my experience on the field as a coach and from our scouts in the stands that were watching the referees.

Specifically, there was concern that:

• teams were being penalized for driving clockwise within a quadrant, but not crossing backward through the plane of a line.
• all contact outside of the bumper zone was being penalized.
• there need be more clarification about protection for hurdlers (<G42>), particularly with respect to how it applies to machines in between the hurdler and the overpass
• signaling to pass using a trackball in your possession was disallowed
• teams were not being told what penalties they'd incurred
• it's difficult to determine if you've been signaled to pass and most teams weren't sure what to look for from the refs regarding whether it'd happened and how much time they had to move.

There were good things that happened, too.

• Our robot got caught up in another robot and we were penalized for entanglement. The referee that called it came up to us and explained what happened and why the penalty was called. That's perfect and it's much nicer to know it's coming than scramble after the score is announced to figure out what's happened.
• During the elimination rounds, many teams -- ours included -- assumed that we'd be allowed a pit crew. The head ref. quickly informed us that it wasn't allowed and was able to let us know which section of the manual had the relevant information and that it had been deleted. Again, great. As soon as she said that it'd been deleted, I recalled exactly what she was talking about.
• After confusion about how <G42> was being enforced on Friday, the refs included a brief explanation on Saturday morning of what they were looking for.
• Early Friday, one referee stood out by calling many, many more penalties than the others. She was replaced or moved into a different position that made the officiating more consistent. This was FANTASTIC and demonstrated that the refs were trying. That matters.

[George A.]

I know what you mean about being completely baffled as to what a penalty was called on.

While I know this isn't the case everywhere but I know at least at the regionals I announce at, when the head ref gives the scorer the penalties, I makes sure I get the team numbers and the penalties, and announce those when the score is put up.

Like I said, I know this doesn't happen everywhere, but I think it helps the teams at the event.

[BenB]

Originally Posted by George A.

I know what you mean about being completely baffled as to what a penalty was called on.

While I know this isn't the case everywhere but I know at least at the regionals I announce at, when the head ref gives the scorer the penalties, I makes sure I get the team numbers and the penalties, and announce those when the score is put up.

Like I said, I know this doesn't happen everywhere, but I think it helps the teams at the event.

I think its really important to know where the calls are coming from, its really good of you to do your best to let the teams know this. I hope the game annoucers at Waterloo and GTR will be doing the same.

I can see how upseting it would be thinking you won a match and then ending up loosing due to penalties and from a teams point of view, the reffing would upset me because of that. However, I'm sure the refs do their best to make the calls and theres a lot of action going on on the field.

It takes several referies to make the penalties so I can see how easy it would be for one person, who is most likely focusing on their robot to miss the call. This leads to those people feeling like their getting penalties for nothing.

Again, having the penalties annouced makes everyone lives so much easier. Teams know where the penalties are coming from and can use that to improve themselves, or make clear, supported, constructive critism.

The only comment Im going to make it how I completely agree this point made by sumadin.

Originally Posted by sumadin

Perhaps (for next year and the years to follow) the solution is a digital system of some sorts, that gives the refs the list of teams for each match, and the few most common penalties, and allows the ref to use that to track penalties.

[Brandon Martus]

I've removed a bunch of personal attacks and other posts not having to do with officiating. Let's try to have some constructive criticism.

Those involved in the removed discussion, please continue that via email or private message. Let's keep this thread about the rules and if they are or are not being enforced properly and consistently .. whichever the case.

[Matt H.]

I would like to repost the noninflammatory part of my post.
I believe that with the massive number of rules and the numerous rules focusing on intent regionals are now impossible to accurately ref in real time. Due to the high speed nature of the games and overall competitions teams are often left completely baffled as to why they received 50 penalty points often not even knowing which robot the penalty was called on.
There is a need for some kind of video review system--although many would say this is too complex or expensive consider the regionals as they stand now. Video from the regionals is transmitted around the world and many regionals are held in stadiums where video replay is a common feature of events. First most definitely has the technical skills to pull this off.

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by George A.

I know what you mean about being completely baffled as to what a penalty was called on.

While I know this isn't the case everywhere but I know at least at the regionals I announce at, when the head ref gives the scorer the penalties, I makes sure I get the team numbers and the penalties, and announce those when the score is put up.

Like I said, I know this doesn't happen everywhere, but I think it helps the teams at the event.

George, we haven't met before but I do know your reputation as a great announcer. I think announcing penalties is an important part of keeping the audience, and the participants, engaged in the competition. How can people be inspired if they don't know what's going on?

We try hard to get all penalties announced at the St. Louis regional, too. In some complex cases, we have the Head Ref explain the penalty personally, but most of the time he relays it to our game announcer.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by Richard

George, we haven't met before but I do know your reputation as a great announcer. I think announcing penalties is an important part of keeping the audience, and the participants, engaged in the competition. How can people be inspired if they don't know what's going on?

We try hard to get all penalties announced at the St. Louis regional, too. In some complex cases, we have the Head Ref explain the penalty personally, but most of the time he relays it to our game announcer.

At BAE GSR starting on Friday, they were announcing what the penalties were and which team it was on. This made things easier to understand.

[Matt H.]

I'm going to have to agree that announcing penalties is a must. It is very annoying (as a spectator) to see a close match change hands for no apparent reason.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Matt H.

There is a need for some kind of video review system--although many would say this is too complex or expensive consider the regionals as they stand now. Video from the regionals is transmitted around the world and many regionals are held in stadiums where video replay is a common feature of events. First most definitely has the technical skills to pull this off.

Matt, I'm going to refer you to a thread from after the 2005 season. I just want you to read the first five pages or so--after that, the thread got really ugly. It's got a pretty good discussion of the topic of instant replay and why it should and shouldn't be used in FIRST.

On to the original topic of this thread...

Originally Posted by M. Krass

Generally,

• Officiating staff -- all of them -- must be retained from year to year and have investment in the program beyond two days per year of involvement.
• The officiating staff must be more involved in early development of game rules so as to weed out as much ambiguity as possible. Referees have no place determining intent during a FIRST match and shouldn't be asked to do so.
• They must know the rules. Institutional knowledge will improve understanding of a complex rule book, but there is no excuse for a team of referees that doesn't know the rule book chapter and verse, so to speak. I spend a considerable amount of time ensuring that our robot complies with every rule and I don't think it's too much to expect that the referees would spend as much time learning the rules for their part.
• Teams absolutely must be informed after each match of which rules they violated. I don't care about the schedule. Imagine a football game wherein they never announced what the action was that drew a penalty, nor who was responsible and how the crowd might react to that. Ambiguity is a sure fire way to create discontent with the staff.

On some points, I agree. On others, I do not fully agree. I definitely agree with the first point, but would like to say that that is not always possible, so some refs will be new every year. As to the second point, Aidan Browne is a ref and on the GDC. As I remember, Dave said at kickoff that Aidan was not happy during game development several times. Now we know why.

I definitely agree on knowing the rules. I think that's what the instructional course is for. I also agree on the fourth point. Every penalty should be explained, at least to the teams. When the penalties are announced in football and soccer, the players are told even if the audience is not.

[Matt H.]

Originally Posted by EricH

Matt, I'm going to refer you to a thread from after the 2005 season. I just want you to read the first five pages or so--after that, the thread got really ugly. It's got a pretty good discussion of the topic of instant replay and why it should and shouldn't be used in FIRST.

Having review that nasty little argument I'm going to let the issue drop with my final statement being that times are changing and as games become more penalty intensive something will be needed.

To return to the original topic I believe that due to the complexity of the rules no amount of training or officiating will ensure a correct call. My parents are lawyers--the wording of the rules now bears a remarkable similarity to the wording of the Arizona revised statues especially when dealing with intent. I think this problem will be best resolved by the game design committee and a shorter rule book.