I don’t know if this has ever occurred to other teams before but I was wondering why there isn’t a rule that allows referees to change scores for matches that are clearly scored incorrectly. During Q51 of the Glacier Peak District Match, the refs failed to count 20 points for assist and truss points (we still would have lost by around 10 points, but we needed those assist points). I stood in the question box a total of four times to talk with the head ref about score changes. I had video of the match (which unfortunately refs aren’t allowed to view), asked to speak to other refs to see if I could trigger their memory, brought along a member of our alliance to challenge the score, and even got a driver of an opposing alliance for that match to help up ask for a replay of the match. All of this was rejected by the head ref. This situation was extremely frustrating for me, my team, and my alliance. Could someone explain to me why this happened and how to deal with this in the future? Thanks!
This is exactly why. If refs can’t view video evidence, who’s to say (and I’m not accusing or anything-simply playing devil’s advocate) that you aren’t lying? If a ref doesn’t 100% remember messing it up, it’s pretty darn close to impossible to get something like that overturned.
The head referee can indeed “change the score” if he believes the referees made a mistake with a call or there was a scoring error. This happened at the Lake Superior regional when three referees agreed that an alliance did not get the proper number of assists credited to them during a cycle.
I cannot tell you what you could have done differently to get the head ref to help you out in this case though. The best I can do is recommend being patient, calm, and polite.
I’m guessing that in the case the primary reason the ref didn’t agree to replay the match was that it did not affect the outcome of the game. Delaying the competition to replay a match due to an unfortunate incident that both alliances agree wouldn’t have changed the outcome of that match is almost always going to be out of the question.
A score change is definitely more reasonable, but it is a difficult call to make for the refs if none of them saw it. From the way you worded your post it sounds like this incident drug out too far, and by the end of it none of the refs would have been able to remember of the match anyway.
To the extent that past practice is a guide (because this isn’t specified in the manual, and I haven’t reviewed scorekeeper training materials in several years), scorekeepers can change the score to correct an error on their part, or because the head referee asks them to. Either way, they’ll do it in consultation with the head referee and announcer to make sure everyone knows what’s going on.
The head referee will only ask to change the score if they’re convinced that a scoring error was made. If the referee could not be convinced, then you don’t really have any options left. (You can advise FIRST of the error; they may or may not take subsequent action.)
From your description, I don’t see anything unreasonable about the approach you employed, even if it was ultimately unsuccessful.
Exactly this. I was a score keeper this weekend, and the head ref would tell me to hold a score after the match if one of his referees told him over the radio that there was an error. We would then talk and I would make the appropriate changes. It happened a number of times, and went quite smoothly. If you want a score changed, you need to convince the head ref that an error was made, because once you do, he can update the score however he sees fit.
This seems strange to me. Why aren’t refs allowed to look at replay videos when making a decision? It’s done in sports like football, and it seems a bit silly to rely on the memory of a few people when deciding a score that could potentially make or break a team’s chance at the championships…
Because things look different from different angles. It’s no different than refs having to make judgement calls (every year) from that one specific angle.
Its in the rules saying the refs cannot review video. Section 5.5.3 says it.
This would be an excellent question for Frank Answers Fridays once those start up again.
I’m guessing that one of the biggest issues here is time. For some aspects of the game such as assists, the refs may need to watch up to the entire 2:30 match to accurately assess the situation. If this happens frequently, we could be adding a significant amount of time to the already long competition days.
Why would they review a score and change it if it had no effect on the winner of the game?
Although we would not have won the match, the assist points would have bumped our team up around three ranks. Also, regarding the comment about the videos’ different “angles,” this particular instance had nothing regarding angles at all. It was just something that the refs missed.
During GTRE we had 3 matches which were decided by either penalties given to us or not given to the opposing team. I can understand the odd screw up but 3 of our 5 matches lost were because of questionable penalties which we got or the opposing alliance did not get.
This exact thing happened to us TODAY during our the third quarterfinal. We were eliminated because of that. Currently we have sent an email to a representative from the FIRST HQ. Anyways I posted a more in depth synopsis in the CVR thread so if you wanna see more just refer there.
Personally I want to see replays implemented. This game is one that is difficult to keep score of. Because of the constant passing and clutter it is difficult for the refs to see everything.
It is always tough to keep track of everything going on in an FRC game, but I think the refs are stretched too thin this year. With all the scoring combinations to track and the devastating value of a assessed penalty, I think it’s just too much of a ref influenced situation.
An odd call (against us) and possible missed assist (in our favor) marred F1 and F3 of Oregon City. Our alliance ended up winning, but I don’t feel good about how things played out. Video reviewing might have cleared things up.
It’s a fun game to watch, but why you won or lost was sometimes a mystery. When the overly busy refs are combined with 50 point fouls, it can make for a disappointing day even if you are the winner. I thanked every ref I could and told them I would not want their job.
Just my 1.3 cents worth and looking forward to the Wilsonville district in 2 weeks. 
We had a qualifying match this last weekend against one of the two undefeated (and VERY strong robot) team where one of our alliance 3 assist high goals was not included in the final score. Watching the replay the scoreboard showed 10 points added to the score at the time the goal happened, then it immediately dropped back to the previous score. Those 40 points never made it back onto the scoreboard.
When they announced the final score, we had won by 13 points, big cheers all around because our alliance was not expected to be able to beat them. Then there was a protest by the opposing alliance that a foul had not been counted, which was true and valid due to a data entry station malfunction, they were credited with 20 points and the win and the final score announced a second time. When our alliance questioned the rescoring of the game after the final score had been announced, we were told it was corrected due to the malfunction.
At this time our team members on the field were told by spectators that there was also a scoring error where an entire scoring cycle for our alliance was dropped and they again went to the ? asking for the scoring to be checked again, and were told that they had already checked the score, that we had received all of the assist points and that they couldn’t go back and change it anyway since the final score had been announced. Frustrating to no end that the video we had within 3 minutes of the end of the match clearly showed the scoring error, but nothing we could do about it without antagonizing the judge any further. Tough pill to swallow as that one outcome would have greatly changed the team statistics and the whole alliance selection process. We noticed this type of scoring error several more times throughout the rest of the qualifying matches and even in the tournament, but in those matches I believe the error was corrected either before the final score or with the alliance going to the ? when they were made aware of the error.
I am sure we didn’t get the consideration due to the multiple times questioning of the final score, even though it was for different reasons and actually very valid. I can imagine though what it must be like from the judges/refs perspective, I don’t know if I could do as well as they were doing under the circumstances and overall I think they did an excellent job and called it as fair as they could.
I agree with some of the above posts that the refs are just overtaxed this year. The number of times we have seen penalties not called simply because the ref was focused on the ball possession/field zone combos and data entry into the computer is ridiculous. Robots are getting pinned for much longer than 5 seconds because they don’t back off until the ref starts visibly counting, which sometimes happened after 10 seconds of pin because they were looking elsewhere. The other major issue is the lighting of the pillar being controlled by an official, that sometimes has not lit the pillar for upwards of 20 seconds after a goal was scored. Some of these scoring cycles are very quick and those seconds matter. With the exception of one match that was replayed when the pillar didn’t light quickly enough, even though it could be argued that in that specific case would not likely have had an effect on that score due to a large score differential, none of the matches where it could have really impacted the original game were replayed. Granted that is most likely due to the affected alliances not asking the right questions to the judges in protest, but come on, it really shouldn’t come down to that.
Personally, I think something as simple as one more official per team focusing on the ball, keeping track of just the assists/scoring and lighting of the pillar when the score happens, to allow the refs to do their job of policing the field would have stopped many of the issues we have seen over the last few weeks of competitions.
We had one match where they didn’t count any of the autonomous for our alliance. The refs waited a full match before answering our question and just said that they couldn’t remember. That was not fun.
This past weekend we had a couple matches where for 15-30 seconds the refs didn’t click the button so we couldn’t get the ball. We were told since it was a ref error and not a field malfunction we couldn’t get a replay.
Still even with that said the game today is MUCH better than 3 weeks ago. We had events the last 3 weeks in a row. It was so amazing to see the kinks worked out that next year I’d like to see us just do the last couple weeks of the season.
In St Joe last weekend fouls rarely decided a match and when they did it was pretty obvious (parts getting ripped off other bots, etc). Rarely did a foul happen that everyone said “What was that for?”.
This is it exactly. I have seen way too many assists not credited and we have also had goals not scored at all. In most cases, the refs are not able to go back and recall everything that occurred during the match to make the proper call. I hope something is done about this at least before championships.
It seems especially odd that these positions were not included this year, as in other years without automatic scoring, like 2011, there was a dedicated Scorekeeper position.