24RMiller
commented
11 months ago I definitely agree there are issues with the current protest procedures; however, I'm not sure if I could get behind either of those two proposals. As stated, the first proposal puts too much weight on the opinion of one person, and it does not allow coaches to state their case. I agree the second proposal is better, but I worry it would make protests almost impossible to be successful (If that is the goal, then I think that would be a very suitable solution), due to the rarity of answer judges and quizmasters disagreeing or all three coaches being in unison. That is why I have a third proposal that combines the proposals above:
Upon a coach initiating a protest/review, the meet director is called immediately. The quizmaster will first give any relevant information; then coaches will each have time to briefly state their argument. After a period of five minutes, provided all coaches have been given the chance to speak, a vote will be taken. The quizmaster/answer judge has one vote combined, the meet director has one vote, and each coach does as well. If there is a tie from the voting due to there being three options, the person/persons who voted for the 3rd place selection will revote for one of the other two.
Note: This is not worded for the rule book, but rather me just throwing my ideas down on paper.
In this scenario, the goal is not to persuade the other coaches or the quizmaster/answer judge to change their minds (unless one or more of the coaches is still on the fence). Instead, if there is an even 2-2 split, the goal is to have the meet director be the tie-breaking vote. The goal with this method is to only require the meet director if necessary, while also limiting the power of individual parties.
The biggest issue I see is if the quizmaster and answer judge disagree. I'm not sure how often this happens, but I'm sure it is a possibility. One option I see is something like the following when describing the way the vote is taken:
If the quizmaster/answer judge are not in agreement, the vote falls only on the three coaches; both the quizmaster/answer judge and the meet director will abstain from voting. If for any reason there is a tie, the meet director has the tiebreaking vote.
This is because in essence the qm and aj each have half a vote, so they would just cancel each other out. I understand this might complicate things too much, but I also feel that it would greatly shorten the amount of time protests take, while prevent the meet director from having all the power.
levikoral
The current procedure for handling protests/reviews has several major flaws. First, I suspect that more often than not the "10 minute window" is not in fact timed from the moment of the protest/review. Second, 10 minutes is itself a very long time for deliberation before taking any final actions, especially when we consider that finding agreement is far more likely in the first 5 minutes than in the last 5 minutes. Thus, protests/review almost always result in long delays that are not conducive either to good quizzing or the qui meet schedule. Third, the meet director is said to "arbitrate and determine the just solution", implying even more time spent deliberating. Fourth, while I do not have statistics on this, I suspect that the meet director does not often change the QM's ruling. Finally, while giving the meet director the final say may give the appearance of a fair and impartial solution, the decision is more likely than not to be (unintentionally) unfair or impartial. This is not like a batter or catcher appealing a check-swing to first base umpire, who has a better view than the home plate umpire because the meet director almost certainly has less information than the officials and coaches present. Plus, the officials themselves are supposed to be fair and impartial arbiters, and they have more of an incentive to rule correct/incorrect compared to a meet director, who has more of an incentive to throw out the question (which should happen very rarely).
Therefore, for these logistical and practical reasons, I propose that the procedure for settling protests/reviews be revised in one of two ways:
Pros:
Cons:
Pros:
Cons:
While I think both options are better than the current procedure, I favor No. 2 for several reasons. First, assuming the QM and AJ are in agreement about their ruling, then the ruling only gets overturned if all 3 head coaches agree. If all 3 head coaches agreed about a ruling, that is a pretty solid statement in its support. But assuming that the QM and AJ do not agree on the ruling, then only 2 coaches would be needed; and if the QM and AJ are indeed split in their opinion, that indicates a contentious issue where a majority opinion probably gets closer to the truth. Second, it keeps the decision "the the room" rather than bringing in an external person (i.e. the meet director) who has no defined role in the rulebook. Third, it would cut down on bad protests since a coach would know that this only goes their way if they can convince either one official plus a coach or otherwise two coaches to agree with them. Finally, it creates a decisive means to settle a protest/review rather than leave things up to the discretion of the undefined meet director role.