woutzen
commented
1 year ago 1.+2. Role of TC and Ref:
The reason to differentiate between TCs and Refs is that TCs as legislative decide about the rules in advance and the Refs as judiciary evaluate during competition if the rules are met. The Refs are supposed to follow the rulebook exactly. That doesn't require experience in the league, but it does require extensive knowledge of the current rulebook.
If we would mix both roles and give the TCs the chance to change/reinterprete/add rules after an undefined situation occured to decide about the rating of that situation, we don't really need a rulebook at all. The teams could not rely on the predefined rules and could not prepare accordingly. If the TCs would be the ones judging a run, they would decide according to their understanding of the rulebook as intended during rulebook writing and not according to the exact words used. This would be unfair for new teams that use the rulebook as a basis for their development.
Therefore it is very important to keep the differentiation between TCs and Refs to ensure fairness, and even follow it more strictly in the future!
There are two different cases:
- Ref decisions during run time
Briefing of the refs before the competitions is a good idea. The refs need to have a very good knowledge of the rules. Every team can decide, which team member should be the ref. Therefore, they have the freedom to choose someone that has more experience in the league and they can brief and train their ref in advance (including making sure that the ref actually reads the rulebook). If their ref is not qualified and able to make the required decisions, it is the teams fault and the currently competing team should not be punished by that. Therefore, if the Refs don't call an obvious major collision it can not be argued to be a major collision afterwards.
- Ref decisions after run time
After the run all refs should gather in an area, no one else has access to (no TCs, ECs, Team Leaders)! They discuss their observations and decide according to the written rules about the rating. I would suggest that if something unforeseen happens in a run, that is not clearly defined in the rulebook, the result is always favoring the current team. There is no decision about a rule necessary to do so, therefore the refs are capable to to that. For all following team runs of the current task that situation is solved similarly. This also keeps the discussions between runs of a single task small.
After the task, before the next task, the TCs can discuss the situation and decide on new rules or handling of undefined situations. These decisions only have an influence on future runs, not on past ones to solve similar situations.
Separation of roles
Refs are supposed to be neutral. Obviously, they are team members as well, which makes them slightly biased (thats why one Ref from every team is so important), but it should be their goal to decide neutral and fair.
Team Chefs are not at all supposed to be neutral, they are supposed to represent the interests of their team. Since in our league TCs and Team Chefs are often the same person, TCs can not be neutral judges. If TCs would decide and Refs would double check the results, assuming the refs are unexperienced team members, they won't question any TC decisions, but just nod and agree.
A head of TC similar to a Head ref that has the power to influence any decisions can never work in a fair way. The head ref is a passive, organisational role on purpose. He/she is only supposed to lead and maybe counsil but never decide. A head of TC would have way too much power and would favor his own team. In case of a tie in a ref decision, it should be decided in favor of the currently competing team. In case of a tie in Rule discussions between tasks for future tasks, the EC is the tie-breaker.
I suggest a rule that forbids a TC or a Teamleader to be ref in the same time.
3.Ensuring that Refs can do their work
Walking around the arena to see everything is actually always a struggle as a ref. Therefore it is a good idea to block the space for everyone apart from refs. The TCs dont need to be in that area either in my scenario. This area could also be used as a space for the refs to discuss the ratings after the run without disturbance by anyone.
Also, the refs should be encouraged to spread out within that area, as it was done a few years ago. Not every ref needs to see every situation in detail and having refs at more or less fixed positions around the arena is enough, as long as at least two refs can see what is happening.
marcomasa
steup
leanderb
In the past, we've always requested that teams assign one member to watch all team competitions as a referee. The tasks of the refs were to count points and discuss point deductions and other penalties.
In RC 2022 world cup final, we had a rather unpleasant situation that none of the refs noticed a title-deciding collision. It was only noticed when a TC member (myself) called it out, after which the 'stop' call was made by the performing team.
Afterwards the discussion came up whether or not the penalty would have to be applied or not, since none of the refs made the call during the Run Phase.
This leaves us with a couple of critical points:
1. Should we change the role of Refs
Most teams use new team members as their ref as they "don't need their working power" so much during the competition (harsh wording, I know, but let's be real here). These new members are often not very familiar with the rule book and therefore are (in my eyes) not suited for such critical decisions. We either have to do briefings for the teams / refs before competitions begin, or we change the role of refs. If we say that refs are more of a "double check" mechanism that ensures that someone of every team counts their points, it would also encourage the refs to pay a bit more attention. However, it also required us to think about the second point:
2. Should we give the TC more responsibility during runs?
As the TC writes the rule book, they are more likely to know the rules better. They could be suited better for decisions regarding points and penalties.
They are, however, mostly team members as well and therefore might favor some teams. So we'd have to still have some refs that double check.
If more than one TC member is available onsite, we'd also have to instate a "Head of TC" or something similar that has a deciding vote-value in case of a tie (e.g. 1.5 instead of 1).
3. Ensuring that refs can do their work
I've also received some complaints of refs that they were not able to move around the arena as much as they wanted and/or needed to during runs of teams. The current arena setups don't allow spectators to see everything in detail from every angle, as walls often block the view partly, so refs have to move quite a lot during a run.
We've always had some free space between the arena and the public spectator area. We might want to only allow refs / TC to be inside of that "internal" spectators area. All other members could be asked to view from outside.
Implementing #60 could also help, but that's a lot of additional work for the committee, which is already a bit overloaded already.