Interpret this Rule

[rabidchihauhau]

Slarty,

the difference is - they can stop the game; good referees in professional sports are very knowledgable about the game play and they often decide to do or not to do something because they can correctly (that's an important word) assess the impact on the game.

But that's really beside the point because referee calls in professional sports are often tempered by the needs of the television camera. The first superbowl had some kind of fracas on the opening kickoff that was basically blown off because of the network's demand that the game continue.

However, I do feel there is a major difference between having the ability to stop the game and not using it, versus not having the ability to control things to that level at all.

I was not arguing that the player hit in the head should not be called under present rules - he should have been and should have gotten a penalty because he didn't check or call for a check AND continued aggressive action; it was an example of the fact that the enforcement does not bear a relationship to reality, nor do the current obvious, non-obvious distinctions.

We used to have three classes - obvious - easy, obvious - difficult and non-obvious - which I personally believe more closely mirrors the 'kinds' of hits that people take. A distinction was made because some hits require a player to 'take themselves out of the game' to check, while others do not, and because the mentality at the time said that there were some hits that players could reasonably not be aware of. I'd say that's even more true these days.

Are the refs under-trained and under-skilled - for the most part, yes. Do they need to have balls and a lack of personal entanglements that could draw their neutrality into question?: Absolutely. Is it the only problem out there? No. I think the greater problem is the rules, which have gotten out of sync with today's play. (Not that they were ever that good to begin with - even if I did write most of them.)

Chuck has that job - and more power to him. I'm satisfied to have created what is bow considered by most to be the premiere league in the country; having a little money for the effort would help, but that's the breaks.

And btw - I was never 'booted' - I resigned as Secretary at the end of the 1996 season out of protest over what I saw happening with the league.

[SlartyBartFast]

We used to have three classes - obvious - easy, obvious - difficult and non-obvious - which I personally believe more closely mirrors the 'kinds' of hits that people take. A distinction was made because some hits require a player to 'take themselves out of the game' to check, while others do not, and because the mentality at the time said that there were some hits that players could reasonably not be aware of. I'd say that's even more true these days.

I don't see the difference. Currently there's obvious and checkable, obvious and uncheckable (paintcheck required by teammate or ref) and unobvious (only on harnesses).

While you seem to have a fourth category, I don't see how it matches or compares to the current three.

But I'd think multiple classes of hit are a BAD idea. Needs to be kept simple.

And btw - I was never 'booted' - I resigned as Secretary at the end of the 1996 season out of protest over what I saw happening with the league.

I've been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, etc. Resigned and "Booted" are one and the same. The joys of politics.

[hitech]

So, Slarty and Rabid, do you think the rules should be changed to make playing on a penalty, period? Doesn't matter where, if your out and don't call youself out and continue to play you are penalized.

Great discussion, BTW...

[rabidchihauhau]

Slarty,

Resigned and booted might be the same in some political speech, but not in this case:

I won the vote created to 'boot' me; I remained in my position. I then CHOSE to leave the organization, where I could have stayed - more than likely would even have been re-elected as Secretary, given the failed attempt by some to remove me. However, I chose to do the GTO series and develop the USPL format instead, things I had urged the NPPL to do and which they seemed unable or unwilling to do.

Resigned and booted are only the same thing when you're given a choice 'resign or we'll can you'. I was not given a choice - I was subjected to the only recall vote in NPPL history and REMAINED CONFIRMED in my position.

[rabidchihauhau]

Hitec,

I believe that the solution lies in:

better rules
better trained officials
better technological aides
tournament series which are not advertising platforms for certain products

and yes, someone who is hit needs to leave the field and if they don't a penalty should ensue; the question is not whether a penalty applies, its over the severity of the penalty which is given.

[hitech]

someone who is hit needs to leave the field and if they don't a penalty should ensue; the question is not whether a penalty applies, its over the severity of the penalty which is given.

We agree. I am saying that there should be a single penalty for playing on. No distinctions between different "types" of hits. If you are hit and continue to play you are penalized the same regardless of where you are hit. I was looking for your opinion on that part.

[Lohman446]

We agree. I am saying that there should be a single penalty for playing on. No distinctions between different "types" of hits. If you are hit and continue to play you are penalized the same regardless of where you are hit. I was looking for your opinion on that part.

The rule, in PSP is very well defined though to an obvious and unobvious hit, its just noone enforces to that definition.

We are too scared about the 1/1000 "what if" situation and fear of penalizing an innocent player, so we let the other 999/1000 get away with it because of it.

[hitech]

We are too scared about the 1/1000 "what if" situation and fear of penalizing an innocent player, so we let the other 999/1000 get away with it because of it.

My point exactly.

[rabidchihauhau]

I just had a revelation reagarding paintball tournament rules I wanted to share with everyone:

looking at porn is FAR more interesting.

Just thought you all might want to know - but don't test my theory unless you're legally able to do so.

When I look at penalties I take into account at least the following factors:

what does the infraction do to the game?
how 'easily' can an opponent recover from the influence of the infraction?
is it easily enforceable?
how close to a 'balance' does the penalty achieve

The primary goal of any penalty (beyond punitive penalties) is to redress the game imbalance caused by the infraction, with perhaps an eye towards giving the opponent a slight 'leg up' as punishment.

Ideally, the penalty would cause a re-winding of the clock (time travel) and a referee would appear beside the soon-to-be-offending player who says 'better not, I'm watching you'.

Cause and effect/issue of predestination, time paradoxes and all the rest aside, a penalty that achieves the above would be the best way to go.

I mention that in order to provide a benchmark to shoot for when writing penalties, not expecting to achieve the ideal itself.

Then we find ourselves constrained by the remainder of the rules of the game: a referee does not have the luxury of reviewing the game so far, analyzing the tactical situation and conferring with other referees in order to determine just what the infraction did to the game. (Not all 'playing-ons' are equal in their effect on a game; they are all POTENTIALLY equal - which is another way to look at it.)

So we're left with a basic question and that is - what's the 'proper' (or 'fairest, depends on your goal) generic penalty for a whole family of related infractions.

I'd be fine with a scaled approach (leaving things somewhat subjective on the ref's part) and just simplify it by saying:

any game action taken by a player after they are hit (with the exception of those actions allowed to an eliminated player), regardless of the location of the hit, will result in a playing-on penalty.

That's very black and white, making no distinctions about location, requiring no analysis by the player and pretty easy to enforce.

Then I'd tack on:

the penalty assessed for playing on is either, 1st, 2nd or 3rd degree playing on (limited to expanded to as many degrees as is thought necessary)

and I'd hedge it a little by leaving the definitions of 1st - 3rd degrees a little open.

Now the question becomes - what is the effect on the game of a 1st degree offense? this would generally be defined as, no intent on the player's part, his continuing presence has no discernable affect on the game other than the fact that its an extra target.

Other than immediately removing the player, do we add anything else?

Then we look at the most heinous examples; deliberately remaining on the field with multiple, very obvious hits, ignoring referee calls, shooting multiple opponents, totally screwing the game and etc.

Is a 3-for-1 enough?

What else do we do?

I'm not just substituting degrees for location of the hit; I've placed all the location stuff in one basket and said - doesn't matter, its an infraction regardless.

I've also placed the 'ref call' parts of the penalty in the assessment category, rather than the evaluation category, which I think reduces a lot of gray; we no longer have to argue over specific locations, we're now down to - was he hit and did he keep playing afterwards?

On the other hand, I'd be very much in favor of adding a penalty that sent opponents BACK onto the field in the event that the other team engaged in playing on. Except in the very last few seconds of most games, that returning player will be able to get onto the field to a central back bunker, and will change the entire aspect of the game. Instead of 1-4-1s, we'd have 1-plus-1s, in addition to the other penalties.

But, when all is said and down, I still think the ultimate solution is to allow refs to stop the game for major penalties and then push players around on the field (under a well-defined methodology for doing so) to 'redress the imbalance'

[Lohman446]

Lets consider playing on penalties - the rules say I must single my elimination, and leave the field as they stand now.

A FRIEND I HAVE tends to take a moment or two - about ten seconds I would guess, to consider being hit, look at the hit, admit to himself he's out, count to ten... cover his barrel, and then singal his elimination... no big deal right.

It is.. its intentionally done to give his team an advantage, and to "slow" the advantage the other team has gained by taking him out... to make them pause. It also gives him a moment to assess what just happened. He does not shoot in the time, nor move. He doesn't "play". But he is in violation of the rules... I have never seen a ref that has even cared that he takes his time moving from his bunker and making his way off the field.

When he doe walk off the field how he walks off, from where he holds his marker, to where his hand is, are all indications to his team on what he knows that they may not - a clear violation of the spriit of the rules yes but the rules are not written well enough to be an infraction.

Until the rules are written specifically enough to prevent teams from coming up with things to take advantage of them, and enforced to the writing, regardless if it were innocent or not, then we are going to have teams take advantage of them.

Your right.. I shouldn't have given examples on a public message board

As for the age old idea of tricks, and these in particular, they have been around forver, as noted below - it takes some effort to use them... or to remember to

[rabidchihauhau]

You're talking about 'tricks' that are ages old.

You can add signals from the sidelines (for traditional ball), arguing to tie up a ref, fake paintchecks, shooting the ref, compressing bunkers....

So far as 'body signals' go, the solution would seem to be requiring the player to exit the field in a standardized posture. Unfortunately, refs don't have the time to watch what eliminated players are doing, since someone walking off the field is almost always a signal for lots of other stuff to happen. Even with a standard posture, players would be able to communicate illegally, even thought on a more limited basis.

A positive hand signal for eliminations by a ref would also help reduce the impact of the delayed exit.

I think that most of the refs out there are not receiving the kind of training and information they need in order to be able to make the kind of calls required for dealing with the level of 'sophistication' you were describing.

And, if we ended up having something like a maximum time for exiting, and it were enforced, all players would train to go right up to the max and a ref would be 'stuck' on them for that time period - which would still allow players to manipulate the rules.

[hitech]

When I look at penalties I take into account at least the following factors:

What does the infraction do to the game?
How 'easily' can an opponent recover from the influence of the infraction?
Is it easily enforceable?
How close to a 'balance' does the penalty achieve?

The primary goal of any penalty (beyond punitive penalties) is to redress the game imbalance caused by the infraction, with perhaps an eye towards giving the opponent a slight 'leg up' as punishment.

I'm all for all of those. However, I'm look for the rules and penalties to do one more thing. I want them to encourage "fair" play and discourage "unfair" play. A tall order for sure, but something I think is worth keeping in mind.

Too bad you're not in charge of tournament rules and enforcement. Maybe we wouldn't be where we are today.

[Lohman446]

I think that most of the refs out there are not receiving the kind of training and information they need in order to be able to make the kind of calls required for dealing with the level of 'sophistication' you were describing.
.

I said this somewhere else. I think the refs and the rule makers/promoters are so scared of punishing an innocent player 1/1000 times that we let the other 999 get away with intentionally going against the spirit of the rules

[rabidchihauhau]

Lohman,

its not so much a fear of offending players as it is fear of offending the industry folks/sponsors AND of getting b-oed on the web etc. by someone complaining about bad reffing, bad calls, etc.

There's also a healthy dose of politics in there; if we 'screw' over the other guys, what will happen to our teams at their events?

And, finally, the fact remains that they do not have a professional, independant reffing crew which would serve to buffer a promoter from all of the above

.Hitec,

I USED to be in charge of the rules - wrote them for just about everyone out there, did the first NPPL rules because the rules committee 'didn't have time to' (I took over the writing and the committee reviewed, edited and vetted them); and I've been at the forefront many times in introducing new systems to improve referee control.

The current 'points for elims, points for players alive' was an adaptation of the GTO tournament series rules system. That was designed to create a 100 point, 'zero sum' game scoring system (in other words, all 100 points were awarded each game, and split in some fashion amongst the two teams). its advantages are many, but chief among them is the fact that 'after game' penalty point adjustments don't affect other teams (older systems could have varying game totals, this one was always 100 total, no matter what) - which allowed people to project scores accurately and reliably and - you can instantly tell what happened during the game by looking at the score. Previous systems did not allow you to do that.

We also introduced the 'no paintchecks may be called by players' rule - which met a LOT of resistance, but was eventually embraced by all teams exposed to it.

Here's why: IF, as we would like to suppose, the ref's job is to control the game and IF (as is the case) a player is NOT allowed to tell a referee what to do, why then do we allow players to direct a ref's attention to one or another place on the field?

We got rid of it entirely and it resulted in greater confidence in the refs by players, a VERY quiet game and much easier inter-team communication

[hitech]

We also introduced the 'no paintchecks may be called by players' rule...why then do we allow players to direct a ref's attention to one or another place on the field?

That is the reaction most players got when attempting to direct me to check an opposing player. And that was in 1990. I'm always amazed at how far rules enforcement has slipped backward.

I enjoyed reffing. I'd like to be part of that again. However, I'm not the least bit interested in being envolved in the current "situation". You know the old saying, "You are either part of the solution or part of the problem...". I'm not interested in being part of the problem...

Too bad your not writting rules anymore. Then again, they wouldn't be enforced anyway...