What are the real rules?

[sjt19]

It shouldn't matter......

Originally posted by Salocin
.... who the player is or whether he felt the hit.

Other sports don't make a distinction on "intention" - why should we ?

If you come late into a tackle in football, you get a yellow vard - no matter whether you intended to be late or not.

The point is you are changing the game by being on the field when you should not, and the 141 penality is there to compensate the other team - not to penalise players for having a certain set of moral standards.

S

I agree with Steve,, i f i know a player to be very honest (yes there are honest players out there) then you give them the benefit of the doubt if they get hit on the front of the hopper. If a player who is a notoriuos cheat is playing on in the same situation, then i would penalise accordingly.

New players who are honest for examply when they are shot will probably reel away with the shock of the paint hitting them. I have seen players get hit and not even flinch and play on and then act all suprised when i have pulled them out for shots on their arms, chest, legs etc...

This is a story from Toulouse 2002 i heard from a friend. I wont say who, nor will i say any of the guys involved as i was not there to see it myself. But at Toulouse i believe they had a practice field set up for guys t omess around on between games. One team went on to the field and turned their guns up to over 300fps and practised mugging each other so that they could learn not to flinch. The aim being that when they were mugged for real/shot in the back in a game they would not flinch and would not give the impression to anyone that they were conciously playing on. I cant see a novice team doing this....but i can see a high am / pro team doing it.

 

[Wadidiz]

It shouldn't matter......

Originally posted by Salocin
.... who the player is or whether he felt the hit.

Other sports don't make a distinction on "intention" - why should we ?

If you come late into a tackle in football, you get a yellow vard - no matter whether you intended to be late or not.

The point is you are changing the game by being on the field when you should not, and the 141 penality is there to compensate the other team - not to penalise players for having a certain set of moral standards.

S

I was afraid this would be misunderstood.

What I mean is that I learn what tricks certain players do or are capable of. I hang with a lot of top level players and hear about a lot of the tricks that are out there. I simply mean that I don't let one of these players play innocent in a lot of these situations we're discussing. I almost never get an argument from these players when they get busted either.

I certainly don't hold any players to a different standard. I'm just more aware of what certain top pros are capable of.

What I like to see is the respect certain judging crews or individual judges get when they know how to regulate. The bullcrap is greatly diminished and the true game of paintball comes forth.

But whoever the player may be--known or unknown to me--I try to discern whether or not they reasonably should have known about a hit on the front of their hopper or on their regulator and make a call accordingly. There is always a risk, no matter how experienced or good I am, that I misjudge.

And I don't KNOW with 100% certainty that a player felt a certain hit. I certainly don't take the word of any player. I simply judge whether or not a player normally would have felt, seen or heard a hit and make a call.

As far as intention is concerned, I look and make a judgement on what I perceive as intention or not concerning bonus balling, for example. If it looks clear to me that a player INTENDED to hurt and/or intimidate an opponent with extra balls then you better believe I'm gonna get that player kicked out.

I agree that penalties are there to attempt to compensate the opposing team for getting cheated out of something but I also believe another important purpose of penaltiles is behavior modification. A player who destroys her team's chances by causing a 3-4-1 will probably catch hell from her team-mates (perhaps for getting caught!) and a player who gets suspended for throwing his gun and making his team play short for six games will likely hear about it--and probably never do it again.

As for morality: I've become too cynical to expect any morality these days. Unfortunately it's only about winning these day. Morals, morality and moralizing are only for relics like myself and perhaps a few others. I wish it were different.

Steve

 

[sjt19]

It shouldn't matter......

Originally posted by Salocin
.... who the player is or whether he felt the hit.

Other sports don't make a distinction on "intention" - why should we ?

If you come late into a tackle in football, you get a yellow vard - no matter whether you intended to be late or not.

The point is you are changing the game by being on the field when you should not, and the 141 penality is there to compensate the other team - not to penalise players for having a certain set of moral standards.

S

Hmm.....a very Brockdorff-esque post.....he always starts his posts with the little light bulb......and the user has only 2 posts....and its a voice from beyond the grave.....anyone else smell Broccolli?

 

[Wadidiz]

Re: It shouldn't matter......

Originally posted by sjt19
Hmm.....a very Brockdorff-esque post.....he always starts his posts with the little light bulb......and the user has only 2 posts....and its a voice from beyond the grave.....anyone else smell Broccolli?

Let's pull in the services of our literary analysts.

 

[Baca Loco]

Re: It shouldn't matter......

Originally posted by Wadidiz
1---I was afraid this would be misunderstood.

What I mean is that I learn what tricks certain players do or are capable of. I hang with a lot of top level players and hear about a lot of the tricks that are out there. I simply mean that I don't let one of these players play innocent in a lot of these situations we're discussing. I almost never get an argument from these players when they get busted either.

2--I certainly don't hold any players to a different standard. I'm just more aware of what certain top pros are capable of.

What I like to see is the respect certain judging crews or individual judges get when they know how to regulate. The bullcrap is greatly diminished and the true game of paintball comes forth.

3--But whoever the player may be--known or unknown to me--I try to discern whether or not they reasonably should have known about a hit on the front of their hopper or on their regulator and make a call accordingly. There is always a risk, no matter how experienced or good I am, that I misjudge.

4--And I don't KNOW with 100% certainty that a player felt a certain hit. I certainly don't take the word of any player. I simply judge whether or not a player normally would have felt, seen or heard a hit and make a call.

5--As far as intention is concerned, I look and make a judgement on what I perceive as intention or not concerning bonus balling, for example. If it looks clear to me that a player INTENDED to hurt and/or intimidate an opponent with extra balls then you better believe I'm gonna get that player kicked out.

I agree that penalties are there to attempt to compensate the opposing team for getting cheated out of something but I also believe another important purpose of penaltiles is behavior modification. A player who destroys her team's chances by causing a 3-4-1 will probably catch hell from her team-mates (perhaps for getting caught!) and a player who gets suspended for throwing his gun and making his team play short for six games will likely hear about it--and probably never do it again.

6--As for morality: I've become too cynical to expect any morality these days. Unfortunately it's only about winning these day. Morals, morality and moralizing are only for relics like myself and perhaps a few others. I wish it were different.

Steve

1--you're not being misunderstood, you're not accepting the ramifications of your position. You have at least two different standards based on what you think the player or players may or may not consider doing.
I personally don't want rules where one guy is penalized cus the ref decides he knew he was hit and the next guy isn't cus the ref decides he didn't know he was hit. There has to be a way to develop a set of rules that removes that sort of nonsense. The more of that that exists the more impact the refs have on the outcomes of games when games must be decided by the players--either thru their ability or their failure to comply with the rules---but not cus a ref made a judgement call about what a particular player knew or felt or intended.
2--of course you are. and if you don't think there are loads of novice players in this country doing exactly the same things you've been gone too long.
3--exactly, so why not try and design rules that do not have those sorts of ambiguities and don't rely on the guessing ability of the refs?
4--that is exactly the sort of call that needs to be limited in every possible instance
5--bonus balling is easy to figure out if and when eliminated players plainly signal they are eliminated.
6--it's got no place in sport not because people shouldn't consider moral consequences but because its what actually happens on the field that matters. If, at the core, sport is about competing within a framework of rules, the hows and whys of what the players do is irrelevant. The only thing that should matter is what they do, or don't do---and as much as possible that's what proper rules ought to be designed to adjudicate.

 

[raehl]

Ok, i've skimmed until now, but...

Longer rules are not necessarily better rules. While certainly pro sport tulebooks are longer, they also have much moe detail in things like equipment, etc - pass interference is pass interference, and off sides is offsides, and it doesn't take more than a sentence to describe either.

Rules have to be written to balence the clarity of the rule with the judgement of the official enforcing the rule. At some point, you have to accept that an official can read the rule, understand the rule, and apply the rule. You shouldn't try and spell out every situation to avoid your judges having to interpret.

Now, that part of that that's missing is that judges need to be TRAINED to appropriately interpret rules. It's not entirely the rule's fault that you put an official on the field who has never reffed with those rules before without giving them any training.


Anyway, back to paintball rules... One thing I found very interesting is how quickly and accurately players will call themselves out on "inobvious" hits when there's a 2 minute penalty on the line. I watched a lot of games of X Ball, players would get hit on the outside of their hopper, their back, top of their mask, tank, plenty of places that over on the 10-man field would be considerred "inobvious" but would net you a 2-minute penalty for playing with on the X Ball field. Somehow players manage to notice that they're there. Granted, there were some teams who didn't do it, and those teams lost due to the inordinate amount of penalties.

And that's why I instructed Steve to ref the college X Ball matches as I did: Our regular season rules are strict on obvious/inobvious hits (i.e. if you have a hit you should have seen or felt, and you're still shooting/advancing on a player, it's a penalty), and that was also my interpretation of the X Ball rules and the way they had been being enforced for the duration of the event. (So either way Steve was covered and people could bitch at me instead if they didn't like it. )


Here's an example of cleaned-up rules for live players/eliminations/hits:

10.0 Hits

* 10.0.1 A hit is any paint mark on a player or any equipment in the player's possession received from a whole paintball shot by a live player striking the player or the player's equipment.
* 10.0.2 A judge shall assume any paint mark resembling a hit is from a whole paintball fired by a live player unless the judge has specific reason to believe otherwise.
* 10.0.3 Judges shall remove any paint marks that are not hits, except marks on a player's goggle lense.

10.1 Obvious Hits

* 10.1.1 Any hit which the receiving player should have seen, heard or felt is an obvious hit.
* 10.1.2 A player with an obvious hit is eliminated.
* 10.1.3 A player with a hit which is not obvious shall be eliminated by a judge.

10.3 Self-Verifiable Hits

* 10.3.1 A self-verifiable hit is a hit a player can see or could see by moving their body. A player who calls for a paint check with a self-verifiable hit will be assessed a major penalty.

11.0 Live Players

* A live player is any player who started the game in the correct starting position, but who does not have a hit and who has not been eliminated.

12.0 Penalties

...
* 12.whatever An eliminated player who advances, shoots, communicates, or fails to immediately proceed to the dead box shall be assessed a major penalty.



That's it. 10.3 is optional. This does expect that your judges can tell the difference between a hit a player should have seen, heard or felt and one they shouldn't have, but again, that's an issue of training/experience, not spelling out every little detail.


- Chris

 

[Wadidiz]

Chris,

I think your post is pretty sensible and so are the rules.

Baca,

Dude, you do a damn good job of picking apart what someone is saying or not saying and sometimes you draw the right conclusions sometimes not.

I don't want to vary the substance of how I judge different players one iota. I will be fair and equitable to everyone. But I will be much more wary of players that have shown me a track record of a little more sophisticated cheating. Let's just say what I know about certain players will advise me to watch for certain things more with them than others.

But, you know, maybe you're right after all. Maybe what I learn about cheating from one player just let's me know what's possible for any player. I just add it to my reportoire.

I definitely don't assume that anyone knows about a received hit more than another. Just that a trained, disciplined player will more likely be less inclined to turn his gun and lot for that hopper hit. Therefore for such player I MAY be stricter in my penalizing playing on with a gun/hopper hit.

Whatever the case, I may not have the words to describe the concept here but I know in my head and heart that I'm judging fairly.

Steve

 

[organized_chaos]

I dont understand why a player calling for a paintcheck on a self verifiable hit should be assesed a major penalty. Atleast he called for a check, most players now would just play on without saying anything. They should be penalized more than the ones who called for it.

 

[Wadidiz]

Originally posted by organized_chaos
I dont understand why a player calling for a paintcheck on a self verifiable hit should be assesed a major penalty. Atleast he called for a check, most players now would just play on without saying anything. They should be penalized more than the ones who called for it.

One of the main points I started this with is that all major league rules state that a player may continue to play after calling a paintcheck for an impact the player can't check himself. To me play is play.

As I've stated several times, that is crystal clear. Why should NCPA or anyone else interpret that rule any differently? I haven't seen anyone yet address that point in this thread.

If that rule is unreasonable then give some justifications for changing it and then change it so people who have a real good command of the rules like myself don't show up and enforce the rules differently from the unwritten rules (which shouldn't exist in contradiction to the written).

Also, I don't think a player should ever, X Ball or otherwise, be penalized for a hit she wasn't aware of (and I've said many times that good judges must assess whether or not a player should have been aware of such a hit according to reasonable standards). The only exception to that would be when a flag-carrier in X Ball hangs a flag with an unobvious hit because there is a coach there who can check the player. And if the team is in a hurry to hang the flag then they take a chance on getting a minor penalty.

Steve

 

[Baca Loco]

Steve,
My objections aren't intended to dog you or any particular ref--which is something I probably should have made clear previously.
My point was to suggest that maybe, when the rules are reconsidered, they be approached in a different way. Clearly, as things stand, well educated and experienced refs are vastly preferable but I think my point stands--any time situations on the field are subject to patently subjective decisions it's not in the game's best interest; IM less than HO.

Even raehl's rules are less than satisfactory in my opinion for similar reasons.
What's the purpose of 10.1.3--the heading is obvious hits.
And 10.1.1 is precisely what I'm objecting to. Much better to simply locate what constitutes an obvious hit as opposed to what a players should feel. Please, that's just silly and creates hard feelings, angry players, etc.
Even 10.3.1 is too loosely defined. What one skinny player can self-verify is not the same as what beefy backguy can self-verify. Why not simply specify areas on a player that constitute one category of hit or another?
Again, there is no good reason except traditional interpretation of past rules for continuing with a system that requires refs to guess what the players feel, should feel, might'a felt or whatever.