4C.5 Officials Can Compete
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4C.5 Officials Can Compete
The Referee may not compete in any competition where they may be required to make a
decision. The Muni Director may compete, as long as the race course has been announced
early enough that the Muni Director does not have an advantage from knowledge of the
course.
I would add Course Marshall into equation.
Proposal:
The Referee may not compete in any competition where they may be required to make a
decision. The Muni Director or Course Marshall may compete, as long as the race course has been announced
early enough that the Muni Director does they do not have an advantage from knowledge of the
course.
Comment
I think it's fine to include Course Marshall. The rule is a bit strangely formulated in any case - what is the definition of "early enough"?
Especially for DH, there is also an important difference between announcing the course and how the course is in the end taped, but that might be for another discussion. You should get at least a practice run with the final taped course, which has not always been the case in the past.
Comment
To be honest, I'm not sure whether I think a separate rule on the subject of officials being allowed to take part is really the best solution. I think I would find it clearer to note in the individual officials' rules whether and under what circumstances they can take part in the competition itself. But maybe I'm wrong and it's clearer with a separate rule.
In the case of a separate rule, I would restructure chapter 4C a bit and add two new subchapters - a first one in which all officials and judges are named and their respective tasks and a second one in which general rules follow, such as that officials may participate.
Comment
@Jan
In other words, you want to have the same structure as in Road Races. I agree, that would be clearer.
Side note: Currently there is a discussion in Road Racing subcommittee about the starter. Which is not well defined, and same applies to Muni. Once approved in Road Racing we could review it and copy paste to Muni.
Comment
> In other words, you want to have the same structure as in Road Races. I agree, that would be clearer.
Yes, I think that would be clearer and more logical.
> Once approved in Road Racing we could review it and copy paste to Muni.
Sounds good to me.
Comment
I agree with working it for Road Racing first. I agree less about copy/pasting anything important within the Rulebook. While some duplication may be impossible to avoid, many of our rules are (intentionally) generic enough to apply in most situations. That is why we have separate sections for definitions, general rules, etc. While Track, Road and Muni have differences, they all grew from the same set of rules, and today are still largely the same for those details. Some rules, such as this one, may apply across many or all disciplines. I guess my tangent may need to be a separate proposal. I've requested to be on the Main Committee but wasn't added there and am waiting to find out if it was intentional or not.
History of this rule: It exists because often the best-qualified officials still want to compete. These are the people willing to show up early, travel to the venue multiple times, and often have the most up-to-date knowledge about the current state of what racers in these events are doing. If you lose that person as an official, you might get someone that's less invested, knowledgable, etc. and lower quality outcomes. Plus it's usually easy to make a workaround for an official that's in an event: you have a secondary official who takes over that person's job for the event(s) in which that person is competing. The decision-making responsibilities for that/those events only are the job of that secondary official, who may consult with the higher official that competed, but must be responsible for any final decisions that affect the performance/placing of the main official.
I fully agree with the intent of this proposal.
Comment
> I agree less about copy/pasting anything important within the Rulebook. While some duplication may be impossible to avoid, many of our rules are (intentionally) generic enough to apply in most situations. That is why we have separate sections for definitions, general rules, etc. While Track, Road and Muni have differences, they all grew from the same set of rules, and today are still largely the same for those details. Some rules, such as this one, may apply across many or all disciplines.
I definitely agree with you that we have to be very careful when copying rules to make sure that this can be reasonably avoided. I agree with you that anything that is reasonably avoidable should not be duplicated in the rulebook. At the same time, however, we must also ensure that the rules can be read in a meaningful and logical way. So if removing individual rules from the disciplines chapter to the gernaral chapter means that someone who wants to understand the rules for a particular discipline would have to jump back and forth a lot, I'm in favor of copying the rules and having them in the rulebook in duplicate.
> I've requested to be on the Main Committee but wasn't added there and am waiting to find out if it was intentional or not.
The main committee has not yet started its work - but you are on the list and you will of course be considered.