Tour poll #4- Do the rules need to be rewritten for clarity?

[Play By The Rules]

I am once again volunteering to do the writing work if the Board wants to spend some time going over and clarifying all of the Tour rules.

[RiggoDrill]

PBTR, if you are willing to do the writing, I'm willing to consider what's written. I don't see a major problem w/ rules as stated on boards, but clarification always helps... :D

[Play By The Rules]

I would like to be able to play "devil's advocate" inquring things like "what would happen if" and have the Board define those rules.

Just to be clear, I want absolutely no input as to what the rules would be, that's up to the Board.

[Coffeeholic]

I'm not sure what started this whole "Rules" brew-ha (and not sure if I really want to know), but it sure seems like a good time of the year to bury the hatchet and let by-gones be by-gones? 8)

PBTR, this isn't meant solely for you, as I know there are other parties involved. It sure would be nice though, if you, and those other parties, could get together and iron out your differences. It'd be a better Tour with you involved next year! :D

Life's too short and we have too much fun with this game to let grievances ruin our enjoyment of it.

[teepack]

For guys like PBTR to be happy, TSN would have to set up the competition, engage their lawyers to write the rules and then have a computer do it all so that there can be no relaxing of the rules to make room for exceptions that arise. And I'm not trying to sound critical of PBTR, but he wants it to be much more rigid and formal than this community really needs or wants it to be. At least, that's my humble opinion.

[kaviksdad]

Given the "prestige" of the Tour, and the fact that it's been around now for several years, I can see no reason why the rules shouldn't be completely clear and precise, with clear-cut answers to all but the most unrealistic circumstances (like what happens if an asteroid falls on Teepack :P ).

If we can go to the trouble of setting this thing up and administering it over the 8 months or so it takes to complete, we can go to the trouble to spell out ALL the rules so that all the worries are about the success of our teams, and not about rule interpretations.

But that's just my opinion...I could be wrong. :D

[J-Pav]

[b:cae8218f79]Coffee[/b:cae8218f79]:

If this link works, this is the Tour thread for Event 2 League 2.

http://forums.sportingnews.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/3546013823/m/65910242421/p/1

[b:cae8218f79]All[/b:cae8218f79]:

I was a participant in this league and watched it all unfold first hand. I was also a newb to Penn's website at the time and this was my first live draft. As such, I completely sat on my hands throughout the dispute (this is also my first tour appearance).

After a lot of thinking on this matter, I believe that [b:cae8218f79]PBTR[/b:cae8218f79] had an absolutely valid argument (regarding not one, but several unusual circumstances).

Having said that, [b:cae8218f79]Penn[/b:cae8218f79] and [b:cae8218f79]Sandy[/b:cae8218f79] [i:cae8218f79]probably[/i:cae8218f79] acted as any of us would have acted given the same set of circumstances to decide upon.

It was the [i:cae8218f79]rules[/i:cae8218f79] versus the [i:cae8218f79]spirit of the rules[/i:cae8218f79].

Both sides had legitimate, even thoughtful opinion, before the personality conflicts got the better of the argument.

We can write an entire [i:cae8218f79]Constitution of Tour Rules[/i:cae8218f79]. We can add an [i:cae8218f79]Interpretations of the Constitutional Tour Rules[/i:cae8218f79] case study. I can tell you already that there will always be one more "this has never happened before, so what do we do now?"

What we need is a body of chosen folks to act as a voting committee to settle these disputes on a case by case basis and record the actions so they can be evenly applied in the future. Three, five, seven players, whatever. Just a fair and impartial group chosen ahead of time. Heck, you could even demand that a league get seven votes from it's own 12 members to settle a dispute. The Tour Commissioner could cast a tie breaker.

As it stands, it seems a bit odd to have, for example, a two hour time limit to make a pick, when the league commissioner can say "you know, I know this guy is stuck at the airport (or whatever legitimate reason), so we'll just stop for now and start picking again tomorrow." Maybe this is right/not right, but it probably should be handled outside of the league.

A written record of the rules is fine, but it will never encompass all the situations that can possibly arise. We need a quick, decisive, fair and impartial way to deal with these circumstances.

[teepack]

I remember the situation that hacked off PBTR, and I personally believe he had a right to be upset and that it could have been resolved better. As commissioner, I didn't approve of the name-calling and finger-pointing that arose from it. That's what I like to try to avoid.

The point I am trying to make is that guys like PBTR don't want there to ever be any exceptions. And I understand that. TSN doesn't allow for exceptions (i.e. if you can't make the waivers frenzy, they're not going to push it back one day just for you). But that's to be expected considering they are offering a commercial product in which you pay a fee. The Tour is an informal group that doesn't charge any fees or offer any prizes. All we are playing for is bragging rights, so I just don't think anybody is going to want to spend the amount of time it would take to write an all-encompassing rules just so guys like PBTR will be happy. I know I won't.

[J-Pav]

Agreed. The vast majority of the tour players know what is right and what is not right in most situations. An all encompassing "rule book" would only give us a false sense of security.

I am all for supporting anyone that wants to create such a rule book; however, there still needs to be a mechanism for dealing with unforeseeable events, which will undoubtedly occur, despite anyone's very best effort to forecast them.

I work in a world where "the rules are for the people we use them against" so I don't really like the concept of laying out a "legal document" of some sort. I do like the idea of having a record of what we've seen and chosen to do so that others facing similar circumstances can expect similar results. I think all any of us (including PBTR) want, is a sense of fairness. If more detailed rules will help, I'll try to help contribute. In the end though, I don't want to be the guy telling another guy who rushed his wife to the hospital in early labor that he needs to forfeit his fourth round pick in league 5.

Tee, you are right, this is an informal group gathered for bragging rights. There is no need to quote a rulebook to someone dealing with a personal situation that can be resolved with a quick "all in favor, say aye, all against say nay."

[Play By The Rules]

I totally respect your right to run your Tour any way that you would like.

No, I'm not as militant about the rules as you may think, but I also don't think that it's fair that some of us know the rules, and some of us don't. Things seem to "come up" on the spur of the moment sometimes that may not always be fair to the underinformed. It would be one thing if the rules were posted and the newbie chose not to read them. As it is now the only way to find out about certain rules is to be penalized for them and find out the hard way. Not nice.

It's a country club old boy's network kind of discrimination that I don't think if fair to the community. I agree my reaction to this particular situation was totally pushy and unacceptable but given my personality it is totally likely to occur again unless I continue to not play the Tour, or this anamoly is corrected. I am not the only one to have gone berserk over "rulings..."

If you really want to consider yourself the "elite" leagues that prove who the "best" SOM people are, I would think you would want to be as inclusive as possible. That means posting all the rules and intracicies up front and letting the player decide whether or not he or she wishes to participate. I don't think the NCAA basketball tourney changes rules on the fly, nor does the NFL excuse teams at the draft because they'd like a few extra minutes and they're buddies with Tagliabue... Even obscure rules that nobody knows are "in the rulebook." Right now the Tour has a very incomplete "rulebook."

This Tour is supposed to be the be all and end all of Strat, right? Not Spring Training. At least the Tour and Vet Leagues that many tout as so important a representation of one's Strat skills. Many on this Tour have knocked a great manager like Cristano as a "autoleague wonder." Well truth is, he kicked most of your butts. Make the playing field level and fair and post all the rules not just selective ones. You have someone here who has even volunteered to do the work! Otherwise it truly is just a few buddies getting together to play which is NOT representative of an overall, "championship" league.

That's just my opinion, again, I realize I am an outsider and I am happy to observe from there if the status quo remains.

PS Coffee, I have "made up" with the parties involved, we have "agreed to disagree" and I decided I would stop playing until the end of this current Tour year and address the situation at this time.