View Single Post
Old 9 Sep 2019, 17:25 (Ref:3926957)   #5
Richard C
Veteran
 
Richard C's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 5,803
Richard C is the undisputed Champion of the World!Richard C is the undisputed Champion of the World!Richard C is the undisputed Champion of the World!Richard C is the undisputed Champion of the World!Richard C is the undisputed Champion of the World!Richard C is the undisputed Champion of the World!Richard C is the undisputed Champion of the World!Richard C is the undisputed Champion of the World!Richard C is the undisputed Champion of the World!Richard C is the undisputed Champion of the World!Richard C is the undisputed Champion of the World!
I think the problem has been that as the sport becomes more professionally run, it has gravitated to a system in which if anything odd happens, it may be possible to find that an infraction has occurred. This follows that someone must be at fault and eventually leads to required punishment. All very logical in a Vulcan sort of way. However, I don't want Spock as a race steward.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TrapezeArtist View Post
Then produce a list of things you are not allowed to do, and a statement of the penalty for each one. There could be more than one penalty for each transgression, allowing stewards a bit of latitude depending on severity. Then apply them rigorously.
I have cherry picked a quote from TrapezeArtist and bolded a bit of his post as I think it contains a key element that is new... This is that the stewards are now empowered with the the ability to practice latitude. A quick definition check for latitude gives me "scope for freedom of action or thought". I like that definition. It sort of implies that you have a brain and that you actually examine the situation, context of the moment, etc.

To my point above, the more organized we are and the more the rules are refined it's easy to become mindless robots as to their application. "rules are rules" until people start to question... Why do we have these rules? But the rules exist for good reason. But if you read rules as to the role of the stewards, it clearly shows they have the power to make their own choices. This is not new. What has changed is that I think the expectation previously was for them to be consistent robots. "Precedents" would rule the day and please ignore other factors that everyone else sees, understands and processes into their definition of what is "fare". This results in a disconnect between steward rulings and what the sport (teams, drivers, fans) expected the outcome to be.

Can this flexibility cause problems? Absolutely. The pendulum will continue to swing back and forth between "over" and "under" application of the rules. We can only hope that we don't spend too much time at either extreme. I am however fine with giving this a try vs. defaulting to the robot approach.

Richard
Richard C is offline  
__________________
To paraphrase Mark Twain... "I'm sorry I wrote such a long post; I didn't have time to write a short one."
Quote