Back to 701

701.1. Philosophy

701.1.a. Errors are assumed to be committed unintentionally. If the judge believes it was intentional, it is cheating. See 704.8 for more information about cheating.
701.1.a.1. Players attempting to abuse error remedies to receive advantages are cheating.
701.1.b. Judges are neutral arbiters and enforcers of policy and rules.
701.1.c. Judges should not stop errors from occurring. Instead they deal with errors that have occurred.
701.1.d. Judges should not intervene in games unless:
701.1.d.1. They believe a violation has occurred.
701.1.d.2. A player requested assistance.
701.1.d.3. A situation related to Unsporting Conduct is likely to escalate.
701.1.e. Judges should model fair play, sporting conduct, and diplomatic behavior.
701.1.f. Judges should not account for a player’s history or skill when determining whether errors occurred.
701.1.g. Judges may take into account a player’s history or skill when investigating.
701.1.h. Penalties are designed to educate players on mistakes and encourage them not to make them in the future.
701.1.i. Penalties are also designed to deter other players from similar errors.
701.1.j. Penalties are issued and tracked to help judges understand intent over patterns of behavior.
701.1.k. Head judges and head judges ONLY may issue penalties outside of these guidelines.
701.1.l. Judges are human and they make mistakes.
701.1.m. If a judge recognizes their own mistakes, they should acknowledge them and correct them if possible.
701.1.n. If a competition official makes a mistake and it results in a penalty applied to a player, the head judge can downgrade the penalty.
701.1.o. If a player acts on information given in error by a competition official, the head judge can rewind the game to account for it, even if there were no other errors.
Back to Home