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There are both "norms" and "rules" at play, here. Reading this article made me think about watching high-level ultimate frisbee transition from everybody callin

There are both "norms" and "rules" at play, here. Reading this article made me think about watching high-level ultimate frisbee transition from everybody calling their own fouls to having referees. I mostly watched this happen on usenet, and I haven't paid any attention to this in years, so I may be getting some of this wrong. But my understanding is that for a long time everybody was (mostly) happy with the honor system of players calling fouls. Then one guy forced that to change by aggressively abusing the honor system, with the explicit goal of making everyone else to decide that adding referees to the game would be the best solution to him being a jerk. In the case of Bridge, it sounds like a really interesting case of an extensive system of rules, with a complicated and somewhat opaque system of norms overlaying that. So, sort of like real life.

burnished 5y ago
Huh. Wonder why the solution wasn't deemed to be getting rid of the problem person, if it was mostly isolated like that?
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Because he has plausible deniability, and then you have to address exactly where the line is. And then you end up with bureaucracy. From every organization or tribe I have seen, it is basically inevitable. If they are lucky, the members of the organization continue to put the needs of all and long term interests over their own, and there are less resources needed to be spent on keeping people in line. Once a sufficient number of people decide to put their own needs and short term interests ahead of the others, then it becomes a never-ending game of whack a mole and politics and parties and all that fun stuff emerges. This happens on nation state levels, company level, small business, for fun sports organizations, and even family. It is a never-ending battle to keep the order and keep out/expel the entropy.
ulnarkressty 5y ago
Honest question - if it was just one guy, why didn't he get banned instead of changing the rules for everyone?
- mcguire 5y ago
  Who would make the decision to ban him, and why? Fouls happen, and sometimes the guilty party fails to call their foul. Without a disinterested observer---i.e. a referee---no one is in a position to call it.
csa 5y ago
I played ultimate with my nationally competitive college club team. We frequently had to call for someone to ref (an option then) when we played the ECU (p)Irates. They frequently pushed the limits of rules honor system. They seemed to be proud of it. I thought it was sad.
- pwthornton 5y ago
  The solution to someone abusing a foul system like that is to make them earn the fouls.
  - csa 5y ago
    This happened. To be fair, many of the players on their team were willing to take their own medicine. I think most of them were alright, but as in any group, it just took a few folks to fuck it up for the whole team. Once a fight broke out when one of our guys played rough back at them (hacking, aggressive follow throughs, etc.). He was strong and also knew how to fight. Once the captains got together and had a frank discussion about how to move forward (it worked that game). Once we got the ref, we just told the other team that we would require a ref in all future meetings. Their captain understood.
thaumasiotes 5y ago
> In the case of Bridge, it sounds like a really interesting case of an extensive system of rules, with a complicated and somewhat opaque system of norms overlaying that. The rules of bridge aren't very complex.
- pmyteh 5y ago
  You're right that the rules are only modestly complicated: although they do run to dozens of pages most of the complexities are in trying to unpick and rectify situations where something has gone wrong (unauthorised information being accidentally given, somebody leading out of turn, whatever). That said, if you include partnership bidding systems within the local 'rules' for a particular hand, the complexity explodes. And, particularly at a high level, most of the difficulty in being a tournament director is in making judgement rulings where the partnership's conventions and players' mental states are relevant to whether an infraction has even likely occurred, still less how it might be 'correctly' resolved.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > That said, if you include partnership bidding systems within the local 'rules' for a particular hand, the complexity explodes. That's true, but there's no way to include bidding conventions within the rules at the same time you're saying "bridge sounds like a really interesting case of an extensive system of rules, with a complicated and somewhat opaque system of norms overlaying that". If we're distinguishing the rules of the game from the set of social norms around the game, the rules are simple. > most of the difficulty in being a tournament director is in making judgement rulings where the partnership's conventions and players' mental states are relevant to whether an infraction has even likely occurred And this is the aspect of tournament bridge that I don't get. It seems like the most obviously stupid idea in the world to say that whether an action is legal in your game depends on whether the player was thinking good thoughts or evil thoughts when he took it.
    - pmyteh 5y ago
      > It seems like the most obviously stupid idea in the world to say that whether an action is legal in your game depends on whether the player was thinking good thoughts or evil thoughts when he took it. It can actually be worse than this: some rulings depend on what might be the range of reasonable actions for players similar to the players in front of you. So your ruling can be different depending not only on the partnership's methods but also their general level of skill, and your judgement about whether they might or might not be expected to be aware of some subtle inference that could be made about the board situation. Although the tournament director's immediate disciplinary authority is plenary and unreviewable (so they can penalise or expel from the tournament players they consider to be cheating, or excessively rude, without comeback) judgement rulings are subject to appeal. So the final decision might (in particularly serious and important cases) be made weeks after the event by a panel of directors who have never even met the players involved. On the basis of sometimes sophisticated/arcane reasoning. See the commentary for appeal 16.012 in https://www.ebu.co.uk/documents/laws-and-ethics/appeals/EBU-appeals-2016.pdf https://www.ebu.co.uk/documents/laws-and-ethics/appeals/EBU-... for example.

burnished 5y ago

Huh. Wonder why the solution wasn't deemed to be getting rid of the problem person, if it was mostly isolated like that?

lotsofpulp 5y ago
Because he has plausible deniability, and then you have to address exactly where the line is. And then you end up with bureaucracy. From every organization or tribe I have seen, it is basically inevitable. If they are lucky, the members of the organization continue to put the needs of all and long term interests over their own, and there are less resources needed to be spent on keeping people in line. Once a sufficient number of people decide to put their own needs and short term interests ahead of the others, then it becomes a never-ending game of whack a mole and politics and parties and all that fun stuff emerges. This happens on nation state levels, company level, small business, for fun sports organizations, and even family. It is a never-ending battle to keep the order and keep out/expel the entropy.

ulnarkressty 5y ago

Honest question - if it was just one guy, why didn't he get banned instead of changing the rules for everyone?

mcguire 5y ago
Who would make the decision to ban him, and why? Fouls happen, and sometimes the guilty party fails to call their foul. Without a disinterested observer---i.e. a referee---no one is in a position to call it.

csa 5y ago

I played ultimate with my nationally competitive college club team. We frequently had to call for someone to ref (an option then) when we played the ECU (p)Irates. They frequently pushed the limits of rules honor system. They seemed to be proud of it. I thought it was sad.

pwthornton 5y ago
The solution to someone abusing a foul system like that is to make them earn the fouls.
- csa 5y ago
  This happened. To be fair, many of the players on their team were willing to take their own medicine. I think most of them were alright, but as in any group, it just took a few folks to fuck it up for the whole team. Once a fight broke out when one of our guys played rough back at them (hacking, aggressive follow throughs, etc.). He was strong and also knew how to fight. Once the captains got together and had a frank discussion about how to move forward (it worked that game). Once we got the ref, we just told the other team that we would require a ref in all future meetings. Their captain understood.

thaumasiotes 5y ago

> In the case of Bridge, it sounds like a really interesting case of an extensive system of rules, with a complicated and somewhat opaque system of norms overlaying that. The rules of bridge aren't very complex.

pmyteh 5y ago
You're right that the rules are only modestly complicated: although they do run to dozens of pages most of the complexities are in trying to unpick and rectify situations where something has gone wrong (unauthorised information being accidentally given, somebody leading out of turn, whatever). That said, if you include partnership bidding systems within the local 'rules' for a particular hand, the complexity explodes. And, particularly at a high level, most of the difficulty in being a tournament director is in making judgement rulings where the partnership's conventions and players' mental states are relevant to whether an infraction has even likely occurred, still less how it might be 'correctly' resolved.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > That said, if you include partnership bidding systems within the local 'rules' for a particular hand, the complexity explodes. That's true, but there's no way to include bidding conventions within the rules at the same time you're saying "bridge sounds like a really interesting case of an extensive system of rules, with a complicated and somewhat opaque system of norms overlaying that". If we're distinguishing the rules of the game from the set of social norms around the game, the rules are simple. > most of the difficulty in being a tournament director is in making judgement rulings where the partnership's conventions and players' mental states are relevant to whether an infraction has even likely occurred And this is the aspect of tournament bridge that I don't get. It seems like the most obviously stupid idea in the world to say that whether an action is legal in your game depends on whether the player was thinking good thoughts or evil thoughts when he took it.
  - pmyteh 5y ago
    > It seems like the most obviously stupid idea in the world to say that whether an action is legal in your game depends on whether the player was thinking good thoughts or evil thoughts when he took it. It can actually be worse than this: some rulings depend on what might be the range of reasonable actions for players similar to the players in front of you. So your ruling can be different depending not only on the partnership's methods but also their general level of skill, and your judgement about whether they might or might not be expected to be aware of some subtle inference that could be made about the board situation. Although the tournament director's immediate disciplinary authority is plenary and unreviewable (so they can penalise or expel from the tournament players they consider to be cheating, or excessively rude, without comeback) judgement rulings are subject to appeal. So the final decision might (in particularly serious and important cases) be made weeks after the event by a panel of directors who have never even met the players involved. On the basis of sometimes sophisticated/arcane reasoning. See the commentary for appeal 16.012 in https://www.ebu.co.uk/documents/laws-and-ethics/appeals/EBU-appeals-2016.pdf https://www.ebu.co.uk/documents/laws-and-ethics/appeals/EBU-... for example.