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Rules change process - changes submitted by Tech


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It recently came to my attention that Tech is able to bypass the official petition review process and submit rules changes with only a BoD vote and no visibility to members (not added to the list of petitions). This is not just with regard to safety rules, either - I understand the need to quickly institute safety rules/changes.

This seems counter-intuitive as I thought the petition review period was the ability for members to review and submit feedback to rules changes regardless of who proposed them.

 

Does anyone else agree with me that even rules proposed by the Tech lead or inspectors should be added as petitions? I know in the past I've seen petitions written by Mike Chisek so I kinda already thought this was the case, but I was wrong.

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10 minutes ago, Huggy said:

The section you are looking for is 4.4

image.png.b114f53a13d2cc57e15615bb5947a66f.png

 

However, the Fixed Point Value list takes precedent over 4.4, by design.  

(quoted from a different topic listing)

 

I think 4.4.4 answers your implied question pretty well, in that tech can assign values to parts that are then ratified by the Board of Directors, which is our method of representation in the organization. I would agree with this rule that point values are not specifically rules changes, as the FPV of a new, unlisted item may need to be assigned more rapidly than once a year at petition time.

 

I think maybe what you would like to see is a list of FPVs that tech submits and the board of directors approves? That seems like a reasonable request.

 

Edited by cmi11er
clarification
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1 hour ago, theblue said:

I do wonder if there is a formal documented process for 4.4.4 or if tech under stress are making calls and then it never gets to the board?   (I'm not accusing, I'm curious)

They are making on the spot calls. If it results in a rules change my understanding is that it gets submitted to the board.

 

 

1 hour ago, cmi11er said:

 

I think maybe what you would like to see is a list of FPVs that tech submits and the board of directors approves? That seems like a reasonable request.

 

 

That would be great! Being a member run organization i think we should be allowed to have feedback or at least direct visibility/tracking of this.

Edited by Slugworks Paul
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There is a currently ongoing issue where Tech has been interpreting a rule differently than in years past, resulting in a point increase for multiple teams.

 

I was told that tech, bod, and mike discussed it and agreed on the current interpretation - so it was a pre-determined decision.

 

Yet, to this day, the decision and resulting points increase has not been published for everyone to be made aware.

 

 

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2 hours ago, cmi11er said:

I think maybe what you would like to see is a list of FPVs that tech submits and the board of directors approves? That seems like a reasonable request.

1 hour ago, Slugworks Paul said:

That would be great! Being a member run organization i think we should be allowed to have feedback or at least direct visibility/tracking of this.

 

@Jer do you know of any fixed point value submissions that Tech makes to the Board for approval? I think this issue/question is mostly for unlisted parts, but we're just curious as to the process here.

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Most changes in the BCCR in the last year or two have not been directly related to petitions.

 

Interpretation of the rules is a separate issue, tech has to be able to do that on the spot (but I would certainly like to see those decisions published)

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46 minutes ago, cmi11er said:

@Jer do you know of any fixed point value submissions that Tech makes to the Board for approval? I think this issue/question is mostly for unlisted parts, but we're just curious as to the process here.

They might recommend points for parts, but I don't recall any in the last round of rules stuff last fall.  

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50 minutes ago, ABR-Glen said:

Most changes in the BCCR in the last year or two have not been directly related to petitions.

 

Interpretation of the rules is a separate issue, tech has to be able to do that on the spot (but I would certainly like to see those decisions published)

I thought that is why we have the Tech update board on the forum?

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44 minutes ago, Jer said:

They might recommend points for parts, but I don't recall any in the last round of rules stuff last fall.  

 

Email from Mike Chisek:

"The addition was made after discussion with tech officials at our August 2018 meeting.  They asked to have it added for 2019, we discussed it, I agreed, submitted it to the board in the 2019 BCCR.  Whether the entire board read the BCCR in detail before approving it is not something I can speak to."

15 minutes ago, hotchkis23 said:

I thought that is why we have the Tech update board on the forum?

 
It probably is, but it hasn't been used for that purpose.

1 hour ago, ABR-Glen said:

Most changes in the BCCR in the last year or two have not been directly related to petitions.

 

Interpretation of the rules is a separate issue, tech has to be able to do that on the spot (but I would certainly like to see those decisions published)

 

Could be, and I definitely agree.

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2 hours ago, Huggy said:

There is a currently ongoing issue where Tech has been interpreting a rule differently than in years past, resulting in a point increase for multiple teams.

 

I was told that tech, bod, and mike discussed it and agreed on the current interpretation - so it was a pre-determined decision.

 

Yet, to this day, the decision and resulting points increase has not been published for everyone to be made aware.

 

 

Which decision are you speaking of, exactly? What is the 'it' they discussed?

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In 2018 there were a lot of Phil rules floating around not in the rule book. Tech compiled those and made suggestions to put in the rule book. Also 2018 saw the implementation of TAC who also went through the rule book and made suggestions. Those suggestions were put in the draft of the 2019 rule book and was submitted to the BoD. We approved those and published the rule book to members for them to read. 

 

As a member run organization you can put a petition in and those are all reviewed once a year. The only time a new rule is implemented during the year in the rule book would be a safety issue (ie the bulkhead rule). 

 

The board meets multiple times of the year to make sure everything is being addressed. 

 

If you need clarification on a rule then please email tech. 

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14 hours ago, E. Tyler Pedersen said:

In 2018 there were a lot of Phil rules floating around not in the rule book. Tech compiled those and made suggestions to put in the rule book. Also 2018 saw the implementation of TAC who also went through the rule book and made suggestions. Those suggestions were put in the draft of the 2019 rule book and was submitted to the BoD. We approved those and published the rule book to members for them to read. 

 

As a member run organization you can put a petition in and those are all reviewed once a year. The only time a new rule is implemented during the year in the rule book would be a safety issue (ie the bulkhead rule). 

 

The board meets multiple times of the year to make sure everything is being addressed. 

 

If you need clarification on a rule then please email tech. 

You've been practicing your politically correct BoD marketing answers! Nice work :)

My point, is as a member run org I think we should have more visibility in those 'tech to BoD' changes. I realize they're documented in the rules but I'd rather not have to do my own compare report of the rules (which is hard when a lot is formatting/grammar/punctuation). It would be nice to just get a list of impactful rules additions, removals, or changes and perhaps a why behind them? The petition process does a good job of that (providing an explanation as to what problem is being solved and how the new rule change will solve it), some similar transparency for 'other' changes would be nice.

 

It honestly sounds like even the BoD is missing some of these changes in your review, based on Jer's response (I am not pointing fingers, it seems like it'd be easy to miss, I don't blame him for that)

Edited by Slugworks Paul
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3 hours ago, Slugworks Paul said:

You've been practicing your politically correct BoD marketing answers! Nice work :)

My point, is as a member run org I think we should have more visibility in those 'tech to BoD' changes. I realize they're documented in the rules but I'd rather not have to do my own compare report of the rules (which is hard when a lot is formatting/grammar/punctuation). It would be nice to just get a list of impactful rules additions, removals, or changes and perhaps a why behind them? The petition process does a good job of that (providing an explanation as to what problem is being solved and how the new rule change will solve it), some similar transparency for 'other' changes would be nice.

 

It honestly sounds like even the BoD is missing some of these changes in your review, based on Jer's response (I am not pointing fingers, it seems like it'd be easy to miss, I don't blame him for that)

 

The last page of the rules shows what changes and when the changes were updated so they are spelled out there. Every year I read the rules then read them again then read again to make sure my car is still good to go for the upcoming season. 

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33 minutes ago, E. Tyler Pedersen said:

 

The last page of the rules shows what changes and when the changes were updated so they are spelled out there. Every year I read the rules then read them again then read again to make sure my car is still good to go for the upcoming season. 

It would save us all a lot of time if, in addition to a change log, additions were in red, and removed text remained with strikethrough. I like reading through once, I shouldn’t have to waste my time reading through several times.

 

And, like, who the heck cares about colorblind people anyway? Make the changes in red, and someone with color blindness can ask a teammate to read it. 

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19 hours ago, E. Tyler Pedersen said:

In 2018 there were a lot of Phil rules floating around not in the rule book. Tech compiled those and made suggestions to put in the rule book. Also 2018 saw the implementation of TAC who also went through the rule book and made suggestions. Those suggestions were put in the draft of the 2019 rule book and was submitted to the BoD. We approved those and published the rule book to members for them to read. 

 

As a member run organization you can put a petition in and those are all reviewed once a year. The only time a new rule is implemented during the year in the rule book would be a safety issue (ie the bulkhead rule). 

 

The board meets multiple times of the year to make sure everything is being addressed. 

 

If you need clarification on a rule then please email tech. 

 

It boggles my mind that this political answer gets 4 likes and thanks....  This is a non-answer to the question that was asked.  In fact, parts of your story are flat out incorrect.

Your politician skills are strong!

 

1 hour ago, E. Tyler Pedersen said:

 

The last page of the rules shows what changes and when the changes were updated so they are spelled out there. Every year I read the rules then read them again then read again to make sure my car is still good to go for the upcoming season. 

 

Thats nice, but there is zero reason we cant do a better job of pointing out changes.

 

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1 hour ago, enginerd said:

It would save us all a lot of time if, in addition to a change log, additions were in red, and removed text remained with strikethrough. I like reading through once, I shouldn’t have to waste my time reading through several times.

  

And, like, who the heck cares about colorblind people anyway? Make the changes in red, and someone with color blindness can ask a teammate to read it. 

 

Colorblind people can tell red text from black text FYI. At least I can.......We can also see strikethrough 

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54 minutes ago, Huggy said:

 

It boggles my mind that this political answer gets 4 likes and thanks....  This is a non-answer to the question that was asked.  In fact, parts of your story are flat out incorrect.

Your politician skills are strong!

 

 

Thats nice, but there is zero reason we cant do a better job of pointing out changes.

 

 

What is false? I myself would like to know. 

 

I will see if @Bill Strong can do a better job on colours and strike throughs. I know at one point we talked about making a rule book with all the edits in it that members can view vs just the rule book that has the change logs. 

 

Appreciate the feedback as well. 

 

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Colours and strike-throughs make people lazy.

They don't read the book. they just skim until they see something that catches their eye.

We saw that at Harris Hill and on this forum where people were shocked that a rule had been changed and in the 2019 BCCR since last September.
 

Changing the colours to red does nothing when the majority of printed BCCRs I have seen in teams hands were printed on monochrome laser printers. You now have a full black text BCCR.
Strike-throughs? I need to figure out how to do that since we don't use Microsoft products to make printed material in this company. 

 

I am putting the changelog in the back. Is that not enough?

 

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16 minutes ago, Bill Strong said:

Strike-throughs

I can see how this could make someone lazy, but someone with a halfway decent understanding of what the BCCR contains, will not re-read the darn thing every year, even if reread, may miss changes because of skimming the ho-hum stuff, please strike and red the changes as well as your favorite change log. (some of us read it online, never bothering to print in any color.)

Edited by Team Infiniti
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1 hour ago, red0 said:

 

Colorblind people can tell red text from black text FYI. At least I can.......We can also see strikethrough 

 

 

a monochrome printer will print the red letters in black toner. 
I use an HP LaserJet at home.   So that's what I see.

I will start using strike-throughs when it is appropriate and will continue to update the changelog.
In return, I want ALL members to read the rulebook from the front cover to back cover. It's best to download the latest copy from the website, then review/read. Then when you get to the track, and Tech says that's not legal, you can say, yes it is, and show them, or... best yet, well it was legal in 2014, why isn't it now? yes, that was said to me last weekend. 
 

It's amazing how many teams have never read the BCCR. They build a car, and worry about it in tech.

 

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