Happy NSOvember!

If this is what they say beforehand, they actually do!

Yep. So somehow it's sprung up that November is the month in which we celebrate those unsung heroes of derby, the nonskating officials. We usually take their efforts for granted, but NSOvember is about changing that!

Okay, so I've NSOed a bit in a couple of different positions and THAT SHIT IS HARD. You're doing some realtime work, and how you perform affects the overall quality of the bout. Like, when I had to penalty track and do IWB, you have a set number of tasks that you have to do within seconds, really. Or when I did jam timing, you're responsible for how long the bout goes for, and that could affect which way the score goes. And your brain has to be switched on the WHOLE time. And, unlike skaters, you don't get breaks between jams--you spend those 30 seconds doing other work. And then half time is spent doing work. It's actually surprisingly tough.

So, props to you, NSOs. Everyone knows that it takes an army of NSOs to run a bout. We literally would not be able to do derby without your contribution.

Yeah! Science, bitch!

Well, not really, and this might just be the Breaking Bad withdrawals or whatever, but I came across this roller derby periodic table (click here for the high res version) and it looks pretty neat.

I like how it spells out what the penalties are, and the bottom block are the variants of the ones in the top part of the table. The only thing that could make it cooler is if the "atomic weights" of the offenses were such that they related to the sections of the WFTDA rules, but otherwise, this is pretty cool. (Plus it makes it easier to learn the codes you need for being a NSO penalty tracker!)

Also, I just wanted to post this:

Needs more punctuation. But you get the point!

Jam Timing is fraught with peril

So in the last post I said that the Jam Timer stuffed up in a WFTDA Divisionals bout.

Specifically, it was during the Santa Cruz v Tri-City bout, and it was a close one, so hence the controversy. There's information about it on DNN here.

In particular, this part:

"It transpired that the jam timer thought overtime jams were 60 seconds long, and whistled the end at that point. Discussion followed and Rule 2.5.1.1 (if an overtime jam ends before two minutes for any reason, the bout ends immediately and the score stands) came into effect. Santa Cruz won, 236-231."

So there are a couple of things that come into mind. Obviously at a divisional playoff you'd think that the officials would know the relevant rules. But overtimes are really not that common, so perhaps the JT wasn't familiar with the rule in practice.

But are they completely to blame? On the interwebs I'm also seeing things like people saying the Head Ref (but not Head NSO?) is also partially responsible; before the overtime jam happens s/he should call an official time out to go over the rules again with the ref/official crew. The Head Ref is pretty much like the captain of a ship in this sense; if shit happens and the ship goes down, then it doesn't matter who made the ship go down, the captain still assumes responsibility. Or so the online discussion goes.

I'd like to think that that's only partially true. Individuals who assume positions of responsibility are, well, responsible for what happens in their role. How about that? So only to the extent that the Head Ref is responsible for what other, responsible agents are doing, that's all they are to blame.

But then there's also some broader issues. WFTDA currently doesn't have any recourse for situations like this. I think all they've said so far is that all they could do is follow 2.5.1.1, but there's no rule in place (yet--there probably will be soon though) for resetting the jam or points or anything like that. Also, given the wording of the rule, it seems like it'd be easy to throw a game one way or another, just by having someone whistle off the overtime jam early. In this case it was totally an accident I'm sure but the possibility of less scrupulous motivations would still be problematic under this rule.

I'm jam timing today, so I made sure to look up the relevant rules, in case this happened again. Lightning striking twice and all that, right? :P