Draft of New Rules for Mid-2024

Rules (Public Read-Only)
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@Smasher regarding “not an expulsion,” I’d recommend rephrasing “the Head Referee may use their discretion to remove that Skater from play, without the necessity of an expulsion” to, “the Head Referee may use their discretion to prevent that Skater from participating in jams. This would not necessarily count as an expulsion.”

Re: “pinning”. To me, the idea of pinning someone and exerting downward pressure being an expulsion is already precedented, when you do it with an illegal target zone: You grab someone with your hand (a pin) and exert downward pressure (throw them to the ground with your hand) is the example I’m thinking of. I think we would all expel that skater. From that perspective, much like striking, we’re saying “this applies to LEGAL blocking zones”.

We’re also saying (as noted above) that refs are being responsible for safety in a game that is not safe.

Taken together this is a huge shift in precedent: Use of legal target and blocking zones CAN be penalized AND expelled, in this proposed ruleset.

(Also in my view, the prior clarification which was scoped just to the upper leg, seemed like less of a stretch to me because it just implied that the leg itself is a dangerous part to mess around with, even if it’s above mid-thigh…so the overall expansion of penalizability in that case just extended to the hip, versus now it’s all legal blocking zones.)

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In 1.2 Captains and Alternates it says “Each team may have one Captain and one Alternate.” Should this be “must have one Captain and one Alternate” ? Or “must have one Captain and may have one Alternate”? Or are captains optional?

I’m further confused by “A team must designate a Captain if one is necessary to serve a penalty on behalf of the team.” Does that mean a team doesn’t need to designate a captain at the beginning of a game, but if they happen to get a penalty they need someone to serve on behalf of the team, they can designate a captain mid-game on the spot and write a C on their arm at that time to have someone to serve the penalty?

4.1.5 Strikes: +1 that any new “Strike” rules are a big change and should probably be voted separately. As worded in the update, I’m pretty sure striking with the hip bone to the upper thigh would be illegal too. While I don’t like being dead-legged any more than the next person, this changes the sport drastically. I think it is worth being specific in the wording - are there other things besides shoulder-to-sternum hits we’re trying to penalise? There are only so many pointy bits and targets on the human body, we could be exhaustive when it’s legal-to-legal blocking zones. What about shoulder to shoulder hits (presumably still ok? But now sounds illegal with the proposed wording.)

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Regarding strikes I just want to highlight one thing in the glossary entry. By the glossary definition it is only a strike if it is done “with the primary intent of causing harm or injury”. That means any strike-like contact that is done with a different intent is by definition not a strike and therefore not a penalty (could still be a penalty for other reasons of course). In my experience it is very rare for blocks to be made with the intention of causing harm, as most blocks are done with the primary intention of moving someone out of the way, knocking them down, putting them ouf of bounds, or gaining some other gameplay advantage.

So to me the change feels quite insignificant since it would be very rare for it to apply. Maybe that is different in other regions though? Also why are we limiting it to strikes? Why isn’t any contact/action that is done with the intent of causing harm/injury a penalty?

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By the glossary definition it is only a strike if it is done “with the primary intent of causing harm or injury”. That means any strike-like contact that is done with a different intent is by definition not a strike and therefore not a penalty (could still be a penalty for other reasons of course). In my experience it is very rare for blocks to be made with the intention of causing harm, as most blocks are done with the primary intention of moving someone out of the way, knocking them down, putting them ouf of bounds, or gaining some other gameplay advantage. So to me the change feels quite insignificant since it would be very rare for it to apply.

I would agree your statements here, that these blocks intending to cause harm should be rare. I worry that the updates to the Rules would cause it to be called looser than that, especially since the Upsorting Contact section simply leaves it as “Intentional and forceful Strikes”.

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I also worry about a broad hitting rule that requires officials to determine if harm was intended. Do we have ways of calibrating how something like that is determined in the moment?

I attached the associated casebook for reference. Only the “Keep In Mind” mentions “designed to harm” - I don’t think the rest of the casebook makes it clear that intent to harm or cause injury is required for the call to be made.
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Also why are we limiting it to strikes? Why isn’t any contact/action that is done with the intent of causing harm/injury a penalty?

I think this is a good question, and perhaps could already be covered by in this bullet in the Rules: “Engaging in dangerous and illegal actions that pose a substantial hazard to oneself or another;”

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I think it’s really difficult to determine intention. I’m not sure how exactly you can determine if someone intends to cause harm. I’m concerned that this sort of ambiguity allows room for bias. We’ve seen incidents where BIPOC, larger bodied and trans skaters have experienced bias in officiating. I thinking trying to judge intent allows a lot of room for bias in officiating.

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I agree with many smart things being posted here, but I still don’t know if a can opener will be legal or illegal after these changes. I find it difficult to form an opinion on these changes without that one small, binary bit of information.

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Blockquote
In 1.2 Captains and Alternates it says “Each team may have one Captain and one Alternate.” Should this be “must have one Captain and one Alternate” ? Or “must have one Captain and may have one Alternate”? Or are captains optional?

This is basically the same language that exists now in the Glossary, just moved up into the body of the Rules. Although it would be an utterly terrible idea, nothing STOPS teams from having no designated captain at the start of the game.

While it might be worth changing this, because your point about midgame shenanigans is a good one, it wasn’t contemplated here - this was just a rearrangement of existing rules. Said shenanigans are presently possible, and as such, ruling them out would be a change.

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With the original draft in February, Rules Committee was trying to be very surgical and precise when our proposal to ban “sternum busters” type hits without affecting other aspects of gameplay. In that draft, we proposed a ban against “strikes with the shoulder” that were targeted to the upper chest area and sternum. Rules received an overwhelming amount of feedback and concern from membership, especially regarding the difficulty it would be to correctly identify these actions based on the modified target zone (i.e. upper chest and sternum). Rules Committee agreed and removed the proposed language.

Instead, Rules Committee is taking a boarder but simpler approach with this proposed draft and is instead expanding the strike definition to include other body parts. We feel this is much simpler and easier to implement for both skaters and officials. And we felt this would still be a positive step towards addressing membership’s concerns with concussion and head/neck injuries in gameplay.

Other considerations we had were:

  • A primary reason Strikes are illegal are because they use a focused blocking zone (i.e. pointy body part) to intentional punch/jab/strike an opponent to cause them harm/injury.
  • The point of the shoulder is just as pointy as elbows and knees, and shoulder strikes carry an additional risk of contact to the throat/neck/head.
  • Therefore expanding the definition of Strikes to include all body parts makes sense.

Based on my own personal observations, shoulder-strikes aren’t super common in WFTDA-gameplay anyway, so I don’t foresee much if any change to the game today. When I do see shoulder-strikes though, they don’t often appear to have any strategic value in terms of blocking an opponent, but the recipient of the hit is often bruised and hurt from the hit.

I went through some old WFTDA post-season footage to find examples of shoulder-strikes but didn’t really find anything, but I do have three examples from a recent junior tournament.

In this clip, the red jammer 10 executes three shoulder-strikes to their opponent. The third strike makes high contact to the face of white blocker 76 and the jammer is subsequently called an a high block. But the first two hits appear to be legal hits to the shoulder and upper cheat area.

Here’s another clip from the same tournament. In this one, white jammer 10 executes a shoulder strike to the black blocker 222 at the rear of the pack.

And here’s a third clip I’ve pulled. In this one, white blocker 732 executes two hits to the chest of purple jammer 16. Camera angle isn’t great for the first hit, but the second hit appears to be a shoulder strike (almost a reversed can-opener).

In these clips, there is clear execution of the point of the shoulder to an opponent. These are the types of hit we mean when we say “shoulder strike”.

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So, to clarify, are you saying these are examples of hits that should be penalized under the proposed rules? Can you elaborate on what you’re looking for that makes you sure these are done with intent to cause harm?

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The way I’ve been thinking about it is “if that were a fist, would it be a punch?”

It’s the combination of force and speed, and in many cases doesn’t appear to be contact intended to change position.

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In my view, none of these clips would warrant a penalty under the current language, because all three provide significant strategic value, so the intent is not “primarily” to cause harm. All three legit look like skaters doing a thing with a high likelihood of causing harm, in order to achieve the strategic value, because it is currently legal to do so.

Clip 1. Strong hits with the shoulder directly at a Blocker who stands in their way – the goal here is to move the blocker aside to get through. Not primarily to cause harm. Looks like a no-call.

Clip 2: The ends here clearly justify the means; the blocker falls which is the goal and provides significant strategic value. The intent is not “primarily” to cause harm, so this is also a no-call.

Clip 3: Because the Blocker is significantly slowing the Jammer’s progress via contact to what is basically the fulcrum point – mid-chest, as the Jammer leans in, is the BEST place to hit to slow the Jammer down, which is significant strategically. Not a primary goal of causing harm or injury. So, this is also a no-call (to me, reading the new language).

…

To make these penalties, I’d recommend one of two approaches in the ruleset.

  1. Make the tip of the shoulder an illegal blocking zone. We don’t know of other types of strikes that aren’t already illegal, and the others are illegal blocking zones. This would also illegalize sustained contact with the point of the shoulder; to hold someone back or slow them down via sustained contact, it’d become necessary to “move” the opponent to the upper arm or back.

  2. Make it illegal, regardless of blocking zone, to target forceful contact through any bodypart that is “small,” i.e., for which the force of impact would be distributed across a small surface area, because that is what causes the injury/harm/bruising. To do this, rewrite the Glossary definition as such:

    “Forceful initial contact made to a Skater using a blocking zone that is pointed or has a very small surface area, such as a knee, knuckle, elbow, or shoulder. Examples include punching, jabbing with elbows or knee, and pointed direct contact with the tip of the shoulder, whether or not the blocking zone is otherwise legal.” This works because it removes “intent” from the picture. We might also extend this to safety equipment like shoulder pads that would otherwise be legal.

If neither of these is palatable to Theory, then I would ask for Bling to provide another clip of a direct intentional forceful strike with the shoulder that should NOT be penalized, and describe to us “why not.” That piece is still missing for me. If we should always call it, intent doesn’t matter. But if intent does matter, please show me when it should not be called.

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In addition to what Muffin writes: What makes Strikes different from other contact that is done with the primary intent to cause harm or injury? Shouldn’t that always be called as Unsporting Conduct even under current rules?

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That’s who i felt about those hits too - you can see in the way the body ‘winds up’ before the hit that it’s essentially a punch with the shoulder. Not just pushing with a shoulder, but a pull back and punch forward - which in at least one of those clips looked expulsion worthy to me.

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When I read the first draft and now, the new proposition, I had in mind those kind of hits we want to prevent : Arch Rival Roller Derby on Instagram: "What an epic hit from the return of @bricktator !!! Honestly one of the highlights of this game!" Was I correct?

But I don’t feel the intent here is to harm the player. I agree with @dangermuffin that the videos displayed above aren’t hits that can be penalized by the new rules.

But as an official, I disagree with making the pointy part of the shoulder because it will lead to too much interpretation and I feel, as a skater, it would change the game a bit. Example : when you are stuck between 2 skaters (the butts of a tripod), sometimes that move, without any intend to harm, is useful to move blockers. You can’t always do something else than that. So that definition should be voted on, with clear examples of what is and what is not worthy of a penalty.

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That Bricktator hit looks good. It should not be considered a shoulder strike in my opinion, and would still be legal under the proposed rules. That just good, hard hitting derby.

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Thank you! And then I’m more confused now. But will continue to read the discussion here :slight_smile:

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I’ve been discussing the proposed shoulder strike rule with skaters in a couple of area leagues and this is summary of those conversations.

What is the impetus for this inclusion? Why do we need this? How are these actions undefendable?

Most of the clips provided did not seem to demonstrate why any of these strikes need a prohibition. The consensus seemed to be that for the most part it looked like good derby.

There was discussion of how shoulder hits, which may may be the kind envisioned for this addition, had lead to high or even directional blocks but there are already rules for those kinds of blocks.

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Do we have any idea of when the vote will open (and how long for)?

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Votes will always be posted on the 1st of the month for membership review. Then, after the Board approves them (by the 15th), voting will open on the 16th and will run through the end of the month.

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Ive been following along trying to understand the point where a good hard hit would be illegal like the Shoulder Strike in clip 3, because honestly the wording is a bit ambiguous. Currently my interpretation is all targeted forceful shoulder hits would be illegal.

It feels like it would be an expansion of a directional hit rather trying to determine intentionality with a current legal hitting zone.

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