When membership voted on the new rules last year, the proposal included a new Glossary entry for Lineup Time:
The time between the end of one Jam and the start of the next one.
This includes any timeouts that happen between those two jams.
The rules website now shows a different definition for this term:
The time where the period clock continues to run between the end of one Jam, and either until the start of the next Jam (when a maximum of 30 seconds have elapsed) or a timeout is called, whichever occurs first. There may only be one lineup time between two consecutive Jams, and the lineup time cannot be restarted if stopped for a timeout.
This definition now excludes timeouts and also the time between the end of the timeout and the start of the next jam.
While excluding these parts may look reasonable in isolation, it has some very weird effects when we look at the places where the term “Lineup Time” is used in the rules:
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In section 1.3.2 Official Reviews:
The only officiating decisions that can be the subject of an Official Review are those made:
- During the prior Jam;
- After the prior Jam; or
- During the Lineup Time preceding the prior Jam.
So the change means that if there is a timeout between two jams, officiating decisions made between the end of the first jam and the start of the timeout can be reviewed after the second jam. But decisions made during the timeout or between the timeout and the start of the second jam can not. This is very counterintuitive and in practice makes decisions made right before the start of the second jam (e.g. Early Hits) completely non-reviewable.
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In section 1.5.1 Overtime Jams:
The Lineup Time before the Jam is sixty seconds.
This does not work well with either of the definitions when there is a timeout before the overtime jam. With the definition from the vote it limits the time between the jams including the timeout, with the new one it prescribes how much time passes before the timeout. Neither makes much sense.
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In section 2.2.2, subsection Lead Eligibility:
A Jammer becomes ineligible to earn Lead during a Jam if they commit a penalty during that Jam or the Lineup Time before that Jam, […]
The version from the vote could be considered overly broad - a penalty committed before the timeout would make the Jammer ineligible for Lead in the later jam - but that is consistent with the non-timeout case where a late hit after the prior jam would also cause this ineligibility (when taking the rule literally - I am aware that consensus is to treat penalties that relate to the prior jam as excluded). But the new version again becomes really weird: Penalties committed before the timeout make the Jammer ineligible for Lead but penalties committed during the timeout or between timeout and jam do not.
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The only other uses of “Lineup Time” are in the casebook and unaffected by the change.
(NB: Defining the time between the end of the timeout and the start of the next jam as a separate Lineup Time would in each case give a meaning that aligns with common intuition.)
Questions I have (@rules):
- What is the purpose of this change?
- Why was it made without a vote and without even telling membership it was made?
- Are there any other changes between what was voted on and what is now on the website?
