Greetings !
Before the forum switch-over there was a thread discussing the (then) April 2024 rules changes.
Can someone post the updated timeline, documentation, and action items around the upcoming changes to the rules?
This is what I saw last: rules proposed in April for membership feedback and then a vote in May with rules being Implements in July.
Yes, we originally intended to have the rules ready for review in April, but given the transition to the new forum, we felt it would be better to post in May.
We’re hoping for a June vote with the rules becoming active in July. WFTDA is also in thr middle of elections right now, so that could influence the timeline too.
so that goes back to not knowing what rule set you are playing under if you have a game at the start of July?
There will be a transition period where either ruleset can be used for regulation play.
To confirm what Bling said, we’ll likely release the updated rules documents as soon as possible in early July once the changes are voted in.
We will make use of the new version optional until September 1, 2024, when it will be required for all sanctioned play.
In the future, we are planning go back to two-year rules cycles to coincide with the start of the competitive season on July 1 of even years (so the next one will be July 1, 2026). In the interim, Rules can test things and issue clarifications as needed. Global Championships games count for the following year’s rankings, so it makes sense that they are played by that competitive season’s rules version.
I am in the process of coordinating with JRDA and NGBs on this schedule plan to make sure it works for them.
Probably something that should be included in game booking conversations and consulting with the appointed HR so everyone is on board. We have in the past included in the Captains and Officials meetings, "We are playing under XX rules set, which includes these specific clarifications / rules changes… "
Is there an update on a document with all the approved changes? If these go into effect tomorrow for sanctioned play, will rules.wftda.com be updated?
This was addressed in the rules vote thread: https://community.wftda.org/t/league-vote-2024-rules-revision-vote/885/6
“We’ve had some delay getting all the edits into the web site and then I have to prepare the documents for release. This will push out the implementation date a bit. I hope to release by [August 19th] and will chat with Rules about implementation given our Global Championships are at the start of November.”
My opinion:
Rules set a great timeline for July 1, which would have allowed 2 months of “choose your ruleset” then 2 months of “everyone gets to practice the new ruleset” and we’d be totally set on November 1, but we missed that timeline, so we should do the right thing and hold off the release until it makes sense for the season.
Another option: Just set ourselves up to release new rulesets on Dec 1, the first day of the off-season, and let leagues practice with it when NOBODY’s sanctioning, then end every offseason with the new ruleset being mandatory, Feb 1 of any year following a rules change. (Especially since future seasons might not have a four-month gap between Regional and World Championships, per Bones’s post in the other forum.)
This link looks to be locked in private member league only area, unavailable to members who are unaffiliated officials. It would be nice if such updates pertaining to things like rules and procedures updates could be posted somewhere that we can also see them so that we can also appropriately prepare.
100% agree with this request. I’m a certified official in a non-member League, but regularly officiate games with member Leagues.
It would be nice to work with my home league to be playing with the new rules so that how it all works isn’t a surprise when I walk into a Sanctioned game - or we play a Member League who is expecting to play by the new rules…
Any rules posts, other than the votes, will be posted in the Rules area from now on. A lot of this was posted before we added Certified Officials who do not have access to the voting area like the Officials Reps do. So that will be addressed moving forward.
For this year’s rules update, we’re working on a decision on how to handle it, since I should have it ready for release in the next week or two, but Global Championships fall on November 1, which would be the natural “required” date. The changes will not be required before then for sure - I’m just finalizing a decision on a date with all affected areas of WFTDA and the Global Champs teams and officials.
For the future, I need to coordinate with other groups (NGBs/National competitions) to see what their needs are, and then we will work with Rules to create a set release schedule that coordinates as best we can between all of our needs. Things are just messy right now since it’s the first time we’ve done this and I apologize for that!
Without expressing any opinion on anything as far as timing or process, I would just like to point out that more or less ALL of the substantive changes were voted down this year.
The new edition will have big improvements in wording and organization, define some terms that haven’t been defined, and clear up a few linguistic ambiguities, but there is nothing in there that I can think of that represents a change over the prior ruleset other than not returning queued, fouled-out skaters to the track… and that’s already tournament policy anyway.
So there’s no need to be concerned about the dramatic consquences whenever we release this, because it’s pretty likely there won’t be any.
There is one approved change that seems significant to us when compared to the current language in Section 4.1.3:
Actively maintaining a stopped position which impedes an opponent should be penalized regardless of the initiator of the contact.
To be fair, the outcome of the vote hasn’t been posted outside of the leagues-only area so some of us have no idea how much impact the changes will have.
Some of us have been here longer. I’ve been here since May.
This is a good point.
However, I believe it is the case that this language was left out of the rules rewrite in 2017, and everyone has been officiating it this way ever since anyway.
If a jammer initiates to a blocker, the blocker slows to a stop and then holds that position, impeding the jammer, that has been consistently called as a Stop Block at every level to my knowledge. You can see refs intently watching feet for that held stopped position, then calling the penalty, on footage from every post season since that language was left out.
This despite the fact that this penalty hasn’t actually been contained anywhere in the rules for that entire time. The rules have only had language about INTIATING while stopped, rather than maintaining a stopped position.
So on the one hand, yes, it’s a change to the written rules - it’s putting back language that was left out in 2017. But since everyone has nonetheless been enforcing this “unwritten rule” the entire time, it’s actually just putting the rules back in line with practice.
(edited to add quote for clarity, and for typos)
" it is also the Head Referee’s responsibility to oversee the safety of all participants during a game"
This addition gives the Head Referee discretion to penalize or expel skaters for legal play that the HR deems unsafe based on their own opinion. That is a big change from prior rulesets, in my view. Legal “big hits” can now be penalties or expulsions (or non-penalty expulsions, which are also new), and I think WCs is not the right place to figure out where the line is here.
I read this addition differently, and I think the current phrasing supports multiple interpretations. My understanding was more around cases where skaters are generally unsafe, for example because they fall all the time even by themselves. The case of big hits that are otherwise legal did even not cross my mind when reading this addition. I also believe that it’s a slippery slope in “officials policing the behaviour of skaters” and I would personally rather not go there. That being said, if we understand it differently, then maybe we need a clarification or examples. I also wonder how membership understood this addition when voting for it.
Yes, there were some people who were on here as a result of being on the old Collective, and are not reps. We allowed people to move over who were interested, but discussion of rules proposals and voting is a member benefit and proposals and drafts are kept in the member area, until they are publicly released. This part of the forum is a public area, so the official drafts and votes are not posted here for that reason.
I should be able to release the revision with the list of changes this week. We then give everyone a couple of months to adopt the rules, even when changes are small.
We will also work with Rules and other WFTDA committees on communications planning for all of our different rules users now that we have this new system.
We have a technical delay in getting the rules web site updated and since Global Championships are at the start of November (and using the current rule set), it didn’t make sense to rush volunteers unnecessarily.
We are planning to release the rules update in November 2024 with a start date of January 1, 2025 for all sanctioned games.
Apologies for the lack of communication on this - lots going on and I was not able to understand the situation until recently!
Is there an updated timeline?