Reasons I see for the challenges and disputes here:
"DQs for invalid surfacing protocol"
- There has been almost no education on the new rules regarding their intentions, their strategies, and the actual protocol to follow. This is obvious since it is nobody's job to educate every AIDA participant on changes to the system. It is up to the competitors to perform their own research and questioning prior to a competition. Attempting to learn them at the pre-competition prep. does not engrave them in oneself. In the famous (roughly quoted) words of Kirk provided without prejudice for disgruntlements towards the previous rules, "Disqualification are due to the inexperience of the competitors." Then obviously this falls over to the new ones, especially since nobody can be experienced anymore, except to the degree their training includes the new rules.
"Valid performances, should not be"
- The example of a person's head touch the deck, is not a difficult situation to address in the rules. Definately that should be a disqualification, but somebody has to put the effort in to make the rules cover the majority of imaginable circumstances. This is where the community can be employed to a great deal, if after coming up with the general surfacing protocol the committee put it out to the AIDA members to gather a list of invalid states or things requiring consideration. But to say the new rules are flaky because there was not a thorough covering of obvious situations, is not fair. It is new and has bugs that can easily be worked out. I find it interesting that people involved in writing the most controversial suggestions towards rules and putting in much effort to considering how to fool proof new rules, were not consulted in the least for input into the new rules. This type of rigidity in the approach to devising the new rules can only hinder these attempts at progress, or so I believe. I would say if there was a solid understanding of the reasons for such a protocol, it should be obvious that a coach can not inform the competitor to provide the appropriate sequence. The example of language difference, is so minor and easily addressed, that I see this as only addressing that the current state of the rules are imperfected, which most of us who pushed for the change in rules agree with.
"Democracy"
- AIDA breaking into factions that employ different rules is quite against all the previous "hard-lined" arguments put forth especially bashing external-to-AIDA-structure suggestions/petitions. Their was such negativity to such moves just to maintain a concentration within the structure and now it is suddenly OK to not pay attention to that structure when those arguments forced a greater activity towards working within that structure. If they insist on doing such a thing in the name of "concerns for the well-being of..." then I would think they would forge ahead at putting better methods and clarifying ambiguities on top of the new rules as opposed to just dropping them and leaving it up to others. It is a turn your back approach instead of a developing approach. Seems rather negative although I am certain it is not intentional.
"LMC/BO is a problem"
- Maybe with the current ambiguities of the protocol and rules, there will be some wierd cases of OK performances that are horrible in their obvious lack of control and their noticeable scary perception. I think people are focusing on that because they have not fully explored the potential of a clear system utilizing the stance that subjective-LMC is not attempted to be assessed. Eric, Pete, and myself spent huge amounts of time debating and exploring many means of utilizing this stance and believe it or not, the main focus of our attempts was to anhilate the chance that a significant LMC could occur that would end as a "valid" performance. It just happens that we believed in doing this with only objective or closest-to-perfect objective assessment. Nobody has consulted us on these discussions, yet I imagine it was in no small part that our attempt to educate and make suggestions in this regard, had a major impact on the new opinions and sense that something could be changed and therefore was changed in the rules. Maybe that is incorrect, but my main point is that we did see large potential for techniques that would not allow a significant LMC to pass as valid, let alone a BO. Therefore this continued suggestion that this line of reasoning leads to more LMCs and BOs is incorrect, from the stance of our debates.
Until this is addressed, that people after considering/practicing these suggestions and possible protocols, determine whether these protocols will not anhilate LMC and BO, there is not much point arguing about public perception. If all noticeable LMC and BO are disqualified, then everybody is satisfied that the public does have to be considered. It is only when it is fairly determined that we are not leading to such a system, that the issue needs to be addressed. No?
Thanks for your attention.