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BGonline.org Forums
USBGF Rules Reboot - proposal - public comment welcome
Posted By: Rich Munitz
Date: Monday, 3 July 2017, at 4:43 p.m.
Hi, everyone. I am now Chairman of the USBGF Rules Committee. The following announcement was recently sent by USBGF Chairman Joe Russell (with minor edits). My personal comments follow.
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Draft USBGF Tournament Rules Posted for Public Comment
Proposed 2018 Rules (open for comment): http://usbgf.org/docs/rules-proposed.pdf
Proposed 2018 Rules Options (open for comment): http://usbgf.org/docs/rules-options.pdf (open for comment)
What Changed (Provides the intent/rationale behind each substantive rule change (both ABT and USBGF). Please consult this before commenting on a specific rule.): http://usbgf.org/docs/rules-what-changed.pdf
The U.S. Backgammon Federation is inviting comments on proposed revised Tournament Rules. This revision was developed in close collaboration with a newly-established USBGF Tournament Directors Advisory Committee including Jeb Horton (chair), Ken Bame, Ted Chee, Carol Joy Cole, Patrick Gibson, April Kennedy, Troy Longman, and Kathy Weiner. We are extremely heartened that the Committee has unanimously supported the draft revised Rules as the initial proposal for a final Rules set slated for implementation in 2018. Please send comments by July 31 to rules@usbgf.org.
This revision is in response to the comments and suggestions which the USBGF has received since the October 2016 Rules were issued for testing in 2017. The new draft Rules have been condensed to three pages. They will be accompanied by a Guide to the Rules that provides more details and rules covering situations that arise in rare instances.
The USBGF Rules set includes use of the Legal Moves rule, but gives tournament directors the option of electing to use a “Responsible Moves” rule by announcing it in advance. The Rules include the “dice landing on checker” legal roll rule, but tournament directors have the option of announcing in advance that they will limit legal rolls to those landing flat on the board surface. Please review the proposed 2018 Rules Options document.
As indicated, these draft Rules are being posted for public comment over a 30-day period. Once the public feedback has been reviewed and any final changes incorporated, the final Rules will be submitted to the membership for ratification.
We would particularly like to thank Jeb Horton, chair of the USBGF Tournament Directors Advisory Committee and its members, for ensuring that concerns of tournament directors were addressed in the revision. We also thank tournament directors and players who tested the 2016 USBGF Rules and provided us with the benefit of their experience.
Finally, we extend our appreciation to Richard Munitz, Frank Talbot, and Neil Kazaross on the 2017 USBGF Rules Committee, who have led the work in synthesizing and assessing the merits of the extensive comments received from players and directors, as well as preparing the draft Rules for consideration by the USBGF Board and membership.
A widely-adopted, uniform set of rules will help promote fairness and consistency, reduce complexity and confusion, and provide greater comparability of statistical results across tournament experiences. We look forward to finalizing the Rules for use in 2018. Longer term we will be working with the international backgammon community to further the game we all love.
Joe Russell Chairman, Board of Directors U.S. Backgammon Federation
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Needless to say, rules are a hot button issue for many. But the extent of the blow-back on the USBGF rules released in Fall 2016 was not anticipated. Many people in general, and the US tournament directors in particular were upset about the process by which those rules were released more than by the content. In a nutshell - the Rules were approved (decreed some said) and then people were asked for feedback.
While those rules were developed with the input of many knowledgeable and smart people, and I believe, was an excellent rule set, the reaction by the community began to divide the US backgammon community. This is contrary to the USBGF mission. This necessarily resulted in a great deal of soul searching within the USBGF Board, myself included. The first conclusion was that a direct and formal channel of communication and advise on policy needed to be opened with the tournament directors. The Tournament Directors Advisory Committee (TDAC) was formed for this purpose.
I was appointed Chairman of the USBGF Rules Committee to lead the effort to produce a workable rule set that could achieve widespread adoption in the USA.
I continued the soul searching and discussions with directors. Finally, I had an epiphany and felt that I had identified the root cause of this major disconnect. The USBGF is a corporation with a Board of Directors that makes decisions like any other corporation. And a corporate Board doesn’t need the permission of the public to make its decisions. Good decisions will increase revenues and bad decisions will decrease revenues. In the case of the USBGF, this numeric feedback is reflected by the number of members. But what this Board had not realized is that a decision on something like rules was no longer a decision on governing the corporation – it was a decision on governing the public. Public government, at least according to our ideals in the USA, must work differently than corporate government. Public government in the USA is something that as Thomas Jefferson wrote, requires the “consent of the governed”. That consent was never obtained, and as such the attempt to govern was viewed by many as illegitimate. Meanwhile, the reactions of players and directors to this assumption of authority were never quite articulated in this way; it was heard, but not understood.
The Rules Reboot
It was necessary to reboot the Rules initiative and get it done right. It was necessary to use the accepted processes of good public governance. It was necessary to conduct this process in a way that would result in buy-in from the governed and earn legitimacy for the result.
I am extremely pleased that the USBGF and the US tournament directors were able to repair this damaged relationship, rebuild trust, and come together collaboratively and produce a proposed rule set that we are all able to get behind and that we all believe we can support once it reaches its final form after public comment, assuming that it is ratified by the membership. I am heartened by the outpouring of positivity that has been expressed here in Novi, Michigan, regarding this changed approach and this new process for engaging the public on issues that impact them. It has made all of the hard work done by everyone involved worth it.
Please provide your thoughts on the proposed rules. We'd like to hear what you like, what you don't like, questions, suggestions, etc. Active debate is a good thing because it helps reveal things that may not have been considered. Please be sure to look at the What Changed document linked above to understand the intent and rationale behind the various changes relative to both the prior ABT rules and USBGF rules - it may answer your question or satisfy your concern before you raise it. You may post your thoughts on this thread, which will be monitored, or via email to rules@usbgf.org
This is going to be an open and transparent process. It is my intent to summarize all comments received at the end of this public comment period, after revising the proposed rules into its next version. Each item will receive a response to indicate whether the new version addresses the comment in whole or in part, and if not, then the reason why not. This summary and responses will be made available along with the new Rules version for everyone to view.
Thanks!
Rich Munitz
USBGF Rules Committee Chairman
P.S. Some of you may have wondered why I dropped off the face of the earth on this forum a number of years ago. As I told Stick when he asked, I found participating in the forum and the discussions on it to be addicting - it was like crack to me and sucking too much time and attention from the rest of my life. I simply made a decision to go cold turkey and stop participating. That is all there is to it.
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