Personal Responsibility: treat the environment well (Closed for comments)
Comments about this discussion:
Started
Currently, 1.B.1 Personal Responsibility does not include a clear statement about external environments like road or muni race courses. The rulebook says:
"Remember that the Host is renting the convention facilities, and attendees are expected to treat them well."
To me, "convention facilities" sounds like the freestyle gym, the stadium for track, etc. I think it should be made clear that this also applies to any kind of venue where convention activities are being held (for example, out in the nature for muni competitions). I think it's important that participants do not litter or damage such environments, for example by throwing away food packaging or water bottles during a race.
I would suggest to add something like:
"Attendees are responsible that all venues where convention activities are being held, indoor as well as outdoor, are treated with utmost respect and not intentionally littered or damaged."
1.B.1 further reads: "Each rider is responsible for the actions of his or her family
and non-riding teammates. Riders may lose placement in races, risk disqualification from
events, or be ejected from the convention if they do not work to minimize disruptions
from these people."
I would like to adapt the last sentence to:
"Riders may lose placement in races, risk disqualification from events, or be ejected from the convention if they do not follow these rules or if they do not work to minimize disruptions from these people."
Comment
This is a good discussion and I would vote for this change without hesitation.
In reading that section I do think it makes sense to perhaps restructure it and also talk about responsibilities outside of the competition. It still reflects bad on the unicycling community and Unicon if unicyclists behave badly even if strictly speaking it's outside of the convention venues (such as in a bar, on the beach or on a city square).
I also think the disruptions from teammates and family members is of a different nature to treating the venues with disrespect – most often it's officials or judges that get disrespect from family members or teammates so it might make sense to directly address that.
Comment
I agree with Magnus, about responsibility and conduct outside of the competition venues.
At U19, we had an incident with the building next to the main venue and a rider. It was resolved calmly and unicon officials did not need to disqualify or remove the rider from any events. However, I would support a paragraph in the rulebook that allowed officials to DQ riders in cases like what happened at U19, where the rider is not respectful to the unicon venue, neighboring venues, and host city.
Comment
I agree with the general idea here but I think we need to be careful about who has the power to disqualify a rider, and what recourse that rider has to protest that disqualification. DQ'ing a rider entirely from a Unicon is a very big punishment and the decision should not be made lightly.
Comment
I agree it's a big decision and shouldn't be taken lightly. I don't think there's anything to suggest that these decisions would be taken lightly.
Looking at the rule I also notice there's no mention of a code of conduct or other document for how to treat fellow participants. It might be something to add in a separate proposal
Comment
I agree with you Scott. I was not trying to suggest DQ'ing a rider should be the first option to resolving an issue like this. In the example I gave from U19, I do not believe it would have come to removing the rider from competition. However, if an extreme case were to happen, it would be nice if the hosts had the authority to remove a rider.