That's certainly one interpretation of the WFDF rules, although moving
beyond 3m from the thrower and continuing the stall is probably not a
correct interpretation, for reasons pointed out earlier ('The Marker'
section in the rules).

Stalling whilst the disc is on the ground - doesn't say you can stall
someone who is not 'the thrower' in WFDF rules, so if you're in the
lead, you can just stand over the disc until time runs out.  Maybe
someone can cobble together three vaguely related paragraphs of the
WFDF ruleset and logically deduce that, so long as X means Y and Z is
referring to Q, if a player is stalling the play in any way then they
can be stall counted.
I'd much rather be able to look it up in the rules and find something like:
"If an offensive player stands over a disc without taking possession,
the marker may issue a "Delay of Game" warning. If the disc is not
picked up, the marker may initiate and continue a stall count
regardless of the actions of the offence."

It's simple, and it's how the game should be played.  If somebody is
stalling for time then they should be stall counted.
Remember a while back there was a discussion about stalling people
whose momentum carries them off the pitch?  I think the outcome was
basically if you interpret the rules one way then it's legal, and
another way then it's not legal.  When this happened recently to some
guy I was marking, I started stalling him when it appeared he wasn't
getting back onto the pitch as quickly as he comfortably could.  Even
then I started slow, with "Stalling... come on get back onto the
pitch, one... come on... two", because as I saw it, it wasn't fair for
his players to run upfield without the disc being stalled.  However, I
was also aware that by WFDF rules it's probably illegal (or undefined)
to start stalling someone off the pitch, and he might have known this,
so I didn't want to give him a fair reason to call anything.  In
actuality he could probably have just sat down on the sideline and
waited till the game was over.

But, I digress.

I sincerely doubt the UKUA will ever get together a set of proposals
for updates to the WFDF rules.  It would be loads of work (I was
involved in Benji's indoor rules and found it gets very complicated
very quickly), much better spent on setting up a regional B tour or
something I'm sure you would agree, and even if they did then there is
no guarantee at all that the WFDF would adopt it.
Will the WFDF ever update their rules?  I doubt that many members of
the original rules committee are still part of the organisation, or
that one of the regular WFDF committee's main concerns is the grey
areas in a ruleset that isn't even played by the most competitive &
advanced ultimate playing countries.  So, I can't see a WFDF update
happening any time soon, and when it does happen, who is to say they
won't just adopt the UPA rules themselves?

I mean, why wouldn't they?  Like Nick says, it would be far better
than solving the ambiguities in a different way and essentially
creating a third set of rules - why not just adopt the rules that have
been thought out, updated, and function extremely well in the most
competitive Ultimate environment in the world?

The problems that arise on the pitch at the moment aren't caused by
people not  having read the rules, but by the rules being vague and
ill-defined at best.

Felix
http://www.seultimate.org/rules/


On 13/07/06, Ranulf Doswell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
It's been a while since this has come up, and my knowledge of the stall
rules is largely based on what people like Sammy told me 5 or 6 years ago,
but as I understood it (and what people were playing to certainly 5 years
ago) was:

* A defence player must be within 3m to initiate a stall, but once initiated
can retreat more than 3m away whilst continuing the stall (for instance to
clog for a zone, etc). Obviously, another defensive player cannot then get
within 3m of the thrower unless he is marking someone else and within 3m of
them. I always believed it best to be midway between the person you were
marking and the thrower, as then you couldn't be double teaming, but were
still in the way.

* Regarding stalling a disc not in play, this again is possible if someone
is standing next to the disc and obviously stalling, i.e. close enough to
the disc to pick it up and waiting for the team to set up. If a player was
just wandering near the disc, they probably aren't stalling, and so you
wouldn't initiate a stall. The stall would be initiated by the defensive
player checking the disc in whilst it's on the ground, and would continue as
normal if the player picked up the disc to throw. There's nothing to stop
the offensive player from walking away and saying they weren't in
possession, in which case the stall would have to restart on a new player.

I've played the stalling whilst not picked up thing a couple of times, and
invariably it's resulted in confusion and the other team telling me "you
can't do that". It also seems to result in a general feeling of bad spirit,
and so I stopped ever calling it. I guess if it's only a UPA rule and not a
WFDF rule, then it's questionable whether we play by those rules anyway.

Ralf


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