NCAA football, 2013-14

[alfred russel]

They are paid by the conference one of the enitities belongs to, and they are evaluated (and their livelihoo and ability to continue being paid) by many, many conferences, and people (NCAA) not associated with the conference.

Further, you've provided no reason to believe that the people who actually pay them and evaluate them within the conference would have any desire to have their officials cheat on their behalf - what incentive would the Pac-12 director of officials have to encourage their officials to cheat and try to influence the outcome of a game that could possibly be greater than the incredible negative perception that such cheating would certainly create?

How, in your mind, does this cheating occur? How does the Pac-12 let their officials know that they ought to be cheating on behalf of the conference? Do they send a memo? Do you think all the officials are in on it, or just a few? If in fact there is a perception amongst officials, and there must be SOME perception of SOME kind if it rises to the level of influencing calls as you are claiming, how is that perception reinforced do you think? When officials get their game evaluations, do you imagine the Pac-12 director of officials lets them know that calls against the Pac-12 teams are going to be more criticized as such?

What are the actual, practical means by which this conspiracy to cheat is executed, whether it be overt or not overt? Your claim is that the bias is so extreme that it actually effects the outcome of games enough to make a difference. There must be some actual means by which this is happening then, right?

Bringing in the word "conspiracy" for anything I've said really shows how desperate you are in this argument...

They are paid by the conferences! If you poll Ford workers on the question "Ford or Chevy", I'm sure Ford will win, and vice versa. It isn't a conspiracy...its a simple conflict of interest and bias.

[alfred russel]

Great AR comes into this thread finally but then ruins it with long and tedious ref discussions. 

Ref discussions are never tedious!

OK, actually ref discussions with fans who think they know anything about officiating and don't want to actually learn are rather pointless...

When you talk about subjective evaluations, fans are biased. Players are biased. Coaches are biased. Administrators are biased. Alums are biased. In other venues, judges can be biased--that is why there are strict rules regarding even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

But it seems that the one group that is above all the influence of bias, and is able to completely evenhandedly evaluate what is happening on the field, are college officials.

[Berkut]

Great AR comes into this thread finally but then ruins it with long and tedious ref discussions. 

Ref discussions are never tedious!

OK, actually ref discussions with fans who think they know anything about officiating and don't want to actually learn are rather pointless...

When you talk about subjective evaluations, fans are biased. Players are biased. Coaches are biased. Administrators are biased. Alums are biased. In other venues, judges can be biased--that is why there are strict rules regarding even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

But it seems that the one group that is above all the influence of bias, and is able to completely evenhandedly evaluate what is happening on the field, are college officials.

Nobody said they were above any bias, I said the bias you imagine is in your imagination.

But by and large, yes, they are pretty good at evenhandedly evaluating what is happening on the field.

And just like if you came into a thread with the lawyers and started blabbing about how judges are routinely biased to such an extent that outcomes of cases are commonly influenced by that bias, and you know this because you just know...then yeah, you would largely get the same result you are getting from me from them, I imagine.

[alfred russel]

Nobody said they were above any bias, I said the bias you imagine is in your imagination.

But by and large, yes, they are pretty good at evenhandedly evaluating what is happening on the field.

And just like if you came into a thread with the lawyers and started blabbing about how judges are routinely biased to such an extent that outcomes of cases are commonly influenced by that bias, and you know this because you just know...then yeah, you would largely get the same result you are getting from me from them, I imagine.

Shockingly, we have a legal system where judges aren't paid by the plaintiffs bar.

[Barrister]

Nobody said they were above any bias, I said the bias you imagine is in your imagination.

But by and large, yes, they are pretty good at evenhandedly evaluating what is happening on the field.

And just like if you came into a thread with the lawyers and started blabbing about how judges are routinely biased to such an extent that outcomes of cases are commonly influenced by that bias, and you know this because you just know...then yeah, you would largely get the same result you are getting from me from them, I imagine.

Shockingly, we have a legal system where judges aren't paid by the plaintiffs bar.

Yes judges salaries are paid by the government.

Would you say that judges are biased in favour of the government?

[Berkut]

Your analogy about judges is actually pretty apt, but not in the manner you think.

You are claiming that there is institutional bias, not individual - that Pac-12 officials routinely and consistently favor the Pac-12. That is not the same as saying that individual judges can be biased in some cases, it is saying that judges as a group are routinely biased, and not based on some personal criteria, but an an inevitable result of them being employed by someone. So why aren't you claiming that all judges are biased for the prosecution, since it is the State which is paying them, and your claim is that if you are paid by some particular entity, then you MUST be biased in favor of that entity...even if it isn't even in the entity interests for you to be biased or favor them?

Judges recuse themselves if there is a perception of *personal* bias...and the same is true for officials. You cannot officiate for a team where you have some personal connection, for example. I cannot work my local high school's games because my son goes to school there. If I were to get a job with the Pac-12, I could not officiate Arizona games, since I went to school there, and am an avowed fan of the team.

But you are not making an accusation of personal bias - your claim is that ALL Pac-12 officials are biased in favor of the Pac-12 in some systemic manner, because that is the organization that employs them. Which is simply stupid, since the organization pays them specifically to NOT be biased, and any actual bias displayed would have exactly the opposite result of what you are claiming - rather than being rewarded, they would be punished severely.

As I've said over and over again, I am an official. I am employed by a conference. I sometimes do games outside that conference. The idea that I cannot be objective when doing a game between my conference and another is 100% perfect evidence that you simply do not understand how officiating works in the actual world, rather than in the fans world.

[Berkut]

Nobody said they were above any bias, I said the bias you imagine is in your imagination.

But by and large, yes, they are pretty good at evenhandedly evaluating what is happening on the field.

And just like if you came into a thread with the lawyers and started blabbing about how judges are routinely biased to such an extent that outcomes of cases are commonly influenced by that bias, and you know this because you just know...then yeah, you would largely get the same result you are getting from me from them, I imagine.

Shockingly, we have a legal system where judges aren't paid by the plaintiffs bar.

And shockingly, we have a officiating system where officials are not paid by the coaches.

[Berkut]

Nobody said they were above any bias, I said the bias you imagine is in your imagination.

But by and large, yes, they are pretty good at evenhandedly evaluating what is happening on the field.

And just like if you came into a thread with the lawyers and started blabbing about how judges are routinely biased to such an extent that outcomes of cases are commonly influenced by that bias, and you know this because you just know...then yeah, you would largely get the same result you are getting from me from them, I imagine.

Shockingly, we have a legal system where judges aren't paid by the plaintiffs bar.

Yes judges salaries are paid by the government.

Would you say that judges are biased in favour of the government?

They must be, because anyone paid by someone is going to cheat in their favor....even if the person pay them doesn't want them to!

[Rasputin]

Nobody said they were above any bias, I said the bias you imagine is in your imagination.

But by and large, yes, they are pretty good at evenhandedly evaluating what is happening on the field.

And just like if you came into a thread with the lawyers and started blabbing about how judges are routinely biased to such an extent that outcomes of cases are commonly influenced by that bias, and you know this because you just know...then yeah, you would largely get the same result you are getting from me from them, I imagine.

Shockingly, we have a legal system where judges aren't paid by the plaintiffs bar.

not totally true; the government pays their salaries, the plaintiff's bar funds their election campaigns

[MadBurgerMaker]

Soooooooooooooooo

Uh

How bout them Buckeyes?

[alfred russel]

Nobody said they were above any bias, I said the bias you imagine is in your imagination.

But by and large, yes, they are pretty good at evenhandedly evaluating what is happening on the field.

And just like if you came into a thread with the lawyers and started blabbing about how judges are routinely biased to such an extent that outcomes of cases are commonly influenced by that bias, and you know this because you just know...then yeah, you would largely get the same result you are getting from me from them, I imagine.

Shockingly, we have a legal system where judges aren't paid by the plaintiffs bar.

Yes judges salaries are paid by the government.

Would you say that judges are biased in favour of the government?

When cases do involve the government as one party, there is tremendous opportunity for bias and influence. That is why the judiciary is a separate branch of government, that typically can not be removed under any but the most extreme circumstances, and don't have financial considerations in the case's outcome.

How would you feel about being on trial in a country where their wasn't an independent judiciary, and the future employment status of the judge was dependent on the party trying you?

[Rasputin]

I'm not aware of any studies examining bias in out of conference college football games.

I'm suspicious because:
...
d) During the past ~10 years, I can think of 3 cases where egregious officiating affected the end of really important games:
         -FSU-Florida in Gainesville from about 10 years ago
         ...

you have outed yourself ...no one who doesn't follow the big three in college football in florida (uf, fsu, and um) remembers that game

Are you bitter that the big east or acc officials never did that for miami when they played the gators?

[alfred russel]

Soooooooooooooooo

Uh

How bout them Buckeyes?

Hang with me for a bit longer, I'm about to convince Berkut that refs are biased.

[lustindarkness]

Soooooooooooooooo

Uh

How bout them Buckeyes?

Hang with me for a bit longer, I'm about to convince Berkut that refs are biased.

Don't you have a mountain to climb or something?

[alfred russel]

Are you bitter that the big east or acc officials never did that for miami when they played the gators?

Hell no. Miami has lost to the Gators once since like 1985. We own the Gators anyway.