The authority to card

[Inquartata]

I think you'll agree that there is a very different tone to you asking your neighbor to quiet down than a police officer showing up and telling them to quiet down. The referee telling them is akin to the second one, not the first.

However, the first may, and often does, result in the second when the loud neighbor tells you to screw off because he's going to do whatever he wants.

And when the police officer who is summoned arrives, very often they will warn the offender to keep it down, even if "what he is doing is perfectly legal". Because part of their job involves keeping the peace, and preventing disputes from escalating...

( Of course, very often by the time the police arrive the loud neighbor, anticipating a confrontation with someone he will not be able to tell to screw off, has shut his stereo off, or even left the premises. Which may not be entirely a bad thing. )

No, I cannot think of behaviors which are legal (in the fencing sense) and still disturb order, as there is a rule against disturbing order.

Really?

So let's say that your fencer, the screamer, whose behavior you support as legal and not disturbing order, goes from one scream to a series of them lasting 5 minutes, combined with a celebratory "Snoopy dance" ( which I also take you feel is perfectly legal and benign ).

Or maybe 10 minutes.

Same behavior, just longer duration. And you don't even have to answer, because I KNOW that you will have carded him long before that 5 minute mark, since it has now delayed the bout.

Yet the underlying act is "legal"...

That implies that whether something is disturbing good order can be just a matter of volume.

Is this controversial?

A fencer walking around the venue between pools and DEs while listening to his iPod will not be sanctioned for it, even if the music is at sufficient volume to escape his earbuds. The same fencer with a boom box blasting almost certainly will be. It's all based on volume: Some level, X, is acceptable, and some other level, X+Y, is not. What is different about screaming?

As I understand Inq he seems to be of the view that screaming qua screaming is disturbing good order. Epeemike seems to think no screaming is disturbing good order.

And that is a question that cannot be settled at this point, because no rule addresses it.

I will note that I have often been told, here on this board, that if as a referee I dare to think it's disturbing order and act on that belief, I will rightly be sanctioned in some way. So apparently certain opinions are "better" than others---whatever lip service we pay to the notion that the referee is the ultimate authority on his strip regarding matters of fact...

The problem is one of interpretation - they are not arguing as to the volume or distraction of the scream [or maybe they are and I am missing something].

Well, at least indirectly we are.

I doubt that anyone is going to be distracted by a low grunt or a quiet "YES!" on another strip. But some may be distracted by a loud, prolonged screaming fit on another strip. This may well have the effect of causing other fencers to be "disadvantaged" if their refs are distracted.

So Mike is keen about not "disadvantaging" fencers, but apparently is only concerned with the two in front of him at the moment. Other fencers around the room may indeed be disadvantaged by his refusal to act, particularly if distraction causes other refs to make mistakes or miss things. But that is not a matter which concerns him, I guess. ( In economic terms this would be recognized as a clear spillover effect, not unlike a factory polluting a river which has unfortunate effects on those downstream. )

I can but shrug and lift my palms.

If I'm a solid referee, and I go to the referee across from me (whom I know) and say, "Hey, that screaming is really distracting me and the fencers on my strip, would you mind seeing if he can tone it down a bit?" then almost any referee that I have had the pleasure of working with would at the very least, jokingly inform the offending fencer that he was making it hard for other people to pay attention to their bout since his is evidently much more exciting. (This is assuming his screaming could be considered excessive.) No cards need be thrown, no feathers need be ruffled.

If, on the other hand, I yell across both strips at the referee on the far side, even jokingly, with "Do you want to card them or shall I?" I deserve a negative rebuttal.

And I am having a hard time seeing why certain people either cannot recognize the difference, or cannot play nicely with others because they think that somehow they are champions of the absolute rights of fencers ( so long as it's the fencers on their strips only ).

I might also refer back to a long-ago thread about finger-loops on manchettes, which the rules at that time did not require, much less require that they be used. I might mention that Mike insisted that I use the finger-loops on mine during a bout he was reffing, although not using them was perfectly legal behavior. And he did not seem terribly concerned about "disadvantaging" a fencer who might have been bothered and put off his normal game by the unfamiliar annoyance.

But again, I can only shrug and lift my palms.