Tuning a disc

[J2]

wow...calling someone on "tuning" as they are getting ready for a shot and just fiddling the disc in their hands, with obviously no intent for changing the disc is a dick move. I hope I never play a round with someone that treats the game that way.

edit: I havent actually tuned a disc, but maybe ill try it to speed up turning one of my eagles understable

[veganray]

Dick and douchebag. Quite a lovely collection of personal attacks I am amassing for my apparently unreasonable insistence that the folks with whom I play follow the rules.

Anybody else wanna fire in?

[Jsw]

Dick and douchebag. Quite a lovely collection of personal attacks I am amassing for my apparently unreasonable insistence that the folks with whom I play follow the rules.

Anybody else wanna fire in?

Sure, I've always thought you were kind of a blow-hard.

[Timko]

Debate. Don't insult.

[Frank Delicious]

I'm a competitor and will use every advantage I can get to win.

[veganray]

Sure, I've always thought you were kind of a blow-hard.

Sorry, I missed your "Learn from the Masters" series presentation on soft, wet, gentle suckling. Please put me on your mailing list so I don't miss it next year.

[ChUcK]

The manner in which some gnashing and wailing manifests itself reminds me of how I want to avoid growing up.

[Jsw]

Sure, I've always thought you were kind of a blow-hard.

Sorry, I missed your "Learn from the Masters" series presentation on soft, wet, gentle suckling. Please put me on your mailing list so I don't miss it next year.

I don't actually think you're a blow hard. I just never get to call anybody one so I took my shot. Don't judge me, I has no regrets.

[Mark Ellis]

I'm a competitor and will use every advantage I can get to win.

Me too but only if I were competing against Frank Delicious. Against anyone else I would not cheat.

So back to Vegan Ray, now I understand you have made a public stand on this issue and feel duty bound to support it to the bitter end. But in life it is best to pick your battles wisely. This battle just ain't worth it. It ain't worth it because it doesn't really matter. There is no competitive advantage to be had by violating the rule and there is no enforceability because you can't tell by looking at a disc how it was broken in.

I understand your hangup with the plain language of the rule. But this is not as compelling an argument as you might think it is. There are issues which can trump (and should trump) the plain language of any rule. I could go into a lengthy (and quite boring) discussion of things like "legislative history" and "statutory interpretation" and stuff we lawyers use to justify our positions (and fees) but the bottom line is that sometimes the plain language of a rule is deceiving and the impact irrational or unenforceable.

When I became the Competition Director of the PDGA (a long time ago) I was concerned about whether modifying discs was a problem. So I personally tried every modification technique I could find and invented a few. I ruined a stack of discs. I modified a bunch more. None of the techniques made a disc fly better or more accurately. Basically you can change the stability or maybe ruin it. That is it. Mostly you make scud missiles. You start with a disc that you know how it flies. You end up with a disc that is as predictable as your last crazy girlfriend.

In the hierarchy of the PDGA there exist the Rules Committee. We know that they know about the existence of tuning a disc (they being darn close to omnipotent). They were not concerned about the tuning of the Epic (which was built to be tuned and even then only works if tuned properly, yeah good luck baby, and launched from a canon) because from Frizzzbeee immortal (that means way back in history) disc have been bent and twisted in a desperate attempt to make them fly better. The silence and inaction of the Rules Committee can best be interpreted as a definitional exclusion, meaning they don't view tuning as illegal.

Now Vegan Ray, you realize you are taking a position more right wing than Chuck Kennedy, which is like being to the right of Rush Limbaugh. Chuck would gleefully DQ his mother on a technicality. Sorry, low hanging fruit, just kidding. That was the old Chuck Kennedy. The new enlightened Chuck Kennedy would only give her a 2 stroke penalty. Instead look at the more entertaining position. Let the Frizzzbee masses bend, twist, boil, microwave, smash, crush, shred, grill, heat, slice, skip, sand, rub, or perform magical incantations upon their discs. They still can't hit the tunnel. They still can't hit their putts in the circle.

[mark12b]

<golf clap>

[Steady 26542]

Thanks Mark!! I knew I liked you.

[Parks]

If you want to stretch out "usage during play" to not include this, then every disc that you've ever thrown on a practice field or outside of a round of disc golf is illegal due to the wear and tear from those throws.

I posit that any non-ridiculously-self-serving definition of "usage during play" would include field practice & practice on courses, and would not include intentionally throwing into a brick wall.

You are seeing stuff in the penumbra of the rules that do not exist.

Everything else you post in here is strictly following the rulebook, but here you introduce your own personal interpretation that is not backed by any facts.

Would you then agree that the strictest interpretation of the rules is not correct? Or does common sense have a place?

I do agree with you, however, with your main point: the rules are not as clear and specific as they could be.

[veganray]

Mark, you need not try to belittle my argument with your "bitter end" & "pick your battles" nonsense. My position is well thought out & defended out of genuine concern about the consequences that come with it. I would have expected better from you than to employ such dismissive, faux-paternalistic tactics; I guess I should not have been surprised.
Mark, I appreciate your sentiment that the PDGA is governed (& should be governed) by tradition and not by hard, fast rules, but I strongly disagree. The PDGA's "legislative history" and "statutory interpretation" have no documentation whatsoever, making this knowledge (or more correctly, many personally-colored recollections of the knowledge) again the exclusive privilege of the PDGA elite (such as yourself), leaving the rank-and-file PDGA member with no meaningful way to suss out what the rules even are without a consistent, complete rule book.
Mark, I note your conclusion that your belief is that modified discs do not perform better. Very well, then, why make them illegal at all? The committee's abject fear of ruffling a few feathers actually making a ruling (one way or the other) should not be interpreted as condoning the practice. If so, their lack of rulings on other issues (such as nude play on goatback or intentional arm amputation & bionic replacement) could be equally applied as evidence of their legality.
Mark, My relative position on the wacko spectrum to Chuck Kennedy, while humorous, has no bearing as to my certainty of the correctness of my arguments. While what Chuck kennedy does with his mother is no business of mine, sure enough, he would punish to the fullest extent anybody on the planet for any minor violation, with one exception: a violation he himself is committing. Strangely enough, he is all for lax enforcement when it comes to rules he prefers to violate. Hmmm…

[MIdiscgolfer]

Any body else find it amusing to hear vaganray complain about someone belittling [b]His[b] arguments? Although he does have a point about well thought out arguments, Who else could have come up with the interpretation of "supporting point" as meaning capable of supporting a CO2 molecule?

[veganray]

[b]His[b] arguments

Though to you unwashed LOL-masses, I must seem Godlike & thus worthy of the capitalized (and botched bold) possessive pronoun, I calculate the probability of my own existence as several orders of magnitude higher than that of any supernatural pimp-daddy (and the probability of us being one in the same as approaching zero), so, while I am quite flattered, I must respectfully decline your thoughtfully given honorific.