The current president of the RoboCup federation, Peter Stone, brought to the attention of the trustees that he would like to keep a culture in the RoboCup leagues of flexibility and open-mindedness. This, however, only works if teams understand that they should not look for loopholes in the rules and try to exploit them.
He proposed adding a “fair play” (or “be reasonable”) rule, similar to the one used in the simulation league:
Fair play: Games should be played according to a fair and common-sense
understanding of soccer and restrictions imposed by the virtual
simulated world of the 3D soccer simulator. Circumvention of these is
considered violating the fair play commitment and is strictly forbidden
during the tournament. Violation of the fair-play commitment includes,
but is not limited to, for example:
- using another team’s binary in your team
- jamming the simulator by sending excessive commands per client
- …
Any of these is strictly forbidden. Other strategies might be found
violating the fair play commitment, after consultation with the OC.
However, we expect it to be clear how a fair team should behave… If
you are in doubt of using a particular method, please ask the OC before
the tournament starts. If a team is found to use unfair programming
methods during the tournament, it will be immediately disqualified.
What are your thoughts on this? Any ideas how such a rule could look for the Humanoid League?