A couple of our league/tourney locations have some bad lighting situations on some games. Arcade owner does NOT plan on investing in Pinstadiums or similar. Some older players with poorer eyesight have taken to activating their cell phone flashlights and placing the phone on the glass in order to be able to see the playfield/ball.
Does this fall under I.9
“No player may use a camera or visual aid of any kind, other than the instructions provided by the machine, while standing at the machine”
or III.9
" Tournament Officials will make every reasonable attempt to accommodate disabilities. This may also apply to people with temporary disabilities, such as injuries."
?
well under the ADA it may vary well fall under " Tournament Officials will make every reasonable attempt to accommodate disabilities. This may also apply to people with temporary disabilities, such as injuries."
It’s no different than a headlamp. Not sure where that falls under the rules, but it’s fine unless it’s distracting others and getting lots of complaints.
As a person of advancing age and rapidly deteriorating eyesight, I really wish the rules lords would have ruled headlamps visual aides and banned them from the start.
well it should at least say something about the other rule and it should be one that over rides ANY LOCAL RULE.
remember the PGA was sued and lost in the Supreme Court over an ADA issue.
I don’t make rulings, I’m just a casual player and an occasional tech. But I have opinions.
The first question in the original post is if “No player may use a camera or visual aid of any kind” prohibits putting a cell phone flashlight on the glass to provide additional lighting. It does not. The flashlight is not a camera, and it’s not a visual aid.
What is a visual aid? Let’s look in the dictionary:
An instructional aid, such as a poster, scale model, or video, that presents information visually
An example of using a visual aid is the player looking up information on their cell phone or a piece of paper while they’re playing.
The second question is if the flashlight use should be allowed based on “Tournament Officials will make every reasonable attempt to accommodate disabilities”. This is a good argument in favor of it in some cases, but I think it should be allowed universally for all players.
My line of work involves working with conceptual theories, i.e. figuring out the necessary and sufficient conditions for some concept. We always tell people the dictionary is not a good guide for figuring out the entire necessary and sufficient conditions for a concept. The purpose of a dictionary is to give a rough approximation of how a word is typically used. When you’re dealing with something like a set of rules, though, the dictionary isn’t going to help. It’s not contextual enough to the specialized situation in which the word is being used. Better is if the rules themselves provide a definition for a term that’s likely to be disputed or have unclear boundaries. (Read the municipal code for your city sometime and see how much of it is is devoted to stipulating definitions of the words used in the code; the definitions often take up more room than the actual laws.)
All of this is to say that I think “visual aid” isn’t well defined here. I am pretty sure I can guess what was intended, though. It probably referred to something like putting an overlay down that would show you at what point on the flipper to shoot for specific targets. As a TD I interpret it as not applying to lights. But I could easily see an argument in the other direction. It certainly aids one’s vision – that’s a pretty literal description of what light does.
But then do things needed for ADA issues and as Most TD’s are not attorneys that may be an area that you may not want to ban to much. Also in can lead to an law suit as there is an event with an big prize and then someone gets an DQ over an ADA issue that TD may lose the lawsuit.
So I’m an older player with excellent eyesight. Don’t need glasses to play or read. I still have trouble with poorly lit games. Needing more light to see when you get older isn’t poor eyesight. It happens to everyone and it will happen to you too eventually.
One of the great things about our sport is that you can still kick ass when you get older. I kicked ass (won) at a Bond launch party recently at a location with great lighting. Crushed in the finals. Just turned 64. As long as they’re not bothering anyone else, let them use lights. You don’t want to beat old dudes (or dudettes) who can’t see. No fun in that.
They don’t want you pulling out your phone at every trap up and reading games rules. It takes way too long, and is dumb. I’m pretty sure that’s the main reason for the rules.
Well, that’s not how I read it, though it is ambiguous. The passage looks like this:
“No player may use a camera or visual aid of any kind, other than the instructions provided by the machine, while standing at the machine. A player may review electronic or written notes in between turns of a multiplayer game or between games, but not during their own turn or between balls of a single player game.”
To me, the fact that reviewing notes is referenced specifically in the second sentence suggests that something additional to that is meant by “visual aid.” Otherwise it would just say “No player may use a camera, nor review electronic or written notes [etc. etc.].” I read the second sentence as giving an additional proscription rather than defining “visual aid.” In fact, “visual aid” strikes me as a strange way to refer to consulting written information sources. Yes, usually sighted people get written information visually, but that’s not really the definitive aspect of it. Or to put it another way, when I hear that someone “used a visual aid” I definitely do not picture them reading. Also, grouping “camera or visual aid” together and then mentioning notes separately makes me think there are two things going on: 1) you can’t use a camera or some other technological means of enhancing or enlarging your perception of the game, 2) you can’t review notes while at the game.
Of course, what’s really needed is for “visual aid” to be glossed, since it’s obviously ambiguous enough that this argument crops up here intermittently. But I’m in agreement with most that banning light sources was almost certainly not the intention of the rule.
Yes, as people age the ability to see in low light diminishes, but (and to me this has been the worst part) so does the ability to adjust to changes in light. I used to wonder why some of the older players in my league complained so much about strobes in the games. Now I sure as hell know. I completely lose sight of the ball for a couple of seconds after a strobe if the game is in a dark room, and that didn’t happen to me five years ago. I don’t use a light but I can definitely understand why someone would want to. This is just part of aging, and as Grampa Simpson said, it’ll happen to you.
Yes, I suppose that’s the real answer: it’s already been stated as the Word of God that lights are OK. It’s just interesting to look at how the rule is actually written and if there were no other information, I could understand why someone might want to claim a light not provided by the game or the venue is a visual aid. I can see an argument for it and could have imagined the rule-makers going the other way on it.
But I’m in agreement with most that banning light sources was almost certainly not the intention of the rule.