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It all comes down to a couple of things.
1) Where are you in your career/experience level/rules knowledge, etc.? If you are really new, you can gain a lot here that you won't necessarily from other places. For one, these guys will put you straight into the book in most cases, rather than just giving you the knowledge of an old hand. And having tried to read the book with no guidance, I can say that it is not so intuitive at first. It becomes much easier with the frame of reference established here. and if you want to go other places for info, advice from this board (just like Ruts) will point you in appropriate directions. some come here without really understanding the value of camps, mentors, etc., and I have seen numerous threads that tell people to use these resources. Those people got a lot out of this board in addition to the info about rules and game situations.
2) What do you want from this board? I see a number of experienced officials that seem to value the exchange of ideas here. I see many new officials that come for guidance. I see some that people that want to push their opinion, and I fall into that category many times as well. I see some that have an axe to grind about a game, and they get zero benefit unless they open their mind. But even as I push forward an opinion, I definitely get insight here that I otherwise would not get. I simply hope to provide a viewpoint that might not otherwise come into play on a board that is mainly officials.
So from my perspective, this is clearly not the be-all and end-all of development for officials, but short of that, it can be what you want it to be.
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