[LilLeaguer]

Originally Posted by LLPA13UmpDan

Tim C, im sick you. Stay out of my threads unless u have something that answers my question. I over-looked that section by mistake, not knowing thats where it would be, after it makes no sense really where they put it, "objectives of the game". after all, the "rules" are not there. Should have a section on approved equipment. anyhow, Good-bye now, delete your post, as a matter of fact, account please

If I may make some suggestions, but first some background.

Hardly anybody here is exclusively a Little League umpire, even though Little League probably has more umpires than any other baseball organization in the United States. In any case, while the folks here would rather discuss the arcane NFHS FPSR (which even highly professional and fearsome High School Varsity Managers sometimes don't understand) or the NCAA DH rule (which, I'm afraid, even God might not understand), they know they are in danger of being swamped out by Little League questions. Since many of them are very basic (instead of the intracacies of runner's interference as a recent thread discussed) as well, you'll find a certain resistance to them on this forum.

• Post LL-specific questions over at umpire.org. The Small Diamond forum discusses those issues, can certainly answer the basic questions (like where to find Rule 1.10). In fact, some of the posters here also frequent that board. Now, I do sometimes post questions here, but I try to frame them in terms of the interests and experience of most of the posters.
• Don't answer questions, unless you have experience that bears on the answer. Nothing is more frustrating (and you can see it all the time) than an answer to an OBR (MLB) rules situation with a NFHS (Fed) rule. Well, a Little League answer to just about any question seems to be more frustrating in this forum.
• Be respectful and gracious. Respectful means that you do your research thoroughly before posting, and gracious means that you thank folks for pointing out information you didn't know before, like when Tim pointed out that Rule 1.00 has important information.
• What to do about the bullies? I don't really know, but I know that antagonizing them often ends in threads being locked or even deleted. (Apparently, the innocuous statement that "some umpires suck" becomes "specific posters suck," and that way lies harsh moderation.) In any case, back and forth insults don't really accomplish anything but lowering the signal-noice ratio even further.

Of course, you are free to do what you want with this advice. If you want to keep this forum as a resource in your learning, though, you may want to make some changes.