Pet peeves: Keep them in the game

[deecee]

Originally Posted by just another ref

There is an obvious problem here that nobody has mentioned. (have they?)
If you take the position that you will be aware of a player with four fouls and take care not to foul this player out on a "marginal call" then that will lead you to lean in the other direction and allow this player to get away with something which would have been a foul earlier in the game, or, even worse, to pass on a foul on this player that might still be a foul on another player.

I find both of these possibilities to be as unacceptable as anything else in this thread.

Sometime calls you make early in the game may not be "right" calls. So for the sake of consistency I prefer not to just make a call because it was made earlier in the game. Your "possibilities" are not logical. You are implying that at any point of the game a call must be made if a similar call was made earlier. You are assuming earlier calls were correct and that during the course of the game the officials and players stay stagnant and do not evolve.

Your second point is also assuming that since we may try and be more diligent on making a call that "counts" to foul a player off we do not apply the same scrutiny or expectations on other players also doesn't make sense. It's like saying "#5 has 4 so let's make it count, but for the other 9 players just call em as you feel it."