Question from Fanboy site

[jTheUmp]

Originally Posted by Adam

2. Fans who spout rule terminology are wasting their time. Either the official already knows the rules and their assistance is not required, or the official doesn't know the rules and their help isn't going to actually, well, help.

I might be in the minority on this, but when I was a newbie and hadn't yet developed me keen ability to ignore fans, occasionally a "fan spouting rule terminology" would give me a "hey, maybe I have the rule wrong" reaction. I wouldn't let it change my actions in the current game, of course, but it would give me cause to dig into the rule book later in the evening. And occasionally I'd learn something, although usually I'd learn that the fan was an idiot.

An example: in my first year, I had one game where I called 4 or 5 violations for a ball hitting the top of the backboard (not going over, just hitting the top). After the 3rd one, I overheard a fan comment about "that's wrong, it's a dead ball only when it hits a backboard support"... In my sojurn into the rules later that evening, I found out that the fan was partially right, and I was wrong.