Forced to join Arbiter
 

The WOA* has forced us to join arbiter. Now I don't have anything against the arbiter, but I don't like "big brother" forcing me to join, just so they can monitor my assignments. My local association has a great working relationship with our customers, and the WOA does not. I feel that our customer relationships is now in jeopardy. And to top the whole dang deal off, there is talk of forcing us to use Ref Pay. I do have something against Ref Pay.

* WOA = Washington Officials Association, serving Interscholastic Officials in the state of Washington

We got the same thing down here too, Bob. It's state wide. We're probably gonna go to it for all our assignments (ASA SP, FP, etc). It's cheaper than what we're using now, and it's easier to use.

Roll with it... it'll be a good thing in the long run... even tho I agree that "they'll" be watching. Remember tho, this is for all WIAA sports, not just softball.

Well if it is any consolation, The Arbiter does make managing your assignments easier.

What do you have against RefPay? I've never used it, so I don't know much about it.

Not matter where you wanted to work around here youwould be added to a program - HS and NCAA is arbiter and our local uses a different one.

Welcome to 2009.

Big brother already has you locked, so dont worry about it anymore.

We use Ref Pay here. Its basically a automated payroll system.

Upside I don't have to wait for the mail. Also have the money transferred into checking so no deposit runs to the bank.

Downside is if you make more then one transfer a month it costs $2 per additional transfer....

Interesting how we went from the fear of Big Brother to acceptance of Big Brother with hardly a whimper.

keep up the good fight Buggman. :D

Defined in this country with three words: apathy, cowardice and laziness.

I don't know if it makes me "Big Brother", but if you wanted assignments from me and my group, you would also need to get them on TheArbiter. That is how I choose to run my business; your option is to not get assignments from me. It my scheduling tool of choice, and, in my opinion, the best program on the market today for that purpose.

It is also the requirement of many NCAA Conferences. RefPay has some downsides (particularly the one transfer per month before paying a fee to get your own money), but it gets to me a lot easier than waiting on coordinators or treasurers to mail me a check.

Yeah...but if each check counts as a transfer, that would be a whole lot of money being paid out for no reason. I would prefer to wait for a check.

Looks to me as if RefPay is nothing more than a way to get into officials', schools', and officials' organizations' pockets. There sure seem to be a lot of hidden fees associated with this "service."

I work for several associations that use Arbiter. The associations using RefPay make lump sum deposts into my account at the end of the high school season, summer season, and fall season.

The other associations not using the RefPay feature on Arbiter issue a check at the end of each season.

Or just ignorant. :rolleyes:

Or just liberal. :eek:

Funny! I was thinking just the other way around! :rolleyes:

And I probably should not have posted it in this forum, so I won't respond.

This is how it works in my area, My local association assigns all softball in the county, ASA, NSA, USSSA, NFHS, and Pony via the arbiter. When we accept the assignment we know what uniform to wear, what field to go, and what league rules to use (one league specifies in their rules, ASA by the book except allow the USSSA pitch). So the Arbiter is fine with me, it has made scheduling a lot easier on the scheduler and provides a simplified format to get all the game info I need. But what is not fine is the state wide organization representing about 1/5 of the softball games assigned telling my local association that they will use arbiter and that they will have access to my local association data. Many think that this is the state's attempt to take over assigning, or at least billing thereby freezing out our local assigners.

I see some of these fees sound a lot like banking fees. I wonder if RefPay has a banking license somewhere? An association might run into trouble in some states using this system.

Funny thing about political extremes... it doesn't matter whether you get there by moving right or by moving left, both end up with massive loss of liberty. Conservatives recognize this and try to guard against it (see, for example, the Libertarians). Liberals tend to get all balled up in economic "justice" and have a huge blind spot to their brand of totalitarianism. Without economic liberty, civil liberty is meaningless. In less than 4 months, the great and powerful O has transformed the USA into a socialist economy with hardly a voice of opposition, all in the name of economic justice.

My point of view - shaded by the fact I work for the man and in fact have quite a bit of access into peoples bidness is -

Any feints or displays of bravery were long over due a decade or two ago. Whimpering about it on the internet is no supplement for true bravery.. its just simply what we called a BMC - a *****, moan, and complaint.

As of this moment, the vast majority of us bow our knee, write out our written prayer for granting, pay our tax and receive various licensing and registrants from your king granting you your mere privilege to engage in various modes of transportation and means of making a living. Once your prayer is granted by your king you then pay annual or biannual homage to your king to maintain said privilege - ie you are a slave granted privileges for tax properly rendered.

There goes your bravery - right into your wallet as a form of laminated card as proof of said privileged granted pursuant to duty paid - or perhaps even prominently displayed on a wall of your chosing in a cute little frame.

And you can be assured that the enforcement side of your king, of whom I am a slave, has no problem utterly destroying your existence should you even feint a display of bravery.

Bravery, is dead.

Arbiter having your email address is nothing compared to what my little computer at work has access to.

So forget it.

It is finished.

I, as an umpire, provide a service. That being said my "customers" are legion. I serve the game, the governing body that sanctions the games, the officials association, the local association, my assigner, the players, the coaches, the parents, the grandparents ad nauseum. The Arbiter is simply a tool to serve my customers more efficiently and professionaly, nothing more.
My full time profession is a Soldier. My political orientation is Libertarian. I consider personal freedoms to be holy and worthy of laying down my life for. I can't for the life of me see the correlation between doing BUSINESS and some of the basic informational requirements and an encroachment into your personal freedom.

I belong to several groups that use arbiter. Each group does not see my assignments, all they can see is that I have an assignment. For example if the high school group has assigned me a game, the college assigner will see that I am assigned and then cannot assign me a game. He doesn't know what level I am working etc.

Your local association needs to have their own group in arbiter and the state association their own group. In this scenario the shared calendar works perfectly.

Being able to use 1 calendar to put in blocks etc... sure beats the old system of calling or e-mailing different assigners on days that I cannot work. Most of the time they would lose this info or not even look at it. Arbiter gives them this info at their fingertip.

Didn't we have a discussion a while back about Arbiter selling its clients' information to third parties? According to their privacy statement, it certainly looks like they feel they have the right to sell it. They say you have the option to opt out, but having seen what I have seen in the IT field, I don't trust anyone with my personal information. Period.

It's not just bravery that's dead. Privacy has long been a thing of the past.

I don't disagree and I don't believe it is the gathering of data.

The problem is the distrust of how the data is used/abused by those who shouldn't be near it.

And we all know the conservatives don't have blind spots in their brand of totalitarianism. :rolleyes:

I think "their" plan is working . What do they say divide and conquer...:cool:

If I were King of the galaxy for a day we would have "Queensryche" for a day. Everybody would be forced to listen to "OPERATION MINDCRIME" all day until they get the message.:D

I can tell you don't read much conservative commentary, especially the criticism of some of the Bush policies.

Politics is for another forum, guys.

My fault, accidentally started it, hoping this will be last. :(

Any comments or suggestions about Ref-Pay for new subscribers?

Party pooper! :cool: