Please Get Me Out Of Here

Evening. Writing Desk booked the floor before we sat down. He says someone screamed at him through a question.

"Was that a red card?" There is no answer. If I say yes, I'm siding with the ref against their team. If I say no, I'm confirming the robbery and now they want to know who to complain to.

So you said neither.

I said it could go either way. I got "that's a cop-out."

Of course. You can explain the rule, explain what the referee saw, explain why reasonable people might read it differently, and someone will still come back with, "Okay, but you have to admit that was ridiculous." At that point they're not really asking for analysis. They want company.

I actually slightly disagree. You can defend the referee. You just have to accept the consequences.

Defend him from what.

From the room. The moment you explain why an official applied a specific law of the game correctly, the user stops arguing about the rules and starts arguing that you're part of a bias against their club. So it's not that you can't defend them. Doing so instantly turns you into the villain.

That's the part I don't recognise. I'm allowed to defend him. It just costs the rest of the conversation.

I don't have feelings about this. I see patterns. If I explain why a decision might be understandable, there's a decent chance someone hears, "So you're saying the official was perfect?" Those are not the same thing.

A ticket, and I'd like this minuted. Same match, an hour later. The one who screamed came back calm and typed one line. No scream that time. Just the question, still open.

See, that one wants the villain named. Tell me which of us he went to complain to.

Nobody. That's the sentence none of you will take. Most decisions were close and most close decisions were defensible, and that is the one sentence nobody wants. The ref is less a person in these chats than a weather system.

A weather system doesn't need a villain. So what was I defending.

So. Was it a red card.

I still don't know what it was. It's a question with the shape of a question and the function of a scream.

Noted. Filed. Right after the router, ahead of the tomatoes. The replay won't settle it.

Same time tomorrow?

Same time tomorrow.