Protest Management

Background

At large meets, it is important that the meet director communicate who is allowed to protest results, when protests are allowed, and how they are made. There will inevitably be disagreements, and there must be a process that resolves these disagreements fairly.

AthleticLIVE can help make the protest process more transparent by showing whether a result is unofficial or official, the time left in a protest period, and whether or not an event's results are under protest.

How it Works

For the timer

Here is how the AthleticLIVE protest management process works from the timing company's perspective:

1. The timer activates the protest management process when he or she creates a meet. When results are uploaded, the system automatically marks them as "Unofficial".
2. The timer has two options for marking results as "Official".
   1. After a set period of time (30, 45, or 60 minutes), if a result is still marked as "Unofficial", the system will automatically set the result to "Official".
   2. The timer manually sets each event's results to "Official". Good for high-profile meets where you need full control over when results are official.
3. If a protest is made about a particular event, the timer can change the event status to "Under Protest". It will be the timer's responsibility to manually change the event status once the protest is complete.
   1. You can change the event status by going to "Manage Events" from the admin meet detail page. Then, under "Actions", click "Change Status".
4. On the admin meet detail page, we show a list of a events currently under protest to make it very easy to change status once the protest is finished.

NOTE: Normally, once results are uploaded, the event status automatically changes to "Results". When you use protest management, the "Results" status does not exist. Once final results are uploaded, here are the statuses:

1. Unofficial - automatically set when final results are uploaded.
2. Official - One of the following:
   1. Automatically changed if the event is not under protest and the protest window closes
   2. Manually set by timer.
3. Under Protest - Manually set by timer

For the viewer

Here is how it works from the frontend user perspective:

1. When an event is uploaded, the status will show as "Unofficial" in the scroller and on the events page.
2. When you click into an event, an alert box will indicate something like the following statement: "Results are UNOFFICIAL. The protest window closes at 2:42 PM [14 minutes, 20 seconds]". The clock will countdown automatically.
3. Once the protest window is closed, the statement will read: "Results are UNOFFICIAL. The Protest Window is closed."
4. Once results are marked as official, the statement will read "Results are OFFICIAL."

With a little bit of extra effort, timing companies that use AthleticLIVE can offer a huge amount of transparency to the protest management process.

FAQs

If I upload results and 10 minutes later upload revised results, will the protest window reset?

Not automatically. The protest window is set when results are first uploaded. If you want to reset the protest window, go to Manage Events and choose the "Reset Protest Window" action.

If I upload results, mark them as Under Protest, then upload revised results, will the status change back to "Unofficial"?

Not automatically. Once you mark that a result is under protest, no automatic status changes occur. The timer must manually change the status of the event. We can't assume that a protest is over once new results are uploaded. Someone could appeal the decision immediately, and we don't want to show that the protest is over just because new results are uploaded.