Rules Judge

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Your duties as an NOSB RULES JUDGE:

1.  Ensure all competition rules are followed. To serve in this capacity, it is imperative that you fully understand ALL competition rules.

2.  During the competition, if you should have to discuss a rule with the Moderator during a match, please be certain that the clock has been stopped. If you feel that time has been lost, check with the Moderator, who is allowed to make a time correction.

3.  Watch for Scorekeeper errors. If, for example, Team A is supposed to get four points, the Rules Judge needs to make sure the Scorekeeper doesn’t inadvertently credit the wrong team with those points.

4.  Ensure that quiet is maintained. During competition play, the Rules Judge is responsible for ensuring that quiet is maintained in the room and that no signals are given to the team members from the audience.

5.  Hand out the Team Challenge Questions, when the moderator announces it is time to do so.  Collect all the scratch paper and items associated with the completed question.

6.  Collect any used scratch paper from the team tables and discard it. Be sure there is clean scratch paper and sharpened pencils at each place.

7.  Rules Regarding Challenges:

• Only players (not the audience, coach, or alternate) may challenge a Moderator’s ruling on an answer.
• The challenge must come before the Moderator begins the next toss-up or bonus question at which time the Moderator will request the timekeeper to stop the clock.
• The science judge will make a ruling or take the challenge to the Judges’ Appeals room. If the team disagrees with the first ruling, the challenge must go out of the room to the Judges’ Appeals room where all decisions are final.
• All challenges to the rules will collectively be decided upon in the room. If the team challenges the same rule a second time, the challenge must go to the Head Rules Judge in the Judges’ Appeals room.
• There are no challenges on Team Challenge Questions.

8.  Rules Regarding Warnings:

• Any competition official that feels a situation demands a warning due to poor behavior during a competition match will request that the game clock be stopped.
• The officials will then collectively make a decision to either issue a warning or not.  The Rules Judge is responsible for issuing the official verbal warning along with the reason for the warning to the individual player, entire team, or audience member (including coaches).
• More than two (2) warnings results in disqualification.