What is this “no standing” rule?
That a person not directly affected by (for example) a TD ruling has no standing to lodge a complaint.
If, for example, a TD incorrectly rules that, after a player has released a piece after moving it but before he has pressed his clock, the player may still retract the move and play another move with that piece, then a spectator (not playing in the tournament) could not lodge a complaint. The complaint should be lodged by the aggrieved player.
If a spectator who is playing in the tournament is affected in some way (for example, prize distribution, or subsequent-round pairings), then that might be a gray area, but I would think such a person would have standing.
Bill Smythe
But of course with respect to Micah, he has wanted to get corrections made to tournaments in which he has no involvement, wasn’t present, wasn’t playing, may not even know anyone involved and doesn’t even necessarily have any direct evidence that the information in the rating report is incorrect.
I usually do have direct evidence that the information in the rating report is incorrect. Also, I have emailed the office and they have corrected things despite me having “no standing”. If you can help get something fixed, even if you have “no standing”, whats wrong with that?
I don’t think anyone is interesting is starting yet another thread explaining to you (for the zillionth time) why procedures are the way they are. Our new moderator wasn’t clear about your comment, and I explained to him the context in which it was used.
And you have done that as well. You just don’t think the rules should apply to you in situations you care about.
To repeat what I sent you before:
“That was because it appeared to be an error in the programming, not just a one-off minor error. I wrote the ratings program that was used from 2001-2004 so I can discuss with Mike Nolan the guts of how the calculations are or should be done. Understand??? Unlike you, I don’t give a damn about correcting minor one-off errors, and ratings committee or not, I don’t have standing to address them anyway. I care about programming and process issues, and know enough to be able to tell the difference between what’s important and what isn’t. You’ve made it abundantly clear that you don’t know and don’t care to learn.”
And as I tried to explain to you, it was not an error in the programming and all you did was contact the office to have them correct a minor one-off error that you had no standing to do (and you had no direct evidence that the event being coded as a match was an error since it you had no idea if the players chose to play each other).
Riiiiight. You explained to me what transpired in private e-mails between Mike Nolan and me. If you’re a hacker, you’re pretty bad at it, because your information is 100% wrong.
There is no appetite for changing the policy regarding standing. If anything, your continued behavior makes the wisdom of that even more clear.
That would be a “hack hacker”. 
This topic is a spin-off from Knockout format (was Not Shown in Tiebreak Order).
This has always been an interesting dilemma. In the courts, one has to have legal standing to sue. The individual has to have some skin in the game to be able to bring suit. Strict rules are applied to prevent frivolous suits from being brought.
But we are not a court. When can a person who is not playing in a tournament bring an error to attention? What limits should we set for various parties to interact with the TD on site, or for them to bring up an issue to the USCF office? Are there rules, or are we applying “rules of thumb” on an ad hoc basis?
Example: A spectator points out an error in the wall charts? Is he to be ignored by the TD because he is not in the tournament?
Example: A parent brings an accusation of cheating by someone playing her son. How do you handle this? Can you merely ignore her or tell her that only the player can make that accusation? What if she brings over photographic “proof” on one of the ubiquitous smart phones? She certainly has a compelling interest.
Example: Someone likes to look at rating reports and finds mistakes in the report. Missing time control information, missing color information, wrong TD listed for a section, wrong ID# for a player, etc. This individual did not play in the tournament. Does he have the right to point this out if the TD decides not to do anything about changing the event? If so, is there a time limit for making changes? Why are we loath to correcting mistakes? Or are we loath to certain people bringing up an issue?
I wouldn’t ignore that, but I also wouldn’t change anything based upon the observation of a spectator. If I had time, I would go back and check the results sheet to see if it had been keyed in wrong. If it had been, I’ll fix it. If not, I’ll tell the person that the posted result is what was reported. It’s been my experience that in kiddie chess, the most common cause for this is a child not fessing up to having lost. OTOH, if someone then asks me to double check the results on boards 3, 5, 8 and 10 as well, I would decline—that’s not someone trying to be helpful—that’s someone being a control freak.
Finds something that he/she claims to be a mistake. No one is going to change that without the confirmation from the TD. So someone at the office has to contact the TD and wait for a reply. My understanding is that the ratings department has plenty to do already. Should we hire extra staff because someone (or someones) makes a hobby of perusing the MSA and pointing out “errors” that no one actually involved even seems to care about?
And there’s standing and standing. Basically - can you show harm. Sometimes, solely as a member one can show harm. A spectator isn’t in the tournament. A player in the tournament has a chance for harm even if not directly impacted. There’s standing and then there’s standing.
But that also doesn’t mean be foolish. As Tom Doan points out, TD’s have freedom to act, and can choose to do so accordingly.