Should Sport Officials be merged into Sports?

Question

Proposal: Sports Officials

I would expect that Sports Officials would be a relatively small community if left on its own, but I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be merged in with Sports to create a bigger and more thriving one. Most officials are also participants, especially at lower lewels of sport. Some questions about officiating could probably be answered by expert players as well as by officials, so I think it would be beneficial to combine them.

I would suggest asking some officiating questions on the sports site to confirm that they arae good with this.

https://sports.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/370/do-we-accept-questions-on-sports-officials

Answer 1

As a moderator for Sports SE, I endorse this.

Please send sports officiating questions our way. In fact, we have 36 questions on officiating thus far.

Answer 2

As the creator of the Sports Officials proposal, and a Grade 7 USSF referee, I believe that these should be treated as very much separate communities. The kinds of questions I would anticipate seeing in the Sports Officials SE are not the same kinds of questions players are generally interested in.

To use soccer for an example, Sports Officials SE would include questions of three main types, each very distinct (as I understand it) from the Sports SE:

• Questions about refereeing skills (How can I increase my command presence?, How do I properly handle a mass confrontation?)
• Questions about the Laws of the Game (Is a drop ball restart indirect or direct?, How do I determine if a player is "involved in play" for an offside call?)
• Questions about the officiating community itself (With the new badge system in 2014, what happens to the Grade 5 referees?, How many hours of instruction are required for advancement?)

That being said, I'll post a few of these questions on Sports SE to see how they are received.