6.10.12, or "punished for being totally ineffective"

If the out-of-play action has a measurable consequence for the game it is a major penalty.
6.10.12 A skater who, after being warned, does not immediately attempt to return to the Engagement Zone. A major penalty must be applied to each offending Blocker who does not attempt to return to the Engagement Zone
This penalty is on my mind because 1) it is actually the first bout penalty I ever received and I had quite the streak going (5 bouts no penalty minutes) 2) I am seeing it given out a lot lately, and 3) I don't understand why it is a penalty. Except that 4) I think that I totally do and it is sort of like sodomy laws.

So I am going to look at it from my perspective and then also from what I think is wftda's. As an independent official and garden variety skater I have zero access to what wftda's process or intent is, but I find that to really understand the rules and clarifications you have to puzzle that out.

Here is my perspective: a blocker who is jammer chasing (let's ignore whether she is engaging in wise gameplay or not because the rules don't care) receives an out of play warning, ceases engagement, and then dicks around a bit returning to the engagement zone.  Most likely because of exhaustion (jammer chasing is tiring, yo) or just brain fog (there are a lot of tiny mental  calculations involved in proper bridging). So this blocker is hanging around outside the engagement and utterly useless to her team. Her team has every right to be pissed because they are essentially down a blocker until she gets her ass in gear. And then....off to the box she goes. How does she have a "major impact" on the game? She is just sort of sucking in a benign manner.

You see it in the reactions of the players that get a "failure to return". "But....I am being totally ineffective right now. Gah!"

So here is why I *think* this is a penalty. Wftda has picked "relative position" as a hill to die upon. Why this is, well, that is 8 other topics. But what is *very* problematic is that the game can be played very slowly and you can shred someone by just holding them back or pushing them forward, having a major impact on the game (for example slowing a jammer for a good 15 seconds in which she could have completed an entire scoring pass) but *without* actually affecting anyone's relative position. So my suspicion is that this rule is on the books to penalize an out of play blocker who does not immediately disengage when warned at 20 feet. So it is not really intended for the slow to react skater who doesn't zoom back into the land of permitted action. Even though that is exactly what the rule says.

The reason I think this is because of the relatively recent failure to reform clarification. This specifies that in a "no pack" scenario where blockers continue to engage with a jammer, the failure to reform is assigned to not the pivot, random blocker nearest the first ref to act, or blocker who can most easily reform the pack but the blocker most in contact with the jammer, engaging her but not affecting her relative position.

Another possibility is that the mere presence of a blocker outside the engagement zone either creates a dampening psychological effect on the opposing jammer or it creates the possibility that she *may* do something against the rules out there. Both of those are against the spirit of the rules, though.

And here is why it is like sodomy laws. For some reason the "but she LOOKED 16!" defense works against statutory rape. However, while no one is (I hope) kicking down the bedroom doors of consenting adults engaging in a non-procreative action, those laws provide a convenient "gotcha!" and add-on charge.

This is the same thing - the blocker may not be changing the jammer's relative postion, but...gotcha! They are hanging out outside of the engagement zone.

That is a terrible metaphor. I am sorry.