denisavichThe dude got 23 seconds of useless information. The outcome of the round would have been identical even if he hadn't accidentally spec'd.
what if it wasnt useless? what if he had info that won the round?
bringing it back the hockey analogy, a lot of tripping incidents are probably inconsequential to the final outcome of the game, but you cant just go around tripping people, because what if it WAS consequential to a goal being scored? to apply it to TF2 - what if he saw X class in some weird position to stop the push and comm'd it to his team, yeah his team still lost, but what if it DID change the outcome?
we seem to give RGL a lot of flack for "lack of consistency" when it comes to their punishments. but punishing someone sitting in spectate for wayyy too long is the only way to build that consistency. to not punish this incident would be an invitation to people to push the limits of how long they can sit in spectate (e.g. "hmmmm this guy sat in spec for 20 seconds and got away with it... surely i can sit in spec for 10 and get away with it too...")