By my way of thinking, penalties are earned by the shooter not given by the SO. Not informing the shooter of a penalty is poor decorum but unless the shooter feels the SO is cheating, that is to say issuing an undeserved penalty or not officiating evenly, it is still the shooter who earned the penalty. The same could be said of the Stat shack issue. If a shooter got a FTN then he got it. If someone was swithching mags to get the reload advantage, then they were cheating. They should still be informed if possible but it does not change the reality that it was their actions that generated the penalty. If it's not, and you have the case of power being abused, then you have a different situation. Nice thing about the grown up world is you get to pick who you associate with and who you don't.

Kevin

PS - Hey Bubba, If for any reason it didn't come though as such, I was joking.
PPS - I think it's a good thing to discuss problems so they don't get repeated.