Gentlemen (and ladies?),
Excellent comments. I painted with too broad a brush and as a result need
to engage in a little backpedaling, my bad.
Some of you have invested your contesting lifetimes in earning a widespread
reputation of unquestionable integrity. You should relax, this conversation
is not really about you.
Some of you are not contenders. You should probably relax too.
G4MKP remarked:
> Blimey, some of you US guys really
> do want to control everything
My dear chap: Don't get your knickers in a wad. It's not about control.
K6LA asked:
> How long do I have before you
> raise your eyebrows at my
> integrity for a belated post
> to 3830?
I would not judge a competitor without first making an effort to learn as
much as I could about that particular competitor's situation. If a
competitor was conspicuously absent from 3830, the question mark floating
over my head would be tempered by whatever relationship experience I have
with that competitor. If I had none, I would not jump to conclusions
without making an attempt to get some.
Take Ken, for instance. I go back a long way with Ken. If he didn't post
to 3830 in a timely fashion, (which I believe he always does, BTW), I might
just ask him "why?," and he might say "my mother died" or "I was arrested
trying to get all my gear back into the country, and only just got out of
jail."
Then I would feel bad for even asking.
But then, if he said "really, I just haven't gotten around to it," I might
engage in a well-deserved and good-natured razzing.
> What kind of royal razzing would follow?
Well Ken, since you asked, I might say "get off your ass, you lazy deadbeat"
and then buy you another beer. Both would be deserved.
Or take my friend Jim, N6TJ (who gave me a great ration about my post
privately). Let's say we had competed against each other recently, but he
hadn't shared his score and everyone one else had. Now Jim is one of my
best pals in contesting, but if he didn't have a good excuse for not posting
his score, That would definitely call for a good-natured razzing. And
definitely also another beer.
And yes, I would even buy the notorious W3WN a beer and maybe we could get
to know each other better. Perhaps the problem is, I left the words
"good-natured" out of my first post. Oops. Sorry. My bad again.
Then Ken asked a very important question (N4VI, KK6MC, K5GU take note):
> And why?
Two already-exhaustively-debated reasons:
1. Post-Contest Log Massaging
2. Category Shopping
Both are bad, wrong, unsportsmanlike. Unfortunately, neither are
technically against the rules, and both are not uncommon practices. The
only way we as contesters have to defend ourselves against these slovenly
practices is to resort to something called "peer pressure" (does that answer
your question, Jim?). The possibility that someone may have done one or
both of these unsavory things is proportional to the amount of time between
the end of the contest and stating on the public record how they did in what
category (i.e. 3830, as K9GY correctly identified as the de facto current
standard claimed scores listing).
Now I AM NOT SAYING that if you don't go on record with your score that
you're automatically a jerk. Basically if you go on record early, you are
banking some credibility because it will be a lot harder for you to massage
your log and go unnoticed, or switch categories just to come in first place
in a category you technically didn't operate, but also technically qualify
to enter...
...which to me are good reasons to post to 3830 as soon as you reasonably
can.
Mark, N5OT
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