Randy said: "If we had a time limited category, it would tend to drive
activity to the
already high activity periods. It would tend to discourage activity in the
slow times. Not helpful."
Wouldn't a "Best of X hours" mitigate your concern to some extent? For
example,
if I had about 20 hours available over a 48-hour contest and there were
Best of
12, 24, 36, and 48 categories. Certainly I could throw in the towel when
I passed
the 12-hour mark. But if Best of 12 hours was my goal, I might press on
longer
in order to 'possibly' have a better 12-hour rate later. Or when I hit
20 hours, I
might consider "what the heck, another 4-hours sounds like a better
goal." I have
set (and read others) who say "I set 100,000 points as my goal, but when
I easily
passed that, I bumped it up to 150,000."
I concede a "Best of X hours" removes some of the strategy of picking
the best X
hours to operate. But it might encourage a contester to push a little
further. I have
see the Scoreboard website provide a similar catalyst for additional BIC
(Butt In
Chair) time.
73 de Bob - KØRC in MN
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 11/25/2011 8:48 AM, Randy Thompson K5ZD wrote:
> I believe there is a place for time limited categories in contesting. It
> would increase participation and activity among some people if they had an
> outlet for their competitive spirit even though they could not devote the
> full weekend to a contest.
>
> However, there is a very real danger of unintended consequences. Whatever
> time limit is set, there will be some people who operate more to maximize
> their time under the limit. There will be other people who operate less
> because they would prefer to compete within the time limit. It is uncertain
> whether this would result in a net gain or net loss of total QSOs, but it
> seems counterproductive to have any rule encourages less activity. (Yes,
> there are contests with off time requirements that do just that, but they
> apply to everyone.)
>
> If we had a time limited category, it would tend to drive activity to the
> already high activity periods. It would tend to discourage activity in the
> slow times. Not helpful.
>
> No good answer. Just pointing out the challenge of creating a competition
> around a limit.
>
> Randy, K5ZD
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: cq-contest-bounces@contesting.com [mailto:cq-contest-
>> bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Jack Haverty
>> Sent: Thursday, November 24, 2011 6:22 AM
>> To: kr2q@optimum.net
>> Cc: cq-contest@contesting.com
>> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] encourgaing more entrants in CQWW (was CHECK
>> LOGS)
>>
>> Interesting data. I wonder what it would look like for the whole data set
>> including people who don't submit logs. I suspect it would be even more
>> skewed toward smaller hours.
>>
>> Actually, I think there's a way to "experiment" with time-based
>> competition without changing anything in the rules, creating new entry
>> categories, etc. It could be done by the organizers of virtually any
>> contest.
>> Essentially it creates multiple simultaneous competitions within a single
>> contest simply by inventing additional ways to compute scores.
>>
>> Suggestion to contest organizers:
>>
>> When results are published, in every place where there is a "Top N", or
>> "1st/2nd/3rd" or any other such table of high-score ranking results,
>> publish not only the full-period endurance/marathon leaders, but also the
>> short "sprint" leaders. E.G., if "10-hour" and "24-hour" contesters seem
>> like good "buckets" from historical log data, rank the entrants by the
>> scores they achieved at the end of the first 10 and 24 hours, and include
>> the Top N in the results. So, in a nominal 48-hour contest there might be
>> three "Top Ten" lists - perhaps one for 48 hours, one for 24, and one for
>> 8.
>>
>> Somewhat harder would be to analyze each log and extract the "Best 10
>> Hour"
>> (or whatever period) score - i.e., the highest score attained as if the
>> contest had occurred only in any 10 Hour period in the entrant's log.
>> That could take considerable analysis, but computers are good at that kind
>> of stuff.
>>
>> Actually, this kind of results analysis could even be done on contests
>> that have already happened, by taking the old logs and running them
>> through the time-based algorithm.
>>
>> Who were the Top Ten 10-Hour and 24-Hour entrants in the 2011 contests????
>> 2010? 2009.....?
>>
>> Of course, if such results were published, maybe more people would be
>> enticed to compete next time. No doubt it would mean a change in strategy
>> too if you strive to win the 10-Hour competition. Maybe people who have
>> given up on competing in the endurance test would be enticed to try a
>> "full effort" for a shorter time, and get into the fray.
>>
>> 73,
>> /Jack de K3FIV
>> Point Arena, CA
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 11:07 AM,<kr2q@optimum.net> wrote:
>>
>>> It is great to see interest in creating more entrants in the CQWW
>>> contests...
>>> THANKS for the input!
>>>
>>> Just as an FYI, here is some data for 2011 SSB (so far). These are
>>> e-logs, which means that paper logs are not yet included in the
>>> analysis below. I did this in Excel, so I hope the columns come out
>>> reasonably close to being legible reformatting to this "typewriter"
>>> format (OK, DOS or character-based format).
>>>
>>> duration Pct of all logs Count
>>> ? 0.9%
>> 63
>>> < 1 hr 6.1% 430
>>> 1 - 9.9 hours 47.5% 3357
>>> 10 - 23.9 hours 32.1% 2270
>>> 24 - 35.9 hours 7.5% 533
>>> 36 - 39.9 hours 2.0% 138
>>> 40 - 43.9 hours 1.5% 108
>>> 44+ hours 2.3% 164
>>>
>>> So out of these 7000+ logs, so far, 1663 will qualify for an award.
>>> Not "be eligible," but actually get an award. Pretty good odds and
>>> clearly far beyond the "boundaries" of "operate at least 24 hours!"
>>> In fact 1163 of the 1663 will go to entrants with less than 24 hours
>>> (yes, that includes all categories of entry).
>>>
>>> Hope you find this informative, if not interesting.
>>>
>>> de Doug KR2Q
>>> PS There is nothing "special" about these categories, I just made them
>> up.
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> CQ-Contest mailing list
>>> CQ-Contest@contesting.com
>>> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
>>>
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