[CQ-Contest] penalty: long reply

[K3BU at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/6/2000 3:17:12 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
DougKR2Q at aol.com writes:

> 1. The "penalty" has been around for approximately 20 years.  Before the 
> Internet and the CQWWCC making UBN's public, not many knew about it.  That 
is 
> far different than saying that the penalty did not exist.  How many Records 
> currently exist that were made prior to 1980?  Are they records still 
because 
> the log was bogus, or because nobody has challenged them that many years?
>  2. The penalty, when originally initiated, applied to dupes AS WELL AS to 
> busted calls AND "N" calls.  "N" calls were found by manually 
cross-checking 
> logs.  It was no fun at all.  The Penalty has always been applied the same 
> way.


Looking at the claimed vs. final scores esp. for the top scoring stations, 
where you would expect more thorough checking few years back does not support 
the above claim. (I have been member of CQWWCC and know how logs were 
checked.) Lets play it fair. The rules should state how the logs are scored, 
rather than having rules that "not many knew about it."

We are not whining, we are just pointing out potential discrepancy and 
detrimental practice that is not helping. If the "errors" were close to 100% 
then maybe it's OK, but error finding system is not perfect, so why not 
compromise? Or can we get 4x credit on the top of removed points for each 
"error" that we find is not an error?  

Speaking statistically: If I make an error in W7WHY call by writing W7WSY 
that is an error in one letter and not all five letters, which seem to be 
indicated by crossing that whole call out (and applying penalty of 3 more 
callsigns). By him having my call in his log correctly, he verifies that we 
had QSO (no cheating here) - purpose of the contest. Isn't then taking the 
other remaining 4 letters out already a penalty? Error rate should be 
calculated by taking number of all the letters in all the callsigns against 
the miscopied letters. Isn't it how we calculate errors at the code exams?

Wanna know how contesters outside of CC feel about the procedure? Ask the 
question and compile the answers esp. from those who are long time 
participants.
We have E-ham.net perfect for that purpose. Just make the announcement here 
that poll is being taken and lets see.

I love WW and I think we should strive to make it better and less "punishing."
Thanks to all those who support this, looks like I am not a lone (contest) 
nut :-)

73  Yuri, K3BU,  VE3BMV


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