[CQ-Contest] QSO Party Spam

[Tom Horton]

Dave,
Personally, I have no problem with the state party promos.
FQP would be nowhere as popular as it now is without all the
advertising.
  It has grown in a very few years to be probably the number
two state event.
  I like th ereminders also because i'm getting senile and tend to forget
things. With enough advanced warning I can remember to make plans in advance.
FWIW my  $.02

73, Tom K5IID



At 10:43 4/5/03 -0500, David A. Pruett wrote:
>I'm going to ask this question only once, then I will shut up on this subject.
>
>How do the participants in this reflector feel about receiving what 
>amounts to press releases about state QSO parties every few days?  Is this 
>something you don't mind, is it something you're interested in, or is it 
>something you find presumptuous and annoying, like the unwanted spam which 
>fills our e-mail in-boxes?
>
>I ask this question because I want to establish (if for no one other than 
>myself) what the users of this reflector (and moderator) think is appropriate.
>
>The annual "spamming" of CQ-Contest by the sponsors of the Florida QSO 
>Party has begun, almost a month before the event occurs.  Why they do this 
>is understandable - they are trying to promote their event; nothing wrong 
>with that.
>
>There are other state QSO parties which are on the schedule before 
>FQP.  GA is next weekend, MI the following weekend, THEN comes FQP.  I'm 
>sure the sponsors of these and other state QSO parties are just as 
>interested in publicity and promotion.  But at the same time let's be 
>honest - state QSO parties are the most important to the sponsors, and 
>those in the target state.
>
>I am the chairman of the Michigan QSO Party committee.  Our philosophy for 
>using CQ-Contest to promote our event has been to refrain until the week 
>of the contest.  Otherwise we confine MiQP announcements to a mailing list 
>which we maintain of previous entrants, our e-mail reflector 
>(MiQP-Mail at miqp.org) and some targeted mailings to known in-state contesters.
>
>Despite the tone of this note, this is not intended as a blast at the FQP 
>folks.  I count many of the FCGers who work behind the scenes as friends 
>who run a great event and I wish them luck.  However, I think they are 
>taking advantage of this reflector for purposes of publicity, but if no 
>one seems to mind that's OK.  If that's the case, then count on MiQP (and 
>I would suspect other QSO parties as well) to ratchet up the PR spam.  We 
>too have organizational activities for the contest going on like an 
>on-line map filling in with counties to be activated, in case you're 
>interested.
>
>Speaking now as a CQ-Contest subscriber, I would like to see a policy 
>where state QSO party announcements are limited to the week of the 
>event.  This should be plenty to time to establish awareness of the event 
>and get people on the air.  It will also eliminate PR overlap between 
>succeeding events and reduce confusion in the minds of the casual 
>participant that we're all trying to attract.
>
>Now I'll QRT on this subject.
>
>73,
>
>Dave/K8CC
>
>
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