[CQ-Contest] QSO Party Spam

[Ron Notarius WN3VAW]

State & Regional QSO Parties are contests.   I have no problem with a
reasonable amount of announcements from the contest sponsors.

What is reasonable?

Off hand, I'd say one short announcement/reminder at each of the following
intervals prior to the contest:

2 months
1 month
2 weeks
1 week
3 Days
Day Before

Key word there being "short."  Remind us of the event, days it's taken
place, hours, a VERY BRIEF description of notable rules (changes or odd
point assignments) and/or special awards available, a VERY BRIEF addtional
comment/announcement (ie "All 67 Counties in the Pa QSO Party will be active
this year!"), a link to the web page (if any) for full rules & downloadable
forms etc., and an email address (if any) for the sponsors and/or electronic
logs.

I think that if a "standard" format on this or similar lines is adopted by
the reflector sponsors & all are encouraged to abide by it, we cut down on
the ultra lengthy announcements that sometimes seem to be posted almost
daily ad infinitum ad nauseum.

But that's just my opinion... what do I know?

(Should I mention it's 6 months & a week until the Pa QSO Party?  Nah.)
73, ron wn3vaw

"There must be some mistake.  The Pirates in first? QRM on my end,
probably."
--John W3ULS (and there's no QRM, either)

----- Original Message ----- Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2003 10:43:53 -0500
From: "David A. Pruett" <k8cc at comcast.net>
To: cq-contest at contesting.com
Subject: [CQ-Contest] QSO Party Spam

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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