[CQ-Contest] QSO Party Spam

[Henry]

As a QSO party chair, I would like to see one announcement per
event. While I'd love to pile on heaps of announcements about our party, I
know its annoying. We do one announcement to CQ-contest, and then keep an
email list where we send notes to interested parties. If someone wants
off the list, they ask and its done.
While I think a lot of the FQP, I think its a bit overboard to bombard the
refelctors with daily messages. 
Shouldnt the moderator take this issue up? I dont see other QSO party
events listing daily/weekly countdowns- only FQP. 
I enjoy posts of all kinds, but the countdown thing is getting a bit old.
FWIW-
Henry, W2DZO
NC QSO Party chair

On Sat, 5 Apr 2003, 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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