[CQ-Contest] QSO Penalties

[Georgens, Tom]

As I see it, the question is whether the score reductions are intended to be a penalty or an estimated correction of the score to the true result (valid Q's times valid mults).  

Before the sophisticated cross checking we have today, the likelihood of uncovering a broken call was much lower.  Therefore, the issue was to estimate how many bad QSO's were going undiscovered for every one that was detected.  CQWW historians would know better, but I suspect that estimate was the basis of the original 3X reduction.  If I remember correctly, the reduction used to accelerate to 10X when an error threshold was achieved.  It seems like a 3X penalty to equalize to the true score and a 10X penalty to punish the truly sloppy seems quite logical to me.

Now that the cross checking is much better (and we contesters owe a debt to those who made this possible), is the 3X penalty still appropriate to equalize the score, or has it become a true penalty?

I would suggest that, based on my imperfect operating, the 3X penalty is still likely to yield a score higher than the product of truly valid QSO points and Valid mults.  Looking at my logs, I had 9332 claimed Q's.  The U+B number totaled 145 reducing the "common" q's to 9187.  Most of the experts believe that almost all of these are truly busted calls but the committee does not dock us unless the error can be verified.  Add to this, about 25 lost NILs.  This number is limited by the fact that not all ops send in logs, otherwise it would be worse.

This means that my 9332 claimed Q's is likely to be overstated from my truly valid Q's by the number of U+B (145) and lost NIL's (25 and understated) for a likely true QSO total of 9162.  The actual score was reduced to 9254 Q's plus one lost mult for a total reduction of 3.5%.

My conclusion, pending further analysis by the experts, would lead me to believe that we have no reason to complain about the 3X penalty, our true result is probably worse.

As much as I find the UBN's humbling, I think they have contributed extensively to the quality of contesting.

73, Tom W2SC 8P1A

-----Original Message-----
From: Kenneth E. Harker [mailto:kenharker at kenharker.com]
Sent: Sunday, May 15, 2005 3:33 PM
To: K3BU at aol.com
Cc: cq-contest at contesting.com
Subject: [CQ-Contest] QSO Penalties


On Sun, May 15, 2005 at 12:31:05PM -0400, K3BU at aol.com wrote:
> 
> Time to make all logs public and remove the 3 QSO "PENALTY" rule - it is 
> insane, illogical!
> Like if you get speeding ticket, you would get three more so "you learn the 
> lesson?"
> Gimme a break! Let's stop silliness (or insanity) in ham radio!

The 3 QSO penalty rule makes perfect sense to me.  Anything else encourages 
guessing whenever there is uncertainty.  Consider the following options:

0 QSO penalty: If in doubt, it is _always_ to your advantage to guess at a 
  callsign or exchange element.  If you get it wrong, you are no worse off 
  then if you had (correctly) not logged the contact.  On the other hand, 
  there is always the chance that you can get it correct and gain points
  you did not truly earn.

1 QSO penalty: This is the break even point.  If 50% of the time you guess
  correctly, and 50% of the time you guess wrong, you break even.  On average,
  every time you are penalized is offset by some QSO where you guessed 
  correctly.

2 QSO penalty: Here is where taking guesses at callsigns or exchange elements 
  will more likely than not harm your score.  You have to guess right 2/3
  of the time to break even.  To put it another way, when in doubt, you
  have to feel at least 66% certain that your guess is correct before it 
  make sense (in terms of your score) to commit to your guess.

3 QSO penalty: Now you have to guess right 3/4 of the time to break even.
  This is a pretty high threshold to overcome, and I think it does a great
  job of discouraging guessing and sloppy operating, at least among those 
  who care about their score.  This penalty encourages getting it right 
  every time, and not logging those "almost" QSOs.

At the very least, there needs to be a 2 QSO penalty, but a 3 QSO penalty is 
better.

-- 
Kenneth E. Harker WM5R
kenharker at kenharker.com
http://www.kenharker.com/

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