[CQ-Contest] Contest Scoreboards ???

[Pete Smith]

Ken, the issue of whether a scoreboard would inadvertently help your competition was intensively discussed last fall on the real-time scoring reflector that WA7BNM maintains, and one of the first decisions was to give each operator control over what information is posted and when.  For example, if your competition's seeing your current band would help him catch openings he might miss otherwise, you don't have to disclose that; same goes for band-by-band totals, mult counts, or anything else.  As for the "real-time" aspect, the working assumption is that scores will be posted at intervals selectable by the operator, so a lag could be built in.

The whole idea of developing a data standard is not only to make life easier for the logging software writers.  It will also let contest organizers decide whether or not to implement a scoreboard for their event, and then be able to implement one easily, because the data provided by the logging programs follows a single standard format.  

To my mind, at least, the most important goal is to interest non-contesters in the sport by conveying the competitive excitement, as well as showing them how quickly participating in a contest can move them toward their personal goals, whether WAS, DXCC or whatever.  I agree that competitors might not be the principal audience for a scoreboard, in some contests at least; on the other hand, wouldn't it be fun to see a comparison of the rovers in a major state QSO party, as they were pounding the pavement from one county to another?   

73, Pete N4ZR
  

At 07:21 PM 7/11/2006, Ken Widelitz wrote:
>Yuri, K3BU makes a number of good points.
>
>Apart from an unusual event such as WRTC where the operators behind the
>calls are unknown (and the operators can't see the scoreboard anyway) why
>would a serious competitor want to post his score and/or see what the
>competition is doing - for all the good reasons Yuri points out.
>
>Just because something can be done, doesn't make it something you
>necessarily want to do. Some feel that way about spotting networks. However,
>spotting is a 3rd party act that a competitor has no control over. Posting
>your own score in realtime IS something a competitor has control over.
>
>73, Ken, K6LA / VY2TT
>
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