[CQ-Contest] Better to submit a half log or no log??

[Don Moman VE6JY]

A situation where a friend lost about half of his contest log posed this
question. He ultimately receiver the rest, so this is purely academic
now.  He was not concerned about his score but concerned rather with
doing the right thing and not having anyone penalized for his mistake.
I suggested that one should always submit the log, no matter how small
etc etc, to give the cross checking something to go on.   BUT after
thinking about the scenario, my advice may not have been right- what
would happen in this case?  

Since his log is not complete half the stations he worked would not be
found in his log and since the robot knows there was a log submitted,
and some stations were verified, that the rest would then get a NIL for
that?  After all, there is a log (or even as a check log) and they
aren't in it.....   On the other hand, if he submitted no log, then it
would just be a unique for all his contacts and no one would suffer any
penalties.  

Obviously a comment in the soapbox area could indicate half the log was
missing but I can't imagine that would ever influence the robot. 

Again, this particular situation is now resolved but I am sure this has
happened in the past and will happen again.  I am curious as to how this
is handled if indeed one does submit a partial log. Is this a source of
some undeserved NIL contacts over which we can't control?

73 Don
VE6JY