[CQ-Contest] Is CQ WW Dead - No, It Just Smells Funny

[Georgens, Tom]

The example I forgot to include is when high profile boxers agree to
fight outside of their weight classes. The fight no longer carries the
imprimatur of the sanctioning committees but generates even more
interest since it allows for matchups that would not otherwise occur.

tg
-----Original Message-----
From: Ward Silver [mailto:hwardsil at gmail.com] 
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2008 2:59 PM
To: CQ-Contest Reflector
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Is CQ WW Dead - No, It Just Smells Funny

> In the long run, categories
> will emerge that represent how people will like to compete and
operate...

Well, those certainly include all of the traditional categories.

> What I am suggesting, is that the landmark decision of opening up the 
> logs changes everything.  We are no longer bound by the contest 
> committee categories.  We can make up our own categories and find like

> minded contesters to compete with.

I have promoted CWAC (Contests Within A Contest) for some time.
Publication of full logs and the score database fully enables any sort
of CWAC.  My feeling is that this will increase participation because
more participants will be competing in more ways.  This should also
increase interest in the traditional categories as more participants
become more skilled and look to compete with the Big Dogs that will
still regard SOAB-HP to be the Big Leagues of Contesting.

> The sport is not about records and
> rules, it is about the competition itself.

Nominally, but the quest to be the top call on the list is a mighty
incentive.

> [CQ WW's] forward thinking on log
> releases, combined with its log checking, can breathe even more life 
> into contesting, perhaps not as we know it today.

Agreed.  The work of the committee members to maintain the contest
infrastructure - definition of rules, collection of logs, log checking,
rule enforcement, results publication - validates the published data and
enables the CWAC to be meaningful.

Example - major-league baseball.  The game is played with the same set
of consistent metrics recognized by MLB (Major League Baseball, Inc):
wins & losses, batting average, ERA, and a few more.  Because the games
are carefully and thoroughly administered, a validated environment is
created for the blizzard of performance metrics that baseball fans love.
Also spawning Fantasy Baseball.  Few are clamoring for MLB to create new
categories - they simply use the validated statistics generated from
on-field performance.  Without MLB providing consistency and rule
enforcement, the statistics would have little meaning.

So anyway - while there may soon be funny-smelling new ways of
contesting and new ways to compete, they are all predicated on some
organization (such as CQ WW or ARRL) giving them structure and a sense
of fair play between the competitors.

73, Ward N0AX 

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