[CQ-Contest] Lightning strikes N5OT

[Mark Beckwith]

Gentlemen (and ladies?),

Excellent comments.  I painted with too broad a brush and as a result need 
to engage in a little backpedaling, my bad.

Some of you have invested your contesting lifetimes in earning a widespread 
reputation of unquestionable integrity.  You should relax, this conversation 
is not really about you.

Some of you are not contenders.  You should probably relax too.

G4MKP remarked:

> Blimey, some of you US guys really
> do want to control everything

My dear chap: Don't get your knickers in a wad.  It's not about control.

K6LA asked:

> How long do I have before you
> raise your eyebrows at my
> integrity for a belated post
> to 3830?

I would not judge a competitor without first making an effort to learn as 
much as I could about that particular competitor's situation.  If a 
competitor was conspicuously absent from 3830, the question mark floating 
over my head would be tempered by whatever relationship experience I have 
with that competitor.  If I had none, I would not jump to conclusions 
without making an attempt to get some.

Take Ken, for instance.  I go back a long way with Ken.  If he didn't post 
to 3830 in a timely fashion, (which I believe he always does, BTW), I might 
just ask him "why?," and he might say "my mother died" or "I was arrested 
trying to get all my gear back into the country, and only just got out of 
jail."

Then I would feel bad for even asking.

But then, if he said "really, I just haven't gotten around to it," I might 
engage in a well-deserved and good-natured razzing.

> What kind of royal razzing would follow?

Well Ken, since you asked, I might say "get off your ass, you lazy deadbeat" 
and then buy you another beer.  Both would be deserved.

Or take my friend Jim, N6TJ (who gave me a great ration about my post 
privately).  Let's say we had competed against each other recently, but he 
hadn't shared his score and everyone one else had.  Now Jim is one of my 
best pals in contesting, but if he didn't have a good excuse for not posting 
his score, That would definitely call for a good-natured razzing.  And 
definitely also another beer.

And yes, I would even buy the notorious W3WN a beer and maybe we could get 
to know each other better.  Perhaps the problem is, I left the words 
"good-natured" out of my first post.  Oops.  Sorry.  My bad again.

Then Ken asked a very important question (N4VI, KK6MC, K5GU take note):

> And why?

Two already-exhaustively-debated reasons:

1. Post-Contest Log Massaging
2. Category Shopping

Both are bad, wrong, unsportsmanlike.  Unfortunately, neither are 
technically against the rules, and both are not uncommon practices.  The 
only way we as contesters have to defend ourselves against these slovenly 
practices is to resort to something called "peer pressure" (does that answer 
your question, Jim?).  The possibility that someone may have done one or 
both of these unsavory things is proportional to the amount of time between 
the end of the contest and stating on the public record how they did in what 
category (i.e. 3830, as K9GY correctly identified as the de facto current 
standard claimed scores listing).

Now I AM NOT SAYING that if you don't go on record with your score that 
you're automatically a jerk.  Basically if you go on record early, you are 
banking some credibility because it will be a lot harder for you to massage 
your log and go unnoticed, or switch categories just to come in first place 
in a category you technically didn't operate, but also technically qualify 
to enter...

...which to me are good reasons to post to 3830 as soon as you reasonably 
can.

Mark, N5OT