[CQ-Contest] Improving contesting (was Extreme)

[Patrick Barkey]

> What makes a writeup good?

There's no automatic formula.  Good writeups communicate enthusiasm and a
sense of the fun of the contest.  In a major contest, tens of thousands of
people set life aside to get on their radios, and this is a really big
deal.  Writeups that make it sound like a chore are not good.  Wit and
charm, personal stories, and recognition of achievements and special events
are nice.  Authors who do this very well in my opinion are K3EST and N6TR.
And nobody tops N0AX.


> What makes a writeup bad?

This is easier to answer.

Writeups that proceed as if they were generated by a computer algorithm are
bad.  ("Next, in the multi-operator, medium power, semi-assisted category,
the first place winner was  .... .  The second place winner was ... ).  Even
worse are writeups that completely miss things that are really big deals --
like folks winning contests from the hinterlands who have no business doing
so.  I think that the worst thing you can do in a contest writeup is pull up
the writeup from last year and tinker with it to fit the new results.

The text of the article is only part of the write-up, don't forget.  The
charts and tables, participant comments, etc. are part of the telling of the
story as well.  Bad writeups can just throw a bunch of statistics and data
at you (or worse yet, link you to a page and make you do it yourself) with
no apparent purpose or story.  If your chart doesn't make a coherent point,
leave it on the cutting room floor.  Folks who writeup contests have access
to information that individual participants don't -- but it takes work on
the authors point to sniff out and present what is interesting.

  - Pat
    N9RV