[CQ-Contest] Cheating as a moral issue

[Rick Kiessig]

My view is that cheating is primarily a moral issue, and that morality
cannot be "legislated." You can't force someone to be moral. Rules won't
make someone more moral. The moral must be chosen; you have to want to be
moral.

 

If a cheater "wins," their victory will be hollow, because, as with all
immoral actions, they will ultimately find it to be unsatisfying, and even
damaging, because they know what they've done, even if no one else does. In
addition, when others do find out about their cheating (as they often do),
that's likely to further diminish the value of the win.

 

Only an honest competitor will truly enjoy the win for the long term.

 

Rules should be enforced, but they should also be enforceable. Yes, some
cheats will slip through, maybe even some "winners." So what? People who
don't care about cheating will continue to do what they do regardless of how
many rules are applied. The rest of us should get on with our lives and not
let the few bad apples spoil this great sport.

 

To reinforce this point, I would like to suggest a move in the opposite
direction from Yuri's recent post: fewer rules all around, not more. Rules
should be enforceable, which means they should be based on what's reported
in logs and maybe some limited (reliable) secondary data. Trying to
legislate things like power levels, assisted vs. not, use of a local
Skimmer, and so on, is just a waste of time and effort.

 

Fewer rules would also make it easier for those of us who are honest to be
more confident that we haven't accidentally broken some rule (for example,
if I left my PC in the other room connected to a cluster, but didn't use it
during the contest, will I be considered by others to be assisted or not?).
If you do have an honest win, why spoil it with some nagging doubt about
whether you fully, absolutely complied with the rules?

 

73, Rick ZL2HAM