[CQ-Contest] CQ WW Scoring System needs revision?

[Rick Kiessig]

For those who may not have looked at the geographical disparities in CQWW,
you may want to check out the maps at the links below:

World:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/48950365/cqww-cw-world-2012.PNG

Europe:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/48950365/cqww-cw-eu-2012.PNG 

US:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/48950365/cqww-cw-us-2012.PNG 

I generated these by geolocating all of the calls that submitted logs in
CQWW CW 2012 (this year's aren't available yet). The dot sizes are
proportional to the number of calls that resolved to the same latitude /
longitude. I did the same thing for CQWW SSB, with similar results.

If you live in the Eastern US, or in the middle of EU, or right next to a
zone or continent boundary, then obviously you have a vested interest in
keeping the existing scoring system.

If the contest goals include attracting more DX to the competition and
making scores more comparable globally, then I think it's obvious that
scoring needs to be different.

However, from much of the discussion I've seen so far, it seems like the
opposite is true; perhaps the real goal is discouraging DX from the
competition (as in having any real chance of winning), to have it be mainly
a US/EU thing. That's certainly the vibe I'm getting.

73, Rick ZL2HAM / ZM1G