[CQ-Contest] What is the contest community willing to accept from "cheaters" and contest sponsors?

kr2q at optimum.net kr2q at optimum.net
Wed Jan 30 08:35:41 EST 2013


The assisted/unassisted thread has taken an interesting twist.

The following is purely DEVIL'S ADVOCATE on my part.  Yeah, I'm on the contest committee for
CQWW, but please ignore that (if you can).  For me, the following are LOGICAL questions 
which stem from the discussion on CQ-Contest.  These should not be construed as
"constructing a highway" to eliminating separate categories.

In CQWW, there are 3 power categories: QRP, LP, and HP.  Verifying power is very difficult.

Does the contest community accept that some QRP guys run LP or HP and are you OK with that?
Does the contest community accept that some LP guys run HP are you OK with that?
Does the contest community accept that some HP guys run SHP in excess of 10KW and are you
OK with that?

When I ask, "Are you OK with that?" what I am asking is not that they "cheat," but that they end 
up in the results in the category they declared (for the most part)?  Do you accept that some
scores are listed in the "wrong" power category because the committee can't do much about it?
How does this effect your view of the published scores?  Do you care?

I ask the same for single/multi-op.
Does the contest community accept that some single-op entries (even "top of the box") are
actually multi-op entries?  How does this impact your view of the published scores?  Do you
"not care," or do you say, " Oh, I know that wasn't really a single op, so I'll start looking at 
the results with the 2nd place score."  Etc.

And again, what about for "Assisted" - does the community accept that there are likely entrants
in the unassisted categories that are actually using some form of assistance at least some of the
time?  How does that impact your view of the published scores?

How does any of this impact your view of contesting?

With respect to Assisted, how important is it to you that the various contest committees
are able to (or not able to) weed out those who claim to be unassisted but actually are 
assisted?

Do you feel that there is an implied expectation that all entries which are published in the 
unassisted categories are indeed unassisted? 

What are the ethical obligations of the contest committee to their entrants in terms of 
assuring "clean" categories?  100.00% clean?  75% clean?  50% clean?  or "Who cares,
it's only a hobby?"

If you were told that "Only 50% of those using assistance are found by the contest 
committee," would that change your opinion of having separate assisted/unassisted categories?

What if you were told that "0% (yes, zero) of those in the top ten SOABHP can be guaranteed
as NOT using any assistance, ever?"  Would you still want assisted and unassisted to be listed 
as separate categories?

End of devil's advocate.

I would LOVE to see actual answers to the above questions, especially: 
If you were told that "Only 50% of those using assistance are found by the contest 
committee," would that change your opinion of having separate assisted/unassisted categories?
I say, "especially," because that is the current topic of discussion on CQ-Contest.

de Doug KR2Q


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