[CQ-Contest] KILLING THE GOLDEN GOOSE

[W0ua at aol.com]

The "anecdotal argument" to which ES5TV refers started its "life" for me  
when I saw a post here from the contest director to the effect that 33 
percent  of the entries in 2012 were in the Assisted category.  From that I 
inferred  that 66 percent, then, were in the nominal Single Operator ranks.  Is 
there  some other single-op category of which I'm not aware?  
 
I'm not a mathemetician here (though I play one on TV!), but if I  accept 
the "corrected" ES5TV numbers, then I come up with 4233 total single-op  
entries, with 2421 as nominal single-ops and 1812 as assisted entries.
So, we would then have 57 percent of the single-op entries as nominal  
single ops.  I'm quite comfortable supporting everything stated in my  original 
post at 57 percent SOAB.  That's still a plenty healthy majority,  and as I 
said, a healthy limb, not to be amputated.  Speculation about  
default-categories is, at this point, merely speculation, nothing more.  In  any case, I 
don't feel that the elimination of a still-healthy, mainstream  category 
(SOAB) would be justified--even if that 66/33 version were  reversed.  
 
Please keep in mind that I'm not talking about taking anything that already 
 exists away from anyone. In fact, what I'm saying is, let's NOT do  that! 
And I've yet to see a response here that makes a cogent case FOR the  
removal of the SOAB category...
 
Thanks,
 
GS