[CQ-Contest] Proposed contest rules

[Randy Thompson K5ZD]

The discussions on this reflector have clearly demonstrated the challenge
for contest administrators and rule development.

There are really 2 (maybe 3) classes of participants in a contest.  There
are the guys who spend the time and money to travel/build/operate with the
intent of being competitive at the world, continent or national level.
Let's call them the "competitor" class.  Then there are the rest of the
participants who just want to work stations and have fun.  They like seeing
their score in the results and enjoy beating their locals or friends.  Let's
call them the "participant" class.  (The third group might be people who get
on but don't submit logs.)


There is a desire among the competitor class that they are competing on a
level playing field.  They are willing to put up with shorter deadlines,
complex rules, and even recordings if it helps the log checkers do their job
better.

The participant class sees all of this extra verbage in the rules (and on
contest reflector discussion) and is put off by it.  Perhaps to the point of
skipping the event.  This is not good for anyone.

Some of the proposed rule changes were directed at the most serious
competitors.  As we saw here in the reflector, people would not read or
understand the details of the rule and assume that everyone had to log exact
frequencies, or record the contest, etc.  That was never the intent.

Should we create a special section of the rules that is focused only on the
top 3 or top 5 scores at the World and Continent levels for the major
categories?  Those who wanted to be considered competitors would follow the
special rules.  Those who just wanted to participate and have fun could
ignore them.

Thanks to computers all submitted logs are checked in a consistent way.  The
only purpose of the competitor class rules would be to provide tools that
direct behavior and enable better enforcement.

Watch any major running marathon race and you will see a small group of
'professional' racers who go out first and are watched closely (including
drug testing).  Then there are the tens of thousands of participants who
just want to enjoy the satisfaction of completing the race.  They run for
their own personal reasons.  

Is it time to create this concept for radio contesting?  If we do it right,
the decision competitor/participant will be completely a decision of the
entrant when they operate and submit their entry.  This would not change the
game over the air for anyone.

Randy, K5ZD


PS - In the days of pencil and paper, the log checking was not nearly as
comprehensive.  I think it is safe to say there are many logs over the years
with log padding, false multipliers, and unmarked dupes that contributed to
the final score. We also didn't have all of the convergence of Internet and
radio that has contributed so much to activity and fun levels...


> -----Original Message-----
> From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of
> W0MU
> Sent: Sunday, May 24, 2015 4:42 PM
> To: cq-contest at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Proposed contest rules
> 
> In the day of the pencil I think many of us had to go over the logs to
> make them legible!  I doubt the logs were poured over as much as they are
> now but would doing this be a rule violation today?
> 
> When so many people have issues with the way the rules are written, we do
> have a problem.
> 
> How are we to judge the writing of a rule when we don't have a clue what
> they are trying to stop.
> 
> The process is broken, so we get rules that people clearly do not
> understand.
> 
> K5ZD hit the nail on the head with the dual decoders.  It probably exists
> today and will only get better and better down the road. Decoding
> software seems to be taking giant leaps and bounds.
> 
> On 5/23/2015 9:42 PM, KQ2O via CQ-Contest wrote:
> > Personally I have never understood why the rules (or before rules, the
> opinions) treat post contest (let alone during contest) editing of logs
> before submission as a no-no. not talking about padding of course, but
> correcting typos. I always thought the contest was about how many folks
> you could work as well as multipliers and related strategy - NOT about
> your typing skills. Seems to me if you notice an error in your log after
> the contest (or during), you should fix it so it conforms to what you
> actually did during the contest, who you REALLY worked or the REAL
> exchange, not leave the wrong info in the log.
> >
> > besides affecting your score, plus penalties, failure to fix a simple
> logging error also penalizes the guy on the other side of the qso who did
> nothing wrong! he/she gets a NIL + penalty.
> >
> > as for recording the contest, seems to me we are going way overboard on
> "security". this is a fun hobby not a life and death operation. can't
> help but think this comes from the TO7A debacle. I think imposing another
> requirement on very many contesters when only a very few are cheaters is
> foolish, especially since the cheaters always find workarounds - e.g.
> excess power, remote receivers, etc., none of which are detectable,
> ordinarily, to continue on their ways. probably will figure out how to
> workaround the recording as well. would make much more sense to impose
> stronger "punishment" when someone is caught cheating - e.g. TO7A type
> cheater should be banned for life from all contests run by same sponsor
> (and maybe other sponsors would ;piggyback), and have any prior
> submissions retroactively DQed, and records expunged. lesser offenses
> would have appropriate penalties.
> >
> > as an aside, seems like the log reviewers are very expert at what they
> are doing even without recordings, and have developed fine technology to
> detect rule breaking. they are to be commended.
> >
> > Hank  KF2O
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