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Re: [CQ-Contest] Spot Abuse - An Intermediate Suggestion

To: "CQ-Contest Reflector" <cq-contest@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Spot Abuse - An Intermediate Suggestion
From: "Ward Silver" <hwardsil@gmail.com>
Reply-to: Ward Silver <hwardsil@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 20:16:16 -0800
List-post: <mailto:cq-contest@contesting.com>
>  Waiting for sponsors seems to be like the dragging-of-feet by the Major 
> Baseball League officials with the 'performance enhancing substances' 
> issue.

I want to be sure to point out that I think the sponsors of the major 
contests do, with few exceptions, a very fine job of administering and 
adjudicating those contest programs.  They do so with a paucity of resources 
and with the lightly- or non-compensated labor of many volunteers and 
"friends of contesting."  There have been some comments made that this is 
somehow all the sponsors fault that cheaters aren't caught and keelhauled.

Well, it's not that easy.

They already do an amazingly good job.  CQ WW is the gold standard for 
accuracy enforcement as far as I'm concerned and it's a 100% volunteer 
organization.  The brain power that gets applied to going through our logs 
would be worth millions on the open market.  None of the sponsors is 
slacking nor is there a big bucket full of spare resources laying around to 
apply to these issues.  To suggest otherwise is to vastly underestimate the 
challenge of detecting WITH HIGH CONFIDENCE the kind of behavior that 
spawned this thread.  It sounds easy - until you try it.  And then multiply 
it by thousands of logs and circumstances.

So, if there is are some things that can be done within our community's 
rather limited resources, fine...but this isn't the Federal Gummit.  We can 
only go so far.  So my suggestion is to not be looking to the sponsors or 
the spotting network operators for solutions when the Finger of Opportunity 
is really pointing at us, the contesters.  (No, not *that* finger - the 
other one.  Right.)

73, Ward N0AX 

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