On Sep 25, 10:52*pm, Sam Giltner wrote:
www.5ugly.blogspot.com

This is an interesting way to get feedback, and a useful one.
It does need, however, carefully worded questions with fair background
info. The RC spends a great deal of
time trying to write fair and balanced questions and still sometimes
misses the right way to ask the questions. Background is also critical
to meaningful responses.
Example:
The Tuesday topic started with(parphasing here) the statement that
"Fact-competition participation is at and all time low" leading to the
"obvious" conclusion that we need "change"- there's that word again.
Data I gathered from 1 lunch time review(data from contest reports and
seeding lists) to study how accurate that assertion is showed the
following:
Year 2000
23 sanctioned contests- 621 entries- 501 pilots on the ranking list
Year 2004
23 sanctioned contests-696 entries- 636 pilots on the ranking list
Year 2007
20 sanctioned contests- 609 entries- 594 pilots on the ranking list
Year 2008
21 sanctioned contests- 620 entries(includes 40 for upcoming R4N)-
ranking list pending.

My conclusion is that the assertion supporting Ths Blog question was
grossly in error which leads to the question of what meaningful result
can come from the response.
Please look at UH response to a previous message related to what we
can do to retain and increase participation.

With respect to the pilot handicapping idea- maybe some kind of pilot
handicap is appropriate for informal competitions, but I
personally(all these points are my views only) don't think you pick
meaningful champions this way. They don't handicap Tiger at the
Masters.
East coast/West coast "nationals"- Those are really regional
competitions that should(in my view) not hold the rank and prestige of
nationals. I pointed out a few other concerns in a previous post. I
will be adding this topic to the agenda for the November RC meeting.
Let's hear from some other folks.
UH