Thank you for the references John. After an evening of reading, I see the only real criteria for good task calling is that they are safe and fair.

Safety seems to be fairly easy to understand; things like reducing the risk for collision at the start, on course (around turnpoints and such), or at the finish of a task. In addition, providing adequate safe land-out opportunities, should the need arise, along the course line for the task. I would think everyone involved in a competition would be in agreement with having a safe task.

So I've concluded, maybe incorrectly, that the issue raising most of the "stink" is all about what is a "fair" task. With the variety of sailplanes available (handicaps), variability of weather, pilot skill level, terrain, and etcetera, I can understand why there might be some difficulty with this aspect of tasking.

I still think there may be a way to provide some sort of automated decision support for task calling...now to try and quantify those contributing factors!

Anyone out there willing to share their opinion from an experience as to why they feel a particular task at a particular contest was safe AND fair?