At 13:55 12 December 2015, Bruce Hoult wrote:
On Saturday, December 12, 2015 at 3:51:28 PM UTC+3,
wr=
ote:
This is one of the absurdities of the IGC scoring rules: Sometimes you
ca=
n gain a lot of points by waiting in front of the finish line. Day 11 in
th=
e standard class was such a day, and has cost the Polish team a medal.
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If the 3 in front (2 Poles, 1 Brit) had colluded, en waited 21!!!
minutes=
to cross the finish line, and finished all 3 with a speed of 122.82kph
(in=
stead of the real 138.14kph), this would have resulted in the following:
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- T0 would have become larger than 3 hours, leading to a 1000pt day
inst=
ead of a 932point day.
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- n2 (returners with speed larger than 66,7% of best speed) would have
in=
creased from 3 to 12. Thus the speed points would have increased from 72
to=
308 points.
=20
- The result is, that the first 3 would have scored all 1000 points,
and
=
number 4 would have had 711 points. This is a 289point lead, instead of
the=
real achieved 72point lead.
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- For all others behind 4th place, the results would even have been
worse=
..
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- In the total final ranking of the JWGC15, Siodloczek would have
become
=
2nd (instead of 4th in reality), Flis would have become 4th (instead of
6th=
), and Matt Davis, would have become 7th (instead of 10th).
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I understand the reasoning behind the rules: a "lucky" outlier (such as
i=
n this case) should not have an unreasonable impact on the final
competitio=
n results.
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However, the implementation is totally wrong: it should never be
possible=
to gain points (or better: increase your pointspread against the rest),
by=
flying slower.=20
=20
I have seen this happen a couple of times in the past, but never with
suc=
h a substantial impact as in this case.
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On Friday, 11 December 2015 15:59:53 UTC+1, Steve Leonard wrote:
On Friday, December 11, 2015 at 8:41:10 AM UTC-6, Dan Daly wrote:
=20
That's the way the international rules are (if enough people make
min=
imum distance to have a day). One reason to fly real IGC rules for Club
Cl=
ass - there are no rule-based surprises.
=20
Yet, in the Standard Class, with more completions, the day is
devalued.=
Also interesting that to be 50 KPH slower than the guy ahead of you
only
=
cost you 70 points on this day with 50% landouts. I would only consider
th=
at to be a "no rule-based surprise" if you fully understand that the
rules
=
are not even close to anything linear to comparing your daily performance
t=
o the best performance that day.
=20
But, this is digressing into which set of scoring formulas you
prefer.
=20
Go Boyd! Go JP! Go Daniel! Fly safe, and fly fast!
=20
Steve Leonard

It's easy enough to ensure this, by using continuous (or at least
piecewise=
continuous) functions in the rules, rather than step functions.

But then you have to have someone mathematically competent on the rules
com=
mittee.

There are certainly a few such here (e.g. JC), but maybe not in IGC.

The chairman of the annex A (Competition Rules) sub-committee of IGC is
Rick Sheppe. If you are sugesting that he is not mathematically competent
consider his CV.:

1. Gliding · Active glider pilot since 1967. Flight instructor since 1981.
Tug pilot since 1988. · Diamond Badge Nr. 6517 2. Technical · Instrument
designer: consultant to Cambridge Aero Instruments, Nielsen-Kellerman
Corporation and ClearNav Systems. Software developer for several glide
computers, variometers, and Flight Recorders. Responsible for FR security
standards and algorithms. · Functional designer of the first IGC-approved
Flight Recorder · Originator of the IGC file format. · Early consultant
to Flight Recorder Approval Committee 1996-1997. Responsible for some FR
security standards. Originator of the idea to remove Flight Recorder
specifications from the Sporting Code. · Attended numerous WGC, Pre-WGC,
and EGC competitions as technical expert for instrumentation. ·
Barograph/Flight Recorder calibration station, instrument repairman ·
Member of the organization (“GNSS Expert”) at World Air Games in 1997.
Advisor to the International Jury. 3. Administrative · Acting Team Captain
at WGC 2003 (Poland), Team Captain at WGC 2012 (Argentina) · Member of
OSTIV Working Group for Light and Ultralight Sailplanes · Former Soaring
Society of America Director. · IGC positions: - IGC Alternate Delegate
from USA - Annex A Committee member - Safety Pays Working Group member -
Scoring Software Testing Working group member (Chairman as of May 1, 2012)
- Communications and PR Committee member

Does that strike you as someone who is not mathematically competent?