On Wednesday, October 12, 2016 at 2:29:40 PM UTC-4, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Saturday, October 8, 2016 at 7:16:44 PM UTC+2, Tango Eight wrote:

I'm not opposed to this. But there someone has to publish a lot of background info so that well informed choices can be made. Sean, bless his heart, isn't dong a very good job of that right now (because with him what isn't personal is some dark conspiracy), so maybe *you* can give it a try.


That is an important point. If we are going to ask people to voice an opinion on something with all kinds complexities and non-obvious implications, we will need to adequately specify the question(s) or the answers will be the proverbial "garbage in - garbage out". That's not a trivial task. The RC agonizes over how to ask questions for issues that are on people's minds in a way that avoids uninformed feedback as much as possible. Sometimes we succeed at it.

Having just gone through the task of figuring out how to poll on a far, far simpler set of questions on US rules complexity this year and having tried, personally, to start a side-by-side "FAI to US" rules comparison about a year ago I have come to the conclusion that just asking a hypothetical question (at minimum for anyone who hasn't flown both FAI and US rules) "Adopt FAI rules in the US - Y/N?" in a poll would do more harm than good. It would be used as a bludgeon by the proponents of the response with more votes and attacked as a "clearly biased" or "inadequate" question by proponents of the response with fewer votes, so hip-shooting a poll question is, IMHO, a terrible idea. It'll take some further work to figure out what question(s) might be useful and constructive - starting with a clear description of the "proposal" and at least some factual analysis of the most important differences and their implications - like this year's "rules complexity" questions, with considerably more explanation of issues and implications. Then we might get a somewhat more informed read.

Or we can just have a food fight about it.

I fully expect this topic to come up at the November RC meeting.

9B

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(...the following has been pecked out quickly on my cell, as usual. My apology for any spelling errors...)

Wow. I see the RAS crazies are out again, foaming at the mouth, as usual. Amusing as always, but a distraction from the very simple questions that I asked and nobody is answering. Especially the US RC and the alumni.

Again...

QUESTION 1a)
WHAT MEASURED VALUE JUSTIFIES THE CONTINUED MAINTAINCE OF OUR (UNIQUE, ISOLATIONIST) US SOARING COMPETITION RULES?

There should be tons, because the US rules are "so great" and the FAI rules are "evil," right?

List them here for me ...

QUESTION 1b)
WHAT MEASURED VALUE DOES OUR RUNNING US CONTESTS UNDER THE US SOARING COMPETITION RULES PROVIDE THE USA AS A SOARING COUNTRY?

Relevant measures of value might be:
- Increased growth to the sport of competition soaring measured in the USA as compared to other countries who dare to use those "evil" FAI rules?
- High pilot satisfaction measured with US contests and stable, growing or planned higher participation in the future.
- More US contest participation measured vs. those other countries who use those "evil" FAI rules.
- contests that are considerably more enjoyable and easier to run when measured against FAI.
- More satisfying and comprehensive tasks measured by pilots who have flown both FAI and US rules.
- Easier to use scoring software vs FAI....?
- More stable rules? Not having to endure constant changes and constant arguments each year about (for example) ridiculous anti-technology policy.
- Having people who can easily score US rules with a brief tutorial? If we cannot do this, it's a broken sport and needs to be fixed in a hurry.
- Increased contest pilot skills when measured against pilots who fly FAI contest rules?
- Improved International competition (WGC) results? If, per the line of crap fed to us by"....," US rules and tasking philosophy (cough, cough) is so great, and we fly more, higher quality, weather guessing tasks, etc, in the USA as a result, shouldn't are US pilots be killing it at the WGC vs. FAI pilots who are limited to only TAT and AT? pause........ Exactly.
- More excitement and passion about flying contests and competing in contests? Especially from youth.
- Lots of Jr. pilots flocking into the sport, our contests, and our clubs wanting to compete in contests with our cool, superior rules?

QUESTION 2) WHAT IS THE MEASURED COST TO THE US SOARING COMMUNITY FOR CHOOSING TO MAINTAIN OUR OWN (UNIQUE, ISOLATIONIST) US SOARING COMPETITION RULES AND NOT BE PART OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION COMMUNITY?

Relevant costs:
- The cost of having to focus the time and energy of 4 RC committee members, an SSA representative to focus on this topic each year vs. perhaps other SSA volunteer functions of greater value.
- The cost maintaining Winscore
- The cost of the constant arguments over our own rules which have proven to be highly unstable and change continuously.
- US pilots having to settle for our own isolated US pilot ranking list which nobody else on earth could really give two craps about. Vs. the FAI ranking list which includes pilots from all countries (community, rivalry, belonging...) although US contests are rarely added to the list so the rankings are not relevant. http://igcrankings.fai.org
- I could go on and on and on....
- Etc, etc.

QUESTION 3) WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE IN MEASURED COST/VALUE BETWEEN CONTINUING TO MAINTAIN THE (UNIQUE/ISOLATIONIST) US RULES ANNUALLY AND SIMPLY USING THE FAI RULES WHICH ARE FULLY SUPPORTED, READY TO GO AND HAPPILY, SAFELY AND SUCCESSFULLY USED BY LITERALLY ALL (-- YES, ALL!) OTHER SOARING NATIONS?

The USA could change to FAI in 30 seconds flat. This is not delicate. This is a religion for you folks. I could run an FAI contest easily, right now, starting tomorrow in Ionia and so could anyone else. Give me a break! This is not complicated. It's a matter of religion vs. economy of scale and being part of the international community.