View Single Post
  #5  
Old August 12th 17, 04:47 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Frank Whiteley
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,099
Default Standards for competition reporting

On Saturday, August 12, 2017 at 8:47:33 AM UTC-6, Dan Marotta wrote:
Perhaps there is or could be a page on the SSA website where the owners
of the various blogs, etc. could post links to their writings.

On 8/12/2017 8:07 AM, johnsinclair wrote:
Excellent point Adrian. Contest reporting usually falls on the shoulders of the CD who gets worn down as the contest proceeds and reporting is the last item on his long "must do" list. A good way to go is to pick someone with knowledge of what's going on, but isn't directly involved with the contest to handle the contest reporting. I asked Matt Herron to do the reporting at this years Air Sailing Sports and he did some good timely reporting on what was happining. Leigh Zimmerman did the reporting at the 2014 nats held at Minden and made several reports every day, telling me exactly what was going on...........she answered the questions I had and made me feel like I was actually flying the contest.
JJ


--
Dan, 5J


Adrian makes a good point. There is a place where the CD can post links to other reporting links, a report during the practice days would suffice. Although three SSA FB editors had liked the recent 18m FB page, no one shared a post to the SSA FB page until the contest was over. The 18m FB page has 148 likes and 161 following, which is a couple more than last night. Had I known, there would have been additional SSA FB shares and probably 3X those numbers. Certain contest sites have poor infrastructure. Some regular posters were noticeably quiet during the Uvalde contest. IIRC, additional efforts were made during the world's in 2012, but those were temporary enhancements. Other contest hosts provide WIFI, but it is often soon overloaded by PC's and phones and bandwidth becomes a struggle. I know, because our social media editors tell me this is the case and sometimes have to give up during peak hours. Those who sync their devices and have IMAP e-mail accounts suck an incredible amount of bandwidth. Those running a contest can't spend the time if they are working against this. Still the framework for reporting probably needs a fresh look. The BGA recently was looking for help with similar issues. SSA is also looking at this, but the contest committee needs to address contest reporting going forward.

Frank Whiteley