Train Wreck

On Monday, November 6, 2017 at 1:38:32 AM UTC-5, Steve Koerner wrote:
Sean F has as much enthusiasm for the sport of glider racing as perhaps the next six of us combined. One way to interpret his over-the-top keyboard behavior is that he cares so much about the sport than he can't figure out how to balance in some nice behavior with his buds online. Annoying, yes; but, so what.

He should get a pass for bad keyboard behavior if he wins races and has good in person behavior as is the accounts that we hear repeatedly. I believe that at voting time, some others didn't give him that pass when they placed their votes. When holding a grudge for having been ****ing off once or twice, it's just not possible to avoid contriving a logical seeming explanation. And therein lies one of several major faults in the use of non-objective team selection standards.

What all of this means is that despite the hard work and good intentions of the US team committee, they have accomplished exactly the opposite of what they set out to accomplish. And we are all worse for the wear.

No, we should not allow a few more years of this to see how it works out as some have suggested.




On Sunday, November 5, 2017 at 7:24:07 PM UTC-7, Bojack J4 wrote:
I watched Sean's youtube video.

Professionally presented and analyzed, and proves his point with data.

I fail to see any evidence of a "train wreck" there....and he DID win the entire contest.

If I may add, Sean's performance at Benella was impressive (at one point he was in second place overall and had a day win as I recall?), and he was receiving accolades right here on ras the whole time while doing it.

How about he just grow up and deal with it? Why isn't that the unanimous suggestion here? One option by the disgruntled pilot would be to shrug it off, and go fly the 15 meter contest as a proud representative of the United States, understanding that life isn't always "fair". Why is it impossible for someone to understand that it's just their one opinion that the contest/rules committee maybe is "making mistakes" going through some changes after the US team has had dismal performance in the previous x number of years and that others have a different opinion of how to best address it, right or wrong? Understand that you are not the center of the universe and that some things might be larger than you or any individual? And that regardless of how poor one thinks of the decisions and how they were made, to handle it with some level of maturity and even perhaps some class? Close the laptop and pick up the phone? Has anyone receive a personal phone call? If I thought any of it was done out of interest for US soaring as a whole rather than just 100% self interest I might feel otherwise, but he has shown his hand many times over. The question is whether Sean Fidler is a crybaby child or not, whether the selection process is correct or not is a different question. Someone cried in their beer (again) all over their facebook account and someone called him out on it, by posting in another public forum. Seems not inappropriate. I know nothing of contest flying, the rules/selection committee etc., but it's pretty easy to see when someone has a serious personality flaw, whether "online" or in "real "life". If you can't be a grown up, or even simply adapt your behaviour to avoid the easily foreseeable potential blowback this type of behaviour has on your own personal aspirations, then you'll have to deal with the consequences, "fair" or not. Personally I couldn't care less if he ever flies another contest, regardless of any loss to US soaring in International competition scoresheet, but then again I don't care much about any of it. And this is the reason why. Flying a contest sounds to me a lot like a week long trip to the dentist chair.