Cordele...hello?

On Tuesday, June 6, 2017 at 9:27:25 PM UTC-4, wrote:
So its 9:00 PM on Day 2 of the Standard, 15M, and Open Nationals at Cordele and the outside world doesn't even know if contestants even gridded, launched, or scored. Nothing on SSA site, nothing on Fly Cordele-Soaring Contests Facebook, and nothing on Glide Port. Disappointing. US competition soaring would be better served if the world soaring community were kept informed.


A Cordele contest report is up now. Not much to report with regards to the actual contest. Rain, rain, and rain. Even the farmers are getting tired of it. I'll do my best to keep reporting up to date from here on out. Expect a brief morning report, maybe a brief after gate opening report, and a report in the evening.

CD

Thank you.

On Wednesday, June 7, 2017 at 10:03:43 PM UTC-4, WB wrote:
On Tuesday, June 6, 2017 at 9:27:25 PM UTC-4, wrote:
So its 9:00 PM on Day 2 of the Standard, 15M, and Open Nationals at Cordele and the outside world doesn't even know if contestants even gridded, launched, or scored. Nothing on SSA site, nothing on Fly Cordele-Soaring Contests Facebook, and nothing on Glide Port. Disappointing. US competition soaring would be better served if the world soaring community were kept informed.


A Cordele contest report is up now. Not much to report with regards to the actual contest. Rain, rain, and rain. Even the farmers are getting tired of it. I'll do my best to keep reporting up to date from here on out. Expect a brief morning report, maybe a brief after gate opening report, and a report in the evening.

CD

Thanks Wally!
Post some pictures of FP's conversion!
Best regards
KO

On Wednesday, June 7, 2017 at 9:31:37 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Wednesday, June 7, 2017 at 12:32:53 AM UTC-4, Charlie M. (UH & 002 owner/pilot) wrote:
Actually, no I didn't, I have commented here on RAS about lack of contest info before. At times I have been told to check out a Facebook page, why? There is already places to provide info through the SSA site.

I understand it is a volunteer undertaking and someone needs to take the time. Thus, I appreciate it when someone does.

Charlie, you are 100% correct about it being a volunteer thing; those who do have all my appreciation and respect.

Musings:

(1) First and foremost, the SSA does not support or encourage "real time" contest reporting. Nothing is going to change until the SSA or a SIG gets behind the effort. The SSA should encouraged organizers to do as much "social media" as they can and provide simple "how to" guidelines using current social media trends. Improving contest reporting should be a universal worldwide effort.

(2) The SSA website just does not meet the need in today's social media world. SSA website input access is restricted to a few people, it is usually dependent on a fixed single computer having an internet connection, and it does not support easy integration of pictures or video. Depending on the SSA website for anything other than scoring and flight logs increases the burden of the contest staff and it usually results in a delayed report, if any.

(3) The "what’s going on" aspect of contest reporting is better served by cell phone based social media such as Facebook. To the best of my limited understanding, having a Facebook "group" is the best current ticket.. It is cell phone based and does not depend on an internet connection. Any member of the "group" on or off site may interact. Posts are only received by "group members" so posters are not inhibited with concern of sending stuff to uninterested parties or broadcasting something to the Facebook world.. It easily accommodates pictures and videos. But most important, it takes the burden off the contest staff and allows those on-site to share the reporting. Today's youngsters are tomorrow's future of the soaring; the soaring movement would be better served communicating by their information "norms"..

(4) Just as interest in sport and competition soaring is dwindling so is the interest in people willing to volunteer to staff a contest. Who wants to give up their wherewithal and put forth the labor so the more fortunate can play? The current way is "you" take the risk, "you" put forth all the effort and maybe I'll pay to enter. Allowing this status quo to continue calculates to competition soaring coming to a quicker death. Survival depends on competitors willing to pay higher entry fees to provide "paid staff" or simpler contest operation staffed by its entrants. (There you go Wilbur -- served on a silver platter.)

Please DO NOT use Facebook or other viral proprietary media for this. A simple web page using free BBS type software would be far preferable. The current SSA website is preferable, if a little clunky. I did the posting for our area contest last year, and it is a fair amount of work - nothing to do with the media, but you must generate the content as you are trying to get ready to fly, or at the end of a long day. Logging in and copying it to the SSA site is a trivial part of the task. I did it the next morning, but then it isn't as timely as some would like. If this goes to facebook I will not read it, and will not post.

On Friday, June 9, 2017 at 10:39:30 AM UTC-5, jfitch wrote:
On Wednesday, June 7, 2017 at 9:31:37 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Wednesday, June 7, 2017 at 12:32:53 AM UTC-4, Charlie M. (UH & 002 owner/pilot) wrote:
Actually, no I didn't, I have commented here on RAS about lack of contest info before. At times I have been told to check out a Facebook page, why? There is already places to provide info through the SSA site.

I understand it is a volunteer undertaking and someone needs to take the time. Thus, I appreciate it when someone does.

Charlie, you are 100% correct about it being a volunteer thing; those who do have all my appreciation and respect.

Musings:

(1) First and foremost, the SSA does not support or encourage "real time" contest reporting. Nothing is going to change until the SSA or a SIG gets behind the effort. The SSA should encouraged organizers to do as much "social media" as they can and provide simple "how to" guidelines using current social media trends. Improving contest reporting should be a universal worldwide effort.

(2) The SSA website just does not meet the need in today's social media world. SSA website input access is restricted to a few people, it is usually dependent on a fixed single computer having an internet connection, and it does not support easy integration of pictures or video. Depending on the SSA website for anything other than scoring and flight logs increases the burden of the contest staff and it usually results in a delayed report, if any.

(3) The "what’s going on" aspect of contest reporting is better served by cell phone based social media such as Facebook. To the best of my limited understanding, having a Facebook "group" is the best current ticket. It is cell phone based and does not depend on an internet connection. Any member of the "group" on or off site may interact. Posts are only received by "group members" so posters are not inhibited with concern of sending stuff to uninterested parties or broadcasting something to the Facebook world. It easily accommodates pictures and videos. But most important, it takes the burden off the contest staff and allows those on-site to share the reporting. Today's youngsters are tomorrow's future of the soaring; the soaring movement would be better served communicating by their information "norms".

(4) Just as interest in sport and competition soaring is dwindling so is the interest in people willing to volunteer to staff a contest. Who wants to give up their wherewithal and put forth the labor so the more fortunate can play? The current way is "you" take the risk, "you" put forth all the effort and maybe I'll pay to enter. Allowing this status quo to continue calculates to competition soaring coming to a quicker death. Survival depends on competitors willing to pay higher entry fees to provide "paid staff" or simpler contest operation staffed by its entrants. (There you go Wilbur -- served on a silver platter.)

Please DO NOT use Facebook or other viral proprietary media for this. A simple web page using free BBS type software would be far preferable. The current SSA website is preferable, if a little clunky. I did the posting for our area contest last year, and it is a fair amount of work - nothing to do with the media, but you must generate the content as you are trying to get ready to fly, or at the end of a long day. Logging in and copying it to the SSA site is a trivial part of the task. I did it the next morning, but then it isn't as timely as some would like. If this goes to facebook I will not read it, and will not post.

I second this request. I oppose the idea that every citizen must have a Facebook account, only to learn after some time how much private information has been hacked, sold, used against me.
Tom BravoMike

It's the end of the National Championship for 3 classes. Not one single word posted on the SSA website for the last 3 days from the contest management.

Other contests are giving a video update each day to interview the winners. So it's not too much to ask that the contest management at least post one paragraph to update those of us across the country who are interested.

Someone please tell Andrea that we appreciate her reports, but they need to be done daily.

Agree it would be nice to see daily reports on the SSA site.

However, Andreea put up a number of nice videos on facebook sometimes several per day. She deserves a lot of credit for the time and effort being creative and testing this different approach.

On Wednesday, June 14, 2017 at 3:13:04 PM UTC-7, Glider RN wrote:
Agree it would be nice to see daily reports on the SSA site.

However, Andreea put up a number of nice videos on facebook sometimes several per day. She deserves a lot of credit for the time and effort being creative and testing this different approach.

On three of the last four days they didn't fly.
Today they flew, they got disgusted, they canceled the day, they landed. They put gliders back in boxes.
Right now they're wining and dining after sitting under the overcast (perhaps that's whining and dining?) for so long.
Jim

It's a shame that there wasn't more coverage from the contest. IIRC, an analysis of website traffic from a few years back showed that contest reports was one of (if not THE) most frequently accessed links on the SSA server. That was a while back, so maybe that's changed.

Every contest where I've been the CD, done the weather, or had some other official capacity, I volunteered to either do the reports or contribute. It just takes a CM that has this on the critical path checklist. It's not like the CM or CD need to do this; they just need to make sure it gets done. Sean Fidler and team really raised the bar at the SGP at Seminole this year.

Erik Mann (P3)

I can't speak for the CD or staff at Cordele, but I have done quite a bit of volunteering in the past, so...

Never once in my volunteerism were there too many volunteers. In fact, most always there aren't enough, leading to those that are "double dipping" to the point where they eventually burn out and disappear.

Perhaps there aren't enough volunteers there. Perhaps someone was tasked with it but for any number of reasons didn't show up. Perhaps the CD has a life outside of RAS or the internet in general and doesn't see the importance.. Lucky them?

I absolutely agree that those of us who couldn't attend would like to know what those that did are doing, but flogging them repeatedly serves no purpose but to generate more "burn out" from current volunteers and cements for some potential volunteers why they don't. Being the subject of internet beotching for free on my vacation? Who'd sign up for that?