RCP 2022-01
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Requiring a competitor to designate whether they want to be counted as an individual or as a member of a team presents a problem if the individual refuses to designate one or the other. Should there be a default, or perhaps the section should make the designation.
I also see the potential for a slightly different “arms race” of the type mentioned by Bob. There could be a large number of teams created from a small number of competitors, literally an exponential number. Each individual should be limited to participation as an individual or as a member of a single team.
I was not even aware that this was a potential issue, but agree that it should be addressed.
I agree with John Viggianno’s observation, a default selection should be proposed if an individual cannot, or does not, select which category counts towards the Section Award.
It also seems to me that all team members need to agree on this selection. One disgruntled teammate could cause fellow teammates to not be able to compete for national recognition they would otherwise have qualified for. If the individual is registered to a different section than the team is affiliated with, the situation is even more clouded.
This proposal still allows some degree of “double dipping” of points in that Sections get to cherry pick from both an individual’s standings and a team standing earned by that same person. The incentive for creating the arms race of many teams is still there, but the rewards are just not quite as great.
Perhaps the root cause of this issue is allowing a person to fly and qualify for NRC competition as both an individual and a member of a team. We could make them declare which category they are competing in at the beginning of the Contest year (or by the time of their first NRC flight of that contest year). This would be just like we have them decide what section they are affiliated with.
If you still want to allow a person to compete as both an individual and team (or teams), have them select, at the beginning of the competition year, the one status that goes towards the Section Award calculation and the other status then flies as an Independent. That eliminates cherry picking the best results at the end of the year.
On paper this is a good idea. Practically speaking, it is largely a non issue, but there has been a tiny bit of this in the past few NRC years. Keep in mind this only earns points to get into the top ten Sections that can compete at NARAM for the Section Championship. At NARAM, it’s a clean slate, as you can only compete as a team or individual at NARAM. I would love for this to be an issue for “team 11” not making the list for NARAM and being upset about it. But right now, there are generally only 2 to 3 teams “going for it”, On the downside, there will be some work for the Contest Board to implement this. We have a a nice automated process now for Section affiliation that will have to be “munged” a bit and/or require human intervention. It can be done, just more red tape and process stuff for the CB to work through.
Don, the team does have to select the section they fly for when the team is registered at the beginning of the year.
The reason I submitted this was that in the case of Becky and I we have registered as individuals and as a team as since Becky is in college and does not know for whom and where she will be working each summer until late in the spring, she does not know in any given year if she will be able to attend NARAM for the full week, partially or at all. The current rules allow someone to qualify both as a team and as an individual for NARAM, but only fly as one at NARAM. I do not disagree with this, and in our case and I believe in others, the individual does not know at the beginning of the season if their team will be able to attend or if they will attend in person.
What I did not think about when we did this last year(and we are not the only ones who have done this) was that it was actually adding section points for our section during the regular NRC year as individuals and as a team. This led to others thinking we were intentionally stacking up points for NRC, when in fact we were just trying to make sure that we could both compete for the championship and ESAs at NARAM, but did not know until just before NARAM if it would be individually or together as a team based on the uncertainty of her schedule. In the end her job allowed her to attend the entire week and we both competed as individuals at NARAM last year.
The current process does not affect NARAM except for who can compete for national champ and as event specialists. If we were to force a person to pick a team or individual at the beginning of the season, and they wanted to fly the other way at NARAM they would not be able to compete for event specialist or national champ.
That is why I worded it the way I did, to allow the people to still qualify for NARAM in either, but so that their points did not count both as a team and as an individual for the NRC purposes.
As it was last year, the top three sections ALL had individuals who competed as individuals and as part of a team for NRC. Last year in particular, it would not have changed the order of standings for sections 1-4 if they were not allowed to “double dip” This includes Dan’s section who won the NRC section championship, our section who took second, and Launch Crue who took third.
With what Dan said, this creates an issue end of year from manual points reallocation. For those that vote for, please volunteer to do this. The simplest solution is to determine what section you fly for based on you first flight of the Contest/NRC year. That’s how it’s done for section affiliation, why not keep it consistent with that? No 30-year-old number crunching. Also, with this proposal, you cannot track club points accurately, as there will be spoilers, and that’s just not fun, IMO. Keep it easy and fair.