US contest scoring formula is broken

On Jun 23, 7:31*am, Steve Koerner wrote:
I would urge that instead of looking at this in terms of ‘how can we
fix the Montague problem’ lets look at this much more fundamentally.
The Montague example shows that year after year of elaborating the
scoring formula has resulted in a mess.

It is time to step way back and start over. *Let’s get rid of the
alphabet soup that now exists in the rules for scoring. *All (or at
least most) of the accumulated complications in the rules were
undoubtedly made in the interest of improving fairness. * Yet at the
most elemental level it is really unfair to be using a set of scoring
formulas that cannot be comprehended by an intellectually
sophisticated competitor who applies reasonable diligence in studying
the rules. *That is what we have now. *It is especially irksome that
competitors should put up with the unnecessary complication and still
not have a scoring system that produces reasonable results.

So here’s a simple proposal to get this discussion going in the right
direction: *Let’s give 500 points for speed and 500 points for
distance. * Period. *Speed points are proportioned to the fastest
finisher’s speed; if you don’t finish you get zero speed points.
Distance points are proportioned to the best distance achieved.

Yes, on TAT and MAT style tasks, my formula would change the game plan
a bit. *It would introduce an objective to go forth and fly far (like
OLC) as well as fast. *Wouldn’t that be fun?

Pretty simple - which is an appealing place to start. Would you stop
getting credit for distance after some period of time? Otherwise, on
a MAT you'd think many pilots would start as early as the gate opens
(and they can make decent progress) and fly until the end of the day -
maybe 5-6 hours each day. On a TAT you'd be encouraged to fly the
maximum unless it entailed flying into dead air and a landout. I think
distance strategies would dominate speed strategies because it's
harder to fly a lot faster than the other guy than a lot farther -
especially when you don't know until after you land - best to keep
pushing just in case someone else decided to go to the fartherst point
in the task area.

Without a time limit I'd be less interested in competing because I
just don't want to fly for that long every day for 5 or 10 days in a
row. But I expect a time limit creates other complications - like
trying to run downwind for 3 hours then beat your way home when speed
counts but miles don't.

Would we still include devalued days for short tasks or high non-
completion?

9B