The USHPA Competition Workgroup's Working Draft wants the USHPA NTSS system (something they refer to as the Competition Points System) to go from a 600 points (per meet) system to a 1000 points (per meet) system. Does it matter if it's 600 points, 1000 points, or 456.78 points? No, not really, but let's look at the details.

You can find the proposal here: http://www.ushpa.aero/member_comp_restructure.asp in the Working Draft, here: http://www.ushpa.aero/documents/pres_comp_restructure_bod_fa08.pdf

First, what is the goal of this change? The vague general overall goal is to increase the participation in competition and to increase the number of competitions.

Second, how is this proposed change to the NTSS points tied to the goals? There is no justification given for the 1000 point system in the Working Draft. There is some provided in the Revitalizing Competition presentation to the BOD (which can be downloaded from the URL above). Here's what I get from that presentation. The current system is supposed to be:

Open to manipulation

Alienates many members

Meets are considered valid based on only the top 10 pilots attending

The basic idea seems to be that the proposed 1000 point system will focus more on quantity of competitors than quality relative to the present 600 point NTSS system.

Has the Workgroup made a case for their condemnation of the current system? I don't believe that they have. All they have done is made a Power Point presentation with bullet items and have not backed up their contentions in any way. The third statement is flat wrong and I have not witnessed any manipulation in hang gliding competitions. I don't know if many members are alienated by the 600 point system or not.

So right off the bat we don't have a justification for a change.

Forgetting for a moment whether there are actual troubles with the current system, does the proposed change to the system address the troubles that the Workgroup identifies? That is, does it make any difference?

Previously I applied both the 600 point NTSS system and the 1000 point Competition Points system to the 2008 Big Spring Internationals. This was just an arbitrary choice of a competition. I wanted to determine if the meet would be more or less valid under the proposed system. You can see that analysis here and here. What I showed there was that the two systems produced about the same results. So what was the point of proposing the new system?

It is my understanding that the Workgroup has done a similar analysis for all the meets for the last two years, but although I have asked a few times now, they apparently won't share their analysis.

Also mine and their analysis (if it exists) are backward looking. We don't know if the proposed change in the ranking points system will encourage more pilots and more competitions in the future or not. So far it looks neutral on that score.

I have no problem changing the NTSS to encourage more pilots to attend meets. I have proposed an alternative to up the ranking points value of USHPA sanctioned meets that is much easier to implement than this change.

More details.

If the 1000 point system is adopted, how are 2010 rankings (determined at the end of 2009) to be determined? That is how are the 600 point meets of 2008 and the 1000 point meets of 2009 supposed to be combined. 1000/600 times the 2008 results? 600/1000 times the 2009 results? Just straight across with 2009 just that much more valuable?

Has the Workgroup contacted Rick at the USHPA office and determined if Rick and Dave Wheeler can implement the changes in the ranking system to keep track of pilots in the time frame that they wish to implement this system (2009)?

While it isn't strictly within the 1000 point system, exactly how are they going to add in points from local and regional meets? This is not defined well enough to be implemented by Dave Wheeler (if he cares to do it at all).

I really don't have a problem with implementing the proposed 1000 point system, as it doesn't really appear to make any difference, so what's to argue about, but I would appreciate it if they addressed the details and told us how they are going to deal with them. I don't believe their justifications for the change, but so what? There are no magic numbers.