The MT had a chance to make a significant change, yet all I see is the same old MT dictating the way it will be, with little thought to the progress of SOTA.
Tom, your paragraph “So currently, DM, with an area less than 3 times that of England, has over 17 times as many summits. Obviously, DM is a more hilly/mountainous region than G - that will always be the case. But, clearly, it will still have lots of summits, many times more than England, even if it applies a strict Prominence rule. And we can see that England, with just 179 summits, is still a most viable, active and successful association, so the argument that the loss of non-prominence summits will ruin DM SOTA, is not accepted by the SOTA Management Team.” This does nothing for SOTA PR.
What do the participants on DL/DM feel with that statement?
We are being told that England, with just 179 summits, is a most viable, active and successful association, maybe it is, but for how long? Most of the summits are above the M62 and it is still right that a participant that wants to do SOTA has to spend so much time and money travelling to summits, when there are so many that could be included. The clause which allowed subjective addition of summits not meeting that criteria that DL/DM used was a good one, maybe they went a bit OTT but with this clause we could have added quite a few new UK summits, it should have been left and included into the general rules. Common sense could have then been used to add new summits in area lacking.
What a wasted opportunity, that came as no surprise.
Steve, if I read the new ruling correctly, then the correct protocol is to campain your AM, who will then consider your proposition, having said that, he/she will still then have to go through MT for a final yes or no under the new rules, so basically nothing has or will change in the UK but I fear the effect it will have elsewhere.
My statement about DM is simply in reply to the suggestions that enforcing the association prominence will destroy SOTA in that association. It clearly will not. It will still have many more summits that England, and many more summits per square kilometre than England. England SOTA has a similarly high level of SOTA activity as Germany.
My statement is intended to reassure that DM will still have a viable and successful association without the additional non-prominence summits.
SOTA is about summits, and associations should have an objective definition.
In reply to M1EYP:
Hallo Friends,
I had many fun with SOTA, but I will cancel my activities and
deletete my points from the SOTA-Database.
The reason is the expected deletion of many German hills.
Sota will be too expensive for me (to drive in the near of
the last active summits)
In reply to DH8DX:
Dan, did you miss the change to rule 3.5.1? The minimum prominence is now 100m, so I would guess that many of those summits that you are mourning the loss of could be retained.
I note the points that you have raised and can see where you are coming from, but I just wonder whether you have actually considered what the application of the current DM ARM rules to the UK would achieve. Do we really want named summits on a 1:50,000 scale map as a parameter for qualifying summits? Just have a look at what it means local to you and I think you’ll be surprised as to what insignificant lumps qualify.
As you may remember from a number of threads last year, I support the application of a 100m rule to the English ARM for precisely the same reason as you have stated - geographical spread. As Mike says, if you feel strongly that we need more summits, then write to the English AM with a reasoned arguement as to why this should happen. Maybe others will do likewise.
The problem is, that under the new system, MT now have even more power of control, because now the AMs decision’s have to go to MT for their ruling.
The AMs have now become MT’s workers without the option of decision making any more.
In reply to GW0DSP:
Ah… but look at the positives Mike.
We can campaign for Humps…
…and the anomalies that many pointed out in threads over the past few months should never occur again. They will be “managed”… exactly what many folks were saying was lacking.
So I think it’s good… and I’m very happy to put forward case for Humps… as a “flatlander”
73 Marc G0AZS (no SOTA this weekend unless I find one at Disney Paris!)
Marc, I am glad a decision has been made which takes away any contradiction of the rules, whether we agree with the decision or not is irrelevant, MT have at least removed any grey areas.
We can campain for humps til the cows come home. If I remember correctly, the notion was put to James M0ZZO a few months back and James after giving the matter considerable thought, saw no need for change and reported the fact to us on this reflector.
Under the new rules, your problem is two fold.
You need to put up a much better argument for humps to get James to change his decision.
Having achieved that, James then needs to put the case forward to MT for them to make the final decision.
If it is as you read it, then we will have to ARM (pun intended) James to the hilt!
As you know, my main concern is that half of England thinks SOTA is not for them as there are so few summits in the south and east. Very few are as fortunate as I am in being able to undertake 350 mile round trips to carry out activations… and I don’t know how much longer I can do this.
I am of the opinion that the application of the P100 parameter to England cannot have a negative effect as most new summits would be single pointers - ideal training grounds for the activators of the future.
Yes Gerald and I agree to a certain extent, that adding a few summits, predominantly in the summit starved areas, can only enhance SOTA within the UK.
This would be a boon for the youth in such areas who can’t drive. Every hobby needs new, young blood coming in all of the time and we should do what we can to encourage that.
Anyway, James M0ZZO is available and will give yours or any other suggestions his full thought and consideration, so go for it.
To help avoid any misinformation (by accident) i kindly remind you that we AMs where always and are “servants” of the Programme, we took the job by MT’s decission and we where always (at least since the end of 2002) put EVERYTHING to MT for their ruling (if anyone give a small effort to read the General Rules he can see that this is and always was the Programme we speak about).
If someone do the same small effort to read the general rules he will see that “prominence” in the form of “how deep should a cole be between two summits” was everytime there.
Again, if he put a minimal effort reading these rules he will see that Association’s Manager could NEVER decide alone for local parameters (and further more to include “special” summits or anything, he had the rigth to propose them providing adequate reasoning to MT).
“A hierarchy (in Greek: — hieros, ‘sacred’, and — arkho, ‘rule’) is a system of ranking and organizing things or people, where each element of the system (except for the top element) is a subordinate to a single other element.”
MT choose AMs , AMs choose RMs. It was there on the rules from the start, it was on “quide to start an association” (if its still exist is something i dont know).
I writing these because i have questions from activators here (who read the general rules and accepted them before start participating on something like SOTA) if there are OTHER general rules of SOTA or another parallel SOTA on which they can not have access.
I think you’ll find that it always was a requirement for AM’s to take potential changes to the ARM’s to the MT for ratification before they were implemented.
The way is now open for an attempt at getting more summits for G - I’m not saying it will be easy, indeed a fair amount of hard work and lateral thinking may be required to produce a convincing argument. And if a sufficiently convincing argument can’t be produced, then maybe the status quo is the best thing for SOTA. At least as of now the possibility is there.
One final controversial thought - democracy doesn’t come into it. Just because a majority of those who make their feelings known want or don’t want a change, doesn’t necessarily mean the majority are right about the potential benefits or otherwise of the change to the Programme…
I think you’ll find that it always was a requirement for AM’s to take
potential changes to the ARM’s to the MT for ratification before they
were implemented.
Hi Paul, if I am wrong on this issue I will swallow humble pie and apologise, I will do some research first.
