Hi Andrew,
I’m sorry my post confused you. I presume it was the timing and not the content.
When monitoring SOTAwatch my phone updates the info every 2 minutes. So there is a delay there potentially. When I am slowly tapping in a Spot I can’t see the SOTAWatch spots being updated. Then there is variable system latency which means you won’t see my Spot for some time after it is sent. My Spots could easily appear 3 minutes or more after I start on the compile and send process.
73
Ron
VK3AFW
Sorry Brian while your intentions are good I don’t find your argument convincing.
To suggest that the 2.072 chasers/activators would spot “can’t hear you” comments and do so in the same hour doesn’t hold water as an argument against an individual who makes say 3 “not heard” spots, one each for 3 different bands for an unusual activation.
Ten extra spots is a problem? I put up three and was nuked. There are dozens of similar spots every month that have not attracted the ire of the obo MT people.
Of course having a spot confirming reception is always nice to see. But not having a spot does not mean you are not being heard. Having an occasional spot from your target area that says you aren’t being copied is very useful.
When a special expedition to an area infrequently worked is mounted it deserves more support than an average activation.
As for some other people being irritated by certain content of comments boxes, well the World is full of irritating people but nuking them isn’t a positive solution. The offended could choose to be not irritated. Their choice.
I hope you have a good irritation free weekend.
73
Ron
VK3AFW
(heading for the bunker)
Well, Ron, I would hope that you have read the General Rules (GR). If you read rule 3.7.3 Code of Conduct, near the bottom of page 15 it says:
“The SOTA spot and alert boards are not general message boards for anything other than providing key frequency, mode, time and callsign data. Persistent abusers may face sanctions.”
Them’s the rules, Ron, like it or lump it. If you want them changed it is up to you to convince the MT that you have a good case, otherwise you are just “arguing with the weather”.
Personally I find it more than just irritating, I find it infuriating to see a spot for an activation on, say 14 megs, I hurriedly change bands, tune up the rig and doublet, only to find nothing there, then I go back and look again and it is some twerp saying that is where he would like the activator to appear. That is NOT what spots are for, they are information to help Chasers find Activators to their mutual benefit, anything else is not just abuse, it is idiocy since most of us are too busy during an activation to look at the mobile phone even if there is coverage.
Rest assured that these wishful thinking spots will usually get nuked if they are seen in time, but whilst SOTA is now 24 hours a day, those with editing rights to Sotawatch are not so some will escape.
Brian
As a suggestion Brian, maybe the comment field could be changed for a drop down menu to limit what rubbish can be populated within it. I don’t see the need for “comments” myself.
Jonathan
[quote=“G2HFR, post:45, topic:11542”]changed for a drop down menu[/quote]There are occasions (particularly for self-spots) where comments can be useful, so the tricky bit would be picking a suitably short set of useful entries for a drop-down. I did a quick skim down the spots for the last couple of days looking for comments I think I would have found useful if I’d been chasing at the time. They fall into these categories:
That’s just complicated enough to make a free-form comment field the easy solution, but I’d guess four out of five comments are just space-fillers.
I can see some merit in having a “QRT” band/mode option for spots, though.
Hi Brian,
“Them’s the rules, Ron, like it or lump it. If you want them changed it is up to you to convince the MT that you have a good case, otherwise you are just “arguing with the weather”.”
That’s what I am doing. Starting on an open forum. I’m not trying to use the comment box as a general message board as I’m sure you know. The issue is or should be about relevance of the comments and we presently disagree on what that means.
Personal tenets sometimes need to be set aside and issues reexamined. All decent QA systems involve regular reviews of everything.
I may be peeing into the wind right now but the wind never blows in the same direction forever.
BTW your problem with some spots could be solved by reading the comment box. A bit radical perhaps but I bet it would help. I guess you could then reach for the big red NUKE button instead of the ATU. Just a thought.
73
Ron
VK3AFW
Spots which are really comments are a pain. My phone shows about four usable spot lines even with comments off so all I see is a spot. So I look for an s2s and there is no-one there because some unhelpful person is loading the system with stuff that belongs on this reflector.
73,
Rods
Sorry Rod, that argument is not compelling. 
Andy,
Why is it not compelling? Don’t I do enough activations for it to count?
Do I need to be more precise in specifying the location of the pain or should I comment on its frequency?
73,
Rod
Rod, can I point to the smiley after my comment.
But I must apologise for using the word compelling. I should have used the word “convincing” instead.
The trouble with an open forum discussion of a possible rule revision is that it tends to be a bunch of disconnected comments, people highlight their special concerns instead of making out a reasoned case that examines all the pros and cons, puts due weight on them and draws a reasoned conclusion. You see, it isn’t a voting system, you have to convince the MT by reasoning rather than by force of comments - like any ruling body we feel bound to be conservative and only make changes once we have been convinced by the case made to us and analysed by ourselves. An additional problem is that some members of the MT spend more time browsing the forums than others, so it is more efficient to use the procedure to contact the MT with suggestions - those posts are received by all of us.
The rules are not set in stone, there was a major revision earlier this year, but I personally had been working on it since 2012. The MT discussion prior to the revision involved over two hundred posts. Before going through all that again it would be better if we spent our time on processing and bringing on line new Associations, a hugely time consuming business for any one Association and we have at least a couple of dozen of them at different stages of development!
Could be, could be - but I do most of my chasing with an old hybrid rig, it has a better SSB filter but you have to twiddle so many knobs during band changing that it takes some time, and you have to be quick to get in before the wall of EU callers gets too high!
Brian
You’re “Spot on” there Rod 
Yes, and against the rules.
If people are so arrogant that they are prepared to ignore the rules then they can only blame themselves if there are consequences.
It only takes a couple of key strokes to remove the posting right of a persistent offender, something we are loathe to do but have been forced to do in a very few cases.
Brian
Sorry; should had added a smiley to my response.
Rod
Hi Brian,
While agreeing with your point about the twerp alerting a different band for a request to move there (as I said earlier in the thread), I, for one, do watch SotaWatch while activating - mainly in the hope of finding another activator for an S2S contact - so I do look at the mobile phone when it beeps if I’m not in the middle of an over.
Ed.
This drop-down menu would of course mean that all of the Smart Phone Apps would have to be rewritten and real estate on a smart phone screen is limited at the best of times, so while your suggestion might be technically OK on the webpage when accessing it from a PC, I think, it would make things very messy on a smart phone screen.
Ed.
Having thought about this a little more…
Echoing what Jonathan questioned - If the MT want the spotting system to be ONLY used for spotting an activator, why not REMOVE the comment field completely?
I know when activating, I self-spot and I put “now qrv” or “cq” - just to put something in the comment field, when nothing is really needed. The system shows who sent the spot - so it’s clear when it’s a self spot.
Is there a valid reason to retain the comment field in spots that I have missed ??
Ed.
When I’m chasing and a non-spot comes through it is annoying. Countless times I have retuned before I thought to hover the mouse to reveal the comment that makes it clear this was not an actual spot.
But what really annoys me is on an activation the phone saying “The new latest spot is…” and it turns out to be a non-spot. Usually I’m not staring at the screen. I’m more likely rushing about trying to catch stuff that’s about to blow away, fending off rogue sheep or something. Or I might be clambering over rocks coming into the AZ. Most of the time there is some cost in looking at the phone, detracting from my otherwise highly efficient operation. 
Yes, because it is valuable when people use it properly.
Hi Brian,
My last 3 comments here.
I tried to contact you directly but could not at the time find your email so tried via another obo NT person but got no response. I would have preferred to converse off line but it didn’t work. Found your email since.
I note that even if the majority of SOTA people wanted a change the MT would not feel it needed to move. 
My first ever “not heard” post was nuked so I hardly qualify for your frequent offender status. I put my hand up to being a questioner of the status quo.
73
Ron,
now QRT on this thread.