[Bill Cummings]

Hawks,
I can see that I really stepped in it now. I only gave myself and Bob’s program one second to collate the nominations and post the voting ballot. I’m not sure that will be possible. I would suggest that the next nominating and voting period have a realistic time frame separation.

The next concern I have is trying to delete duplicate nominations. Some of the sites nominated I know nothing about. Maybe the same site is referred to in two different ways which would tend to gather more votes.

I know of three different “Lookout Mountain” hang gliding sites. (GA, MN, AZ,) I could end up deleting an option that might remove the only name that is known to a nominator/voter.

Would leaving in a duplication of a site affect the popularity by getting it more votes? It seems it would. This makes me uncomfortable trying to delete what I think are duplications.

Once these two problems are answered and we get a voting ballot up for a vote of “Nomination/Voting Test #2 Favorite Flying Sites,” I would suggest a quick review of the, “Voting Test #1 - Hang Glider Images” topic to refresh your memory on how to express your vote to properly convey your preferences.
(Sorry for the run-on sentence. That’s how I talk too.)


While trying to post the very post you are now reading I was unable to get back on the US Hawks website. All I could get when I tried to bring up the US Hawks, “user name” and “password” page was: “GENERAL ERROR” TOO MANY CONTACTS (1040).

This event brings up an additional need for yet another voting rule.
A rule to provide some way a US Hawks member can get their vote posted in the event that an IP address crashes shortening their voting window.

Would the fix be a long enough window to accommodate most internet glitches? Or should this be a real inducement to not procrastinate and vote early so that a person doesn’t loose their voting or nominating window?

If I was, “The Conspiracy Theory,” type of a knuckle dragger, I would be forced into believing that some key words were selected by the government to hinder the public from coming up with their own better voting method.

That would never happen of course. Why? Well, because it’s almost like pretending, let’s say, that the IRS would flag key words like, Tea Party, Patriot, and Constitution to drag their feet and impede a nonprofit status application.
(Darn! I may once again have picked the wrong analogy to make my point.)

[Bob Kuczewski]

In one state gubernatorial election ... we had a governor elected by MINORITY.

With the system I'm proposing, the winner must be able to defeat ALL other candidates in one-on-one elections. If that's not possible, then we effectively have a tie. It's a pretty good system, but this Favorite Flying Site ballot is going to be an interesting test!!

Hawks,
I can see that I really stepped in it now. I only gave myself and Bob’s program one second to collate the nominations and post the voting ballot. I’m not sure that will be possible. I would suggest that the next nominating and voting period have a realistic time frame separation.

Since this is a learning experience, I think we can change the time frames to fix this. Would you like to delay the voting period by one day? If so, I can go back and add that to your original post.

The next concern I have is trying to delete duplicate nominations. Some of the sites nominated I know nothing about. Maybe the same site is referred to in two different ways which would tend to gather more votes.

I know of three different “Lookout Mountain” hang gliding sites. (GA, MN, AZ,) I could end up deleting an option that might remove the only name that is known to a nominator/voter.

Would leaving in a duplication of a site affect the popularity by getting it more votes? It seems it would. This makes me uncomfortable trying to delete what I think are duplications.

Because we vote by ordering the candidates, the multiples should tend to be sorted together by the voters. But let's see what happens. Again, this is part of learning how to do this. I am actually curious to see what happens.

Once these two problems are answered and we get a voting ballot up for a vote of “Nomination/Voting Test #2 Favorite Flying Sites,” I would suggest a quick review of the, “Voting Test #1 - Hang Glider Images” topic to refresh your memory on how to express your vote to properly convey your preferences.

That sounds like a good idea. Thanks Bill!!

(Sorry for the run-on sentence. That’s how I talk too.)

You're from Minnesota aren't you?    That explains it.  

While trying to post the very post you are now reading I was unable to get back on the US Hawks website. All I could get when I tried to bring up the US Hawks, “user name” and “password” page was: “GENERAL ERROR” TOO MANY CONTACTS (1040).

This event brings up an additional need for yet another voting rule.
A rule to provide some way a US Hawks member can get their vote posted in the event that an IP address crashes shortening their voting window.

This is a good point Bill. That kind of failure shouldn't be happening, but as with the other problems, it brings up something for us to think about. Regular (paper) elections can sometimes coincide with natural disasters, and it's good to have a provision for how to handle them. We should add some provision for that in our election SOP. Thanks Bill!!

Would the fix be a long enough window to accommodate most internet glitches? Or should this be a real inducement to not procrastinate and vote early so that a person doesn’t loose their voting or nominating window?

If I was, “The Conspiracy Theory,” type of a knuckle dragger, I would be forced into believing that some key words were selected by the government to hinder the public from coming up with their own better voting method.

That would never happen of course. Why? Well, because it’s almost like pretending, let’s say, that the IRS would flag key words like, Tea Party, Patriot, and Constitution to drag their feet and impede a nonprofit status application.
(Darn! I may once again have picked the wrong analogy to make my point.)

Actually, these are very very good points. If we have no provision for "internet glitches", then one person (the person operating the web site ... me in this case) could bring down the site when the votes are just to my liking with some kind of a bogus error message and not bring it up again until the window closed.

I think all of Bill's comments are valid and important, and I have a suggestion that might work for the Board voting (although it would be more difficult for the general membership). I suggest that if any Board member finds that they are not able to vote on the web site, then they may cast their vote by emailing it to all of the other Board members. In fact, I think this might be a good practice anyway just so that we don't have a single point of failure. The HGAA fiasco also reinforces this. In that example, not all of the Board members had the email addresses of all the others, so Jack had control because he controlled our ability to even communicate. So when this Board becomes a real Board, we should make it a requirement that all Board members get email addresses and phone numbers of all other Board members.

Bill, these are great observations, and I really appreciate you participating and thinking about these things. Thanks very much!!!

[Bill Cummings]

If there are a no objections from the US Hawks membership I think it would be best to move the posting and voting starting point back by a day.

We can try it with the duplications in place if you think it will sort itself out Bob.
The only concern I have with this is once we do a really important nomination and vote the nominating process might have some wiggle room to stack the nominated issues.
Edit: I'm thinking that just short of 6 pm mountain time will be the deadline for nominations, do I have that right Hawks? Will that be correct with UTC time?

[Bill Cummings]

Dup. No Dup..JPG (71.59 KiB) Viewed 6472 times

Gee I hope I'm doing this right.
I have some questions. Is Dockweiler Beach CA and Dockweiler Flight Park one and the same place?
Is Lookout Mountain in TN or GA?
I'm trying to show what I think were duplications and removing them. Did I mess it up?

[JoeF]

I have some questions. Is Dockweiler Beach CA and Dockweiler Flight Park one and the same place?

Yes. Just one and same.

My take on "Lookout Mountain"
Is Lookout Mountain in TN or GA?
Straddles both states. Some HG history on both sides of the border.
Launches are in both states. But I have not flown in either state. More clear answering from active TN and GA pilots would make the matter clear. GA has the big flight park.

http://www.hanglide.com/ big flight park :: Call: 1-800-688-5637 Email: fly@hanglide.com
Street Address (Office and Pro-shop at Launch):
Lookout Mountain Flight Park
7201 Scenic Hwy, Rising Fawn, GA 30738

Then consider Pliable Moose and Gary Osoba

[Bill Cummings]

Thanks Joe,
Maybe I should just list it as Lookout Mountain, GA/TN.

Say Bob, should we go with the list that has duplicates or the list that hopefully has correctly deleted the duplicate nominations from the list?

We are now past the deadline for nominations. Soon either Bob or I will post the ballot for voting on, “Nomination/Voting Test #2 Favorite Flying Sites.”

With so many options to list in a preference order I think that I will do like I used to do, before retirement, on my annual, shift and area preference, selection at work.

I used to affix a rating 1 through 5 for each option on my shift and area preference choice. For each area I world rate it for noise, dust, boss, carpool availability, heat or cold, shift rotation, straight days, and a few other things.

For the favorite flying sites I think I will set up a 1 through 5 rating system for different categories. Launching safety, need for four wheel drive, heat or cold, driver availability, crowded or not, turn around time launch to LZ, cell phone coverage, emergency services availability, supply availability-water-gas- camping-motel-food, shade if desirable, and the yielded average airtime.

Once I total up all the categories for each site I will then know in what order I prefer the sites.

It is a system that I find that focuses the mind when selecting from may options.
When selecting from many options with this system I find that I can get through a long list of options instead of grabbing a beer and turning on the TV.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Hi Bill,

I went through your list, and I found that every nomination on the left did match one nomination on the right:

connect_dup_no_dup.JPG (62.87 KiB) Viewed 6466 times

So I think your list on the right is correct. I counted 34 candidates. Is that what you get?

If so, please let me know and I'll number them 1 to 34 in the order you have them and I'll post it as an update to your original post and I'll also send out an email message to start the actual voting. The only change that I might suggest is that Lookout mountain is usually written as one word (Lookout rather than Look Out). Although I had a girlfriend who liked to call it:

       Look Out,      Moooountaaaaain!!

[Bill Cummings]

Bob,
Thanks for doing the “Buddy Preflight Check,” on the purposed Nomination/Voting Test #2 Favorite Flying Sites.
34 is what I get too.
Hearing no further objections please post the ballot for voting.
Also make the corrections for Lookout Mountain and add GA/TN at the end.

In the future we might have a waiting comment period for voters to have the chance to protest or okay the way the ballot was prepared before posting.

Thank you everyone for your participation in this test exercise.
Your comments and ideas on how better to set up the nominating and voting procedures are welcome.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Hi Bill,

Your thinking is clear and logical.

In the future we might have a waiting comment period for voters to have the chance to protest or okay the way the ballot was prepared before posting.

I second that suggestion, and your thoughtful comments give me a good feeling about the future of this association.   

There were two pages of nominations:

• Torrey Pines
• Crestline
• Sylmar
• Fort Funston
• Henson's Gap
• Dockweiler Beach
• Chelan Butte, WA
• Crawford Mts., Randolph, UT
• Frontenac Ridge, Frontenac, MN
• Look Out Mt., GA
• Henson’s Gap, TN
• Maiden Rock, WI
• Mingus Mt., Cottonwood, AZ
• Dry Canyon, Alamogordo, NM
• Point of the Mountain, Draper, UT
• Wallaby Ranch, FL
• Lanzarote, Canary Islands
• Iquique, Chile
• Mt Seven, Golden, BC, Canada
• Eagleville, California, USA
• Cape Jervais, Australia
• Chelan Butte, WA
• Magazine Mountain, AR
• Villa Grove, CO
• Lookout Mountain, TN
• Point of the Mountain, Draper, UT
• Dockweiler Flight Training Park
• Humble home-roof launch place
• BASE hang gliding sites: Eiffel Tower
• Soar the lift of a long fence
• Local steep streets
• Empire State Building
• Some cemeteries
• Sites of historic hang glider flights
• Wasserkuppe

• Zapata, Tx
• Mingus Mountain, Arizona
• Crest line CA
• Fort Fungston CA
• Soboba CA
• Point Of the Mountain UT
• Cape Lookout on the north Oregon coast
• Bald Butte in the upper Hood River valley just north of Mt Hood

According to Bill's elimination of duplicates (which I've confirmed), that gives us this final list of candidates to present to the Board for voting:

1 - Torrey Pines
2 - Crestline
3 - Sylmar
4 - Fort Funston
5 - Henson's Gap
6 - Dockweiler Beach
7 - Chelan Butte, WA
8 - Crawford Mts., Randolph, UT
9 - Frontenac Ridge, Frontenac, MN
10 - Lookout Mountain, GA/TN
11 - Maiden Rock, WI
12 - Mingus Mt., Cottonwood, AZ
13 - Dry Canyon, Alamogordo, NM
14 - Point of the Mountain, Draper, UT
15 - Wallaby Ranch, FL
16 - Lanzarote, Canary Islands
17 - Iquique, Chile
18 - Mt Seven, Golden, BC, Canada
19 - Eagleville, California, USA
20 - Cape Jervais, Australia
21 - Magazine Mountain, AR
22 - Villa Grove, CO
23 - Humble home-roof launch place
24 - BASE hang gliding sites: Eiffel Tower
25 - Soar the lift of a long fence
26 - Local steep streets
27 - Empire State Building
28 - Some cemeteries
29 - Sites of historic hang glider flights
30 - Wasserkuppe
31 - Zapata, Tx
32 - Soboba CA
33 - Cape Lookout on the north Oregon coast
34 - Bald Butte in the upper Hood River valley just north of Mt Hood

As Bill noted, there would normally be a period of time for any objections to be heard and resolved before starting the voting. But since this is just a trial case, and since the waiting/comment period wasn't specified in the initial setup of this vote, I'll open the voting with this list. Please see the updated directions in the first post in this topic, then feel free to cast your vote!!

[Bob Kuczewski]

I feel I can only vote for sites that I've flown or at least visited or heard a lot about. But anyone who wants to lobby for a particular site is more than welcome to post here and I may change my mind. In fact, that's the way this is supposed to work!!

With that said, here are my current choices ordered by my preference (the number is the candidate number that will be used for voting):

1 - Torrey Pines
4 - Fort Funston
2 - Crestline
3 - Sylmar
5 - Henson's Gap
15 - Wallaby Ranch, FL
8 - Crawford Mts., Randolph, UT
14 - Point of the Mountain, Draper, UT
6 - Dockweiler Beach
25 - Soar the lift of a long fence
33 - Cape Lookout on the north Oregon coast
10 - Lookout Mountain, GA/TN
29 - Sites of historic hang glider flights
31 - Zapata, Tx
32 - Soboba CA
(all others are about equal to me at this time)

And here's my actual vote (note that only the actual vote will be counted in case it differs from anything else in a person's post):

  1 4 2 3 5 15 8 14 6 25 33 10 29 31 32