Steel Challenge - Jan 15, 2022 BOD Minutes - Zack Jones Presentation

[motosapiens]

the solution to the peak time problem for steel is the same as it is for USPSA; use actual math. 

it will adjust itself if you just sent the *percentile* that you think should be the cutoff for each class. As more people shoot faster, you'll gradually need a higher score to shoot in that same percentile.

[EarlKeese]

2 hours ago, Flatland Shooter said:

Nah, the Flying M stage still had some movement required.

Maybe add a stage with a recliner.

[Hoops]

5 hours ago, motosapiens said:

the solution to the peak time problem for steel is the same as it is for USPSA; use actual math. 

it will adjust itself if you just sent the *percentile* that you think should be the cutoff for each class. As more people shoot faster, you'll gradually need a higher score to shoot in that same percentile.

Who designs a USPSA classifier's and how does a new classifier become official?  (I am not a USPSA shooter)

[Hoops]

9 hours ago, Hoops said:

Who designs a USPSA classifier's and how does a new classifier become official?  (I am not a USPSA shooter)

Scratch this question.  Not relevant to SCSA.

 

 

[varminter22]

On 2/23/2022 at 4:28 PM, egd5 said:

I would be in favor of throwing out OL. It's the only stage that requires movement. Everything else is strictly a test of shooting, including the long shots. That is how I view steel challenge- a shooting contest.

As Moto says, there are plenty of other sports/games that include movement.

 

On 2/23/2022 at 8:59 PM, Hoops said:

...

Dropping OL won't impact the the current SCSA winners/leaders or cause anyone to leave the sport.....but.... another stationary stage in it's place would open the door to many other very deserving disabled shooters who are currently discouraged from participating in the sport.  

I agree.

[Umbrarian]

On 2/23/2022 at 6:28 PM, egd5 said:

I would be in favor of throwing out OL. It's the only stage that requires movement. Everything else is strictly a test of shooting, including the long shots. That is how I view steel challenge- a shooting contest.

As Moto says, there are plenty of other sports/games that include movement.

 

You keep the stage and just eliminate the movement.

[AzShooter]

That works for me.

 

[egd5]

1 hour ago, Umbrarian said:

 

You keep the stage and just eliminate the movement.

Great idea. Just shoot from the middle box.

[Flatland Shooter]

1 hour ago, Umbrarian said:

You keep the stage and just eliminate the movement.

 

That would work for me.  Now we just need to Steel Challenge folks to bless this.

[RickT]

From a purely selfish perspective the capricious penalty change from 3 t o4 seconds really crushed my wife.  Sure, it's only 3 seconds overall, but the claim during the board meeting as passed down my the Area 1 director that "80% of competitors could cheat with a 3 second penalty" was totally absent any sort of analysis.  I asked for same and none was forthcoming. 

[motosapiens]

32 minutes ago, RickT said:

From a purely selfish perspective the capricious penalty change from 3 t o4 seconds really crushed my wife.  Sure, it's only 3 seconds overall, but the claim during the board meeting as passed down my the Area 1 director that "80% of competitors could cheat with a 3 second penalty" was totally absent any sort of analysis.  I asked for same and none was forthcoming. 

that was unfortunate and unnecessary imho. seeing you and sheryl (sp?) shoot is part of why i have become such an advocate of removing the movement . as far as data, it takes my 60 yr old ass around 2 seconds between boxes, shot to shot. 3 seconds might be a wash for A-B class shooters, but 4 is more than the whole string takes for good rimfire/pcc shooters. i don’t see the data supporting a 4 sec penalty. just shoot from the center and stop arguing about it.

 

fwiw, i personally like the movement, i just think it is unnecessary and unfair, and it wouldn’t hurt the sport in any way to remove it.

Edited February 26, 2022 by motosapiens

[BritinUSA]

I think I’ve only ever shot 2-3 Steel Challenge matches, I didn’t much care for it to be honest.
 

I’ve always wondered why they had that one stage with the movement, without it the competition would be a pure shooting test, and could be enjoyed by a much wider cross-section of people.

 

There are very few sports where able-bodied and less-able can compete on equal terms, wouldn’t it be great if a shooting contest was one of them?

Edited February 26, 2022 by BritinUSA

[Darqusoull13]

On 2/23/2022 at 5:51 PM, motosapiens said:

that's some defeatist excuse-making bullsh!t right there, almost as bad as the whining you were responding to, lol. Looking at the results of last year's WSSSC I see a number of people over 30 in the top 50 overall (including kc in 3rd OA, first rfpo). Admittedly, BJ was still under 30 I believe when he recorded the fastest centerfire time ever. yes, sure, you do lose a smidgen of reaction time, but what really ends these kids' domination is not getting older, but discovering the opposite sex.

Regardless of your motivational thoughts on the matter you can't argue with documented physiological changes as you noted. 

Yes life getting in the way may increase chances of moving up a place when a youth bows out of the sport. 

Let's see who ends up being in the top 10 in a few years when the talent pool doubles, slots are awarded based on area placement and centerfire (recoil) participation tanks even lower than it is now.

[KelsonAK]

On 2/24/2022 at 1:18 PM, egd5 said:

OK, let me see if I understand the cause of discussion about peak times. Is it--there are more shooters shooting better than 100% (faster than the peak time), therefore some think the peak times should be adjusted upward? That would then affect all shooters making it harder to achieve any desired class given that it takes a % of peak time to do it.

1. Are there that many people who shoot that fast?    I wouldn't think so.

2. If there really are that many, how about establishing another class-super GM- just for those folks?  Then it wouldn't make it that much harder for us normal humans who struggle as is. Why skew the entire system just for a relatively small % of the overall shooters?

Well - in regards to question 1:  There were more than 10 folks that shot RFRO faster than peak time at WSSC, and if I am counting correctly 10 that shot it faster than peak in RFPO.  There were 146 shooters in RFRO - so MORE than 5% shot faster than peak time.  In RFPO there were almost 10% of competitors that shot it at or faster than peak time.  I didn't do a stage by stage analysis, but in some divisions, the top is getting faster.  Much faster.  That doesn't mean the new peak time is going to or should drop into the 50s...

It (changing the peak times) doesn't make the game any harder or easier.  All it does is raise the bar for getting a particular classification.  Yes - one would have to shoot faster if they were to make a GM - but that doesn't change the nature of the game.  That isn't the point of the game  either - to 'get a GM.'  Normal humans(TM) shooting at an A or B classification in steel challenge (and USPSA for that matter) are still really quite good shooters.  We should recognize that!  It's easy to forget that or to become so fixated on classification that anything that makes it harder to do so becomes a slight or an unfairness.   

 

I'm gonna go to the WSSC - I'm gonna get my ass handed to me by Grant and Lance and Neil and others.  Quite a few others...  Having GM on my dance card isn't going to change that.... shooting faster/accurate(r?) would.  Ultimately - I'm doin this for fun anyway...

 

 

[egd5]

Kelson, I don't consider it a slight or unfairness. That's not what I meant. It just seems to me that the times are pretty good then for 90 to 95% of the shooters (to use your figures) so why make a change that affects everybody when it's so few that shoot that fast. It seems easier to make another class for those elite few.

[ZackJones]

On 2/21/2022 at 10:56 AM, Darqusoull13 said:

I'm strongly against this one. Dropping the only stage with movement and the two "long" shot stages would be significantly skew the classification numbers. 

At the very least including OL and SO provides an incentive to travel to other ranges beyond one's "home club." 

I'm sorry I wasn't clear in my statement. I didn't mean to ruffle your tail feathers :). What I should have said was for INITIAL classification perhaps make it be based on the speed 6 and not all classifications. Sometimes my fingers don't type what my brain may be thinking at the time :). 

[ZackJones]

On 2/24/2022 at 4:05 PM, Hoops said:

To answer jrdoran's questions about how Peak Times......perhaps Zack can offer some insight on this?

 

I read his original post and subsequent post and I don't have a good answer, tbh. On the surface it seems very simple. The classification system was created as a way to measure your abilities against a standard. As we quickly learned I was way off on some of the initial PST's. We had very good data for all fo the center fire divisions but virtually none for Rimfire and PCC. Over time we have made adjustments based on times being shot at WSSC. We have looked at other matches in the past but we end up with the same group of people setting the fastest times regardless of match location. We do not have any goals such as X% of any division by in Y class, etc. It's there to serve as a measurement and that's really its only purpose. 

[ZackJones]

On 2/25/2022 at 8:38 PM, Flatland Shooter said:

That would work for me.  Now we just need to Steel Challenge folks to bless this.

This would require a rule change which would take BoD approval. 

[Flatland Shooter]

10 minutes ago, ZackJones said:

This would require a rule change which would take BoD approval. 

 

What can we do to get this before the Board?

[ZackJones]

1 minute ago, Flatland Shooter said:

What can we do to get this before the Board?

Someone draft up a proposal for the change and either send it to your Area director or to me. That way my committee can do a formal review and make a recommendation to the full board. There are lots of things to consider about such a change though. For sure PST's would change across all divisions. Does this stage now become basically a much longer Showdown but shot from the center instead of left and right boxes? How would removing movement help clubs that don't have sufficient room to run the stage now? 

 

The next time our local match runs this stage I'm going to shoot it from center box only and take the 4 second penalty just to see how my times compare to shooting it with movement. 

[Flatland Shooter]

13 hours ago, ZackJones said:

Someone draft up a proposal for the change and either send it to your Area director or to me. That way my committee can do a formal review and make a recommendation to the full board.

Thank you Zack.  Please PM me with contact information.

[motosapiens]

14 hours ago, ZackJones said:

Someone draft up a proposal for the change and either send it to your Area director or to me. That way my committee can do a formal review and make a recommendation to the full board. There are lots of things to consider about such a change though. For sure PST's would change across all divisions. Does this stage now become basically a much longer Showdown but shot from the center instead of left and right boxes? How would removing movement help clubs that don't have sufficient room to run the stage now? 

 

The next time our local match runs this stage I'm going to shoot it from center box only and take the 4 second penalty just to see how my times compare to shooting it with movement. 

 

i'm 60, and it takes me about 2 seconds from the 2nd shot in the first box to the first shot in the middle box.It would half a second or less if stationary, so it appears that the movement costs me about 1.5 seconds per string. Mrs moto gets across in about 1.8 seconds most of the time, so it costs here a smidge less.

[Hoops]

2 minutes ago, motosapiens said:

 

i'm 60, and it takes me about 2 seconds from the 2nd shot in the first box to the first shot in the middle box.It would half a second or less if stationary, so it appears that the movement costs me about 1.5 seconds per string. Mrs moto gets across in about 1.8 seconds most of the time, so it costs here a smidge less.

If I recall, Mrs Moto is younger than you and a GM?   

 

I am curious what Zack can do in his test.

 

But........let's not forget the issue with folks with disabilities, which seems to have a concensus to address beyond just what times young and old folks can do.  

[egd5]

Everyone varies in their mobility. Certainly age is a big factor, give it another 10 years Moto   But the big thing to me is that it is the only stage where movement is required and since everything else is purely a shooting test, why is this movement needed.

 

"There are very few sports where able-bodied and less-able can compete on equal terms, wouldn’t it be great if a shooting contest was one of them? "

 

This quote by Britan really says it all.

[motosapiens]

Just now, egd5 said:

Everyone varies in their mobility. Certainly age is a big factor, give it another 10 years Moto   But the big thing to me is that it is the only stage where movement is required and since everything else is purely a shooting test, why is this movement needed.

I agree 100% and have stated so earlier in this thread. I don't expect to slow down much in my ability to move 6 feet over the next years, so having movement will probably continue to help me personally. I still favor getting rid of the movement because it's the right thing to do to make the sport more inclusive and accessible. It's a minor change that will have no effect on the top shooters, but a huge positive effect on disabled shooters.