Re: a bet (with apologies to The Moderator)

From: <joshuawfinn_at_gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2012 22:32:50 -0000

> Chose one:
>
> 1. Indoor FF is doing just fine. Leave it alone, the rules, the Nats,
> everything. Not broken don't fix.
>
> 2. Indoor FF is currently ailing. It is not appealing to participate in for
> one reason or another.

I love questionaires like this. See, you design things to get a particular response by restricting folks to a set of choices, none of which are correct, but are the only choices available.

So... 1 is obviously wrong in some way because we have seen a long-term decline when measured against numbers even from the 90's. So 2 must be right, eh? No. Indoor is not ailing, not from within. Indoor is extremely appealing to participate in for many reasons. Indoor is ailing because of lack of proper promotion, and it has nothing to do with the blasted nonsense that the events are too competitive or too hard.

I've said and will continue to say that we are marketing to the wrong crowd. Those who fly indoor, correction, those who fly anything, do so not because it is easy, but because it is hard. It's the same reason that most engineering graduates do not continue into grad school for their masters/Ph.D. even though 90% of them are capable of going all the way.

To get the right answers, you have to ask the right questions. This series of questions, the perceptions made, the anger, etc, are proof that things are ailing, but it's not the hobby of indoor freeflight. It is a victim. Outdoor is no better, contrary to the claims otherwise. Every contest I attend, indoor or outdoor, continues to feature the same people.

Rant over.

-Joshua Finn
Received on Mon Jul 02 2012 - 15:32:53 CEST