US Hawks Hang Gliding Association

Hello Fellow Board members,

There have been a number of discussions over the years about issuing our own US Hawks ratings. This topic is intended to move us in one direction or another.

Since we've kicked the idea around, maybe it's time to start taking some official votes of the Board. With that thought in mind, I'd like to suggest that we take a straw poll to see which ideas might float. Here are some of my "nominations":

  1. Send a letter to the US Hawks Membership asking them to endorse a request that USHPA share their rating system.  

  2. Just send a letter to USHPA (from our Board) requesting to share their rating system.  

  3. Just copy USHPA's system without changing it or asking.  

  4. Write our rating system from scratch (this will require additional votes on the system itself).  

I suggest that we collect ideas for a week and then use the Condorcet system to see which one wins. This is a non-binding vote, but it's intent is to get a sense of what the board members feel is the best direction. Please feel free to add new nominations, post your votes, change your votes, change your nominations, etc.

Hello BOD members. I would like to start with the following -

BobK wrote:I figure if we ask, there will be 3 possible responses:

"Yes, you may use our rating system." (not likely)
"No, we consider it a copyrighted work." (likely).
No response at all (also likely).

Then we have to decide which of those will be to our
benefit and which will not.

Before voting I think there is another potential response from the U$hPa. That would be -

"We'll see you in court." (possible)

As most of us have heard, anybody can sue anybody for anything. It just costs money. So why couldn't the U$hPa sue BobK (the trouble maker) for telling them that the US Hawks want to "steal" their rating system. The U$hPa wouldn't even have to think they'd win. The goal could simply be to financially devastate (with attorney fees) Bob and/or the US Hawks.

Early in this debate I proposed to only sign the Rating System request letter with "The US Hawks (Interim?) BOD". My reason for making that suggestion was to keep the U$hPa from retaliating against any signer who was still a member of the U$hPa. Connected with the above possible U$hPa response, having no specific names would make it harder for the U$hPa to identify other parties besides BobK. But regardless of how vaguely it's signed the U$hPa would know that they could certainly point their finger at Bob.

And during a deposition they could ask, "Who are the US Hawks BODs?" which Bob, or anyone else asked the question, would have to answer. That is, if the "We'll see you in court" option even happened.

I've also described that "asking" implies that the US Hawks thinks that they need to get permission. In the "We'll see you in court" option, the U$hPa would consider that their best evidence that the US Hawks knew that the U$hPa "owned" the information in question.

Thanks for the response Scott. It's a good reminder that USHPA has the annual membership money from 10,000 pilots at their discretion. We have about zero.

That's actually another reason that I think we should ask rather than just assuming that it's in the public domain. If they say "no", then we pretty much end up writing our own simply because we don't have the financial wherewithal to put up a fight.

I do feel that the better solution for all pilots in general is to have a shared system so that the standards are universal. That's why I think we should ask - because it's the right thing to do for everyone - before we just go off and write our own standards. Furthermore, by asking, we remove USHPA's ability to "blame" us for the existence of two separate standards. If there are going to be 2 standards, I think it's important that everyone know that it was USHPA's decision and not ours.

ALSO ... please remember that our policy here is to make all private Board discussions public after any decisions are made. That will be true for this topic as well. As an organization, it is sometimes appropriate to make strategic decisions out of the public eye, but our goal of transparency dictates that we publish our decisions once any strategic window has passed. In this case, I think the "strategic window" will have passed whenever we either request to use USHPA's standards or begin work on our own standards.

Considering #3 in Bob's lead off post -

3. Use USHPA's system while making only necessary, minor changes, without asking.

I'd prefer to have a voting option that does not include words that imply that requesting permission is necessary (i.e.using a phrase such as "without asking"). I think the "Go ahead and use it" choice, lets make it #4, would better say -

  4. Use the USHPA's Rating System and/or Procedures (while making only necessary, minor changes) based on the Fair Use doctrine and the understanding that a "system" and/or "procedure" may not be not copyrighted.  

Please feel free to add options with your own wording if you like. I think the next number would be somewhere around 5 or 6.

Bob Kuczewski wrote:Please feel free to add options with your own wording if you like. I think the next number would be somewhere around 5 or 6.

Remember our best flying site practice,   Nominate   and   Vote   exercise?
We had so many options that at best we could only narrow it down to a five way tie.
The greater the nomination pool the greater the chance we will have to have several tie breaker polls/elections.
We seem to be caught in a quagmire of our own design. One thought I had around this is to break it down into
an up or down vote. (non-binding by the advisory board.)
First: Should we approach the USHPA on the topic of using their ratings manual.   YES   or   NO   or
  NONE OF THE ABOVE  ?

If   YES   carries then nominate how the topic should be advanced.

Bill,

I would like to second your motion to first vote on whether we ask, or not ask, the USHPA about considering their rating system to create our own (very similar or somewhat different) rating system.

wingspan33 wrote:Bill,

I would like to second your motion to first vote on whether we ask, or not ask, the USHPA about considering their rating system to create our own (very similar or somewhat different) rating system.

Sorry for the confusion I did it in   vote blue   so as to suggest a possible   nomination  
Rather than I cheat and go back and change the   blue vote   to a   green nomination  
I will start from scratch so no one can cry foul.
  Should we approach the USHPA on the topic of using their ratings manual.  
Is there a second to my motion?
We will allow nominations until next Sunday, May 6, 2018, midnight eastern time.

I second (or third?) Bill's motion that we take a vote to decide whether we should approach the USHPA on the topic of using their ratings manual.

Does Bill have to put the vote up, since he made the proposal? No one has made any suggested changes so do we have to wait for 5/6 midnight as Bill has mentioned. (Frankly, I'm confused about the process at this point) I'm ready to vote.