You are right, Mark. Solving a problem is our only goal here. Or, if you prefer, flip this coin over and characterize our concern as wanting to improve our processes - for the benefit of our race clients, race personnel, visitors to USATF, measurers, certifiers, and hard-working RRTC staff persons who process a lot of certification data these days. No indictment or criticism of any individual is ever intended or condoned by anyone I know.
As a relative newbie to this RRTC forum, I am struck by the attention to detail by participants in discovering and discussing the most meticulous and reliable measuring methods and procedures. I learn something most every time I spend a few minutes reading the latest posts. I am proud to be part of an organization that has such high standards and that has such well-qualified, analytical, technically adept contributors. The relentless pursuit of excellence in the art of certification measuring I perceive within RRTC is truly impressive.
The fact that some of us on this forum feel that we must work around some historically imposed limits on this pursuit of excellence causes me to be confused. I have seen repeatedly that some member efforts directed at improving our processes and reducing the certification workload repeatedly seem to hit a wall. In particular, member efforts to improve the methods we use to process certification maps are regularly rebuffed by USATF. When members examine our processes and then carefully propose improvements that save time, money, trees, simplify and ease the workload for RRTC/USATF staff, that serve our customers better and make RRTC and USATF look more professional, it seems they are routinely disregarded by USATF. The reasons for being "blown off" in this way never seem to reveal themselves.
In a crowd of curious, analytical, technically-adept members who actively engage in the pursuit of excellence in all that we do, it seems to me that USATF's inexplicable disregard for our initiatives serves only to raise more questions rather than inspire passive acceptance of mediocrity. Perhaps some of us may feel that extending our passion for improving our work should be arbitrarily limited in inscrutable ways. Surely, though, this cannot reflect the majority opinion of RRTC members and members of the greater measuring community.
It seems clear to me that most of us want to see progress in an area of our work that has been held back artificially for too long. If there are "more important things to worry about" than the aforementioned benefits, including saving time for hard-working RRTC staff, what may they be?
If USATF wants us to give up and go away in our pursuit of simplifying our map processing standards, propping up straw men and stonewalling rather than encouraging an open and honest discussion of the pros and cons seems to me to serve only to pour an accelerant on this fire. Such active disregard - bordering on disrespect - creates the perception that there is something to hide. We want to believe that USATF's passive-agressive approach is not intentional. Some of us may take this inattention as reason to accept mediocrity and inefficiency. Nevertheless, some of us find ourselves energized by the curious lack of interest by USATF in this matter as we volunteer our efforts to serve our customers better and to work more efficiently. I know for a fact that some of us see no good reason to apply one standard of excellence to most of our work while tolerating a much lower standard for the rest. I believe that USATF's act of supporting this conundrum, whether by intent or by negligence, will ultimately promote more requests for change.