There has been some conversation lately around posting Shoot-Up Tour scores and current standings online, and I wanted to address it.  My hope is to explain the situation to you all so that you can make your own personal decision with as much information as possible.  Please read on for more details.

A week or so ago it came to our attention that a Facebook group has been posting all of the Shoot-Up Tour scores and compiling a live placement list. This group is not affiliated with the Shoot-Up Tour in any way, other than sometimes participating in some of the events.  The person who is compiling and posting the scores online does not personally attend every shoot, so I assume he is getting his information from other archers who take pictures of the scores and send those pictures to him.

He’s been very thorough and congratulatory to all of the shooters, and I have no doubt that he is trying to promote and encourage the sport of archery.  In fact when Mom and I started running the tour a few years ago my intention was to post scores online.

Unfortunately when we talked it over with John and Cory we learned that they had stopped doing that because of a problem with sandbagging. For those of you who are not familiar with the term, it means to intentionally shoot a lower score so you are placed in a lower, which gives you a better chance at winning that flight.  You see it at Vegas every year: someone will shoot in the low 290’s the first two days and then bang out a 27x 300 on the third day, which just coincidentally means that they bring home a fat check they may not have earned in a higher flight.

To combat these problems the Shoot-Up Tour has a number of rules and policies to make sandbagging harder and/or less beneficial.  We feel that these policies make the Tour more fun and more fair for everyone who participates.  One those policies is that we don’t post scores or overall standings online while the Tour is in progress.

We explained our position to the moderator of the Facebook page and asked him to stop posting scores.  He declined to cooperate, saying that he likes to have the scores available and that he didn’t think sandbagging was a real problem.  He did say that he would stop posting scores if he determined that it was a problem.

We had a number of discussions with several people over the last couple weeks, and in the end we’ve decided to continue as we always have: we will not publicly post scores or current standings while the Tour is in progress. As has always been the case, if you want to know what your own scores are we are happy to give those to you.  We have records of every shoot going back to 2013.  But we still feel that not posting scores online is the best way to ensure a fair tournament experience for everyone.

I do have a request for each of you: If you decide that you want to provide your scores to be posted online, please only post your own scores. Do not post pictures of all the full results or otherwise post complete standings for the event. Let your friends and fellow archers decide on their own if they want to provide those details.

This decision is yours to make, for yourself, because cheating effects the archers who participate in these events.  It doesn’t really make much of a difference from an administrative point of view.  Excel sorts the scores the same way whether they’ve been sandbagged or not.  But its far less fun for everyone when a few are enabled to take advantage of the rest.

When deciding to post your scores online this is the question I think you should ask yourself is:  Will making it easier to sandbag result in more sandbagging?

Thanks for taking the time to consider this.