When is it OK to disallow swims

...So here's a slippery slope argument. Suppose a facility manager, or meet director, or even top 10 recorder measured the pool to verify bulkhead placement and found out that it was short. Suppose that person concealed the fact and the times were submitted and accepted as Top 10 times. Then -- after the "final" lists were published -- the true measurements turned up. What should be done? This is not a "disqualifying" offense. The results are official even if the pool is short, so it is not really analogous to Kirk's example. The times just should not have been submitted for Top 10. Do you think this is such an unlikely scenario? Pool measurements are done on the honor system. I think most people are honorable. But I am not so naïve as to think that everyone is. Chris, in your example quoted above, did the national Top Ten recorder receive the falsified measurements? Or did they only have assurances of the fact the pool was measured and was long enough? Because your answer will change my answer.

When I posted the original poll I was not making allowances for cheating.If there was cheating a swim or a meet or whatever should be thrown out.I meant to refer only to good faith swims. Kirk I applaud your honesty in getting your "too fast"time removed.I hope I would have been that honest.I know in the aftermath of the infamous 2001 NW Zone SCM meet Wayne McCaulley posted something like "My friend Allen Stark was at the meet and I know he wouldn't want any dubious times to count"and I thought to myself"Wow,I didn't know I was that scrupulous."

So really the deadline for making corrections to the preliminary top ten list is a soft one. It is with regard to pulling times off the list apparently, but not the other way around. Didn't Chris say in the other thread that entire sanctioned meets (with valid measurements, etc.) have been rejected for inclusion when a meet director didn't send the results by the "deadline"?

What if someone found out, after the results were official, that someone used paddles to swim the One Hour Postal? Would you want that result to stand just because the results were already official? There are all kinds of possible scenarios. I think the only fair thing to do is throw out any times that are known to not comply with USMS rules when the swim took place. The problem I have always had with the "slippery slope" argument is that the examples cited are often not analogous. Jim didn't use paddles, or a tow rope, or even a motor. He entered a USMS-sanctioned meet, he didn't false start, and he wasn't disqualified. The truly fair thing to do would have been to allow the official results to stand.

You asked the question, "What if someone found out, after the results were official, that someone used paddles to swim the One Hour Postal?" I interpreted that as a slippery slope argument in support of altering the top ten list.

Understood. My point was that Jim's time should not be disallowed simply because we can imagine such scenarios.

When I posted the original poll I was not making allowances for cheating.If there was cheating a swim or a meet or whatever should be thrown out.I meant to refer only to good faith swims. Thanks for giving your input, that's exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for to feed into the next Records & Tabulation discussion of this issue (a discussion of how permanent the "final" lists should be). Chris, in your example quoted above, did the national Top Ten recorder receive the falsified measurements? Or did they only have assurances of the fact the pool was measured and was long enough? Because your answer will change my answer. No, in my hypothetical example, she didn't. And in the real world too, she usually doesn't. Most people possibly don't know this, but here goes. Measurements only need to accompany USMS/FINA record applications, not Top 10 submissions. The LMSC (usually the Top 10 Recorder) is supposed to keep those on file. When Mary Beth is processing results she checks the meet facility and checks if the pool length certification is in the national database. If it isn't, she asks the TTR if the pool has been certified. If the pool has a bulkhead she also asks if the bulkhead placement was verified as is required by the rules. Some TTRs send in the measurements in response to these questions but not all do, nor is it required. So my hypothetical situation can certainly happen. Possibly the most unrealistic part of it is that the measurements are "discovered" after the TT lists are official, but I can think of a couple situations where this could happen. One would be a national record that isn't discovered until times are submitted for TT submission. (This happens quite often.) Mary Beth alerts the TTR about the record, and the record application (including the measurements) are submitted to Walt. The deadline for submission of times for records is 90 days after the end of the season, which is roughly about when the "final" lists are published. So Walt might receive the pool measurements and realize they are short after the TT lists are published. Another situation is when the TTR sends the measurements on to MB without realizing they are short. This definitely happens, though I admit that it is less likely to happen after the final lists are published. Realize that things have been changing the last few years in the TT world due to something called the E2EEM (end-to-end event management) project which, among other things, encourages TTRs to upload meet results into the national USMS results database to and use web tools to submit times for TT consideration. Online event sanctioning has also been added to E2EEM. One of the next stages is to tie into pool measurements; at some point -- I am speculating -- I could imagine inputing pool measurements as a required part of E2EEM. It would still be the honor system, of course, but more automated. Possibly -- again, speculation -- times couldn't be submitted for TT consideration or be part of "Current Event Rankings" unless those measurements are in the system. And that's probably more information than any of you wanted to know about Top 10. :-)

Okay, super simple solution to this- how about just not accepting swims that come from pools with no measurement on file (for fixed wall pools) or not accompanied by pool length certification forms (for bulkheaded pools)? That doesn't require Jim M. to have to add anything to the E2EEM system, but I do admit it would add paperwork for meet directors and the TTR. Any meet director worth his or her salt using a bulkheaded pool would already have the form filled out, so all they'd have to do would be scan and send the form. And yes, before you say anything, I know that meet directors are already busy- I'm married to one!

Wow. 80% of the respondents to the poll think that, by logical extension, when new evidence is found, a convicted felon should stay in jail. There is little difference from that argument to the ones being made here. Ummm, yeah, there's quite a difference, actually...

So really the deadline for making corrections to the preliminary top ten list is a soft one.