Concept of Deleted Entities reinstated

Bill Moore, NC1L, ARRL Awards Manager, reports the following:

In 2000, DXCC program rules were modified substantially in an effort to create simplified and stronger rules that would help make DXCC work well in the 21st century while tightening the DXCC List Criteria.

At the same time the DXCC Challenge Award/competition was created as part of the modernization effort.
The Challenge is intended to allow for an energetic new pursuit in DXing that focuses on statistics based upon only current entities on the List. The Challenge has been highly successful.

Another change resulting from this rules modernization was a subtle change from "deleting entities" to "removing entities." The intent of this change was to no longer allow the addition of deleted entities to the Deleted Entity List.

In the subsequent years since DXCC 2000 there have been few issues with this concept and resultant little attention given to the realities of the ideological change. Recently, however, since the rollout of Logbook of the World (LoTW) and various political changes internationally, it has become evident that the program should return the concept of deleting entities for mostly administrative reasons.

"Removing" an entity from the DXCC system is non-trivial if not impossible.

Also, the success of the DXCC Challenge and the DXCC Honor Roll have made a great game better by providing a playing field that isn't heavily biased by age.

It seems that the concept of a "deleted" entity - one that is marked as deleted and not applicable to Honor Roll or Challenge but that still exists in the records - is an elegant solution to the problem of changes in entity status. Distinguishing entities that are no longer extant makes sense as a means of leveling the playing field for younger participants in DXCC, but to wipe out someone's past accomplishments altogether just seems too drastic.

At its last meeting the ARRL Programs and Services Committee decided that administratively the concept of deleted entities should be returned to the DXCC program. Necessary changes to Section II, DXCC List Criteria have been made to the rules and part 5 is renamed Deletion Criteria. The concepts for deleting an entity do not change. If an entity is deleted it will be added to the Deleted Entities List and the statistical records for DXCC participants will be adjusted accordingly, just as they had been in the years prior to 2000. The numbers shown in the individual DXCC records lists have always included the Deleted Entities.

No DXCC participant needs to take any action at all.