To: Boxford11@aol.com
Subject: Article 7 Section 2: Emerging Countries
Organization: Plover Systems
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 12:41:56 -0400
From: Mark Jason Dominus <mjd@plover.com>


Article 7, section 2 of the WSF constitution says:

        2.  A Member for which any one of the following standards has
        not yet been met shall be deemed to be an Emerging Country and
        thus assigned to Zone 6: 

            (a) failure to have a competitor placing within the first
        twenty (20) places in two (2) of the Figure Skating
        disciplines (Women, Men, Pairs, Ice Dancing) or in the first
        five (5) in Synchronized Skating at a WSF World Championships,

            (b) failure to have a total of at least one hundred ...


There is an unintentional double negative in the requirements.  The
constitution says that an emerging country is one for which the
following standards have NOT been met, and then lists FAILURE to have
a highly placed competitor as a standard.  

According to this paragraph, the USFSA is an Emerging Country because
it has not met standard (b), which requires that the USFSA fail to
have at least one hundred registered athletes.