Jumping on the "This is awesome" bandwagon.

I'm glad to see that a lot of thought is going into solving this issue, but in reading the post at the top of this chain, I'm worrying that the process is being overcomplicated.  The numbers about arrival rates are interesting, but the conclusion from it is the same as what was already said -- generally speaking, we need at least two major airports involved to support the traffic levels.

Instead of a multi-step approval process as described, what about a simpler approach?  Suspend the ONE rule that VATUSA has in place which essentially enforces this situation: suspend the rule that only one event may be occurring within VATUSA at any given time.  Traditionally, that rule has existed in order to avoid dividing the interested traffic between two conflicting events, and focus everyone on one event.  Now, that's exactly what we DON'T want to happen.  We NEED to divide the traffic between two events.  Heck, for that matter, make it competitive -- which ARTCC can attract the most traffic?  Get both ARTCCs working to attract as many pilots as they can, so we can split the pilot interest as close to 50/50 as possible.

Lonnie --

Three other threads on this forum might provide some insights for you:

https://forums.vatusa.net/index.php?topic=9115.0
Summary: during the recent FNO at PHL, pilots coming from ZTL toward PHL wound up in holds within ZDC, where pilots coming from ZID toward PHL were asked to hold within ZID (some for an hour or more), and many aircraft wound up ground-stopped at their origin airport

https://forums.vatusa.net/index.php?topic=9278.0
Average FNO volume of late has been triple the average, and event design should de-emphasize flying into a single destination until this resolves

https://forums.vatusa.net/index.php?topic=9279.0
VATUSA is mandating that through April, May, and June, all FNO events MUST staff majors in at least two different ARTCCs

Here's a screenshot of VAT-Spy showing 274 arrivals into Philly, while someone on my stream complained he'd been waiting to depart from RDU for 45 minutes
https://youtu.be/XspjudXjT3o?t=3250
(skip ahead to 58:00 for additional comments)

So, some pilots wound up in hour-long holds, and others wound up stuck on the ground for 45+ minutes because Philly can only take so many arrivals within a given span of time.  Are any of the pilots who were holding for an hour, or not even given takeoff clearance in the first place, here complaining that they were "denied services"?  If 300 people want to fly into an airspace that can hold 150, and the controllers do their jobs the way they're supposed to, are you saying that the remaining 150 pilots can come on this forum complaining that they were "denied services"?

So, now, ask yourself -- are you really truly suggesting that your need for practice approaches at Philly at that exact moment superseded the needs of any of the pilots who were stuck in holds or groundstops?  On VATSIM we strive never to prioritize any one pilot over another.  Aren't YOU the one who caused denial of service for OTHERS?  Or, do we need to apply just a bit of common sense to the situation and say that in unprecedented high traffic volumes, the controllers were just doing what they could to be fair to everyone?

It was done for WorldFlight coming into DCA this past November, but, that was (as far as I understood it) a condition that was proposed and agreed to BY the WorldFlight participants, not imposed on them by ZDC or any VATUSA entity.

I'm no authority; I'm just stating to add some context, in case that WorldFlight example was on any of the ZNY staff's mind when devising the idea.

I tried leaving this feedback on the Cleveland ARTCC website, but, got the below linked error.  So, here it is:

I just wanted to say thanks to ALL of the controllers who worked the FNO tonight, but particularly to your Departure controller.  The strange times we live in right now added a ton more traffic than I think the event might have really been ready for, and it was obvious that the workload was stressful for everyone.  The service we received was far from perfect but the controller kept a positive attitude and a smile throughout, and was a joy to work with for our arrival and departure to and from Allegheny (KAGC).  Hope to work with you all again soon.  Thanks for sticking it out!  Stay safe out there!

https://i.imgur.com/wB1fqSb.jpg

The flip-side of that is, since it operates outside of the VATSIM network, it's hit-or-miss to find a controller that uses it.  I think you'll find growing awareness of it, though - - go to forums.vatsim.net and use the search function on the word "Hoppie" and you'll find quite a bit of discussion, including some posts from today.  Apparently one aircraft developer released an update which includes native CPDLC integration, and there's hope from some that it's the first domino to fall in the chain of gaining more mainstream VATSIM use and support for it.

Some sites will have info like this. But the problem is that it would be extremely rare when the amount of controllers would be online to actually cover all of these positions.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DJBeRbp4ZS6SnUyNjfTIUF7iKalGbibS/view?usp=drivesdk

Minneapolis's is the best one: http://www.minniecenter.org/split

It would be great if the other ARTCCs would follow suit.  You're correct that it's pretty much never the case where all of these would be staffed, but, having the chart does give a pilot a better chance of figuring out which of two or three controllers to call when all you have to go on is the sector number.  And Minnie's even has a description below the map on how they usually split them, plus, they're color-coded in terms of their most common splits, too.

There was a debate some months ago about requiring ARTCCs to eschew the sector number thing in favor of something that makes sense for pilots.  And I was firmly in the camp in favor of that.  However, the biggest and most sensible argument against it is that sector splits aren't constant -- you might start with "DC_N_CTR", "DC_W_CTR", "DC_SW_CTR" and "DC_S_CTR" but when some of those guys start logging off and the ones staying on have to start covering multiple sectors, those designators suddenly don't make sense anymore.