Discussion: Controls out of order carnage

I've never seen so many controls taken out of order! A third of the field punched 12 before 11. Five of those never found 11 and so were an mp. There were 6 other controls taken out of order as well - 3, 4, 9, 17, 18 and 25. One runner found 11 before 12 OK, but then came back to 12 two minutes later!

Not only that, but every single finisher has an AP mistake showing - I haven't seen that before.

12 before 11 was very easy to do, 11 before 12 was hard.

I saw 12 before 11, then saw Undy seeing 12 before 11. Apparently the path started behind the tunnel wall so you had to double back on yourself a bit, which a lot of people failed to notice.

I will come to this weekend's event and awesome-ise the course for you.

Different kettle of fish

Wait, Jayne you did 6ft then the sprint event the next day? Madness.

I hope there is a fort on this weekend's map :-)

Yep! and considering how I felt on Sunday morning I'm surprised I ran as much as I did

@tRicky Unfortunately there isn't a fort on the next map (at least not like the one that was on the Middle Head map).

@O-ing I think all the misordered controls was in part due to the tiny size of the circles and lines, although the numbers were obvious enough with the white border (for once). I won't vent my thoughts about the mistakes.

Disappointment. If I'm going to travel all that way to the event, the least you can do is build a fort for me :-)

From watching people(/headless chickens, actually the crowd mentality was probably more like watching herds of sheep than chickens), the number that didn't seem to bother reading their map/descriptions but charged around after others was astounding (as were the numbers jumping/attempting to jump uncrossable walls). Sounds like similar was happening at 9...

Were it not for the hassle, I think putting out extra dummy controls on these sprint events might, eventually, improve competitors skills in deciding whether a control is theirs or not. With one course, people are just punching everything they see then checking numbers, it should be the features (and their map/descriptions) they're checking!

I know bits of yesterday's area were complex and in the extreme, but you shouldn't be mistaking a set of stairs with a building in the case of 11/12, even accounting for the fact the first track being indistinct.

In WA our sprint events used to have just the one course, then we added a shorter course and now we also have an easy course so three all up. Some setters try and reuse as many controls across the two courses as possible (to minimise workload, which tends to result in two similar courses) but when I set I try and replicate what people could expect to encounter at a national level event so may have multiple controls near each other between the two courses to make sure people check. Unfortunately our club didn't get allocated a sprint to set this year :-(

@tRicky - would one made of sand do? we might be able to rustle something up ;)

@Brooner - we did that once for a particularly easy course at SOAP and caught 6 lizard people and one blue man.
(http://www.bigfootorienteers.com/drupal_2/node/187)

@Brooner @undy isn't that what you do in ultrasprint? I don't see why you couldn't do it and just not tell people though as it's just like having another course out there.

@Brooner As I mentioned when you pointed this out to me from the top of the fort, the map wasn't mapped to the specification. This creates two avenues for complaint: (1) "The map wasn't mapped as a sprint map and so the sprint rules do not apply", it is important to note here that many people seem to think that the sprint rules (i.e. not crossing features marked as uncrossable, and not entering areas marked as impassable) apply to non-sprint events, even though they do not. (2) The symbols were shrunk so the 'uncrossable ' features appeared to be marked as 'crossable' features.

For reference: ISSOM standard from the IOF
In particular:
Section 1, Third point under "The main characteristics of the ISSOM"
Section 5.5:
- Symbol 521.1: the thickness on the map appears to be about half of the minimum, i.e about what is required for PASSABLE features. The cliffs appear to be the correct thickness.
- Symbol 526.1 the buildings should have an outline (really would have helped in the complex parts for people who cannot distinguish the boundary of the buildings from the green (colourblindness) more as a navigation aid than anything).

Pillows.

and here's me thinking orienteering could just be fun. Yeah, you wouldn't use it for a NOL race and it's probably not possible to map it totally accurately, but it was a great place to run. We orienteered round forts, it was cool...

Certainly, it was fun. However, I am trying to use it to point out the problems that arise when the standard isn't followed (it is there for a reason). In particular the uncrossable features.

We have similar problems with Sprint events down here (Victoria) There are a lot of orienteers, experienced through to newcomers, who just dont understand the relevance of uncrossable features. Bush maps have impassable features, so why does it change for Sprint maps, If they can cross it, its not uncrossable

You should not cross an angry orienteer.

As I said on my log, I thought it was a great area for a fun event even though the map wasn't in full conformance with ISSOM - it wouldn't have been suitable for anything higher-level.

The main thing which confused me was the wall line thickness - it was thin enough that it could easily be read as the boundary of a paved area. I confess to reaching over the wall at 15, on the grounds that I was standing on the spot where the control description said the control should be (east foot of the wall).

Is it normal not to have "standard" control descriptions (with codes, and showing control numbers 1, 2, 3 etc.) at these events? People not checking codes is not unusual at sprint events but you don't want to make it difficult for them. (I can certainly understand people ending up at 12 before 11, but I'm more surprised that people punched it).

It was pretty much a one man show so hats off to Andy for doing the map, courses, organising...the list goes on.

Agreed (and he was doing it on one leg too, at least on the day).

Sounds like all the events that I set. I figure if I have helpers, organisers or whatever, they'll just get in the way.

It's not normal to not have different control codes at these events. After doing it like that I've a tendency to think it makes things simpler.

Hats also off to Amy for manning the bbq in the rain, shame we hadn't got anyone in to organise the weather..

The weather was perfectly OK while I was on my course. Can't be responsible for what happened afterwards....

@tRicky - can't promise a fort but would a tree house or cubby do instead?

Ha - I thought the highlight of my AP reading day was learning that some Victorians got lost in Sydney Uni looking for the forest. I was right, but some of this is almost as funny.

And the big pink footprint with "naked men" above it ? I think there could have been toe prints there and a bit more arch in the foot.

Blair did you get our cyclone? I was wondering where it went.