Discussion: New twist on Protests

If one control is challenged in an SI event, would this alternative have any appeal?

Case I:
Ala US Champs #13, the control is in the right location, but the map, terrain, or clue description errors make it unfair (varied loss of time). However, 'everyone' does find the control and punches. Throw out leg 12-13 only !?!?!? Ie reduce everyone's times, and declare the winner.

Case II:
One control (say #13) is 'totally' misplaced; parallel error or perhaps stolen/moved during the event. Lots of lost time and many runners never find it, but do finish the course. Throw out times on legs 12-13 and 13-14.

Would you accept such a compromise as more palatable than the current options: "deny a valid challenge" or "throw out the course"? Opinions?

Interesting situation. I think it could be a solution. I mean why not - the SI allows the issue to be isolated, at least in time.

But an argument against it might be situations where say:
- somone is so discouraged etc. (and not knowing for sure it IS wrong, thinking maybe it's them) that they just DNF; or
- someone claims they were so stressed etc. by the experience that they screwed up later parts of the course (or at least that it affected their ability to focus and concentrate)

Will be interesting to hear what others think.

This was discussed at a USOF board meeting (April 30, 2005 - it was discussed at the meeting prior but voted on in April) and we voted to disallow exactly this sort of throwing out individual legs.

http://home.comcast.net/~rshannonhouse/043005BOD.h...

FYI Rick--a protest jury went out into the terrain and examined the #13 control exhaustively, and concluded it was fair.

I've seen the "Case II" scenario used in an adventure race where a checkpoint was misplaced by a large distance (more than 500 m), and some competitors failed to find it, including several top teams. Of the teams who found it, some took bearings from the checkpoint, then had difficulty finding the next one a couple of kilometers away. Not surprisingly, there were teams who DNF'ed as a result. There was also some debate about whether the winner should be the team who crossed the fnish line first having visited all checkpoints, as per the normal rules. There is really no way to make everyone happy in a situation like that!

I too have had extensive dialogue on misplaced controls in an adventure racing setting. One point that isn't factored in is the energy spent looking for a misplaced control (and how this effects future times). Just throwing out the time doesn't incorporate this. As mentioned by someone else in an earlier forum, finding the control should require skill and not luck.

My vote: removing the time of the leg is "adequate" but not "accurate".

I think you need to know before the race that a leg will be omitted if it is marred by a course setting error. If competitors don't know that, then they will not all treat the remainder of the race with the same level of committment to winning. But that then makes for an ugly situation. What event organiser is going to announce this intention before an event. Its an admission of probable failure before the event begins. Hardly likely to inspire confidence.

I was involved in the one instance (that I know of) in the US where a control was removed from a course, and the resulting times were used. At the time, I thought this was pretty clever. But since then, I have changed my mind, mainly because I know people who exhausted themselves looking for the control - say they wandered around for 60 minutes - the rest of the race couldn't possibly be fair for them versus the person who found it in 5 minutes. On paper the bigger boom seems to be rewarded the most, but if I am pooped, discouraged, and disgusted at that point, my race is done.

BTW, the most recent versions of SI software will do this calculation automatically (I did the adjustment manually), but the feature is in place to use for mandatory crossing points - like a busy road, or a floating bridge. Put a control on each side and then remove it from the course so no one is penalized for a slower crossing.

Orienteering Australia looked at this last year. In the end we decided to write a set of guidelines which specify what powers juries have. We concluded that: 'It is tempting, but almost always wrong, to try to make use of the electronic punching split times to "remove" a problem control.'

Our reasoning was that any way you do it, some will be disadvantaged (as in the examples above). If the race has been compromised, then either the problem is so bad that voiding is the only option, or the problem is not significant and the race result should remain.

My feeling is that the gist of the US(Australian) ruling in correct.

There is also the potential that, if this were allowed, it could lead in some cases to sloppy course setting. Put a bunch of controls out there, and then see which ones people don't object to, and throw out the rest. That's an exaggeration, but I honestly do think that there could be a noticeable effect in terms of how careful some meet organizers would be.

We used Case II to adjust times for a sprint course that had a misplaced control. It seemed most fair overall in this particular event; however, there are problems with this: yes, someone could get tired spending extra time looking, but it's also possible that someone actually gets a "rest break" while walking around and finding the control, and would be able to run the rest of the course faster than they could have otherwise.

Once control is misplaced from one or another reason - pretty much entire race becomes "unfair". There are always going to be "what if" questions after the race.

My personal vote would be not to exclude any legs out when E-punching is used and not DNF runners who skipped misplaced flag.

I am basing my views not because I lost Sprint race Biship22 is referencing but because elite class O-runner should know right away if control is misplaced.

Overall – misplaced controls should be rarity. This subject is related to few other threads regarding O-meet quality and Event Hosting vs. athletic development. Independent course vetters would eliminate majority of misplaced controls but I doubt that there are too many club in Nor-Am that could afford that luxury for local meets. However independent course vetters for A-meets and nationals should be requirement in my opinion.

Note that there's a (possibly better) Case III:

Count the time until control 12, the last good control before the misplaced control. Disregard the remainder of the course. (Yes, as has been mentioned, any such solution really should be known ahead of time, preferably in the rules.)

I'm not sure that I'm keen on the idea of counting the whole course time, and ignoring the fact that the control was misplaced. A misplaced usually takes at least some time, and variable time. Even when I'm 100% confident coming into a location, sometimes I've thought "the control isn't here", and then looked under another bush and found it.

I somewhat agree with Gil, especially for lessor organized events. If everyone agrees to the rule that you are allowed to move on to the next control if you get to a site and the flag isn't there then the only protest we would expect would be by runners who didn't punch and were DSQ'd. We use this rule at our Weds series when we often have rookie organizers who don't also need the pressure of being perfect.

Case III disregards pacing, though: it rewards the runner who goes out too fast, and is pretty much shot by the time he gets to the bad control, whereas it penalizes the runner who paces himself properly for the distance the course was supposed to be. And the earlier in the course the misplaced control is, the worse this solution is. Few would object if it were the last control that were misplaced, and the solution were to throw out the last leg and the run-in. But it would be pretty ridiculous if the second control were misplaced, and the first leg became the entire race.

We did what J-J describes (throw out the last control and the run-in) on the white course at Elk Neck a number of years ago when that control was vandalized shortly into the race. Everyone seemed happy with that solution. Not sure it would fly on an advanced course though. (Turns out the control stand, flag and e-punch were all thrown in a nearby water-filled pit and were found two years later when a course happened to go near there when it was dry. And with new batteries, the epunch still worked!)

JJ's point about pacing is valid. (The only really good situation is if the controls are in the right place and so forth. Once that's not the case, the alternatives all have downsides, for sure.)

But, since we're on the subject, I think that it would be fun to have a quirky race where the results will be determined by the time to a randomly chosen control... Would the strategy be to run hard to the first control, and then progressively more slowly to each following control? Or pace yourself for halfway through the course?

An unfair control remains unfair for the reminder of the course, because people have wasted different amounts of time on it, thereby affecting their remaining energy.

a protest jury went out into the terrain and examined the #13 control exhaustively, and concluded it was fair.

I'm surely beating a dead horse, a sad, dead sore loser horse here, one that should have been sausage a long time ago and washed down with a few wine glasses. I'll nevertheless take a liberty to cite from the Rules, knowing very well that in a free world, event staff and juries retain a reciprocal liberty of supplying their own:

The exact control feature on the ground, and the point marked on the map, must be indisputable. Controls which cannot be clearly and easily defined by the IOF control symbols are usually not suitable and should be avoided.

I am afraid that I still lack understading of which part of "which of the nine cliffs?" falls under "clearly and easily defined". Since English is not my native language, I'll be equally grateful for explanations in most Slavic languages, IOF Symbol Set, and C++.

This issue has been discussed several times after transgressions in the UK and, although the general opinion is that the removal of certain splits is unfair (people can gain advantage etc) it seems that it is very dependent on the exact situation. Most of the discussions are over on nopesport if people have the time to look - i won't repeat them here for the sake of brevity!

the answer is very obvious - the center one cliff. who thinks differently?

I'll suggest that the reason why column C exists in the first place is that it's a relic from the days when course printing was done with a stamp pad, and registration had a lot of jitter in it. In those days, you couldn't be sure that every circle would be centered on every control feature (and that's still the case when stamp-pad or inkjet overprinting is used). In the US Champs case, the curved cliff with three tags on it was in the center of the circle on every map.

I also have issues with this control location, but it's not that I couldn't tell which of the objects on the map was the one that the control was supposed to be on.

I actually didn't have much of an issue with identifying "which cliff" on the map. How about the terrain? With nine cliffs in the circle (and at least two more unmapped), it was far from obvious which one was which. Cliffs 3 and 5 were also pretty tall, and 3 was shaped about the same as 9. And, it seemed that the course setter was intent on presenting exactly this kind of challenge: to force the competitors to identify multiple cliffs inside the circle. I have a problem with that. Micromapping is against the Rules (the exact control feature on the ground part of the quote above), and the spirit of fairness. By declining the protest, the jury affirmed that at least in its opinion, such a challenge is acceptable. To me this is sad.

At the upcoming Team Fundraiser, there are multiple occasions (all over the map) inviting the course setter to stick a bag into the middle of at least a half-dozen similar objects. Since quality inkjet process will be used, it should be no problem telling which one is in the center of the circle. And, there should be at least some way to tell these close similar objects apart. After standing still and spinning your head for a minute or two. Or else after a grid-search crawl around some deadfall, amply present even 10 years after the hurricane.

I wonder how many competitors would enjoy such a course. I certainly not plan to set like this for the A meet, but if some individuals ask for their favorite kind of challenge, will be quite ready to set a special course for them. At no extra charge.

I don't understand why this protest was so hard to understand. The rule seems pretty obvious to me de jure and de facto. If you put a control somewhere, it should be uniquely describable and identifiable. It goes without saying that the actual control is in the center of the circle, right? If that is all you need to know, just dispense with control descriptions altogether as they are obviously superfulous.

There will always be a need for column C no matter how well the circle is centered on the feature - for a variety of reasons. Vlad is 100% correct. #13 was unfair.

With college teaching starting that Monday, I regretted not getting back to Buena Vista this year :(. Due to minimal experience and weak technique, I've usually had trouble in boulder strewn terrain: Harriman, Lake George, and Sweden.

As a course-setter (and as jury member?), here's the questions I'd have asked myself to judge the fairness of the control placement (whose answers I can't determine since I wasn't there).
1. Is it clear which feature is at center of circle? (The consensus seems to be 'yes')
2. Is the area well-mapped - accepting that 'height of boulders' is ambiguous and there are likely unmapped minor features?
3. Being "on top of 4 m boulder", I presume that the control is reasonably visible on any approach from high side: north to east. (ie not hidden behind a rock face, boulder, or deadfall)
4. Since relocating within a morass of boulders is usually hopeless (for me), are there one or more firm attack points on edge of circle - are they well-mapped and distinguishable? Then if
I get to that firm AP, is getting to control fair and 'easy'?
5. Are there enough readable features on the leg so I can get to the AP with confidence?

Heck, if I actually used these techniques, I'd sure save a lot of time on courses. :)

Well... as I said, I had issues with #13, but they aren't things that you can understand from looking at the map and the control descriptions. Based just on the map and control descriptions, this could have been a fine control location. When leaving the control, after having spiked it, I was muttering to myself, but you'd have to be there and see it to understand why. (That image doesn't convey it, either, but you can see the boulder SSE of the control that I used as an attack point -- cool!)

The control description should uniquely describe the feature in the circle on the map. If there is more than one feature in the circle that fits the description then the control is inherently unfair.

Thanks JJ - matching Peter's Day 1 map to the Terraserver image was fun.

I'm a bit surprised that major reentrants and the vertical were not at all deducable from the aerial. I suspect that midwest reantrants would leave more of a track from the water-flow and less rock base.

Discussion regarding - #13. I personally did not run the course but looks to me that there are way too many similar objects in and around the circle that it would not be easy to figure out which one to catch on. Even after 15 minutes of analyzing and thinking what I would do to spike the control - I could not come up with any good choices.

Overall I kind of have to agree with Tundra/Desert's grumbling that controls should not be put in the middle of the too many similar objects requiring runners to slow down drastically to figure out which of the similar objects you hit first. Some will slow down. Some will take a chance instead. If you get lucky - you will hit right away however spiking controls should not require luck.

I think it was a poor course design choice to include control #13 at day 1 of the U.S. Champs. I had very little trouble locating the feature, due to its large size and distinctive curved shape, and being able to see from below its position relative to the large, bare rock hilltop. However, the surrounding area was not mapped in a way that made it possible to discern the best route choice. In reality, the area was one big boulder field. On the map, however, there were no boulderfield triangles, nor even rocky ground dots, despite these being used liberally in parts of the map where runnability was much better than the vicinity of #13. The map shows cliffs in white forest, which led me to attack from the saddle to the SE and traverse, often on hands and knees, across the boulders.

Getting back to the issue of using e-punching split times to address localized unfairness in a course:
In thinking about this issue, it seems that many people are making the logical error of comparing various scenarios of omitting leg times to the standard of a perfectly fair course. A more useful approach would be to consider what is the lesser of two evils. Especially given that, at least in the U.S., juries are very reluctant to set aside the results of a course if the control can be considered to be within the control circle, regardless of any other factors that may have created unfairness.

If there is a control that was unfair, where the leg times show significant time loss and do not reflect orienteering skill, then the results are polluted, and those polluted results become the standard against which any remedy should be compared. Removing a leg time or two may not be perfectly fair (due to reasons others have already described), but it may very well give a better indication of orienteering skill than the unmodified results (which are often the alternative, given timid* juries).

Even under ideal conditions, orienteering will almost never be as fair as track and field (although it will almost always be more fair than judge-scored sports). At the World Champs this year, an errant official on the long distance qualification course caused me to detour from my intended route and lose 1.5 minutes. I submitted a written complaint at the finish, and the organizers gave me a written reply that included an apology and further said that there is no provision in the rules that allows a competitor's time to be adjusted in such circumstances. As it happened, the 1.5 minutes would not even have moved me up one place, let alone into qualifying position, so I didn't pursue the matter further.

* I think it is appropriate for juries to require a high standard of proof of unfairness in order to void results, because almost all courses contain chance elements that favor some competitors over others, and the aim of the course setter is therefore to provide plenty of orienteering problems that are solvable by skill, and to let the random elements average themselves out. Even in cases where some competitors grumble about a certain control, the results are often still strongly indicitive of orienteering skill. In other words, the runners who one expects to be on top are on top. That said, I think that much of the jury timidness at U.S. A-meets stems from a reluctance to irritate the organizers or those competitors who were not bothered by the unfairness issue at hand, even when the results ought to be voided.

One missing control and one displaced control with wrong control discription on a championship course is not ground to void course results per one jury decision in the USA. I stopped filing complains after that - it is pointless. I didn't hear about ANY complain on these ground being satisfied (course voided). Maximum jury may propose to SWR results for the runner who complained. Each year I am still astonished to come across one or couple courses that would have similar problem. USOF executive branch (competition VP?) should do something about this.

USOF executive branch (competition VP?) should do something about this.

Sergey, you have stated this before.

If you were the VP of competition, how, specifically, would you assure that this happened (setting aside the question of whether it is a good idea or not)?

It is very easy Randy - just take all filed complains at all A meets and compare with jury decisions and USOF rules. Punish slakers by not awarding in future for some period of time A meets and Champs to any club or individuals that were found to exploit the system. VP of competitions should attend and compete in at least half of the meets in the country I believe to lead such inquiries.

But that kind of begs the question, or rather obviates the whole point of the jury, no? Viz., if you know what the "right" answer is, then who needs a jury?

On a related note, I wonder if the Condorcet jury theorem holds in the case of orienteering juries. This would be a third paper for submission to JIR I suppose.

Juries in the USA orienteering do not work in most cases as often are biased into giving "soft" decisions in the false pretense not to harm volunteer's work or efforts spent in wood by other competitors.

The intent of real jury decision would be to punish offenders (course setters/designers/club) by declaring course void or not punish if USOF rules are satisfied, instead, often, half-baked desicions are made that would save the face of organizing club and give choice of "sport withdrawal" to the complaining party.

Having reliable statistic that a specific club/entity has its courses voided more than once would clearly benefit the whole community as would allow this same club to start really working on improving its course setting procedures.

I also believe that guilty club/entity should refund meet fees for any voided courses.

Certainly not if the reason for the course being voided is not the fault of the club (e.g. vandalised control)!

Suggestions:

1. Clarify USOF rule 17.5 to state that a "substantial group of competitors" refers to the number on the course(s), not the number of people who protested.

2. Rewrite rule 17.5 to state "the course(s) SHALL be voided", unless the jury has substantial justification to keep the course(s) (such as a vandalized control).

3. Rewrite rule 17.8 to state that a course or class "may be voided" except in the specific cases outlined in 17.5 (in which case rule 17.5 must be followed).

4. Instruct juries to weigh only the merits of the protest, and the fairness of the competiton. The feelings of the protestor and organizers are irrelevant.

Both 17.5 and 17.6 already say "shall". No mays, ifs, whens, or buts.

a "substantial group of competitors" refers to the number on the course(s), not the number of people who protested.

It's the number of people who were affected, not either of the above. If one person protests, and there were 100 people on the course, and the condition affected N of the people, then the jury has to decide whether N is large enough to warrant voiding the course. One person affected out of 100*? No, you don't void the course. Three? Seven? Hard to say where to draw the line. Certainly if it were 40, it would be a pretty easy call.

*Perfect example of one person affected: at the 1000-Day a few years back, I was the last starter on the last day, and the overenthusiastic course setter managed to pick up some of the controls on my course before I got to them. Took about three controls before I realized what was going on (when the water stop was missing, I ruled out the wind or attack badgers). No reason to void the course in that situation. It's the only SPW I've ever had.

There is also a grievance committee. If you believe that a jury has willfully broken the USOF rules in a decision, this is the next step in trying to remedy the situation. Now, if everyone wants to change the rules to make me the enforcement czar - abolish the juries and all - I will happily do so. Just pay my expenses to all the meets - Oh, I might need a salary too, since I won't be able to find an employer who will give me that much time off. But I won't mind being a professional rules enforcer :-)

2. Rewrite rule 17.5 to state "the course(s) SHALL be voided", unless the jury has substantial justification to keep the course(s) (such as a vandalized control).

I would suggest that a "vandalized control" does not automatically merit an exception. A misplaced control is a misplaced control, no matter who misplaces it. Competitors are affected and the results are bogus.

Looks like rules are somewhat ambiguous and open to wide interpretation. Especially in the sense of "substantial group of competitors". Some would draw line at 90%, some at 2 persons.

Here are some suggestions that may help:
1. Clearly specify in rules that if 3 or more competitors are affected the course MUST be voided.
2. Conduct potential jury training sessions as part of AGM events.
3. Write a booklet on jury procedures and conduct with some typical examples that people would follow.
4. Be more strict to offending entities by not awarding A meets and Champs.
5. Even if a control was vandalized and that affected 3 or more competitors on a course - this course must be voided. This is not fault of the organizing party thus it should not be punished as in #4.

We all will benefit from the higher quality meets!

Sergey, you do realize that these procedures would make protests even less likely to occur, don't you? (Except at CTOC A meets, of course...)

When I mentioned vandalized controls, I just meant that if a course were voided due to a vandalized control, then it shouldn't require refund of fees (if Sergey's suggestion were adopted).

Yes, juries do have some leeway. And I don't think that a solid rule requiring a course to be voided if three competitors were affected is a good idea. Three out of five, that's pretty clear. Three out of 40? What if the three affected people on a Blue course were me, Eric Smith, and Barb Bryant? Missing control at the end of the day, when we're the only ones still out, and one of us protests because we don't want to have a DNF as a result. Would that warrant voiding the course? I would definitely say no.

Push for a rules change to enact mandatory sentencing if you like. I personally think that it's a good idea to give juries discretion in interpreting the situation and making appropriate remedies. Another option you could consider, if you have an opinion on these matters, is volunteering to serve on juries. Meet directors sometimes have a hard time thinking of who to ask, and if you note on your entry form that you'd be willing to serve on a jury, that will provide at least one potential name.

What if there were only 2 people affected on the blue course, and those two people were, say, Swampfox and Hammer at NAOC?

Juries definately have to have discretion, but I think they should decide only on the point of whether a rule was violated or something happened that could have had a bearing on the results. Much the way juries in our judicial system are supposed to rule only on the facts and say "guilty" or "not guilty," and then the decision of what to do about it goes to some other party. I have no idea what that other party should be - probably not a single person "judge." Currently juries are filling both roles.

Also decisions about course infractions don't just affect 3/5 or 3/40 or 20/40 people who ran that day. They affect everone with a ranking on that course, even if those people didn't run that particular day. Its very dangerous trying to make decisions based on "how many people were affected."

JJ, in your case course MUST be voided because control was missed before the closure of the finish. By the way, your hypothetical situation shows potential flaw in the procedures of the organizing club that allowed slow competitors to start at the end of the day.

William, I only hope that strengthening of the rules and their inforcement would prompt clubs to be more precise and use better procedures while conducting meets. Too many times I see that clubs are trying to shortcut because either of the luck of resources or luck of experience.

By the way, CTOC is thinking about conducting A meet in 2008. Formely gold hydro-mined area. Absolutely marvelous eye-popping terrain. We work toward map being to the highest standards. And you can still prospect for the gold in here :)

I look forward to protesting if the map isn't better than the 2003 relay champs map... Do you have a basemap this time? :) (No offence intended, your club did well to put on a 2-day A meet at all with the number of people you have, but think about how you would have felt if people had protested the mapping standard led to some unfairness. I don't recall a specific example, but I'm sure one could be found.)

Seriously, I'm looking forward to the meet. Gold mining terrain is great fun and we don't have nearly enough of it mapped in North America.

William, we learned hard :) Thankfully, nobody protested officially in 2003. Otherwise, we would rule in favor of the protesting party.

Since than we have trained much more meet directors (nowdays I do only couple local meets per year). And we just got basemap from Stirling which is really good. Now we need to round good mapper for the next spring/summer to conduct fieldcheck.

Does anyone know if there has ever been a protest strictly on map quality at an A-meet? Printing or fieldwork?

Does anyone know if there has ever been a protest strictly on map quality at an A-meet?


I've filed a protest that basically boiled down to - "the map was wrong in the circle, and therefore the control could not be found by skill". The protest was denied.

In the case I described above, the right solution (in my mind) would be to give SPWs to the three affected people. What if it were Hammer and Swampfox? Good question.

The start procedure isn't necessarily flawed. Barb and Eric might have started in the middle of the field, and still have been the last two to finish (perhaps not by that much), and I was imagining the problem control to be late in the course. (I, of course, would have started late because I was working at the finish in the early part of the day. Ahem. :-)

In many (but not all) legal procedures, the jury also decides on what is to be done. Think about how often you hear about the "penalty phase".

I can't offhand remember any protests due to sucky maps, but I'll think some more. I've definitely seen some cases where it might have been warranted. With print quality, you might run into the argument of, "well, it was the same for everyone".

I've been on three criminal juries, two of which were guilty verdicts (one subsequently found to be incorrect because information was withheld from the jury by the so-called lawyers), and I've never heard of a penalty phase. In one case we were asked to rule on greater and lesser charges, but that one was hung anyways.

Sometimes the jury is given instruction on matters that may be outside of the juror's skillset, be that legal instructions from the judge or evidence presented by "expert" wintnesses. It may be that in the case of some orienteering juries, all the members consider 9 cliffs in a control circle with no discriminator in column C is just fine and dandy. A different panel of trusted "expert" witnesses might think otherwise and be able to explain why to the jurors.

A comment I heard from a member of that particular jury was "it has been done before at Event X, and it was fine". Referring to multiple similar objects within the circle.

Penalty phase may be most common in cases where the death penalty is a possibility. Maybe because there's an aversion to having one person (the judge) deciding whether somebody's going to die. But I know that in civil cases, the jury often decides how much money to award the plaintiff.

Let's hope that the cases juries deal with at orienteering events are more like civil cases than death penalty cases. :-)

>>> What if there were only 2 people affected on the blue course, and those two people were, say, Swampfox and Hammer at NAOC? <<<

If Hammer runs the blue course at NAOC, GHO will welcome protests from:

(a) other orienteers (because he designed the courses), and
(b) his physiotherapist (because he's had a knee injury for the past 101 days)

If Swampfox runs the blue course at NAOC, attack badgers will howl mightily and Pluto will regain its planet status (in theory), the atmosphere may boil away, and Jon Torrance will eat a cheeseburger.

Well, he might eat a cheesburger.

And to think I might have missed this.

I'll undertake to eat a cheeseburger after the atmosphere boils away provided the attack badgers howl before then so I will have heard what a howling attack badger sounds like before I die :)

I had a bacon cheeseburger with BBQ sauce on Monday. The onion rings and fries were really bland in comparison.