Discussion: Mispunching

I really hope that practice doesn't become common place. It sounds complicated especially in a relay on top of promoting sloppy orienteering.

I mean, there's a reason they hand out control descriptions with the number on there, yeah? This seems like it's just rewarding bad behavior, and convoluting the rules. Sigh.

It's idiotic. Want to bet it doesn't happen?

My theory is they must not be bothering with control codes/descriptions, otherwise this doesn't make sense. We thought micr-o was dead but apparently it's being revived as a mass start. How many IOF innovations can be combined in one event?!

I can't think the top teams would mispunch; anyone taking the race seriously will check their codes. Maybe this is a measure for beginner or inexperienced teams? You certainly don't want to tell children that they mispunched, perhaps they don't check codes routinely in Missouri.

there's a reason they hand out control descriptions
Actually they often don't hand out control description sheets for relays, but they would still be printed on the map, obviously.

The shortest route (not crossing bank lines) between the punched control and correct control is less than 250m
It's pretty inexcusable to mispunch on the wrong side of a river, right?

Uber-silly. Getting trained to read control codes = very good thing!!

This idea would require sanctioning approval for a rule waiver and has not been approved by (or indeed notified to) sanctioning. I cannot say whether the committee would approve it without asking them.

I can only hope that Mr. feet will wield his titanic sanctioning authority with an iron fist and put a stop to this madness.

I should also point out my surprise and disappointment that my notice of the proposed relay champs penalty loop attracted more comments than the curiosities in my regression analysis of my bowling performance.

As someone who has broken the USOF/OUSA rule for minimum placement distances (and conveniently used the IOF rule instead), I will say this sounds questionable. I'd prefer that the organizers assign very different codes to each of the close controls. I'm usually assigned a stand number range, such as 100-199, so when I have close controls I make sure I've got the 2 "free digits" different: if one is 134, I want the other one to be in the form 1xy where x and y are not 3 or 4. I have even gone outside the assigned range and gotten 200-series stands for certain close controls, so all three digits are different (ijk and xyz: e.g., 134 and 256). And I've actually considered putting some other indication on the stand (but I've never done it): Something like red numbers or a sign that says "Check control code!"

When there is a fork (or a place where say Red and Brown have a common control and then split up for the next leg and have different controls that are close together), I try to have a break in the numbering so there is an indication that there might be a skip. For example, if Red and Brown both have control 44, I want the next controls (the "virtual" forks) to *not* have 45 because that would indicate business as usual. I'd much rather pick 46 and 48, *unless* they're close together, and then I might pick 4X and 50 for the next controls. I'm pretty sure I once set something like 131 as a common, and then the two forks were 212 and 233, and then back to a common 134. I may be mistaken.

The idea is to make it hard for a jury to uphold a protest---Have so many mistakes by the competitor that the jury has to believe the competitor was at fault. And obviously, the close controls should have control descriptions that are completely different, and not likely to be confused.

I'm prone to overthinking this kind of thing...

My brain might explode. How is it draconian to disqualify a team for punching the wrong control? Isn't the whole point of the game to punch the right ones?

Different numbers are different numbers. 145 != 146. There is no notion of it being "close". Now, if the codes were 1111111 and 11111111 I could see the point, but that's about it. And red numbers or a sign will be noticed once or twice, then fade into the normal background.

I think there is a larger portion of the readership of this log with a capability to understand the rules of orienteering than to understand the math applied to the bowling scores analysis (as well as more of a personal interest). I skimmed the bowling stuff, and may read it in more detail and comment later.

One legitimate concern about confusing control codes is those set of numbers with odd symmetry that could be read upside down as valid numbers. For example, 191 could be read as 161 if the tick marks on the 1s are removed. Purple pen has the option of explicitly disallowing codes with that symmetry.

While a wrong number is still wrong no matter how close they are, I appreciate cedarcreek's efforts.

The point is that when controls are close together, the difference between 145 and 146 is tiny. In my opinion, most of the time in orienteering checking a code is simply not necessary. When controls are placed close together (often for good reasons), I prefer to go the extra mile to prevent a mispunch.

I also appreciate cedarcreek's efforts. It's easy to do silly things in a mass start race. But I still think you should have to punch the right controls. The other problem with the penalty loops is I think they're going to have to add the times up, since there won't be time to run them before handing off. Then the first team across the finish line at the end isn't necessarily the winner.

Penalty loops are just silly. Let's hope they were joking. Cristina's right - the whole point of orienteering is punching the correct controls! Without penalty loops I think it's actually more fair - everyone has to check their own codes - no one gets off the hook. Penalty loops will just make people practice bad habits by not checking their codes. It's simple - ALWAYS check your codes. No exceptions. (I've been guilty of mispunching in the past and it's never fun).

Ian, I adore you, but I can't understand or even care about your bowling "regression analysis."