Draft new ISOM specification now published

[Gnitworp]

the Tankesley map would have fitted on back to back A4 with the north lines parallel to the sides of the paper - much easier to read and fold.

....especially in the dark?

[JK]

I didn't read it as saying that undergrowth could be combined with green veg.
I thought it says that the colour of the stripes is darker (or was it closer)
to match the comparable forest screen.

Those are different, but not necessarily mutually exclusive options for the form lines. I'm guessing that only one form [sic] of form line will be chosen, but it could have more than one of the attributes presented. E.g. thinner, lighter AND longer dashes.

I like the clarity of forbidden-ness, especially for lakes, marshesm, rivers and olive-green

[greywolf]

IMHO it's less important to make sure that every map fits the spec (after all, 2 of the last 3 WOC sprint final maps didn't comply perfectly with ISSOM) than it is to have clear and unambiguous specifications so that when departures are necessary they can be easily stated, so harmonising the meaning of "uncrossable" symbols between ISOM and ISSOM has to be a positive step (especially as locally we have several maps with both urban and forest terrain). Also, clarifyng that uncrossable water features are forbidden to cross (rather than "can not be crossed") is a sensible safety measure. Still not clear why placing controls in caves is explicitly forbidden in ISSOM but not ISOM

[King Penguin]

Ludlow urban had a control on some courses (not mine) in a "cave".

[Homer]

North lines: No problem with Pembrey and Tankesley.

Can't comment on Pembrey, but the Tankesley map would have fitted on back to back A4 with the north lines parallel to the sides of the paper - much easier to read and fold.

But you'd have had to be switching back and to between each side of the map. Some of the longer legs would not have been possible without turning the map over mid leg.
Personally I prefer, where possible, keeping the whole course on one section of map. I did have a bad experience at this year's Tim Watkins where there was a large overlap on back-to-back maps.

[Big Jon]

Moving to high fences etc being "legally" uncrossable is a retrograde step - what about plenty of forest areas that have high fences with few or no gates on large sections - in the old days courses for elite etc could be planned to allow them to cross the fence as and when they found it. Now crossing the fence is not allowed and so either legs need to be added to get round it or stiles need to be built - both can compromise courses hugely. Still I guess IOF don't care about forest O much these days - its all sprint and urban that they have pinned their faith on and the pursuit of the mythical TV coverage........

[greywolf]

Moving to high fences etc being "legally" uncrossable is a retrograde step - what about plenty of forest areas that have high fences with few or no gates on large sections - in the old days courses for elite etc could be planned to allow them to cross the fence as and when they found it. Now crossing the fence is not allowed and so either legs need to be added to get round it or stiles need to be built - both can compromise courses hugely. Still I guess IOF don't care about forest O much these days - its all sprint and urban that they have pinned their faith on and the pursuit of the mythical TV coverage........

not sure what this has to do with TV coverage, urban racing or why it's such a retrograde step

the standard fence symbol already covers fences up to 1.5m - if you have a landowner who really doesn't care about orienteers randomly scaling functioning deer fences (if it's a broken deer fence you use the broken fence symbol regardless of how high it is/was) you could always use the standard symbol and advertise the diversion from the spec in the legend / final details

having said that, for stone walls the (proposed) spec now simply distinguishes between crossable and uncrossable walls, with no height distinction mentioned. Maybe it would be better if fences were distinguished in the same way with no reference to height

[Roger]

Now crossing the fence is not allowed and so either legs need to be added to get round it or stiles need to be built...

Or map it with the 'crossable fence' symbol?
(You might need to have a different symbol on the 1:15,000 elite map and the 1:10,000 old-folks' map though.)
[Edit: what Greywolf said. Almost.]

[Big Jon]

The new proposal (and the current ISSOM) are not mapping physical symbols - they are imposing a "legal" element (for want of a better word) onto the map. Does this mean that a map will need to be changed if a landowner changes his mind over whether a fence can/cannot be crossed.
The mapped symbol should refer to physical size and nothing else - any other way is guaranteed to lead to farcical disqualifications, far more event juries being assembled and bad publicity.
The event overprint should be used to impose "legal" requirements.

[King Penguin]

For some shorter people some indication of fence height is much appreciated.
Whilst some runners will scale anything they are allowed to, others cannot possibly cross a 2m hight fence even if legally allowed and will always divert to a crossing point.

[greywolf]

For some shorter people some indication of fence height is much appreciated. Whilst some runners will scale anything they are allowed to, others cannot possibly cross a 2m hight fence even if legally allowed and will always divert to a crossing point.

Does willingness to climb really correlate with height?
And are there really lots of folk who will climb a 4ft 10 "crossable" fence but not a 6ft "uncrossable" fence?

[JK]

If there are genuinely high fences that should be considered crossable then there are various things that can be done: 1. state all fences are crossable, 2. stick as mapped and say they must use crossing points, 3. map them using lower fence symbol and state that some of them are higher. Not ideal, but doable.

Some idea of height is handy, previously you were running the risk of crossing a very high fence/wall if you "went for it" (or got waylaid).

JK [who climbed into AND out of Castello Grande in his first urban race ... BEFORE the ISSOM rules forbade such behaviour - those were high walls!]

[graeme]

Moving to high fences etc being "legally" uncrossable is a retrograde step -

On the contrary, using a clear, single symbol for "uncrossable" rather than two (high fence + overprint) must be improvement for the competitor. It's very forward thinking, maybe too much so.

The problem is who "owns" the uncrossable symbol. The mapper can't know in advance whether a feature will be legally-uncrossable at some as-yet unknown future event. So it places a requirement on the planner to change the symbol from "crossable" to "uncrossable" once permissions are established. Which means editing the black screen, which means accessing the software package used to make the map (in the correct version), and having the skills to use it. It's a big new ask on the planner, and many planners don't yet have that ability, though increasing numbers do. That's why it may be too forward-thinking.

[AndyC]

Our club practice is to allocate a mapper to events to make any updates needed to the map - he can also be the controller. planner or organiser (less commonly the last) so changing the symbol for a specific fence is simple (and actually this planner can cope with that as I don't need to do anything that takes actual mapping rather than editing)

[greywolf]

The mapper can't know in advance whether a feature will be legally-uncrossable at some as-yet unknown future event. So it places a requirement on the planner to change the symbol from "crossable" to "uncrossable" once permissions are established.

True, but I'm unconvinced there are that many land-managers who would be completely blase about unrestricted deer-fence climbing - a skinny W21E might be ok but 114kg of AndyC is going to do some serious damage if he just climbs up the wire at a stob

Which means editing the black screen, which means accessing the software package used to make the map (in the correct version), and having the skills to use it. It's a big new ask on the planner, and many planners don't yet have that ability, though increasing numbers do. That's why it may be too forward-thinking.

Unfortunately the inability of some planners to use OCAD, and their willingness to put controls on sites where they freely admit the map is wrong, is already a problem