What is the best sport?

[Scott]

Currently a question being asked in a poll on the website of "Intelligent Life" magazine, the slightly-pretentious spin-off from the The Economist.

So far the poll has only had a very modest number of votes in total. Interesting, there is an option to select "other" and write in your own answer, and all the write-in answers appear to get displayed in the results. "Orienteering" currently has one vote...

http://moreintelligentlife.com/page/what-best-sport

[oo_wrong_way]

Thanks to Scott's post orienteering has lots of votes. Unfortunately the poll asks for a reason to be given if you select "Other" and so people are typing for instance "Orienteering. The best test of physical endurance and intelligence ". This then registers on the poll as one vote for a sport called "Orienteering. The best test of physical endurance and intelligence"

Just enter Orienteering and our sport will climb the charts

[King Penguin]

Rogaining has a vote as well. Wonder who that is ?
I can see "High Altitude Mountaineering" but not "Mountain Marathons".

[denzil53]

Done. Orienteering is now up to 5th position!

[Scott]

Orienteering is now in the lead

As oo_wrong_way has pointed out, putting a reason splits the vote, and plenty of people have already given reasons anyway - just putting "Orienteering" should help keep it on top.

It appears to be restricted to one vote per IP address. Not that I could conceive of anybody here doing anything so nefarious as voting more than once, but if you were to do so you'd need to use different computers, or the same computer on different internet connections...

[seabird]

Leading with 125 votes. But another 103 orienteering votes lurking in the also-rans!

[AndyC]

Anyone read the editors comment about the response? Another person who thinks orienteering is not a sport - sad isn't it that he can comment about something when he has obviously never tried it (he actually seems to think that you don't use your brain in a sport!).
Why does he think Sport England would provide funding for a non-sport?

[SeanC]

Ha ha, this is all very funny.

Good work from orienteers pushing our sport past the barrier of narrow minded journalism.

[AndyC]

I've tried to register to comment; the activation email should take " a few minutes" it is now over an hour - I wonder if using the word "orienteer" in my user name affects that duration?

[oo_wrong_way]

This is becoming a reasonable bit of publicity for our "non-sport"

[Oldman]

Our next group action might be to e-mail [intelligentlife@economist.com] the online editor Robert Butler about his 6 July article:

~ posted by Robert Butler, July 6th 2012

The five articles about the current Big Question—what is the best sport?—are now online: you can read the case for football, athletics, cricket, equestrianism and baseball. If you don't want to vote for one of the five suggested by our writers, you can suggest your own. Hockey, pickleball, American football, judo, rogaining, tennis, golf, hurling and ice hockey are all attracting support.

Voting began two weeks ago. For a week and a half, football was in the lead and then, at 11.18pm on Tuesday, Scott (a reader) posted a note on the discussion forum of an orienteering website called Nopesport. "'Orienteering'", he noted, "currently has one vote." Orienteers must be a loyal and nocturnal bunch because by 6.48am on Wednesday oo-wrong-way noted on the same discussion forum that "orienteering has lots of votes". But oo-wrong-way was quick to point out a tactical error: quite a few orienteers were adding their own reasons ("It combines elements of stamina with deductive reasoning through map-reading") and each reason created a new entry, which was splitting the vote. Oo-wrong-way urged his fellow orienteers: "Just enter Orienteering and our sport will climb the charts".

He was right. By 9.31am, denzil53 said "Orienteering is now up to 5th position." By 4.18pm the next day, Scott wrote, "Orienteering is now in the lead." He added a smiley face. This was an expression that Scott was keen to maintain. He went on:

It appears to be restricted to one vote per IP address. Not that I could conceive of anybody here doing anything so nefarious as voting more than once, but if you were to do so you'd need to use different computers, or the same computer on different internet connections...

Hmmm. Not everyone is convinced that orienteering is a sport. Some find it hard to imagine that deductive reasoning through map-reading could be a core skill in a sport. One reason, perhaps, why orienteering has not been included in the Olympics. And there's an argument too that orienteering should be split into four categories: foot orienteering, mountain-bike orienteering, ski orienteering and trail orienteering.

But if orienteers were to vote multiple times using different computers or the conceive of anybody here doing anything so nefarious as voting more than once, but if you were to do so you'd need to use different computers, or the same computer on different internet connections, their sporting credentials would be even harder to prove. Every game has its rules—even when they aren't always spelt out.

[AndyC]

Finally got the activation email - "a few minutes" equals 29 hours

[frostbite]

if 150 votes for orienteering can bugger up his poll it is not much of a poll is it.

Perhaps he ought to find more readers.

[JK]

In one of his latter paragraphs he makes 2 points:

"Hmmm. Not everyone is convinced that orienteering is a sport. Some find it hard to imagine that deductive reasoning through map-reading could be a core skill in a sport."

Sports have many core skills. "Careful analysis of wind conditions" is one core skill for Biathlon and other shooting and archery disciplines. I don't see why studying a map shouldn't be another and neither do the IOF (who are probably better qualified in assessing what constitutes a Sport than this Editor or me) - see below

"One reason, perhaps, why orienteering has not been included in the Olympics."

Ski-O was a Demonstration event at Nagano and will be considered for future games (although that I suspect that date is now 2022 or 2026 at the earliest).

"And there's an argument too that orienteering should be split into four categories: foot orienteering, mountain-bike orienteering, ski orienteering and trail orienteering."

Where is this argument? There are 4 recognised Orienteering disciplines and they are all recognised by the IOF.

JK

[King Penguin]

There is more similarity between urban sprint-O and classic terrain long-O than there is between 10,000m and shot-put and they both count as "athletics"