Badge Standards

[LostAgain]

Does the current software for SI not cater for including the badge standards?

I've just been trying to decipher whether my kids have achieved their gold badges. All the events I have looked at do not include the cut off's.

You can calculate, but I am not too sure when to include only the winners time, the top 2 or 3 for calculation purposes.

I would have thought that it should be compulsory for regional events to include this in the results. It used to be included in the paper system, but now we're paperless it seems to have been lost.

[Guest]

http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/documents/rules/regsappj1p0.pdf

[LostAgain]

Reading the rules via the link from guest, there is no compulsion for the organising club to list the badge times.

Should there be?
Can SI software cope?

[Guest]

From the Badge Event Guideline:

Badge Calculations: Badge times should be calculated as described in Appendix J (The Badge Scheme), and included in the printed results.

[Simon]

If the badge system is going to mean something then yes the time should be published both in the printed results and on the web (and should be correct).

The SI software used by many clubs does not do this calculation. However, there is a calculator on the BOF site to work out the badge times for an event (though I cannot find it at the moment).

[Guest]

Mike Napier's excellent software seems to manage it OK.

http://www.cix.co.uk/~neper/blidw05/jm3.htm

[LostAgain]

From the Badge Event Guideline:

Badge Calculations: Badge times should be calculated as described in Appendix J (The Badge Scheme), and included in the printed results.

This can be interpreted to only mean printed matter, therefore, clubs that do not include the times on the web are not at odds with it!

This probably needs tightening up as it is useful information for many across all age categories.

Thanks guest for the link to the NOC badge event, I'd forgotten that we had been to it.

[SIman]

The SI software used by many clubs does not do this calculation. However, there is a calculator on the BOF site to work out the badge times for an event (though I cannot find it at the moment).

Manchester University has made it difficult to run this system. The ranking system has been moved to another server but the badge time calculator is still not working.
The Badge times for the Scottish Championships have been worked out the old fashioned way and will be published soon.

[David May]

... and publication of the Badge Times for the Surrey Five-O races has been held up for exactly the same reason.

David

[Ancient Grouse]

When you can get to the badge time calculator on the BOF web site, which uses as input the same file you upload for the rankings, you'll find that it does not calculate the badge times for the junior ageless classes.

These are a real hoot to calculate, as the JW/M 5 classes are based on a relationship to W/M21, with course lengths and different ratios for S, M and L courses.

I agree that these should always be posted with the on-line results (they are for HOC events ) but surely it would be a good idea for BOF to ensure that there was a simple way to do this. Don't expect the standard Si software such as OE2003 to do this - unless BOF is prepared to pay for Stephan Kraemer to modify it or create an add on.

Perhaps Michael Napier can be persuaded to add this feature to his etools software that generates the rankings file from Si results?

[Simon]

These are a real hoot to calculate, as the JW/M 5 classes are based on a relationship to W/M21, with course lengths and different ratios for S, M and L courses.

The current version (Version 1.0, effective January 2005) of the rules (available from here) makes no mention of this. The important points being:

... Note that JM 5S, 5M and 5L and JW 5S and 5L classes are to be treated as separate classes with their own badge time calculation as in 1.2.3

The calculation of Badge times follows the same rules as seniors as shown in 1.2.3.

[awk]

Those rules for JM/JW5 must new since Jan of this year - Ancient Grouse was right in that up till then they were separate and based on M/W21.

Unfortunately, that means the JM/JW5 Gold badge is now going to be totally and utterly meaningless. The whole idea for the scheme was that there would some cross comparison, so that a Level 5 gold was the same, whether competing L, M or S. Now one can get a Level 5 gold much more easily on one class than another.

The scheme was related to M/W21 to try and get some consistency between events. It is now going to mean that at quite a few events, the gold standard will be totally trivial, as there just aren't enough juniors taking part in some events to set any sort of meaningful standard by themselves.

In one fell swoop the rules committee have completely destroyed any quality at JM/JW5 in terms of badges. Given that it is used for a number of events (e.g. Yvette Baker Trophy standards), it's going to make a total nonsense of these and of anybody trying to measure a standard at regional events. They might as well bin the whole badge scheme for juniors at this level.

Incidentally, Michael Napier's results service calculated all junior JM/JW class badge times without any problem - I don't know whether he had extended this to the tools.

[Guest]

awk wrote: In one fell swoop the rules committee have completely destroyed any quality at JM/JW5 in terms of badges.

Not true. The changes were made by the Junior Competitions Group to turn the Junior Badge scheme back into something that could actually be understood. The calculations had been made so complex it was no wonder that the event organisers never published them.

The Badge Scheme has never been an absolute measure of ability, it is there to provide an incentive to those taking part in the events. If you want a true measure of Junior ability then it is time to extend the ranking scheme to include all age classes. This would be easy to introduce as all the software already exists.

[awk]

awk wrote: <<In one fell swoop the rules committee have completely destroyed any quality at JM/JW5 in terms of badges.>>
Not true. The changes were made by the Junior Competitions Group to turn the Junior Badge scheme back into something that could actually be understood. The calculations had been made so complex it was no wonder that the event organisers never published them.

Doesn't seem to have had much effect though, does it?

As for 'not true', what you state has absolutely no relevance to the truth or otherwise of the statement that Junior Competitions did was completely destroy the quality (my apologies to rules committee). Just because the system is simpler (marginally) doesn't necessarily give it quality. In this case, rather the reverse.

The irony is that the only reason the calculations were set up this way were to try and tie in with the overly complicated badge scheme. I would have liked to have completely revamped the whole scheme (along with quite a lot else), but that was all too much apparently. I knew I should have taken no notice, as it simply gave room to go backwards.

The Badge Scheme has never been an absolute measure of ability, it is there to provide an incentive to those taking part in the events. If you want a true measure of Junior ability then it is time to extend the ranking scheme to include all age classes. This would be easy to introduce as all the software already exists.

For an incentive to be worthwhile, it has to set a standard, and a consistent one at that. It now neither provides much of a standard, nor is it consistent. At least the previous scheme attempted to do something about that.

As for the ranking scheme providing a 'true measure', it requires a minimum number in a class to function properly. Many regional events don't achieve that number.

[Guest]

... and publication of the Badge Times for the Surrey Five-O races has been held up for exactly the same reason.

David

Now showing at http://www.wcup2005.org.uk/page.aspx?id=14960