British Nights weekend

[RJ]

.....While a few 14's entered M16, only one ran, in the end, and was out for 68 minutes......

Great event... thanks...... tough on the snow covered slopes!!

And a W14 ran W16 and was placed third.

Maybe the rules/guidelines need to be revisited. Our night series has about a dozen in this age group orienteering all winter. They then should have an opportunity to compete at the British Nights. Perhaps clubs should decide eligibility of their runners?

[frog]

I think the purple lines do tend to get forgotten by planners. If the Dalguise event had gone ahead I'd have had a couple of compulsary crossing points over streams but hadn't marked the streams in purple which I should have. I presume you just use the OOB feature and draw a line rather than a box with it.
Hopefully by June the stream will be such that compulsary crossing points are less essential but I'll try and remember to stick in purple lines if I keep them in.

[Scott]

As a general rule, unless you are offering a choice of compulsory crossing points, it is generally safer just to stick a control on the compulsory gate/stile/bridge etc. To me this actually looks a lot neater than having lots of the purple "uncrossable boundary" overprint on the map.

If you are offering a choice of compulsory crossing points, then you do need to start using the purple overprint, breaking the lines between controls, and making sure that the crossing points are obvious on the ground - don't be afraid to swaddle them in tape.

[Snail]

If there is only a choice of two crossing points, on similar features, and each course either has both or neither crossing point, then it may also be possible to place a control at each with the same code.

But you still have to play around with the overprint to show both alternative controls, routes etc

[Eeyore]

I am one of the guilty ones who stepped over the fence between 5 and 6 on course 6. In my defence I followed an M35 and was trying to get away from the cameraman so I could concentrate on the course. Also I didn't know it was compulsory as I didn't look at the control descriptions until back in the hall when talking to Eddie. I enjoyed the course and highlight was seeing a badger and owl in Covenantor's Wood by control 10.

[RJ]

.... Also I didn't know it was compulsory .....

But the red lines from the controls both pointed to/from the crossing point on the gate. Naughty!

[frog]

Agree with RJ re M/W14s. I wouldn't have been happy with my son running the M16 course, but quite happy for himto run the shortest course. Like many M/W14s he's done a few green courses as well as the light greens and if you feel a kid is competant and will enjoy themselves and no extra courses are needed it seems a shame not to just label the shortest course M/W16B and let the parents and kids decide.

[EddieH]

RJ wrote [quote]But the red lines from the controls both pointed to/from the crossing point on the gate. Naughty![/quote]

No RJ just because lines are bent does not indicate any compulsion. Eyeore demonstrates my point - he didn't look at his descriptions. There is a perfectly valid way of marking uncrossable fences let's use it.

[RJ]

No RJ just because lines are bent does not indicate any compulsion.

I'm not going to argue the toss over this one EddieH..... but I consider the routeing of the red lines to and from the crossing point as the planner's 'further to the final details' reinforcement that it should be used. Granted the boundary could have been marked appropriately, but the bending of the lines means, to me, that that is where I should be going.

It is fair to say that crossing points when they are marked on the map are there for a reason. You don't need anything other than common sense to use them! Anyone who crossed the fence on that leg needs to go back to 'O' school and learn the basics again!

[Eeyore]

It is fair to say that crossing points when they are marked on the map are there for a reason. You don't need anything other than common sense to use them!

Common sense was never one of my strong points

It would appear that my eyesight isn't too good either as until RJ pointed it out I didn't see the lines pointing to and from the crossing point.

Anyone who crossed the fence on that leg needs to go back to 'O' school and learn the basics again!

RJ, I'm glad you did cross the fence on that leg or you'd still be out there

Seriously though it does highlight how difficult it is to make sure we do as we are supposed. I now know 2 people who used the crossing point, you and Eddie, and many more who should remain nameless.

[EddieH]

Just look at Routegadget and comments here. The evidence is that the majority of people did not use the official crossing point. So RJ by your criteria the majority of orienteers are cheats

The evidence is clear that [b]even with descriptions[/b] the marking was inadequate.

A line to a crossing point is NOT a requirement, if the fence is clearly mapped as crossable then it is a recommendation.

Maybe in the Lakes you operate on a different convention, but if so it is little wonder that there are problems with people from outwith the region interpreting map markings by international standards.

I remember Yorkshire introducing a non standard symbol for forbidden to be crossed walls at Kilnsey and think that with a lot of publicity about this there were no problems. The trouble is that if you use a symbol that specifically means you are allowed to cross it you must expect trouble if you actually mean something different.

I remember one lakeland national event where the instructions were that we must not cross any wall unless there was a broken gap. There were route choices where there was no way of knowing whether a gap would appear or not - on one long leg in particular one choice crossed a wal where (unlike most others) there were actually no gaps.

[andypat]

Agree wth Eddie that marking a crossing point and bending the line doesnt make it compulsory uless the obstruction it is bent round is uncrossable. If its crossable on the map but uncrossable for "non-orienteering reasons" then a red line should be used. I remember an event many years ago when I returned to orienteering after a gap where I used every marked crossing point only to find out after the event that there was no compulsion to do so. A red line on the fence makes it clear it cant be crossed. DQ anyone who does, but only if its clear.

[Ed]

personally I often work on the principle that "if it's important enough, it will be explicitly marked on the map as forbidden", w.r.t. walls/fences/oob, etc (particularly the cultivated land symbol which is officially "seasonally oob" is not exactly a reliable guide and so should be overprinted if it is oob for the event).

Everything you need to know in order to determine a good and legal route between controls should be clearly marked on the map - if this is not done in the standard and correct way (i.e. using the appropriate forbidden route/area/barrier symbols) then the planner/organiser/controller only have themselves to blame if competitors do not do what was expected.

As an aside, at an event I planned a few years ago in S.Lakes, I marked the not-to-be-crossed walls with purple underprint along the stretches where crossing them would be an otherwise half-sensible route-choice option (although not the best route choice - that should always be a legal route otherwise, as planner, you're leading the competitors into temptation) - I didn't do it on all not-to-be-crossed walls because I didn't want the whole map to be purple. Much of the feedback seemed to be along the lines of "what are these purple lines - I don't understand what they mean"

Incidentally, this document gives an excellent summary of forbidden symbols and may be useful for both competitors and planners/controllers (although their definition of forbidden route is imho not quite full: you may run across, but not along it).

[frog]

That's an interesting document. Where did you find it? As a newish planner the only O symbol guide I could find was the 2004 IOF one in downloads, event info on the BOF website. Perhaps BOF should collect all these different bits together and put them in a special "orienteering symbols " section that is easily accessed from the main menu.
It is hard to find stuff as a planner. I know BOF have produced guidelines for planning yellow, white etc courses because Hilary showed us them but going into downloads, event information I failed to find them.
A special section with planning related stuff would be handy. It's probably there already but I've failed to find it.

[Ed]

I found that document via Google.

As for the map symbols, this page contains probably more than you need to know. There are various competitor-friendly summaries around on teh intarwebs - I assume Google will know about them.