Lincoln City Race 2011

[seabird]

Anyone have time to notice how the grapes were progressing on the vines?

Took a stroll around the Bishop's Palace after the event and from the wall (cliff?) overlooking the vineyard, we could not spot a single grape.

[seabird]

I would have liked to have seen this bit of unconventional mapping explained in the Lincoln details.

Railway bridge.jpg

The "covered passage" grey squares are in fact stairways leading to the upper bridge level.

Spiral staircase or those with several angular changes of direction, as in this case, are often a real problem to depict. Would it be reasonable to simplify them where possible by just showing them as a staright line between where you enter and leave them?

[IanD]

I would have liked to have seen this bit of unconventional mapping explained in the Lincoln details.

Railway bridge.jpg

The "covered passage" grey squares are in fact stairways leading to the upper bridge level.

Spiral staircase or those with several angular changes of direction, as in this case, are often a real problem to depict. Would it be reasonable to simplify them where possible by just showing them as a straight line between where you enter and leave them?

I think where there isn't space to show the stairs turning, then showing them straight is better than not showing them at all.

But my point was not so much that the map was in any sense 'wrong' as that it wasn't obvious to the uninitiated what the map was trying to communicate, and that an explanation in the final details and in the map legend would have been helpful.

[seabird]

This is a very similar issue to the uncrossable fences and walls issue. Should the details be in the final descriptions or on the map in an unambigous fashion.

Sheffield gave two examples in the final details. By the time I got to the second, right at the end of the course, I had forgotten it, and could only see purple crossing points over an uncrosable wall on the map. I totally missed the stairways in the buildings behind the wall on the map, despite noting them as I ran past. This was probably due to the crossing point symbol being the dominant image, and/or my being brain dead by then. I was not alone in this.

I am not in favour of having to remember unusual map matters from final details, although I appreciate the reasoning behind this example.

The first (encountered on the race) Sheffield example would have been unnecessary if the feature had been mapped as a bridge rather than a canopy.

[Scott]

Perhaps there would be a market for adjustable razor-wire SI-box shields to prevent people punching from illegal directions?

[andypat]

I would have liked to have seen this bit of unconventional mapping explained in the Lincoln details.

Railway bridge.jpg

The "covered passage" grey squares are in fact stairways leading to the upper bridge level.

Spiral staircase or those with several angular changes of direction, as in this case, are often a real problem to depict. Would it be reasonable to simplify them where possible by just showing them as a straight line between where you enter and leave them?

I think where there isn't space to show the stairs turning, then showing them straight is better than not showing them at all.

But my point was not so much that the map was in any sense 'wrong' as that it wasn't obvious to the uninitiated what the map was trying to communicate, and that an explanation in the final details and in the map legend would have been helpful.

I thought it was a good effort to map something that was otherwise impossible to map. Agree it might have been helpful in the final details. I suppose if there was a way to better represent the amount of climb (up the stairs) which might be helpful for route choice. I was tempted to wait for the lift......

[epocian]

Andypat wrote:
I thought it was a good effort to map something that was otherwise impossible to map. Agree it might have been helpful in the final details. I suppose if there was a way to better represent the amount of climb (up the stairs) which might be helpful for route choice. I was tempted to wait for the lift......

My OH did use the lift on the descent and reckoned it was slower than running down
(might have been a different story in the other direction!)

[Glucosamine]

Stairs definitely beat lift, even going up.

With the Barbican on Saturday, Lincoln offered a practice at urban map interpretation. I came home a little frustrated by the vineyard wall, given that I had made a point of checking the description definitions on BOF website, and been referred to IOF which stated "Top : where the control is located at the highest point of the feature and this is not the usual location e.g. cliff, top"
http://orienteering.org/wp-content/uplo ... s-2004.pdf
So (having had trouble getting registered on forum in the meantime) I was interested in the subsequent discussion.

I'll keep my fingers crossed for Saturday's run that orienteering trumps puzzle solving.

[andypat]

I hadn't read the qualifier as 'foot', but still went to the foot, because the description didn't say 'top', and I couldn't see how a marker could be placed at the top of a crag inside a corner facing away from the face of the crag, so I went to the 'default' foot.

The more I think about this little conundrum ( I know its a little bit sad) the more I think the real test of whether the control description is correct or not is whether on arriving at the control site, the description still makes sense.

[AndyC]

I'll rephrase that same question.
If there wasn't a circle on the map would I have gone to that spot from the CD? (maybe after a few false starts)

[awk]

The more I think about this little conundrum ( I know its a little bit sad) the more I think the real test of whether the control description is correct or not is whether on arriving at the control site, the description still makes sense.

Sometimes, one needs to interpret less and take more things at face value, especially in an urban situation where terrain is largely 'unnatural'. The CD said 'crag'. There was just one line in the circle that was a 'crag'. The location said inside SW orientated corner (but more straightforwardly, as it was shown pictorially). There was only one SW orientated corner on the line, and the control was on the inside of it. Worrying whether that was a foot or a top or whatever was trying to put a personal interpretation to the description that simply confused the situation.

That is a separate issue from the one where people mistook the location picture for 'foot'. That, I can only agree, is something which needs adjusting, and, unitl it is, needs planners and controllers to be aware of the potential confusion.

[Roger]

Having read 'crag', I decided that I didn't need to read the 'which corner' description until I was on the final approach, because the flag would be at the bottom. As soon as I saw a flag-less crag I did read the description in full, realised immediately what was going on and ran round.

I'm not going to claim that the default location of the flag on a crag (i.e. foot) over-rides the specific 'inside SW corner', nor even that the 'inside corner' symbol could easily be mistaken for 'foot' (it was immediately clear to me that it was a 'corner'). But 'crag top' is so unusual that I'd have noticed the 'on top' and realised that this was 'route choice' information, whereas on the day I made a simplifying assumption that was unjustified. I suspect that others went through essentially the same thought process.

Given how visible the flag was, 'crag top', despite being less precise than 'inside SW corner' would have led to no time loss in the circle once you were coming from the correct side. Was the use of 'corner' rather than 'top' (combined with 'crag') designed to mislead, or was the misleading an unfortunate side-effect of commendable striving for precision?

[andypat]

Having read 'crag', I decided that I didn't need to read the 'which corner' description until I was on the final approach, because the flag would be at the bottom. As soon as I saw a flag-less crag I did read the description in full, realised immediately what was going on and ran round.

Roger - I did almost exactly the opposite of you! On the way to our 1st control I noticed from the map that the 2nd was on an uncrossable feature. I looked immediately for the conrner qualification and twigged exactly where the control was. It was only after the end of the event, when I heard someone complaining at download that I actually saw the control description feature was crag and not wall! I guess I got a bit lucky on this occasion, and I am still unsure whether the control description used was the most valid. But I think it does illustrate nicely the different priorities of Urban Orienteering compared to the forest. If you orienteer to the circle in Urban you shall live to regret it....

Having said that, "dodgy" control description isnt a new issue unique to Urban. I remember a "normal" O event some where near Glasgow where the pictorial control description was crag (5m) (top). I was not the only person who struggled down (past the control hanging on a fence at the top of the crag) to get to the foot, only to realise there had been a serious miscarriage of justice! Surely the control at the top should have been described as fence??

[Strider]

Was the use of 'corner' rather than 'top' (combined with 'crag') designed to mislead, or was the misleading an unfortunate side-effect of commendable striving for precision?

As outlined in my comments posted earlier, very much the latter, I'm afraid

[Gnitworp]

We never supposed otherwise. I think anyone would have been likely to come up with same description following physical inspection of the site and seeing the upstand on the retaining wall. I think it's because competitors had no prior knowledge of the 'crag's' structural configuration that some of them came to the erroneous conclusion they did. As I suggested in an early post, why not ask a few people, who haven't been to the sites where they would go to find your markers, before you finalise your descriptions. In other words, to some degree simulate a race situation. I'm going to, in future, if I have any doubt at all, and maybe even if I don't.