Results Displays

[mharky]

Right, so the aftershocks of my last rant are just about dying off, so time to start a new one.

Do you ever get annoyed when you go to lookat your results that there is just a massive group of people and you cant get near the front, and coz it's in font 12 you have to be veeeeery close to read the thing, and there are 12 sheets posted up side by side, and you don't know where to look to find yours....

Thats often my impression of results boards in Britain.

If I were doing the results print out I would size up the font abit. Only have 1 class per page(s). Have the results spread out with some room between. Have a little sign above each page with the course on it, e.g. M21L. I'd print results every 30 minutes after the first finisher on the course. The splits print out would have your position on it.

[awk]

Sounds to me Mark as if you should be offering to take over results/programme/start list production for a big event soon.

Or just bored and need to get back to uni?

[mharky]

Nah, it's genuine. It's always a bit of a stuggle at the results board...

[Oldman]

I completely agree with Mharky, although I don't know what a "stuggle" is .

I've often found it difficult to get near the results board and then found after 30 seconds it wasn't my class anyway that the crowd was round (Should have known that, I guess ).

However, you need some sympathy with volunteer organisers too, so I would support AWK's comment that Mharky do this once to experience it.

The best way to set new standards is for someone to do it, and shame the others.

Come on BOF, let's see it done at a National Event, JK or BOC.

[mharky]

Why do so many people assume that I have never helped at an orienteering event...???

Next time Edinburgh University host the JK or British I'll do the results. I voulenteer for events, but I always get given simple manual tasks, because I am young, therefor irresponsible and have no idea how and orienteering event should be run, even though i've been to more orienteering events in more countries than the people who frown at me. (this is a gross generalisation)

Another thing, people always moan at us young elites not helping, which is complete tripe in itself, but why not wait untill we are as old as you (whoever you may be) and then complain if we are still "not helping" at events.

It's also very difficult to help at events when you belong to a club who organise 1 event a year.

[AndyO]

Mharky wrote: (this is a gross generalisation)

...should that read Gross generalisation?

Results boards are a pain, right enough, but you are lucky running in a (comparatively) small class - check out the M50 and 55 classes, and you might find your results in the next field if the font size was bigger!

[Tatty]

When he's at home Mharky does help at SOC events, but as he says as a Junior tended to get menial jobs or be put on download as he can work a computer. Too many golden oldies in our club who can;t do that job!!

[HOCOLITE]

At larger events our club have class labels and print out one page per class,and spread them round the square display board. I can't comment on text size as it has never bothered me, I might be aging but my eyesight is OK. At small events the class sizes would mean the printing off of lots of sheets of paper with very little on, both uneconomical and definitely not enviromentally friendly cos of paper and generator usage.

[awk]

When he's at home Mharky does help at SOC events, but as he says as a Junior tended to get menial jobs or be put on download as he can work a computer.

Never doubted Mharky's willingness or past involvement. Events benefit when people in charge have a clear vision of what's needed.

BTW, the next event in our calendar is being planned by club juniors - as was at least one of our sprint series. Clubs definitely miss out if they don't get their juniors involved, and we could probably do more on that front.

[HOCOLITE]

Same with ours but some clubs don't have enough active juniors to do that.

[soundman]

To be able to get results in bigger fonts with one class per page then your talking about constantly printing results and constantly pasting results.

Also the size of results boards. For slightly less sizeable events its not the easiest to make massive spaces for results.

To organise your dream results boards then you might as well get a whole team of results people to work on them.

[EddieH]

Mharky has a point. I remember when I went on my Grade 3 controllers course back in the seventies Roger Baker brought up this very topic.

However don't let us imply that the UK is bad - it is often far worse abroad. At this year's WMOC in Austria most things were brilliant, but the results lists were packed in and went from a few feet above your head almost to the ground! Swiss O Week had similar failings.

When VWC was in Spain there was a single copy of all 2000ish results pasted from ceiling to wall no more than a metre wide in total, in a narrow dark passage through which everyone had to go to collect their maps!!!

[Klebe]

Its not the font size that is the problem, its the stupid ignorant self important inconsiderate people who populate the results area. How often have you gone to look up the results to see a group of, generally, middle aged men discussing route choices and looking at maps, or just socialising. Look at the results see where you are, how you compare to the other finishers/rivals on your course then step back and let someone else have a look.

Spacing out results can help too rather than posting an endless list of all classes close together encouraging the herding instinct of orienteers.

[FatBoy]

Simple way to avoid printing results all the time - put them on a screen. Software available free and unlicensed at the address below...

However unless you have lots of screens (1 per 100 competitors?) you get the same basic problem of overcrowding around them looking for your own result.

Question for all: Do you look at results just after you finish, just before you go home, or both/more frequently?

I personally look at results initially to find out if the run was as good/bad as it felt - e.g. I'm 10 mins behind x so that's a good one, then I look to see if I beat somebody in particular who I know is there. Often that second check is by talking to that person, or on the web later.

I'd be interested in finding out what other people do/want - may help me improve the software.

[Mr timE]

Let's get some realism in here, all the electronic system can produce results as you want them, by course, where they will be squashed up, or by class where they will be on their own page. It is not practical to up the font unless you have an A3 printer available as all the software is generally written to fit A4. That said we do have certain prints within the EMIT software that are designed to be printed at a larger font, but then they just have the basic detail on them of name and time. As SOC know from the Classic it then means you need a separate team just to put up results, so who can you possibily get to do that, either you rope in a willing family or con some of those budding youngsters who don't know better yet!