VOIDING OF COURSES

[andy]

Events should follow the rules, regardless of whether it's a holiday event!

Have these 'recommendations' made it to the actual rule book yet? You say 'guidance' not 'rule'.

I have just read the Rules Group Meeting notes from the 20/6 and their message is fairly clear: Do nothing.

Removing legs is the obvious solution to this problem (6 Days I'm talking about here), results can still stand and the only people who are unhappy are those who have found the control through good luck rather than good orienteering.

What is the rules group proposed resolution to the fact that someone might never have found the control?
In the case last week one person didn't, they checked they were in the right palce and then ran the rest of their course, are they meant to say to themselves 'hang on a minute, this control might be in the wrong place, i'll just wander about aimlessly till I find it'?

And to the 'several people lost points' argument: how would you feel if it had been you running about aimlessly looking for the control and lost points from that perspective?
The resolution the controller(s) arrived at is the fairest, by far, and I'm not sure many would disagree.

[Spookster]

Have these 'recommendations' made it to the actual rule book yet? You say 'guidance' not 'rule'.

No, the meeting minutes say that an update to Appendix I is being worked on, and that it will incorporate a sentence along the lines of "leg times should not be removed". In the mean time, only the minutes of Rules Group have been published, with attention drawn to their presence in the News section of the website.

The wording is "should" rather than "shall", which appears to leave the opportunity open for an event jury to decide that they will remove them, against recommended practice, in some circumstances.

Removing legs is the obvious solution to this problem [....]

The resolution the controller(s) arrived at is the fairest, by far, and I'm not sure many would disagree.

I don't think it's obvious, but maybe in this case it seems fairer. However there are some very good arguments that have been put in this thread and others about why it isn't fair to remove leg times.

What we need as competitors (and event officials) is clarity and consistency, and that is I think what Rules Group is trying to achieve.

[graeme]

Events should follow the rules, regardless of whether it's a holiday event!

Absolutely. It was stated in the event programme that legs might be removed - so the jury did what the competitors had been told would happen.
It would be absurd for the competitor who didn't go to the wrong place and followed the guidance in the event details to be disqualified.

I suspect that the no-adjustment rule is there so that protestors can be pressurised with that "you do know we'll have to void the whole course and it will be all your fault" line.

I'm not sure there's anyone here who thinks the decision to include different legs for different people at BOC was the fairest one. I simply can't understand it. I can at least understand the voiding argument, though I don't agree with it.

[Sloop]

I don't believe I've seen any clear expression of the arguments against leg removal.

I find it hard to believe that such arguments are really compelling vs the twin ludicrousness of either letting bad results stand or voiding everybody's efforts.

Any time this comes up, an event is already, sadly, compromised, and no-one should pretend otherwise. Leg removal can simultaneously acknowledge the existence of a problem and provide a best-efforts solution. Is common sense really such a bad idea ?

[Sloop]

I don't believe I've seen any clear expression of the arguments against leg removal.

I find it hard to believe that such arguments are really compelling vs the twin ludicrousness of either letting bad results stand or voiding everybody's efforts.

Any time this comes up, an event is already, sadly, compromised, and no-one should pretend otherwise. Leg removal can simultaneously acknowledge the existence of a problem and provide a best-efforts solution. Is common sense really such a bad idea ?

[andy]

I don't believe I've seen any clear expression of the arguments against leg removal.

I find it hard to believe that such arguments are really compelling vs the twin ludicrousness of either letting bad results stand or voiding everybody's efforts.

Any time this comes up, an event is already, sadly, compromised, and no-one should pretend otherwise. Leg removal can simultaneously acknowledge the existence of a problem and provide a best-efforts solution. Is common sense really such a bad idea ?

this is what I meant to say in place of my 'obvious' comment above

[Lizi Beee]

Removing legs is the obvious solution to this problem (6 Days I'm talking about here), results can still stand and the only people who are unhappy are those who have found the control through good luck rather than good orienteering.

What is the rules group proposed resolution to the fact that someone might never have found the control?
In the case last week one person didn't, they checked they were in the right palce and then ran the rest of their course, are they meant to say to themselves 'hang on a minute, this control might be in the wrong place, i'll just wander about aimlessly till I find it'?

Yes I was lucky in a way, but I also used a bit of common sense instead of just giving up. I arrived at the re-entrant saw it was not there, noticed there was one just around the corner and thought this should be the most obvious place to misplace the control.

The latter situation - someone giving up cos they could not find it - this is why I put in my protest to have the course voided that day. Doesn't make much difference to results, just use 3 out of 5 instead of 4 of 6. The other thing that annoyed me was the way people protested and put in their opinions of what the outcome should be AGAIN. If you are going to put in a protest then accept the consequences. This is what I did and from the sounds of it I fully expect to have lost my fiver to the cause of trying to get some consistency in the sport.

[Homer]

Lizi Beee I am interested that someone directly affected has indeed put in a protest (and I agree with you that protests should not be allowed to contain pre-conditions). I would have thought that the jury would have no choice but to void all courses which had the control in the wrong place.

Perhaps someone from the organising team could keep us informed; has the jury had a chance to sit yet and, if so, what was their decision?
Lizi should be expecting her fiver back.

[andy]

Lizi Beee I am interested that someone directly affected has indeed put in a protest (and I agree with you that protests should not be allowed to contain pre-conditions).

There were a number of protests, not just 1, will let you know as soon as I know what the outcome is/was. I certainly haven't been asked to change any results as yet.

[graeme]

The latter situation - someone giving up cos they could not find it - this is why I put in my protest to have the course voided that day.

You are absolutely right to demand some consistency here, the current situation is a mess and the proposed new BOF rule will make it much worse. Here the six day are to be congratulated because the instructions to competitors were clearly stated in the programme...

In the event of a control being removed by vandals, the controller may decide to base results on the time from the start to the previous control or
from the next control to the finish or, exceptionally, both of these, rather
than void the course. You should continue to run as normal.

Now, you may argue that the control wasn't removed by vandals, but there's no way a competitor could know that at the time, so, no excuse for dropping out.

[EddieH]

I agree with you Graeme absolutely. I can understand the argument to void courses, but I don't believe that is what even 90% of orienteers want, and I don't understand why it is considered better to have everyone have a totally wasted day than to have a reasonable compromise.

If ever a competitor is found to deliberately remove a control to improve their own time they should be banned from the sport for life.

Except at the very top this is a sport we do purely for fun - let's not forget that.

[Snail]

Eddie (& others)

Something I have never understood is why some people consider competitors to have had a "totally wasted day" if the results are declared void.

I will still have had a great day in the forest, perhaps marred by some difficultly in finding a particular control. Providing that times (and nowadays splits as well) are still published, and there is no reason why they can't be, I can still get some comparison with others. Especially since it is best practice to try and indicate which compeitors have been affected by the problem.

As far as I can see for most events (BOC excluded) the only practical effect of the results for a course / class being declared void is that they won't be used in things like the badge scheme, ranking list, and count towards multi-day results.

For me that certainly doesn't result in a wasted day!

[Lizi Beee]

Snail, I agree, I do not feel my day there was wasted. I enjoyed my run, I know what I did wrong and can still analyse it etc...

Also, just read my other post bck, so before anyone tells me i'm a hypocrite - I did not say on my protest that the courses should be voided, nor did I suggest they should let them stand. I just called for some blooming consistency.

[Oldman]

I was struck by what I took to be a protective euphemism in the event daily newsletter which said (as I recall) that the "ground was indistinct around the errant control". If so, why was that not detected at planning/controlling time?

[andy]

If so, why was that not detected at planning/controlling time?

I think the conclusion has already been reached (in a few threads) that 'get it right in the first place' is always the best option