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Control Descriptions - are we too fussy?

Show Profile  Rolf Posted: 29 July 2011, 2:17 AM  
Inspired by Jamie's ravings about O in Slovenia, I was checking out the maps. The terrain sure looks technical.

But I noticed that some of the control descriptions could be considered ambiguous (to my understanding on how such things work)
At the Nationals this year we busted a boiler to ensure the following guideline was satisfied
"If a control feature cannot be unambiguously described then it should not be used, eg middle boulder when there are many boulders in the control circle, is not appropriate."

Yet if you take a look at this course http://www.oocup.com/Images/gifday3/M21E.gif
There are several controls where this guideline is not really adhered to. For example.
#3: In the circle there are other cliffs further SE
#8: There are reentrants all over the place
#20: There is no distinction about which boulder.

I suppose this event in Slovenia was a WRE, so how are they allowed to do such things, or perhaps what they have done is acceptable and we are just too fussy?

Show Profile  Hamish Posted: 29 July 2011, 6:07 AM  
I had a lot of control sites I just couldn't use at Nationals because I wasn't allowed to describe them as 'middle'. To my way of thinking if something is on the map then you should be able to use it and be able to describe it. It was actually made worse when using a 1:15000 scale as you could fit more rocks in a circle !! This made rocky areas almost unuseable unless I used another feature in amongst the rocks.
I agree I think we are just too fussy - you should just do the very best you can to describe a feature, make sure the map is legible enough to distinguish it and put it in the right place. If you can't do that don't use the site.

Show Profile  Greig Posted: 30 July 2011, 7:58 AM  
I my lowly opinion I think you are being too fussy. From the example above #3, the other cliff is miles away. The description makes sense to me, it's on the large cliff just SW of another large cliff.
#8, the middle of the circle is clearly in the eastern reentrant, there are reentrants in other directions as well but only one in the center of the circle. #20, again the other rocks are a long way away from the one in the middle of the circle. Had there been several rocks close together then I think a description pointing to the southern one for example.

Is there an IOF rule or guideline for descriptions and how unique the feature has to be? I could only find an Australian guideline.

If I was doing the event above I would have liked to have had a scale bar on the map. :-/

Show Profile  Taupoite Posted: 30 July 2011, 10:59 AM  
The IOF rules state "The precise location of the controls shall be defined by control descriptions" The wording in the mapping specs states "The centre of the (Control point)circle shows the precise location of the feature." The control description Spec for Column C is This column is used when there is more than one feature within the control circle; e.g. south eastern."

The sum of the wording indicates that if there is more than one feature inside the circle, then you have to define it exactly in Column C. Though it might be obvious from the circle placement where the control is, it is a failure of the controller not to demand either the control is moved, defined differently or even the map changed to get rid of the offending feature.
I sympathise with Hamish that large areas of the Long map at the Nationals couldn't be used because there were too many features to define exactly. The same was for the mumbo-jumbo at Waihora. Australian Orienteering has a document by Alex Tarr offering guidance on how to map rock areas, including leaving out a lot of stuff, just so they can site controls there. The problem might not be descriptions per se. It may be there is just too much detail on the maps!


Show Profile  pete s Posted: 31 July 2011, 2:06 AM  
I think you also have to look at what the feature is on in terms of the contours around it - in every single case in the linked map, you could tell which rock feature it is by where it sits in relation to the terrain (depression, reentrant etc). In this case I think it is Ok to be less specific about whic feature. If it was a bunch of rocks in a flat area with little contour detail, then it wouldnt be appropriate to use in my opinion....cheers

Show Profile  Michael Posted: 1 August 2011, 3:10 AM  
No we're not too fussy. Orienteering should happen mainly between the controls. But as Taupoite said it goes back to the mapping. If you were having difficulty finding a clearly describable feature where you wanted a control, then there was too much detail there.



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