Discussion: Honesty

Suspect you were not alone! Great point regarding a retrospective view, must remember to QR my gpx as I may have strayed offline into the OOB area near control 14. Beyond the RV issue which was clear, course marshals could have been employed to police, but would that have helped on the ground at the time- who knows? Anyhow result should stand :-)

Course marshals followed by courts martial...

We have very little interest in prosecuting for OOB violations. The management at Round Pond told us about a week out from the meet that we weren't allowed to run through any of the campsites, on the grounds that it would disturb paying customers (despite the fact that the vast majority of them were orienteers). So there was a last minute redesign of the courses and the campsite areas were marked out of the bounds on the map to make them feel better. Which is something that we should have made clear at the start, rather than just letting people try to figure it out - at least knowing what exactly made an area out of bounds would have made it easier to notice. It would have been helpful to streamer areas as well had we thought of it, but I'm willing to bet that the management wouldn't have liked their campsites surrounded by orange flagging either. They were a bit picky about the whole weekend...

You did a great job anyway, even with the restrictions. Thanks!

Yes, it was very well coped with! Thus, what I am about to say is a philosophical musing, and not a criticism of anybody from the weekend at all!

The OOB areas were very clearly marked on the map, despite the comment about RVs in the details. Thus, by running though them, did PG gain himself an unfair advantage? I can entirely understand that no one wants to split hairs and try and DQ people now, it's pointless. But I have to say, I think I would DQ myself.

Again can I say I don't want to criticise anyone involved! This is a discussion that has been going for a while back at home where sprint racing is much more popular (mostly related to people doing things like punching through impassable fences when they can fit their arms through a gap!), and I'm mostly just interested to hear what people think on this side of the Atlantic.

I heard that Patty Lyons (F50) DQed herself after the sprint for having run through the OoB to the road.

I think 1->2 is definitely breaking the rules... and the others are arguably ok due to the lack of tape (and the OOB overprinting) which makes the boundary unclear.

It's never fun to DSQ anyone (well, occasionally). In this case I would argue a DSQ was merited, but it should have happened on Saturday.

I hope everyone is learning the rules (like no punching through uncrossable objects) before the TT sprint!

I assume that the US Army is still very efficient in recruiting "volunteers". Being West Point, perhaps an officer could have 'recruited' non-particpating cadets to practice some armed sentry duty along each OOB. Then there is no need for surveying tape which might upset the campers or park rangers. :)

I would just add that I agree with Neil in that if something wasn't done on the day, no point doing it retrospectively.

I have to agree with Becks and ndobbs that you can't really go back and do retroactive DQs. As BP points out though, that does pretty much require course marshals, since most people either don't realize they've made an OOB violation at the time (and so can't really self-report immediately), or else they did it on purpose, in which case they clearly aren't going to self-report.

It's actually an interesting question by Becks - whether DQs are only warranted if an unfair advantage was gained, or if it ought to be applied to blanket violations. For example, I got rather horribly turned around and accidentally ran through an OOB area about three times on the WUOC sprint this last summer - in full view of meet officials. Presumably the only reason I was not DQed was because it was impossible to gain an advantage by running through them - since the only possible way to get into one was to be going about 100 degrees in the wrong direction from the control.... The problem of course, is that discretionary DQs then lead to a great deal of hairsplitting over what actually counts as advantage gained.

Perhaps a bit of leeway is applicable. Say - allow some number of OOBs, maybe 3, during a run, but any more and the offender will be subject to severe penalties at the next possible O opportunity: 50 lashes with an e-punch or other appropriate reprimand.

Interesting... based on this discussion, I would say that I can name a person who I suspect is not reading PGs log.