Discussion: Growth for growth's sake?

Maybe this is getting into "Here we go again" territory, and at the risk of sounding naïve, where did the idea that orienteering (WOC level) needs to grow (and change to do so) come from and what is it based on?

Why are we (at the IOF level) trying to get into the Olympics?

If the sport keeps getting bigger, more expensive and more complex to organize won’t that actually ‘backfire’ if fewer and fewer countries have the ability to host it? Canada last bid to host WOC back in the ‘80s (lost out to AUS for ’85). Canada has not bid since, not “even” for JWOC.

I ran 4 WOCs back in the 1980s. As I remember they were well-run events that served the purpose of determining world champions. There was not as much press as there is now for WOCs, and I don’t really know how they were judged (successful or not) by the federations who hosted them. But they seemed fine to me.

Now I see less and less emphasis on traditional forest orienteering and more and more on shorter, spectator friendly races in urban and semi urban areas and locations chosen for suitability of arena. I see start intervals being decreased to meet the needs of the media.

And I am not sure why or how we got there.

Cranky old guy rant?

Maybe a little of that. But it's more about honestly wanting to know what the official/stated/presumed(?) rationale is. A recent post on the question of combining 2 of the junior age categories (in the States) pointed out the small % of long, forest races in JWOC, WOC and WUOC. And I recall a post from a year or so ago suggesting that (I think because of the way points were distributed and the number of urban/semi-urban races) a person could win the World Cup overall title without ever having competed in a forest.

Visibility of the sport in the media is a good thing. Awareness makes it easier to deal with administrators of various hues and makes recruiting a little easier.

On the other hand, the brutalisation of WC/WOC I consider in part a case of blame-shifting. If there aren't millions of orienteers in the world, it's not because we aren't organising fun training at a local level, it's clearly the fault of the media. To get media on board, we don't have to create a popular movement, we have to bastardise the sport. Carts and horses.

Not that some sprints aren't fantastic.

Another cranky old guy rant.

Great, if you're old, what does that make me?

I agree with dobb's your uncle. In Australia in particular, the sport is suffering a decline and the way to get it back into the public eye seems to be to make it more accessible to the masses (i.e. having urban sprints with minimal travel time and easy to understand maps) that don't want to travel hours to get to the bush, run around for a bit and perhaps get frustrated, then head home. If we don't cater for these people, the sport may well die and what good is that?

Perhaps at the international level it's just an extension of this - making the sport more public friendly to raise awareness.

What the cart/horse lamenters don't realize is that a good portion of the world's sports don't operate on an unpaid volunteer/member-service club model. Nor do they operate on a pay-for-your-fun model. Nor on a community-supported organization model.

In a lot of the world, governments support sports (because ostensibly they want a healthier population). Start from there.

I asked someone who supports this Olympic pursuit why we should bother, since a) it seems highly unlikely to ever happen, and b) Olympics? Who cares?

The response I got was that, yes, it's unlikely, but all of the work that goes towards the goal has the 'trickle-down effect', if you will, of supporting the growth and health of the sport at all levels. People like working towards a common, lofty goal. I don't remember the specific benefits argued, but it was things like getting better at publicizing the sport, getting new member countries involved, having universal standards, high-quality event production around the world, etc. Your sport probably shouldn't be dominated by 4 or 5 countries, so you need to work on building elite programs all over the world.

At this moment in time I don't really give a rat's ass about the Olympics, but some people seem to be willing to work really hard to try to get orienteering in the summer games. Maybe there wouldn't be so much effort towards other, more specific, lower-level goals. I don't know. I'll stay out of it. I just want to run on good maps. I am a bit concerned about radical changes just for the sake of the Olympic pursuit, though.

Hi T/D, what a pleasant surprise!

Despite the lack of orienteers to skew the statistics, there are three adult volunteers for every four who play sport on a regular basis in Ireland. Ireland is not an especially left-leaning country. Volunteering is not an aberration.

Mountain-running in Ireland is a fast-growing sport. It appreciates volunteers too.

If three people volunteer once a year and four people play 10 times a year, where does that leave us? Perhaps in a happy place, if one volunteer for 13 players is enough. Perhaps not, if the ratio is different.

Of course volunteering is the norm everywhere, no matter what the model. Exclusive reliance on mutual obligation, however, tends to cloud judgment.

10 volunteers for 130 players works fine. 0.3 volunteers for 4 players starts to get messy.

Maybe the Olympics for orienteering can be like the Apollo program for the US?

(This is a typically ambiguous statement from me from which one can draw several conclusions.)

WOC 2017 is going to Estonia. WOC'17 will be the 34th WOC and the 31st WOC hosted in Europe. With this Olympics focus has IOF failed in developing our sport outside of Europe?

Interestingly Rogaine and Adventure Racing are arguably stronger in non-European countries than Europe. Is there a lesson to be learned there?

10 volunteers for 130 volleyball players may work. 10 volunteers for 130 ultrarunners is way too few.

In any case, my point is that in most of the world, sports are supported to a nonnegligible degree by governments. Governments tend to like visibility and sustainable models, and at least some of them love the Olympic pie-in-the-sky. The ones that do have the potential to get a lot of people involved.

In other words, what's best for The People: 200k aging white affluent Northern Europeans exploring their pristine woods on perfect maps, or 20M non-white kids making sense of their surroundings vs. their depiction on some kind of map? We all know what's best for aging white affluent Northern Europeans, no need to restate it.

@j-man: you mean a big lie set up in warehouses in the Mojave, to keep us distracted from an unpopular war?

"What's best for The People". Intriguing.

@Hammer, isn't O in Canada growing strongly at the moment? Perhaps not hosting WOC is good for the country.

What do you actually want or expect the IOF to do? It is perhaps ignorance speaking, but I haven't seen much effort in the direction of global development, so have they failed?

Identifying countries where it should be easier to introduce and grow the sport and supporting volunteers to go to those countries and train people in for a year or two is one way it could make a difference, assuming it doesn't have a huge budget to spend.

Cranky somewhat-younger guy rant: I've been dismayed at the demise of true "orienteering" which means navigation in wilderness (forest or otherwise).

Now, I have grown to quite enjoy sprint, but what I had to realize that sprint-O is not orienteering. It is a sport very similar to orienteering and is quite fun, but it is not orienteering. So, why have had to abandon true wildland orienteering for the sake of media???

@ndobbs: My comments were in relation to IOF at the WOC level not the overall sport in general. Canada and I believe the US voted for alternating forest and terrain WOCs. My club hosted the first ever World Cup outside of Scandinavia and it was a huge opportunity for us that helped get orienteering known locally and linked to an active sport. The WOrld Cup was a success. However, we could not organize a World Cup today given the level of rules and costs associated with it. Just saying that if IOF are interested in growing the sport then perhaps they should be thinking about how to get the major races into all areas of the globe. So my points were really just agreeing with Ross' comment

"If the sport keeps getting bigger, more expensive and more complex to organize won’t that actually ‘backfire’"

ShadowCaster: Quick question, would you consider a forested sprint count as Orienteering and is it just the urban element what you're not into?

Some skiers like 50km loppets, some like Sprints.

My top location for Canada to host an international event is Canmore, Alberta.

I think if there were less of "why do I have to ... when I don't see an immediate benefit in it for me?" attitude and more thoughtful contemplation and foresight, the sport would be in a far better place.

A few years ago I would have agreed with Hammer that rogaining was in a healthier condition in the rest of the world than in Europe. Presently, I'm pretty sure there are far more people in Europe that have participated in a rogaine this year than there are in the rest of the world, though Australia and New Zealand still have respectable numbers. I don't know, but it wouldn't really surprise me if there were actually several individual European countries which have had more rogaine participation than Australia this year, and I would be quite surprised if it weren't the case in another ten years. So I'm not quite sure what the lesson is that is to be learned.

The lesson from rogaining is, involve governments and your thing grows.

T/D--post hoc ergo propter hoc?

j-man - argumentum ad logicam?

OK, yes. I was trying not to make this political, but forced into it... Yes, government makes things bigger. Let's get orienteering.gov and be done with it.

So, what actually were the specific levers through which government involvement in rogaining led to growth of the sport?

I am really ignorant here. I didn't know rogaining was growing and I can't see either the proximate or ultimate causes of that growth (vis-a-vis government(s)).

Thanks

I can"t speak for other countries but I know there are a ton of funding opportunities for Sport Federations and for individual athletes that are only available to Olympic sports. It often feels like if your sport isn't in the Olympics no one cares. And if no one cares than no one gives money to support athletes or help the sport in other ways.

That's one concrete example of why pushing for the Olympics might make sense. No it's not the be all and end all and I don't think the sport should be pushed as much as it is towards sprint and urban orienteering but it's not all bad. I also think that as technology increases it will be easier and easier to provide coverage for our sport such that we don't need to be in urban environments to be spectator friendly. But that's another topic...

A few people from the club here put on an indoor schools intro to orienteering day in a local sports hall. It was hard to get time because football was a priority (365 days a year). But last year the city manager saw how fantastic it was and guaranteed two days (as opposed to one) this year. If you can build something having positive social impact (yes, get those 20M non-white kids out), people will care and doors will open. And 700 kids passed through yesterday and today.

what actually were the specific levers

Access to resources: permissions to map and use terrain, the use of base maps, and infrastructure support during events. Rogainers had to show that their goals were aligned with those of the specific branches of the appropriate governments.

Orienteering USA is trying something along some lines. The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a partner, leading to problem-free (as far as I know) access to State Parks and National Parks within the Commonwealth. I heard that New Hampshire is next on the partnership list. These are small steps, but they go towards solving very real problems of access.

T/D—you are stretching far even for you.

I guess you didn’t mean the strong form… rogaining is growing. Your subsequent post implies you mean that rogaining is growing in the US. How so? How does this growth in the US (where government is [implied] encouraging the sport) compare to growth in Europe, where progressive governments are (according to you) actively encouraging healthy lifestyles? Shouldn’t it be growing everywhere? No omitted variables in your equations?

I won’t make the “You didn't build that” argument, but maybe you would. The government allows us access to the parks, provides maps which would otherwise not exist, provides roads to access them. But, those existed before rogaining existed, so I’m not sure what has changed?

By the same token, isn’t government involvement the cause of the decline of regular orienteering? Of whom do you ask permissions to do that? We hear the most complaints from you about how hard it is to get permissions to do orienteering in your area. Isn’t government to thank for that?

It looks like you are all over the map, so to speak, from where I sit.

Your subsequent post implies you mean that rogaining is growing in the US.

I don't think it does. T/D's response regarding the specific levers through which government influences growth in rogaining was bereft of geographic specificity. Then he started a new paragraph about OUSA partnerships with Kentucky and perhaps other states in future that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with rogaining rather than his general point that working with governments can be beneficial.

No, rogaining is not growing in the U.S. Rogaines by orienteering clubs area sharply down, rogaines by non-clubs are sharply up, the balance is even compared to the early 2000s.

Rogaining is growing in Europe, mainly in Eastern Europe, aided by government help. Orienteering is running into problems in North America, partly because of lack of government help. Where government help is available, there are fewer problems. Consistent enough?

My point is that governments are powerful and if you can make changes to your sport to get their assistance, perhaps the benefits are worth the changes.

So is there anything else besides "permissions to map and use terrain, the use of base maps, and infrastructure support during events"?

Sure, if the government says you can as opposed to can't do something, I suppose that is "support."

It must be the "infrastructure support during events" (because I think you could make the case that those other things exist in the US.) What are eastern European governments now doing along those lines that they didn't do before rogaining started growing on their lands?

if the government says

Try officially holding an event in November in Harriman and see what these other things are that exist in the U.S. If your interests align with those of government entities, or at least there is perception of such, then you'll get much farther than otherwise.

Infrastructure: it works like this. An organizer is putting on a rogaine and hopes to feed several hundred people. Magically, a portable kitchen appears staffed with emergency ministry trainees who do all this work for the organizer, for taxpayer money (they need training, and the funds are in the budget). If they didn't appear, the organizer would have had to charge the equivalent of €15 more per person to compensate for the expenses to make the food happen. Because the fees are €15 less, the organizer gains an extra 100 participants. Who then go back to their provinces and villages and tell everyone how awesome rogaining is. The organizer also gets the extra several thousand euros from these participants that he can put towards a permit for a future rogaine, or towards promotion, or towards nice trophies for the participants, or or.

In our own little North American case, it works like this. The course setter has to travel an average of 3 hours roundtrip to where the checkpoints are, on foot. The course setter needs to make 5 trips to set checkpoints, so would have to take two days off work just to account for these trips. Because the jurisdiction believes its interests are aligned with the organizers of the rogaine, these organizers get to use a vehicle where normally one wouldn't be allowed, at no extra permit cost. The course setter gets to enjoy two days he can put towards, for example, volunteering for his local orienteering club. Arguably far less support than in the Eastern European case above, but still quite material. Little things add up to big things.

You can bash your head and do build it: the whole thing, or you can work with the system.

I don't follow the first paragraph. I guess that suggests there is not a "system" in the US?

Elsewhere, where there are extra government resources that can be co-opted, they allow you to lower costs. But, aren't we always saying costs are too low in the US? Or maybe that misrepresents what we are saying... we should say if only we had a free €15, we can offer a better product, which makes everything yummy and life like the Jetsons, and there are magical multiplier effects... This is an amazing deus ex machina.

Also, eastern Europe has this favorable situation and Scandinavia does not. (Nor does it have great working conditions, family leave, social services, vacation, etc...) because things like that--government writ large--not a fancy Army hot dog stand--is the sort of involvement that would cause your sport to grow rather than atrophy.

Of course they have these things in Scandinavia, too. I'm sure you've been to the Jukola. You've got a huge percent of the population involved already in Scandinavia, there's not much room to grow; I thought the argument was about worldwide growth and not about getting another few thousand to come to the Jukola?

Tell me how not having the government on your side is beneficial.

It is tangential. In Scandanavia they have government on their side (big way) and the sport is declining. You are simply barking up the wrong tree. You can't even get permission to hold a meet for a couple people in CA. What are you expecting government is going to do for you? What is it going to do to make people want to do something with a map outdoors somewhere?

In an ideal world, a government (of some level) would (a) subsidize junior development by providing support and grants for coaching programs, (b) provide free or subsidized infrastructure for events, (c) fund a high-performance elite program. Tell me this is immaterial. Tell me how the sport wouldn't be shrinking faster without this level of support in Scandinavia. And I'll show you a number of governments that do all of (a) through (c) for Olympic sports, but won't do it for non-Olympic ones.

The "can't get permission" is insulting. We brought navigation sports to 8 new venues in 4 years, and canceled one event out of 38 so far due to inability to get a permit for bikes, and had to reshuffle a few venues around for Sprints in 2011, but our track record so far is materially no worse than that of any O-club in North America. We've been able to get into venues at which the O-club was denied access, and we've started events at venues that the O-club subsequently took advantage of. We spend a lot more effort on jurisdiction relations than the typical few minutes an O-club volunteer ED expects to spend.

P. S. I wouldn't ever know there was a decline in Scandinavia looking at these numbers.

@j-man - if you're going to entertain yourself by arguing with T/D, could you at least minimize the annoyance for the rest of us by engaging with his actual arguments rather than lazily sloppy distortions of them. Exhibit A being:

But, aren't we always saying costs are too low in the US?

I think it would be more accurate (that is to say accurate) to say T/D is always saying event fees are too low in the US to make the sport self-sustaining without huge inputs of uncompensated labour (which he reasonably anticipates may not be in even such abundance as currently forever). If you can find an instance of him writing that things would be better if permit fees were higher (without buying some additional services not included in current permit fees) or some other cost of putting on an event were higher, feel free to produce it.

T/D--

You want it both ways. You aren't going to get all that stuff so why even bother? If the government funds a space program you'll get it. It is more likely to do that than fund anything on your list for orienteering. And the minor counterfactual isn't illustrative. Sure, if the alternative to the Scandinavian paradise is a prison state, sure the sport would die out pretty fast. If people have to work 80 hour weeks, it will die out, but these are unhelpful thought experiments.

You are the one always complaining about the difficulties getting permission in CA. And I meant the general you rather than "you" as in T/D, but it applies to all.

Why must you throw these red herrings out? Are you now saying that orienteering is not declining?

jtorranc--what do permit fees have to do with it? All these arguments sound like a protection racket. Or maybe it is like... "Well, the government could charge us a $1MM, but they are only charging us $50, so they are supporting us."

Why don't you look at his arguments... Viz., government is supporting rogaining in Europe -> it is growing because of it.

How are they supporting it? By providing cheap food. Really???

If you can find an instance of him writing that things would be better if permit fees were higher

I did say exactly this in the past in reference to nearly free permits in places on the East Coast. If the jurisdiction isn't aligned with you in any way, then why should it bother granting you access? its perceived drawbacks outweigh the benefits, it'll just march along, funding is perpetual out of the general fund, you the organizer are only putting strain on the resources.

However, I fail to see how this argument would escalate to a blanket "costs are too low in the U.S."

I see no ready evidence of the decline of navigation sports in places where they are supported by governments (cheap permits indeed being a herringlike exception and cheap permits in themselves not constituting active support). I see decline where there is little or no government support.

How are they supporting it? By providing cheap food. Really???

Are you expressing doubt that the cheap food really was provided or incredulity at the idea that this would be of material assistance to an event organiser? Neither strikes me as a tenable position. Also, you seem to be ignoring the allusions to government subsidies of junior development and coaching, national elite programs, infrastructure, etc.. It may be true, as you assert, that government support in that style couldn't possibly ever happen in the United States but that doesn't prove that such support would not be immensely useful if it could somehow be conjured into being - in case you missed it, ARK, for instance, got off the ground with provincial government grants.

In Scandanavia they have government on their side (big way) and the sport is declining.

This may be true - I can't tell from my vantage pointt. But it doesn't even constitute an argument that the government support isn't helpful. If Scandinavia got 100% of their population orienteering every weekend and kept it that way for a decade, would you then argue "In Scandinavia they have government on their side... and the sport is stagnant."? It wouldn't make any less sense that attempting to imply that any decline at all in Scandi orienteering proves the uselessness of government support for the sport.

The onus isn't on me to prove a negative. All I ask is for someone to lead me through this change of reasoning. I'm sorry I'm being obtuse or insistent. I just feel like this is bizarro-world. But, I keep taking your bait. Shame on me.

Yes, maybe eastern european governments provide cheap food. And, then, through this light of fancy, rogaining grows. That is the argument put forth. How can you say it isn't?

Those other allusions were proferred later, in true whack-a-mole style. Sure, government supported programs of that nature would help anything. It is never going to happen for orienteering in this country. I wish I could fly, but I won't. If I could fly, that would be immensely useful. And?

Let me recap the situation. Orienteering is declining. Rogaining is, too. But, not in Eastern Europe, where through the miracle of loaves and fishes, government support works some magic.

Here in the United States we have a national park service and terrain to die for, a USGS that provides awesome maps, infrastructure that allows us to get places, technology and disposal income. Orienteering and rogaining are declining.

In Scandannavia, they have a wonderful Nordic socio-economic model, healthy lifestyles, enlightenment, and orienteering is declining.

If I frame things in comparative statics terms, I just don't see the impact of government relative to orienteering--in any way--positive or negative. Sure, I could imagine something, but I'm not the one asserting hypotheticals. No, we are supposed to believe this is reality.

Why don't we just get it out in the open--we come from different ontic viewpoints. You know where I come from, I know where you come from, and we engage accordingly. But, at least try to play fair.

I can fly.

My viewpoint is that my club is chock full of M21s who have cobbled together points here and there over the years to muster up some competition to the aging DVOA horde.

Your viewpoint is that we M21s pose some overwhelming psychological obstacle to small clubs who might want to compete at the 3pt level, so screw us. OTOH, aging DVOA horde? Not intimidating in the least.

I mean, this whole orienteering thing is just full of crazy unsubstantiated fingerpointing, subsequent denial of such, and general meanness from many quarters. At least T/D takes credit for his views instead of passing the buck onto some nameless committee.

Number of licensed orienteers has declined slightly here. We are not allowed to run normal national events without a license, participation of those has been declined about same way too. But figures of leisure orienteering events we do without license are growing. We are allowed to participate Jukola without license, figures for Jukola has been going up too.

So I'd say orienteering isn't declining here, it may be growing instead. But the profile as changed - more leisure orienteers without license and more leisure orienteering events.

I there is several reasons why those events are getting more popular.
- events are close where we live, no need to drive hours. You can start when you like, easier make it fit in you schedule. National races aren't like that - it will take that day.
- terrains nearby are usually just nice. Often less forestry done tehre than wha it is like after two hours drive.
- compared to old days maps are good (updated, printed for the event). In the past leisure event maps were usually offset printed 10 years ago of for a race they had back then.
- updated maps means you can avoid shitty areas if you can navigate. 20 years ago you could not. Makes experience less frustrating.
- with epunch and results with splits these aren't that far from the race experience
- in the old days you had to go to the actual races to get the race experience (good map and courses, results)
- plenty of these event every week in most populated areas here
- lots of daylight during the summer.
- Cheaper, entry fees are about 6 eur and short distance means low travel expenses. You can do 3 of these with the same cost as one weekend race.
- organizing these low key events are a lot easier, cheaper and practical

And then there is Minna Kauppi. Highly unlikey a sport declines when there is such a celebrity doing it. If someone likes to do try O the place to try it is one of these leisure events.

So it you have wondered at Jukola where the growt and people game from there you have the answer. The question around here is how can we get these people to get license run those actual races too, to make it profitable to organize races. Some clubs had choosed not to arrange any races just but just these leisure midweek evening events, after trying and not getting people to come to their race. it's just profitable and practical that way.

Jagge, my club went a little schizophrenic, it has huge numbers availing of free entries (as members) to the leisure events, but no scheme in place to get those people more active and involved in the club, besides asking people to volunteer occasionally. It has a serious training program for juniors and seniors, but no light, social training program (now).

And it sounds like many clubs in Helsinki have been declining, but those that put an effort into getting kids out are growing.

Of course, this isn't Scandinavia.

"Why are we (at the IOF level) trying to get into the Olympics?"

First, it is about money and recognition. With TV and media sports evolve from amateur level to professional level. IOF decides to make sport professionally otherwise sport will stay on amateur level and there are probably more sub questions which needs to be answered if we really want to unify common goals.

1) Path...
Do we understand what we need to do. What we are perceiving and what benefits were promising to all of us (officials, runners, federations, clubs) for continuously support?

2) Story...
What kind of story we want to tell to the global sport audience. Squash made great story. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM13G5ASTb0

3) Values...
It seems that Orienteering has similar values as Squash and probably all Olympic sports have very similar values. We probably can't bet their numbers, TV fans, production, etc, so we should really think how we will differentiate from others. What other values could positioning us as an Olympic sport? I would bet on environment and legacy. I would tell the story how Orienteering is the best sport to tell the global audience that we need to preserve forest, nature and we need to live with the nature. ECO focus. We need to define what would be our legacy to Olympic movement. Can we inspire, innovate in some way which could be beneficial to all. Only sports values (like Squash did it) will not bring us closer to Olympics. We need wider values which would be politically acceptable for IOC. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBGox9mV49Y

4) How orienteering community would rate IOF Olympic vision today. Poor - good - excellent?

What I've read about Orienteering Olympic vision so far was mainly official promo junk, nice words without a very convincing story. I think we need to write down the whole story first. We can't loose nothing if we play a little bit different from what IOC expect from us.

Rogaining isn't declining in North America. The Rogaine Committee would certainly benefit from someone to do rigorous participation statistics a-la Bob Forgrave and Maiya Anderson; we only count events of 4 hours and longer, not participants. The majority of events and participants are by non-Orienteering USA clubs (so OUSA sees no income from these events). The number of events has been up each year since 2010, only the number of 24-hour events is down; and it seems from a cursory scan that events are getting bigger, so we're pretty sure participation is stable or up.

Yes, maybe eastern european governments provide cheap food. And, then, through this light of fancy, rogaining grows. That is the argument put forth. How can you say it isn't?

That was an example of government provided infrastructure. Your insistence on claiming that free or cheap government-provided catering services must constitute the whole of what T/D claims is helping rogaining grow in Eastern Europe because he didn't mention anything else in that particular post and that it's somehow illegitimate ("in true whack-a-mole style") to expand on his thesis in later comments, doesn't strike me as being in keeping with your desire that people should try to play fair in debate. This is a discussion, not a game of Calvinball in which only you get to make up rules.

As to your framing of the situation in the US compared to Scandinavia:

Here in the United States we have a national park service and terrain to die for, a USGS that provides awesome maps, infrastructure that allows us to get places, technology and disposal income. Orienteering and rogaining are declining.

In Scandannavia, they have a wonderful Nordic socio-economic model, healthy lifestyles, enlightenment, and orienteering is declining.

If I frame things in comparative statics terms, I just don't see the impact of government relative to orienteering--in any way--positive or negative. Sure, I could imagine something, but I'm not the one asserting hypotheticals. No, we are supposed to believe this is reality.

Jagge disputes your assertion that orienteering is declining in Scandinavia. T/D disputes your assertion that rogaining is declining in the US. In both cases, I think they are much better positioned to assess the status of the sport in question than you are. Orienteering in the US I'm not certain about - it certainly seems to be possible to construct a case that it's at best stagnant overall. Strong local growth in my vicinity may be blinding me to the big picture. Nevetheless, even if we accepted your assertions of decline, your ontic viewpoint seems to be blinding you to the fact that even if orienteering is in a declining trend in both the US and Scandinavia, it's declining from a much higher level in Scandinavia. I don't think it's much of a stretch to assign some of the credit for that higher level to government support. Nor do you, going by:

Sure, government supported programs of that nature would help anything.

So what exactly are we arguing about? Apparently you agree that active government support is good for orienteering and rogaining where it exists. Whether and to what degree government support can be hoped for in the US is a separate question and there's no need to conflate the two.

Second Jon's point; I think that if orienteering is molded into something that is more attractive to a number of governments of the world, there will be more orienteers worldwide (or whatever they would be called if purists deny them the use of the O-word). This will be true even if orienteering dies off completely in the U.S., where as we know government support is nonexistent nor forthcoming.

I believe that on some other planet in some other system that orienteering was one of the first sports invented and it spread quickly so it became established in their version of the Olympics. And it could have happened here. But other sports beat orienteering to the punch. Ba dum bum.

Also I want to host a Crossfire or Hardball type forum with J -man and T/D and jtorranc. That would definitely beat course reviews at an A-meet dinner.

We also perform at weddings, parties, and bar mitzvahs. You can book 12 months in advance.

add Sammy into the mix and I'll arrange a live streaming. ;-)

T/D is there entertainment lined up for the sprint the golden gate dinner?

Sadly, I can't make it :(

Skype.

But Sammy is unreal. How do you Skype with a ghost?

I don't think Sammy is unreal, he's just shy. But yeah, probably too shy for Skype, even in disguise.

Attackpoint live monthly roundtable. Make at least 1 real with TOP US ghosts, first :-). Do we have any chance to make this show profitable?

And to underline some of the argument made by Vlad....
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S...

I think we're onto something here. From my extensive knowledge of Engel's relationship, and the crucial finding that "an increase in income could lead to either a decrease or an increase in the demand for hunting" I think we can confidently say that T/D will make more posts on AP. Or fewer, or possibly the same.

My demand for hunting New Zealanders increases the further from home I get. In January I will be in New Zealand, approximately 5300km from home, so there may be trouble.

This could mean tRicky has either an increase in income, or a decrease in income. On the off chance of the former I'll tip off some New Zealanders so they can lie in wait.

Now I am truly confused. Who is hunting who?

Ahem . . . FYI - bshield's "aging DVOA horde" (Oct 24) just won the relay championship . . . .