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<title>Question Mark list conventions</title>
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<H1>Question Mark list conventions</H1>

<P>The format for question mark lists
is QM identifier, Quality Grade, Area indicator, decription of QM. The 
QM numbers themselves are in the format Discoverer identifier, Year of 
discovery, Cave identifier, serial number. If you look at the html, you will 
find that the nearest survey station (without its "&lt;cavenumber&gt;." prefix) 
is included in an html comment for almost all leads. Now that there is an <A 
href="../../handbook/survey/svindx.htm">index to the 
surveys</A>, there may soon be a way to get from the QM to the relevant survey 
file, but not the pictures :-( 
<P>In general, an unpushed QM will have a link from its QM number in the 
description to here, and a link from here to the relevant point in the 
description. If there is no link, it means that I can't yet work out where the 
QM is in the description, or the description doesn't yet exist :-). 
<h2>Discoverer identifiers</h2>
<DL>
  <DT>A
  <DD>ARGE 
  <DT>B
  <DD>Groupe Sp�l�eo de Clerval - Baume les Dames 
  <DT>C
  <DD>Cambridge University Caving Club </DD></DL>
<h2>Quality grades</h2>
<DL>
  <DT>A
  <DD>A fine QM - git down there and look. 
  <DT>B
  <DD>Not so promising, or requiring some effort (eg. a climb) 
  <DT>C
  <DD>Pretty cruddy, or good but very hard to get to. 
  <DT>V
  <DD>An aven which might be climbable, but not adequately assessed 
  <DT>X
  <DD>A high, wet or unsafe-looking aven unlikely to be climbed 
  <DT>?
  <DD>No-one writing this list actually knows! </DD></DL>
<P>Note that the quality grades are assigned by the explorers at the time, and 
that subsequent discoveries may mean that the grade is optimistic, since the 
lead may now drop into passage which wasn't then explored. Also, different 
explorers have different ideas - one man's "A-lead" may be another's "C-lead" 
:-( 

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