Same resort, three sites, three numbers

This is the most frequent definitional gap. Are the conveyor belts in learning areas mechanical installations or not?

A concrete case: the official source for Erciyes states 19 mechanical installations. The catalogue this site uses states 14. The difference is five magic carpets — the official source counts them, the catalogue counts only named mechanical lines.

Both are correct under their own definitions. But putting the two numbers in one table and ranking them is not: listing Erciyes at 19 while other resorts are listed by the 14-style method makes those others look worse than they are.

How to spot it: if a source gives a lift count a few units higher than you expected, it is probably counting learning-area carpets.

Turkish sources frequently publish slope lengths around double the figures in international databases. For Kartepe, both 21.2 km and 42 km circulate widely.

That it is exactly double is striking. The most likely explanation is runs counted in both directions, or an early error propagated by copying. We could not verify the cause, so we state it as an observation rather than a claim.

How to spot it: if one value is almost exactly twice another and comes without a breakdown, be suspicious. A figure published with a difficulty breakdown whose parts sum to the total is more trustworthy, because it is internally consistent.

Piste count is the extreme case of incomparability. Is a slope that forks partway down one run or two? Does a connector between two runs count? Is a variant its own piste?

Because resorts answer differently, piste counts cannot be compared. Two resorts of identical size can appear as 14 and 22 purely through counting method.

That is why this site publishes no piste count at all. Putting a non-comparable number into a comparison table misleads the reader — a table looking complete does not mean it is working.

Even with identical methods, timing separates figures. When a resort adds a lift or closes a section the number changes, but sites repeating the old figure do not update.

A great deal of Turkish ski resort data circulating online is years old, and because no date is given there is no way to tell.

So do not trust an undated figure. On this site every number carries its source's verification date, and an automated check warns when that date is more than 180 days old.

These three questions let you evaluate almost any resort statistic you meet.

First: when was it measured? No date, no trust.

Second: is the method stated? If a source does not say what it counted, do not compare its number with anyone else's.

Third: is the figure internally consistent? A number published with a breakdown whose parts sum to the whole is far more reliable than one repeated without.

You should apply those three questions here too, and the answers are on the page: every figure carries a source name and verification date, the method has its own page, and internal consistency is verified by an automated check on every release.

The limitation is worth stating plainly: this site relies on a single source. The risk is systematic error. Two entries were cross-checked against independent official sources and both matched exactly — a small sample, but better than none, and the result is published rather than assumed.

If you hold a primary source for a resort, we would like to see it: it lets us both verify the catalogue and widen that sample.