You do realize that most of the competitors in our sport are not adults, right?Originally Posted by Dene
You do realize that most of the competitors in our sport are not adults, right?
Asking for people to solve puzzles makes their life harder.
More seriously, removing the "pop" rule created worse conditions.
Another solve for a POP? Couldn't competitors force a POP to get another solve? Or is this why the rule was removed in the first place?
Fun fact:
Of all the competitors this year where we have the birth date, the "majority" is now 18 or older.Code:mysql> select sum( if( year*10000+100*month+day <= 19940606, 1, 0 )) atleast18, -> sum( if( year*10000+100*month+day > 19940606, 1, 0 )) under18 -> from Persons, (select distinct personId from Results, Competitions where Competitions.id=competitionId and year>=2012) tmp -> where personId=Persons.id and year and month and day; +-----------+---------+ | atleast18 | under18 | +-----------+---------+ | 1936 | 1935 | +-----------+---------+ mysql> select sum( if( year*10000+100*month+day <= 19940605, 1, 0 )) atleast18, -> sum( if( year*10000+100*month+day > 19940605, 1, 0 )) under18 -> from Persons, (select distinct personId from Results, Competitions where Competitions.id=competitionId and year>=2012) tmp -> where personId=Persons.id and year and month and day; +-----------+---------+ | atleast18 | under18 | +-----------+---------+ | 1935 | 1936 | +-----------+---------+
Oh wait, the scale-tipping guy born 18 years ago on June 6 is Mexican, and in Mexico it's still June 5 right now.
Last edited by Stefan; 06-05-2012 at 07:43 PM.
Oooh some fun!
Not at all. I've said before, and I'll repeat again, the aim is not to stop or prevent people taking risks, and I do not think it is a bad thing. I take risks when solving almost every time. The point is that taking a risk is taking a risk, and it should not be the position of the WCA to give people taking risks some protective padding in case their risk doesn't pay off (or else it isn't really much of a risk at all).
I only use the laziness one for the few rare cases that might occur where someone isn't taking a risk but still has a misaligned slice (without deliberately doing it). I certainly think that 99.9% of misaligned slices are caused by risk taking, and that is where the emphasis should lie.
Of course I realise mistakes happen. They happen in every day life all the time. Often, people suffer the consequences of making mistakes. Rarely do mistakes end up benefiting the person. In sport, this is certainly even rarer. The WCA shouldn't be here to cover people that make mistakes, it should be here to determine whether, in this instance, a competitor has solved the cube or not. They can make a million mistakes if they like, as long as it is solved at the end.
Congratulations for noticing that, Captain Obvious. But I notice you point that out while not actually addressing the point I made. In fact, you haven't addressed any of the points I made. You've really convinced me now...
It is still a risk; they have the risk of 2 seconds being added to their solve.
+2 is not beneficial. It is a penalty.The WCA shouldn't be here to cover people that make mistakes, it should be here to determine whether, in this instance, a competitor has solved the cube or not. They can make a million mistakes if they like, as long as it is solved at the end.
You have no points. keyan is the only person making any decent argument against +2. Sorry about that.Congratulations for noticing that, Captain Obvious. But I notice you point that out while not actually addressing the point I made. In fact, you haven't addressed any of the points I made. You've really convinced me now...
I'm also still here. I'm trying not to get too involved, but I'm glad Chris (keyan) is making all his points. If he's sounding desperate, it's because he has to argue almost on his own, in a field of terrible rhetoric.
I'm starting to think we should have criteria for WCA Regulation changes. Right now, I have in mind:
1) When adding/changing rules, the primary consideration should be whether it would make for objectively better regulations.
2) If it is objectively better, and significantly conflicts with past regulations, *then* we should consider whether it is worth the cost of switching.
Personally, the argument in this thread is convincing me that with regard to criterion 1, removing +2's is better: it would have been better not to have had the penalty in the regulations, ever (there are some valid arguments to the contrary, but I haven't seen them argued well enough, and this post is not intended to address them).
This is being heavily conflated with criterion 2. Yes, the problem of switching is a big concern, but it should be done if we can decide whether the change is better. To this regard, I would appreciate it if people spent more time addressing criterion 1 (unless they have a sane argument that we should not follow the criteria like this). Unfortunately, it seems that this is extremely difficult for the "nocebo" sort of reasons Chris mentioned.
As I think I've said before, what I expect will happen is that the change will not be made *simply* because it is controversial, and there are many more uncontroversial rules to fix first.
(If this comes up for discussion in 2013, and somebody tries to use the argument that we shouldn't switch because the current discussion didn't lead to a switch, they'll be lucky if I don't do more than let out a sigh and ignore them.)
In baseball, if you miss the sweet spot by less than 1/16 of an inch, your walk-off grand slam could turn into a game ending ground ball double play. However, we all know that you COULD have hit a home run... but you didn't.
So what purpose does the +2 serve other than to give credit where it isn't due?
Again, what purpose does it serve?
And yet, you have failed, time and time again, to come up with any argument against my own (and I do have points, if you fail to see them I can't help you). If it isn't decent, one would have thought it would have crumbled by now.
That was my interpretation of his usage of "hinder" in the context of a discussion about competition regulations. However, acknowledged, post edited.
Sorry, I don't see where removing one of the judging classifications is equally complicated. Can you explain what is the category between solved and unsolved that is still there? I honestly don't understand your second sentence.
Edit: Reading again, I think I understand what you're saying. Currently, the rules have two points of distinction between three different categories: solved, unsolved but close, unsolved. The proposed change would have one point of distinction between two categories. That's simpler.
Yeah, this is how I treat unclear clocks in competition. However, this really isn't a good procedure. The only way to check the state of the puzzle is to manipulate the puzzle. What if the competitor disagrees? "No, it didn't click!" With a cube you observe, whereas clock you have to manipulate.
Here you're saying a puzzle off by one turn is solved. Putting aside the way the current regulations treat cubes, can you say what is the difference between a solved cube and an unsolved cube?
Feet and inspection are separate issues deserving other threads. But no, I'm not. Sorry, forgot to mention that yesterday. Late night. See my post just now in the stickerless cube thread. Removing inspection would change part of how we actually solve, whereas this change deals not with solving, but how we treat unsolved cubes. I see these as different.
This has already been discussed. Less than 45 degrees is closer to solved than unsolved. Greater than 45 is closer to unsolved than solved. Exactly 45 tie goes to the runner. So far, no one has seemed to disagree with this.
Currently judges are told that if a cube looks to be unsolved, it might mean something more than record the score, risne and repeat. So now they have to write out 12.11+2=14.11. They have to remember not to just write 12.11+2, or even more bothersome 14.11+2. But then they also learn that there's another step, where it's off by even more. So that cube that's off by 90 degrees is +2, so 180 must be unsolved, right? What about this one, the top is turned some, but so is the bottom. This 4 layer one has two layers turned, that's not solved, right? Reducing the amount of stuff that new judges need to learn and keep in mind during a competition makes the training process easier, allows them to focus on other stuff (not starting the solve with cube in hand, not twisting corners in place, etc.) and helps the competition run better.
Anecdotally, I don't think it's likely for a judge to unknowingly accept a cube over 45 degrees. More common that they think a cube off by only a small amount should be considered unsolved.
Venue and sponsorship are unrelated issues.
I've seen plenty of people that have trouble learning this alongside all the other stuff that a judge is supposed to learn. Reducing the amount of learning and work that judges have to do means that less time can be spent before the competition on training, means that more people might be willing to help judge, means that judges might not get as tired and want/need to take a break during the competition. Have you ever seen a competition fall apart because the judges got tired and just left? Yeah, that there reduces the number of competitions that can be held. Everything that makes the process simpler without impacting fairness or changing the inherent nature of solving are beneficial. Don't just brush it off as something small, it still adds up.
We record results as just numbers. What is differentiating the person that (feet) solves in 1:18 and intentionally skips the last move and the person that solves in 1:20?
-I get the impression you didn't read my post. No offense taken, I know my writing isn't very concise, but I specifically addressed what you say here. Changes that simplify the process without changing fairness or the inherent nature of solving are very different from removing the scrambling procedure. Can you clarify exactly what are the worse conditions you see from the proposed rule change? Is treating unsolved cubes as unsolved specifically unfair?
-The speedsolving events are all very similar, in that they all are basically defined by Article A of the WCA regulations. The speedsolving events are basically all the same, but we added this extra classification and realized that it doesn't work for one of the puzzles.
-You think that someone that made ten mistakes performed better than someone that made two? Narrowing it down a little, two multiBLD solvers both attempt 20 cubes and finish in exactly the same time. The competitor who made twenty mistakes gets a better result than the person that made two. That's not even a little weird?
-Changing the basic nature of speedsolving to please outsiders is totally unnecessary, I agree. But the proposed change has nothing to do with the basic nature of speedsolving. The objective is still to solve the cube with speed. The change is not proposed because of how outsiders see it, but that is still one of the benefits that may be had.
Lucas, thanks, well said and I hope people try to make their points as you said.
Last edited by keyan; 06-06-2012 at 02:30 AM.
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