Proposal: obligation of judging and scrambling for events you are not competing in

Current regulations:

• 1e) Each event must have one or more judges.
  • 1e1) A judge is responsible for executing the procedures of the event.
    • 1e1a) A judge may judge multiple competitors simultaneously at the discretion of the Delegate, as long as the judge is able to ensure that all WCA Regulations are followed at all times.
  • 1e2) Every competitor must be available for judging. If he is required to judge, a competitor may be excused only for a legitimate reason (e.g. being unfamiliar with a puzzle), at the discretion of the Delegate. Penalty: disqualification from the competition (see Regulation 2k).
• 1f) Each event must have one or more scramblers. Exception: Fewest Moves Solving.
  • 1f1) A scrambler applies scramble sequences to prepare puzzles for attempts.
  • 1f2) Every competitor must be available for scrambling. If he is required to scramble, a competitor may be excused only for a legitimate reason (e.g. being unfamiliar with scrambling notation), at the discretion of the Delegate. Penalty: disqualification from the competition (see Regulation 2k).

The unwritten rules as they are executed are: "everyone only has to judge/scramble events they are competing in". This is different from the regulations, but has been the case for as long as I can remember.

According to current regulations the following scenario can occur:

- the first event of the day is a non-popular event like 7x7 or feet. The 2nd event of the day is 3x3. Of course most cubers who don't compete in the first event will not arrive at the competition when the first event starts, but will show up in time for 3x3. In theory the delegate is now allowed to disqualify everyone who was not present during the first event, because they were not available for judging/scrambling.

Now I am perfectly aware that this most likely will not occur, but I am not a fan of unwritten rules and things newcomers don't know. A newcomer may have stressed his parents in getting up earlier than necessary, or even taking a more expensive flight because he read the regulations very well and knows he has to be there to help judging/scrambling an event he is not competing in, or even is completely unfamiliar with.

To straighten things out I suggest changing to something like:

"Every competitor must be available for scrambling/judging for the events he is competing in. If he is required to.... etc."

For the big BLD events (4/5/multi) it is kind of unwanted to have several groups, because of organization hassle and probably because you'd really like to have the same scrambles for big-BLD events. For these events it would theoretically be possible that nobody is available for judgin/scrambling. At Euro 2014 the organization required competitors of 4/5/multi to get their own judge though. This didn't cause any problems. Maybe a remark could be made to 1e and 1f to encourage people to judge for other events as well.

Erik said:

The unwritten rules as they are executed are: "everyone only has to judge/scramble events they are competing in". This is different from the regulations, but has been the case for as long as I can remember.

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I think this unwritten rule is not as familiar in other countries as it is around here (Germany, Netherlands etc.). Actually I talked to someone at the European Championships about that topic (can't remember who that was, too many people, sorry ) who wondered that this works.

To straighten things out I suggest changing to something like:

"Every competitor must be available for scrambling/judging for the events he is competing in. If he is required to.... etc."

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This might work in theory, but isn't applicable in practice in my opinion.
I have experienced several situations where it was necessary to have judges not competing in the particular event in order to avoid delays. For example: a round with 9 competitors, split up in groups of 5 and 4, so there are 2 scramblers for the first group and 2 judges. This works, but most likely slows things down.

It might be a compromise to restrict this to "present competitors and competitors competing in the event", although this could result in people just leaving the venue if they don't want to judge.

larf said:

I think this unwritten rule is not as familiar in other countries as it is around here (Germany, Netherlands etc.). Actually I talked to someone at the European Championships about that topic (can't remember who that was, too many people, sorry ) who wondered that this works.

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Ok, I was not aware of that. Maybe it was a single coincidence? Can some cubers from outside of (west)Europe please share their experience?

This might work in theory, but isn't applicable in practice in my opinion.
I have experienced several situations where it was necessary to have judges not competing in the particular event in order to avoid delays. For example: a round with 9 competitors, split up in groups of 5 and 4, so there are 2 scramblers for the first group and 2 judges. This works, but most likely slows things down.

It might be a compromise to restrict this to "present competitors and competitors competing in the event", although this could result in people just leaving the venue if they don't want to judge.

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Small groups are a bit harder indeed, but especially in small groups you are forced to divide into 2 groups anyway because all other competitors are unable to scramble the event (this happened quite a few times).
I don't really see what the problem in leaving the venue is if you are not competing in the event, or wasn't that what you ment?

Maybe we can make the regs state "should" for events you are not competing in and "has to" for events you are?

My (quick) thoughts:

Judging/running, Yes.
Scrambling, No.

I think scrambling is something that should be done by people who the organizers and delegates trust, rather than some 12 year old who doesn't know the WCA orientation.

Erik said:

Small groups are a bit harder indeed, but especially in small groups you are forced to divide into 2 groups anyway because all other competitors are unable to scramble the event (this happened quite a few times).
I don't really see what the problem in leaving the venue is if you are not competing in the event, or wasn't that what you ment?

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That was just meant as a drawback of my idea to formulate a rule which states that only competitors competing in the event and competitors present in the venue must be available to scramble and judge. From an organizer's/delegate's view the latter probably doesn't change anything since a competitor can easily bypass this by leaving the venue.

At the end of days, we tend to have very few people left. Only competitors are left for the finals and we have problems finding any judges. If we then allow people to refuse to help, we'd end up splitting every final into 2 groups, which is certainly a much worse thing, with regards to time and fairness.
I don't particularly like picking on people who compete less and are around at the end of the day, just because they are more likely to be sitting around not doing anything useful. But I haven't seen a good solution to avoid this yet.

When there are multiple groups we do call out that people in the other groups should be helping. I wish we didn't even have to call people to come and judge for other groups...they should assume that they're needed during group 2 if they competed in group 1 and start helping without being asked. This doesn't happen enough. If it happened properly, people not in the event would not need to help out except when an event only has one group (generally finals).

I think I may have read about that unwritten rule somewhere on this forum a year or two ago.

But it's not the case in Australia. If someone isn't competing in the current group for the current round then they're expected to be available for judging, running or scrambling.

Tim.

I've always wanted to try a system where after completing your last solve for an event, you replace the judge at that station. That way after you have a set of judges for the beginning of the round, the round will run very smoothly, and everyone will judge a little bit instead of a few people judging a lot.

There are some difficulties of course, such as the fact that not everyone knows how to judge, but I'm sure there could be a way around that. Maybe just use the honor system and not require people to judge if they don't know how.

I agree on this idea for the judging and scrambling in the events you compete in 100%!

Erik said:

The unwritten rules as they are executed are: "everyone only has to judge/scramble events they are competing in". This is different from the regulations, but has been the case for as long as I can remember.

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This has never been the case for competitions BASC has run, and it usually isn't the case for Berkeley competitions.
For scrambling, initially we usually choose people who are familiar with puzzles but aren't competing in the events that feature them. For easier puzzles to scramble (2x2-4x4, Pyra, Skewb) we usually keep scramblers at the stations. If someone is finished with their solves and is a faster scrambler for any event, on occasion we ask them to scramble, while the previous scramblers either run, judge, or have free time.
For judging, we usually choose competent people who aren't competing in the current event to judge.

Frankly, BASC and Berkeley have dedicated volunteers/staff, and in the event (no pun intended) that we are short-staffed, there are always competent and available cubers to ask.

kinch2002 said:

At the end of days, we tend to have very few people left. Only competitors are left for the finals and we have problems finding any judges. If we then allow people to refuse to help, we'd end up splitting every final into 2 groups, which is certainly a much worse thing, with regards to time and fairness.
I don't particularly like picking on people who compete less and are around at the end of the day, just because they are more likely to be sitting around not doing anything useful. But I haven't seen a good solution to avoid this yet.

When there are multiple groups we do call out that people in the other groups should be helping. I wish we didn't even have to call people to come and judge for other groups...they should assume that they're needed during group 2 if they competed in group 1 and start helping without being asked. This doesn't happen enough. If it happened properly, people not in the event would not need to help out except when an event only has one group (generally finals).

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Why would you split up any finals? After all there are previous-round-competitors who have to judge. (exception: one round events of course)

Ranzha V. Emodrach said:

This has never been the case for competitions BASC has run, and it usually isn't the case for Berkeley competitions.
For scrambling, initially we usually choose people who are familiar with puzzles but aren't competing in the events that feature them. For easier puzzles to scramble (2x2-4x4, Pyra, Skewb) we usually keep scramblers at the stations. If someone is finished with their solves and is a faster scrambler for any event, on occasion we ask them to scramble, while the previous scramblers either run, judge, or have free time.
For judging, we usually choose competent people who aren't competing in the current event to judge.

Frankly, BASC and Berkeley have dedicated volunteers/staff, and in the event (no pun intended) that we are short-staffed, there are always competent and available cubers to ask.

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Oh wow, that must be nice to have!

Noahaha said:

I've always wanted to try a system where after completing your last solve for an event, you replace the judge at that station. That way after you have a set of judges for the beginning of the round, the round will run very smoothly, and everyone will judge a little bit instead of a few people judging a lot.

There are some difficulties of course, such as the fact that not everyone knows how to judge, but I'm sure there could be a way around that. Maybe just use the honor system and not require people to judge if they don't know how.

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That's an interesting idea. Why don't you work out a scheme and try it yourself? (or share and let others try it out)

TimMc said:

I think I may have read about that unwritten rule somewhere on this forum a year or two ago.

But it's not the case in Australia. If someone isn't competing in the current group for the current round then they're expected to be available for judging, running or scrambling.

Tim.

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Ok, thanks for sharing that. Did people get disqualified for not helping? Wouldn't you have enough judges/scramblers/runners otherwise?

I am always helping at competitions and am basically scrambling/judging/competing all day long even after I finish my own events.
But lately I sometimes don't participate in an event so I have some relax time. I think it is perfectly fine to ask me to help during that time, but I should be able to refuse.
Organizers should be careful about this situation and not start with a puzzle that many people cannot scramble (Skewb/Clock) and not finish with an event that many people don't want to watch (BigBlind)
If that means that a final only has 1 scrambler and 1 judge...that should be okay because the delegate and organizer are very rarely participating in the final and there are always some volunteers. If we cannot make this happen with volunteers we might as well stop organizing competitions because we are not enjoying them apparently.

Erik said:

The unwritten rules as they are executed are: "everyone only has to judge/scramble events they are competing in". This is different from the regulations, but has been the case for as long as I can remember.

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First time I hear about this. I have often scrambled/judged for events that I didn't take part in. I think a more widely accepted unwritten rule is like:
"everyone only has to judge/scramble events they know how to judge/scramble"
matching the regulations.

I think regulations are fine just as they are.

Noahaha said:

I've always wanted to try a system where after completing your last solve for an event, you replace the judge at that station. That way after you have a set of judges for the beginning of the round, the round will run very smoothly, and everyone will judge a little bit instead of a few people judging a lot.

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This might work when you have fixed judging stations. But it would probably result in some chaos when applied here (with normally no fixed stations) since you can't track so easily if someone starts to judge after he has finished his/her solves.


Furthermore I would like to mention that missing judges and scramblers haven't been a big problem in the competitions I attended in the last 1-2 years. So from my point of view this is just about clarifying the regulations and not changing them in order to change competitors behavior. But that might be different in other parts of the world.

larf said:

This might work when you have fixed judging stations. But it would probably result in some chaos when applied here (with normally no fixed stations) since you can't track so easily if someone starts to judge after he has finished his/her solves.


Furthermore I would like to mention that missing judges and scramblers haven't been a big problem in the competitions I attended in the last 1-2 years. So from my point of view this is just about clarifying the regulations and not changing them in order to change competitors behavior. But that might be different in other parts of the world.

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Yeah you'd definitely need fixed judging stations.

It's not that there's a judging problem at the competitions I've been to. It's just that usually only about 20 people are willing to scramble, judge and run. It sucks for those twenty people because they end up helping out all day and not enjoying themselves as much as the people who don't help out. The goal of the system is to distribute responsibilities more evenly so that the competition can run smoothly and no one has to help out for more than a few minutes at a time.

It's not practical (and I guess not possible every time) to run an even just with the people who compete in it helping. Imagine a clock round with 4 people of similar speed. You'd have one scrambler and one judge, meaning half of the competitors get scrambles X and the other half gets Y. Not very good...

I've always read the regulation as "you should be available to help if needed, except if you don't know how to scramble something".

Sometimes we have trouble finding people to help judging and have to ask around and/or call some people by name. Apparently people don't understand that everybody should help a little so things work good and not just a handful of guys are doing everything...

I've never disqualified anybody for not helping, but had to almost beg someone, so we could end in time.

I'm now confused, though, since the thread's title say "obligation of (...) for events you are NOT competing it", and Erik's proposal seems to be the opposite, "obligation of (...) ONLY for events you're competing in".

Pedro: if you have only 4 registrants for clock I'd surely reconsider doing the event at all and ask (before the competition) if other people are able and willing to scramble before making this decision.
Your clock scenario can also occur with current regulations: only a few participants and nobody else who is "familiar with the puzzle" (to quote the regs). The willingness of people to help is not even a big factor here.

Oh and btw: the thread title has a character limit and I failed to think up a formulation where it would fit

I have one fundamental problem with your proposal: Competitors in the same event *intrinsically* have conflicting interests.
Although I know your proposal is rooted in practicality, I don't think it's a direction we should mandate, if it has not caused significant problems.

In fact, I would prefer it if regions found a way to encourage/require more competitors judge/scramble for rounds they are not in (without forcing anyone who is too unexperienced/uncomfortable).

Erik said:

The unwritten rules as they are executed are: "everyone only has to judge/scramble events they are competing in". This is different from the regulations, but has been the case for as long as I can remember.

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As others have mentioned, this is not a worldwide (unwritten) rule.
If it *is*, we should make it a Guideline.

I first became aware of it in Europe in 2010. Is anyone be able to gather data on how different countries do this?

Erik said:

Now I am perfectly aware that this most likely will not occur, but I am not a fan of unwritten rules and things newcomers don't know.

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I'm also not a fan of making the Regulations longer to cover *every* contingency. While your scenario is not unrealistic, are you aware of any cases where this has been a problem? Is this something that's been on your mind for a while because it comes up repeatedly, or is it a concern you just articulated?

As you mentioned, we trust Delegates to be reasonable. We'd hopefully find out very quickly if this became a problem.

Lucas Garron said:

I have one fundamental problem with your proposal: Competitors in the same event *intrinsically* have conflicting interests.
Although I know your proposal is rooted in practicality, I don't think it's a direction we should mandate, if it has not caused significant problems.

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I don't really understand what you mean with 'conflicting interests'. Can you elaborate?

In fact, I would prefer it if regions found a way to encourage/require more competitors judge/scramble for rounds they are not in (without forcing anyone who is too unexperienced/uncomfortable).

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Of course this would be the way to go, encourage instead of force. I don't see why forcing people would still have to be an option though.

As others have mentioned, this is not a worldwide (unwritten) rule.
If it *is*, we should make it a Guideline.

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A guideline saying you shouldn't be forced to judge in events you are not competing in, while there is a rule that actually forces you to be available? Those couldn't exist at the same time.

I'm also not a fan of making the Regulations longer to cover *every* contingency. While your scenario is not unrealistic, are you aware of any cases where this has been a problem? Is this something that's been on your mind for a while because it comes up repeatedly, or is it a concern you just articulated?

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I have heard competitors showing up unecessarily early because of this, yes. Solely newcomers though. Also, I remember some competitions where the delegate or organizer was annoyed because I wasn't there to judge multi-BLD (which was after lunch break) even though I wasn't competing. Could've been at Czech Open 2009.

Also: extending the regulations with like 1 sentence to prevent confusion and possible pointless disqualifications is not a waste of "space".

Erik said:

Ok, thanks for sharing that. Did people get disqualified for not helping? Wouldn't you have enough judges/scramblers/runners otherwise?

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No, we dont disqualify anyone. By and large enough people help out. If not, we usually make some announcement to make them feel really guilty if they don't help.