Changes to the Weekly Competition website

[Mike Hughey]

So should I enter a time first, and then hit DNF?

Yes, if you do that (when entering the second DNF), it should work for now (it should be a suitable workaround until I fix it). At least, it worked for me.

 

[Mike Hughey]

I'm running into a bug on the competition website: I got 3 DNFs in 3BLD, and it can understand two DNFs, but it wants to record the third one as a DNS. I was able to manually enter DNF, and I think it recognizes it now, but it sure tries to see a DNS.

Okay, I've reworked some of the manual entry code, and while I'm still not sure it works perfectly, it seems to work a lot better than before, at least for the things I've tested. Entering 3 DNFs for 3BLD should work properly now. Please let me know if you discover any other problems.

 

[ichcubegerne]

When you go to the Ranking and click at the week where a result happened (on the right) then it shows you the ranking for this week, but for the event above

 

[Mike Hughey]

When you go to the Ranking and click at the week where a result happened (on the right) then it shows you the ranking for this week, but for the event above

Thanks - I've noticed this a couple of times but I keep forgetting to fix it. I'll try to get it fixed this week.

 

[cubeshepherd]

I do not know how many cubers solve the master pyraminx, but since I have recently gotten one and done a few solves on it, I am really liking it and I think that it would be cool if that could possibly become an event for the weekly competitions.

What do you all think?

 

[CornerCutter]

I do not know how many cubers solve the master pyraminx, but since I have recently gotten one and done a few solves on it, I am really liking it and I think that it would be cool if that could possibly become an event for the weekly competitions.

What do you all think?

I got one a few weeks ago too and it would really motivate me to practice.

 

[cubeshepherd]

I got one a few weeks ago too and it would really motivate me to practice.

Cool and I agree on that. What is your PB single as of now?

 

[AvGalen]

I got a master pyraminx at Euro and it is a very nice puzzle. Just short-yet-interesting enough to pick it up once in a while. I would argue that "if we do kilominx we should do master pyraminx". However that argument is week because that would also mean "if we do master pyraminx we should do gigaminx/terraminx/8x8x8/etc…..nope nope nope"

 

[AMCuber]

I have a Master Pyraminx, It was my third "cube," when I started a long time ago, I thought that was the normal Shengshou Pyraminx, and it is very bad quality, lol. I want to learn how to solve it, though, because it looks ugly, unsolved when all of my other cubes are.

 

[CornerCutter]

Cool and I agree on that. What is your PB single as of now?

I haven't done many timed solves, but I think it is 59 seconds.

However that argument is week because that would also mean "if we do master pyraminx we should do gigaminx/terraminx/8x8x8/etc…..nope nope nope"

Your right, but that is a slippery slope fallacy.

 

[Mike Hughey]

A slippery slope is not always a fallacy.

Logic and critical thinking textbooks typically discuss slippery slope arguments as a form of fallacy but usually acknowledge that "slippery slope arguments can be good ones if the slope is real—that is, if there is good evidence that the consequences of the initial action are highly likely to occur.

To claim this is a fallacy, there needs to be a clear distinction between master pyraminx and the other puzzles that we're saying might also be added. How is master pyraminx different from gigaminx or teraminx or 8x8x8, such that the slippery slope is truly a fallacy?

From a standpoint of popularity of puzzles, I'm not sure. I own two gigaminxes and an 8x8x8, but I don't own a master pyraminx, so from my very bad sampling of one cuber, I'd say the master pyraminx is less popular than gigaminx or 8x8x8. But in general if there were numbers that indicated master pyraminx was a particularly popular puzzle, I'd consider that a good argument for possibly adding it.

Master pyraminx is more practical in terms of solve times, so that could be a justification. But there are plenty of other puzzles that also have "practical" solve times.

I think it might be nice to add a couple of new puzzles next year, but I would like them to be selected based on criteria that give good justification for the choice. If there are one or two non-WCA puzzles that are clearly more popular among cubers than others, I'd see that as a potentially good justification.

I also wonder a little about mirror blocks, even if it is a puzzle that has been around for ages. We recently had a solver who is fully blind join our forum a couple of months ago, and mirror blocks is one puzzle that could truly "level the playing field" for blind solvers, especially if we made the event "mirror blocks blind, no inspection". Just a thought.

I'd like to have some discussion over possible events for next year, then have a poll (with choices based on the discussion) to see how many people claim they would attempt to compete in the event every week. Then I might select the top one or two, if they got enough votes, and add them to next year's list of events.

Note that I already intend to change Fewest Moves to a mean of 3 next year, since so many WCA competitions now use mean of 3 as the format for that event. (I need to start preparing for that change soon - it will be complicated making that change to the website and maintaining compatibility with old results, so I'll need some time to get it right.)

 

[Keroma12]

Note that I already intend to change Fewest Moves to a mean of 3 next year, since so many WCA competitions now use mean of 3 as the format for that event.

Maybe Multi could also be changed, to best of 3?

 

[CarterK]

Maybe Multi could also be changed, to best of 3?

Multi means are dumb lol, but now that you brought it up, I like the idea of a bo2 or bo3.

 

[cubeshepherd]

A slippery slope is not always a fallacy.


To claim this is a fallacy, there needs to be a clear distinction between master pyraminx and the other puzzles that we're saying might also be added. How is master pyraminx different from gigaminx or teraminx or 8x8x8, such that the slippery slope is truly a fallacy?

From a standpoint of popularity of puzzles, I'm not sure. I own two gigaminxes and an 8x8x8, but I don't own a master pyraminx, so from my very bad sampling of one cuber, I'd say the master pyraminx is less popular than gigaminx or 8x8x8. But in general if there were numbers that indicated master pyraminx was a particularly popular puzzle, I'd consider that a good argument for possibly adding it.

Master pyraminx is more practical in terms of solve times, so that could be a justification. But there are plenty of other puzzles that also have "practical" solve times.

I think it might be nice to add a couple of new puzzles next year, but I would like them to be selected based on criteria that give good justification for the choice. If there are one or two non-WCA puzzles that are clearly more popular among cubers than others, I'd see that as a potentially good justification.

I also wonder a little about mirror blocks, even if it is a puzzle that has been around for ages. We recently had a solver who is fully blind join our forum a couple of months ago, and mirror blocks is one puzzle that could truly "level the playing field" for blind solvers, especially if we made the event "mirror blocks blind, no inspection". Just a thought.

I'd like to have some discussion over possible events for next year, then have a poll (with choices based on the discussion) to see how many people claim they would attempt to compete in the event every week. Then I might select the top one or two, if they got enough votes, and add them to next year's list of events.

Note that I already intend to change Fewest Moves to a mean of 3 next year, since so many WCA competitions now use mean of 3 as the format for that event. (I need to start preparing for that change soon - it will be complicated making that change to the website and maintaining compatibility with old results, so I'll need some time to get it right.)

That it is a great idea @Mike Hughey and I totally agree on that. I propose a few different things to try and find out what events to add.

(1) Whoever is interested in adding an event(s) to the weekly competition should first provide an coherent explanation on why they think the event(s) should be added vs. any other event. The explanation cannot be like "Because I am really good at the event", or "Because it is easy to solve", but something that has been thought through and that provides a new challenge that we do not have at the moment.

(2) If you have not yet tried a certain event or know how to solve it, then please do not be quick to say yes/no to it until you at least have an idea about the cube (like if I were to say that dino cube would be dumb to add is just silly to say, because I do not even have a dino cube, and I do not know how to solve one). Or you can watch a few tutorials on it to see if you have interested in it. I think that this is a obvious statement, but I just wanted to be clear on it.

(3) As @Mike Hughey said, having a poll would be great to do once there is some decision/agreement on the top x number of cubes to add (like the top 10 cubes that seem to get the most attention/talk about) and decide on 2 or so from those.

There of course is no rush for this all to be decided (especially since things can change from now until the end of this year), but I think that if it is decided sooner over later then that would give certain people more time to purchase/practice event X before it is officially unofficially added to the weekly competition.

I am not saying this for it all to happen/needs to happen, but they are just some thoughts that I have about adding new events. Please let me know if there is something that I have said that does not make sense or is irrelevant to adding new events.

I look forward to seeing all your thoughts/ideas about this, and I will be adding mine soon.

 

[Mike Hughey]

Just to add to this, I really intend to only make the changes (adding events, changing formats) at the start of the year. It's much easier to deal with the changes if they happen on a year boundary. So now seemed like a reasonable time to start the discussion, so that a decision can be made and the software can be ready in time for the start of the year.

 

[AvGalen]

Some good ideas here.
I would like to say that I understand changing FMC to mo3 for consistency with WCA, but for the same reasons as before (1 DNF = DNF, time) I would be against this change
Multiblind bo2/bo3....I really don't see a reason to do that. This would just take more time but likely wouldn't change the results at all except for a more crowded bottom of the sheet that would normally get DNF (1/3) but would now get a 1/3 and a 2/3 so they would get a result. The rest of the MBF-ers would probably only do 1 hour-long attempt anyway.

In general I am not in favor of adding hour-long events like FMC and MBF (and 13x13x13 and Terraminx and...). It is called speedsolving and speedcubing for a reason!
When adding events I think the main criteria should be "would many people like to do it?"
Other criteria that I think should be
1) Are the puzzles widely available and of a decent quality?
2) Does the puzzle offer something new (Master Pyraminx does, Kilominx doesn't)
3) No variations on existing events. So no 222oh, 777feet
4) No ridiculous things (555 underwater while riding a unicycle)

 

[ichcubegerne]

What means the "inf" value for Kinch Scores? It seems to occur on maybe all people with missing nonbld results?

 

[Mike Hughey]

What means the "inf" value for Kinch Scores? It seems to occur on maybe all people with missing nonbld results?

Thanks very much for reporting this - it was a bug in my code. I think I have fixed it now. Please let me know if you see anything else that needs fixing.

 

[Mike Hughey]

I just implemented support for the bracketed rotation notation for fewest moves (such as [f]); I'm hoping this means I now support all WCA-legal notation for fewest moves solutions. Please let me know by PM if you see any problems with it, or anything else that I'm missing.

 

[Keroma12]

On the current personal records page, for your multi-bld history, it doesn't take into account whether a solve is a DNF or not when it highlights it orange (to indicate a PB).
For example, my first solve (1/2 DNF) is highlighted, then the next several DNFs are not highlighted, then I get a faster 1/2 DNF later and it highlights it orange.

(I'm still in favour of making multi best-of-3 next year!)