New Ideas for 2010 WCA Regulations?

jazzthief81 said:

Yeah, well... I'm not so sure if that analogy is well chosen. Cubing and snooker are very different in nature anyway.

For speedcubing, there is always the time pressure because you have to solve it as fast as you can. That's what it's all about: it's a race against the clock.

A game of snooker is a head-to-head battle against another player and the pressure comes from the fact that making a mistake lets your opponent in with a scoring chance. It doesn't matter how fast you play when it's your turn. Speed doesn't earn you any points in this game.

But I think the bottom line of your reasoning is that it shouldn't matter what some unknowledgeable outsiders may think, and with that I agree.

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Sorry, you're completely right, I was being lazy and I couldn't think of anything better to use at the time
You're totally right about what I'm trying to say.
The problem with cubing and popularity is that people just don't understand or want to understand because they think they can't, and it is such a deep-set idea that people won't begin to think properly about it even when they can, i.e. "why do they look at it first before doing a blindfolded solve?".
We shouldn't be getting rid of things that unknowledgeable people can query, we should be promoting cubing by having more open competitions that are advertised that anybody can walk into and watch or have a go at, like Worlds last year.

Personally I'd prefer if there was no inspection time. It's a bit sad that an "8 second" solve takes 23 seconds.

But a system like that would be more vulnerable to cheating. Getting a peek of the mix before your solve would be a much bigger advantage than today, and policing that would be a nightmare. You could solve that by just mixing each cube randomly.

Anyway, I'd like if there were official no inspection competitions [EDIT: in addition to, not instead of, regular ones]. To me, the fastest no inspection solver would be the worlds best speed cuber.

It would also be interesting if there were much longer inspection competitions (5 minutes?) to explore that side of cubing.

As for the actual question at hand, I'd be reluctant to change the inspection time too often, as it is very disruptive. If it's changed, it better only happen ONCE, and be for solid, fact based, and well researched reasons!

no inspection is stupid i think.
it is the solve time which we are worrying about
not the inspection time.
who cares how fast e.g. erik's inspection is.
his solve is 7.08 --> speedsolving the rubik's cube

Lars Petrus said:

As for the actual question at hand, I'd be reluctant to change the inspection time too often, as it is very disruptive. If it's changed, it better only happen ONCE, and be for solid, fact based, and well researched reasons!

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I completely agree with this. If the goal is to change inspection to 5 seconds, better to just change it to 5 seconds than to have a graduated program of bringing it down over a period of a year or two. The sport will adapt, so if we change inspection change it to the final goal right off the bat. I agree that this would be best.

Chris

Yes said:

no inspection is stupid i think.

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Yes. In this case, the cube direction will become very important, all people that like a given direction will be screwed up, some judge will put the puzzle in the wrong direction, resulting in a implicit penality for the cuber who get that cube.

It's just not a good idea. Anyway 15s isn't a long time. And most of the time, the cuber have done the preinspection before teh end of 15s. Reducting this time will not change many things abouts how good people solve the cube, but will be much more stressful for cubers in general, and probably more problems will come up with unexperienced cubers/judges.

No inspection would be annoying. Also, what would you do with all the other results where people had the chance to inspect?

I do like the analogy to Football (don't know which one but hey I don't play either) that Escher brought up. Any game with timed rounds that can be paused has the same problem, when the clock is stopped the players usually get together with each other and the coach to decide what to do next. If there's 15 seconds left in the game you get to figure out what you're going to do in that 15 seconds before you have to actually do it. Cubing is exactly the same thing - inspection is there to allow us to get the best performance we can while the clock is actually running.

By the way, an 8 second solve does NOT necessarily take 23 seconds just because inspection goes up to 15. If that same solve was done no-inspection it would no doubt be closer to 10-11. There is no good way to time no-inspection solves except to force the competitor to remove the cap from the puzzle as the time is running. (And if the competitor happens to see the puzzle before the timer starts, is that DNF?) As I said in the WCA topic, it's better to have a limit that is quite a bit more than most faster people will use, so that people don't feel rushed. There is no way to properly inspect within 5 seconds in such a way that you will not go "oh no I have to start the timer NOW" after it.

Lars Petrus said:

Personally I'd prefer if there was no inspection time. It's a bit sad that an "8 second" solve takes 23 seconds.


Anyway, I'd like if there were official no inspection competitions [EDIT: in addition to, not instead of, regular ones]. To me, the fastest no inspection solver would be the worlds best speed cuber.

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How about the fact (yes fact) that removing or reducing inspection time biases certain solving methods? Do we not encourage people to try new things and learn new things about the cube?
Certainly I would hope that you yourself would see this as an issue; one of the first methods to get thrown out the door will be your own if inspection is significantly reduced or removed altogether.

The simple fact of the matter is that picking up the cube and quickly building a cross is going to be faster than trying to build a 2x2x2 block.

I myself am a Fridrich user, but I rely on being colour neutral. This is another thing that will be thrown in the trash if inspection is removed or reduced. It simply isn't viable to be distracted by other possible crosses when you have no time to waste. Everyone will pick a colour and stick to it. Everyone will build the same cross. Everyone will solve the same way. How much fun this will be! (please note my extreme sarcasm here).

I don't want to sound rude or anything. Personally, I don't mind the idea of 10 seconds as much as some of the people here seem to. However I think 5 seconds is out of the question. I also do not think that no inspection should be a separate event. I think we ought to be removing silly events before adding in more. And there are other events that would be far more interesting to add than no inspection.

There was once an event called "Rubik's cube no inspection", so maybe we can bring that back for the people who don't want to inspect.
I am actually in favor of raising the inspection time. It's your choice if you use it or not.

Dene said:

How about the fact (yes fact) that removing or reducing inspection time biases certain solving methods? Do we not encourage people to try new things and learn new things about the cube?

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To me, these two sentences are extremely pertinent.

Reducing inspection time is likely contribute to the dumbing down of cubing. The most thoughtful (mentally challenging) aspect of a speedsolve is the inspection. By reducing it, speedsolving will be biased towards less thought intensive methods.

cmhardw said:

I do think having a significantly shorter inspection time, or eliminating inspection altogether, would give cubing a much higher credibility factor amongst non-cubers and could help us become much more of a "mainstream" sport.

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Inspection allows lookahead to take place right from the beginning, allowing the solve to flow quickly from the outset, without pauses. With no inspection, solves will look slow and hesitant at the beginning. I believe this poses a greater risk for the sport's interest amongst the mainstream.

Escher said:

Imo it's analogous to snooker, where before each shot a player will plan much further ahead than the current play. A non-snooker player would ask 'why is he waiting so long before taking a shot?'. That doesn't make the sport less mainstream, just that non-snooker players (and non-cubers) are ignorant of the technique involved.

I personally think that pre-inspection makes minimal difference to attracting more people to cubing. Media and popular representation of the puzzle is far more of a hindrance.

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I think this is a good analogy. What an expert does during inspection is a very involving and skilled part of the solve. It serves to separate the experts from the intermediates. The fact that outsiders don't understand it is unlikely to reduce their respect for the sport. If anything it promotes further intrigue. I've never been able to fully explain my thought process during EOLine to non-cubers, but I doubt my inability to do so has turned them off it. If anything, it adds to the depth and variety in the sport.

deadalnix said:

Anyway 15s isn't a long time.

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It certainly isn't! After a year of doing EOLine, I still struggle to plan all of them within 15 sec. Reduction to 10 seconds would be disastrous for ZZ, I think to the point that it would be difficult to be competitive with it. ZZ is an exciting new method with huge potential for development and some really interesting systems for the last layer. Losing it would be sad for the community.

Finally, if no inspection is to be seriously considered, then why not create two speedsolve categories: One with, and one without inspection (even if its just for a trial period). I don't think reduction to 10 seconds should be considered, since it will unfairly disadvantage some methods more than others. Either the solver is allowed to plan the first step or not. I.e, there should be a full 15 sec or none at all.


EDIT: Ninja'd ...

TheMachanga said:

There was once an event called "Rubik's cube no inspection", so maybe we can bring that back for the people who don't want to inspect.
I am actually in favor of raising the inspection time. It's your choice if you use it or not.

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I like this idea.