Worries of a potential first timer

As a self confessed non speedcuber I have a bizarre urge to enter one competition before I die (I'm not dying BTW). I don't know if it will ever happen but the following rule really puts me off-

1e2) Every competitor must be available for judging. If 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 WCA Delegate. Penalty: disqualification from the competition.

I understand that should I enter I am obliged to know the rules but would a first timer / inexperienced competitor really be expected to take on such a responsible role in a competition? Is their inexperience a legitimate reason not to do it? However well the rules are learnt I am sure you would need a fair bit of experience in competitions to get familiar with the process.

Most likely not. If you say you really are kinda nervous about it/you don't want to they won't call on you. At the one comp I went to they asked for volunteers for judging and scramblers were all staff members. TBF it was a pretty big comp.

I have never seen this regulation employed to the extent implied by the regulation. If a organization team is short on judges, they will say they need more judges and usually there are more than enough volunteers. If they really do need to call upon specific people, they will only do it to people they know can judge.

Also keep in mind at many of the competitions I go to the majority of judges are non-cubers, (Realtives of people competing most often) who were probably given no more than a few sentences of instruction before they started judging. Really a lot of the onus for following procedures is put on the competitor more so than the judge.

Don't worry about it. From my (admittedly small) experience, nobody seems to get forced into judging unless there's hardly anyone already up judging. Even of this were to happen, I doubt you'd be the first person they'd look to for the job, considering how it's your first time at a comp. And in the very very small chance that a delegate/ organiser does specifically ask you to judge, just ask, and they'll be willing to run you through all you have to do as a judge.

Judging is actually a pretty simple process, believe it or not. I didn't think I'd be doing any judging at my first comp, but I ended up spending around 3x as much time judging as I did solving, heh.

I've been to over 40 competitions and never never once seen this enforced. Don't worry about it.

And even if you had to, judging is incredibly easy.

Rubiks560 said:

I've been to over 40 competitions and never never once seen this enforced. Don't worry about it.

And even if you had to, judging is incredibly easy.

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3 2 1 start looking

Yeah there's an VERY small chance that if they needed one that they would randomly choose you and plus if you didn't want to nobody's actually going to force you to do it.

All I did at my first comp was judge for hours and hours on end. Nothing has changed since and I wouldn't have it any other way ^_^

Get involved!

Dene said:

All I did at my first comp was judge for hours and hours on end. Nothing has changed since and I wouldn't have it any other way ^_^

Get involved!

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This, except for the "I wouldn't have it any other way" part

Judging is very basic, if they need judges definitely offer, though mention you haven't before so ask to quickly learn

Judging is easy and I often see younger people (<13 years old) and non-cuber parents doing it. You generally just need to know
- how to place the puzzle down (on the mat, with cover over the puzzle, and (if Rubik's Clock) standing up straight)
- to confirm that the solver is ready before removing the cover and thus starting inspection
- to time inspection with a stopwatch, and say "8 seconds" at 8 seconds and "stop" at 12 seconds, if they didn't start solving (there are penalties if the solver goes over 15 seconds but this is rare)
- to watch the competitor and puzzle during the solve
- to write down the time and get signatures of both you and the competitor after the solve.
After a few solves you'll know most of this anyway. At some competitions you may also need to know to stop the solver if they go over a certain time limit. If anything weird happens, like a large pop, timer malfunction, or the competitor stopping the timer while holding the cube, call over someone more experienced for help.

That said: 99% of the time you will not be required to judge if you have not indicated you are willing to. I've seen organizers be short on judges and ask for people to please come help, but I don't think I've seen anyone actually be punished for refusing to be a judge.

Quote:"I doubt you'd be the first person they'd look to for the job"
I imagine this is why Tony is concerned - being Senior in years, he may well appear a very good first choice.

Tony Fisher said:

I understand that should I enter I am obliged to know the rules but would a first timer / inexperienced competitor really be expected to take on such a responsible role in a competition? Is their inexperience a legitimate reason not to do it?

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While it is technically possible, as others in the thread have pointed out, this Regulation very rarely requires enforcement.
It's usually enforced when, say, there are a only a few competitors who know how to scramble for a certain event, and they are needed to help scramble (and otherwise uninterested in helping make that event happen, even if they are competing in it).
I've read all the Delegate reports over the last few years, and this has been invoked less than a handful of times.

It's part of the Delegate's responsibility to make sure that judges are prepared for their job. If the competition needs more judges/scramblers, you may find that you know the Regulations well enough to help (after all, you read through them thoroughly enough to find this Regulation! To judge, you mostly just need to know Article A and have done a handful of competitor solves to get practice. It can also be quite fun), but you should usually be able to decline if you're not comfortable with that yet.

SenorJuan said:

Quote:"I doubt you'd be the first person they'd look to for the job"
I imagine this is why Tony is concerned - being Senior in years, he may well appear a very good first choice.

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I'm confident that our Delegates don't blindly conflate age with experience.

(If anything, our sport seems to have a *bias* against age. But I'm glad we have some high-profile older competitors who can show us that age doesn't matter as much as passion.)