guusrs
Veteran
Hi cubers,
The BLD-cheaters-threat has been closed, which is a good thing. What was clear to me that cheating in blindfolding is very easy. Last weekend at the Benelux Open I tested some blindfolds for the first time in my life and I could peek under every of them, even when others (Arnaud, Kai, Joel) were convinced I couldn't peek anymore. Suddenly I could solve cubes blindfolded although I never practiced. It must be the shape of my nose......
My point is that, when cheating is so easy there's no blindfold-cuber for which we are 100% sure they didn't peek under their blindfold. Now I'm also convinced many cubers cheated in the past. I would have done it myself! Another example: when I have to believe my 14-year old daughter, almost every schoolmate of her cheats sometimes during tests because teachers did not check well enough? Which to blame? The teacher or the teenagers? Cheating when given the opportunity should not be considered as a crime but as human behaviour so as a general rule!
Same story holds for cubing. The WCA invented not-cheat-proof blindfold rules. It was just a game, wasn't it? We based fairness on trust. But we were getting more and more serious over the time, now you can become a hero, a worldchampion, win money, gain respect of others, being selected as the "cuber of the year", getting friends. You're whole life is based on just all that. Currently the whole cubing community is focusing on finding proof of cheating of only one person. We're talking about banning him from our beloved community. This is very unfair and it can seriously damage this teenager's life, probably always afraid of showing himself to his friends again or even in public at all, just for doing something that is very common to almost everyone, especially for young people, and is based in human nature: making advantage of poorly invented rules to get attention, gain respect and get social contacts. Yes, it's called cheating, common to most of us and, I repeat, not a crime.
The only way to create a clean community and not ruin anyone's life now and in the future, is to delete all blindfolds results of all WCA competitions in the past and start all over again with new blindfold rules, without cheating possibilities. So new records, new rankings new personal bests, etc. By this we also accept cheating under the "old-rules" as a normal human behaviour which people couldn't resist while the game was getting too serious. With that we will also gain back the return, a nice teenager, a great cuber, which inspired many of us.
We will also prevent forum- discussions about cheating the way we had last couple of weeks. I think that's worth a lot ..
Gus
The BLD-cheaters-threat has been closed, which is a good thing. What was clear to me that cheating in blindfolding is very easy. Last weekend at the Benelux Open I tested some blindfolds for the first time in my life and I could peek under every of them, even when others (Arnaud, Kai, Joel) were convinced I couldn't peek anymore. Suddenly I could solve cubes blindfolded although I never practiced. It must be the shape of my nose......
My point is that, when cheating is so easy there's no blindfold-cuber for which we are 100% sure they didn't peek under their blindfold. Now I'm also convinced many cubers cheated in the past. I would have done it myself! Another example: when I have to believe my 14-year old daughter, almost every schoolmate of her cheats sometimes during tests because teachers did not check well enough? Which to blame? The teacher or the teenagers? Cheating when given the opportunity should not be considered as a crime but as human behaviour so as a general rule!
Same story holds for cubing. The WCA invented not-cheat-proof blindfold rules. It was just a game, wasn't it? We based fairness on trust. But we were getting more and more serious over the time, now you can become a hero, a worldchampion, win money, gain respect of others, being selected as the "cuber of the year", getting friends. You're whole life is based on just all that. Currently the whole cubing community is focusing on finding proof of cheating of only one person. We're talking about banning him from our beloved community. This is very unfair and it can seriously damage this teenager's life, probably always afraid of showing himself to his friends again or even in public at all, just for doing something that is very common to almost everyone, especially for young people, and is based in human nature: making advantage of poorly invented rules to get attention, gain respect and get social contacts. Yes, it's called cheating, common to most of us and, I repeat, not a crime.
The only way to create a clean community and not ruin anyone's life now and in the future, is to delete all blindfolds results of all WCA competitions in the past and start all over again with new blindfold rules, without cheating possibilities. So new records, new rankings new personal bests, etc. By this we also accept cheating under the "old-rules" as a normal human behaviour which people couldn't resist while the game was getting too serious. With that we will also gain back the return, a nice teenager, a great cuber, which inspired many of us.
We will also prevent forum- discussions about cheating the way we had last couple of weeks. I think that's worth a lot ..
Gus
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If the WCA would decide to start over, but not change the blindfolds, then the judges just have to be way more strict with hand checks, etc.
