Future of competitive speedsolving – participation of delegates

This has been on my mind for a while and I considered posting it in the other “future of…” thread but was afraid it would get lost in there.
And most of the discussion was geared towards “progress” in cubing and not organization of competitions.

Here goes:
In the current rate in which speedcubing is growing it will inevitably (have to) become more professional.
If we want speedcubing competitions to be taken seriously, should the WCA delegate for a specific competition be allowed to compete?

I think we’ll eventually have to go “pro” and exclude the active delegate from competing.
Yes, this will have some consequences and it may become more difficult to find delegates.
But it just doesn’t feel right that people who provide the scrambles are also solving them.

Some examples to illustrate my concern:
The clock WR incident (cheating issue - resolved)
There are multiple competitions where the active delegate has won events
Current 3 BLD SAR was set by the active delegate
Current 4 BLD WR was set by the active delegate
Note that I do not want to imply that there is something wrong with these results!

But from an objective standpoint this is just not "right".
Situations like this should be avoided if we want credibility.

Comparison to another small sport:
What would you think of Ben Pridmore’s three World Memory Championship titles if you would find out he’s the one who generated the tests?

What would be the options for the future?
- Paid non-participating delegates (Speedcubing would have to become BIG before this is going to happen)
- Perhaps there could be some criteria for exceptions: Delegate may only compete in events where he / she is xx % above the average WR times
- Your thoughts?

Sadly I agree that in the future delegates shouldn't be competing. The illusion of impropriety is as bad as impropriety itself. Even if no delegates ever cheat (again), the fact that it appears so possible for them to cheat can only hurt the credibility of the WCA.
Paying people may not be an option for some time, I guess you'd need to rely on people who are so dedicated to the development of cubing that they're willing to attend competitions in purely an official capacity.
Alternatively, if you had a couple of delegates and they could agree before hand to split the events between them, then they can only compete in the events that the other delegate provided the scrambles for.

It certainly is a difficult question. Certainly it seems a sensible approach and a change that will no doubt take place one day. You have to wonder what the impact will be, especially in countries with few enough competition as it is. The delegates after all enjoy their hobby like the rest of us and the motivation to organise a competition that you cannot compete in must be diminished.

I make it a point to have someone else provide scrambles for any BLD events that I compete in when I'm the delegate (the BLD events are the only ones I'm any good at, so I'm not really that worried about the other events - I'm pretty bad at them). I agree that it's a very uncomfortable problem. I would appreciate it if we could find a solution for this that might still allow a delegate to compete, but makes scrambles safe somehow. We had an earlier discussion here on speedsolving.com where we discussed some ideas, but I'm not sure we ever came up with any really good solutions. The idea of accessing automatically generated scrambles on the spot with a key for that particular competition seemed like it might be somewhat promising, although I don't think we ever fleshed it out. The general idea: a key that only works on the day of the competition is used to access scrambles generated from the WCA website. Perhaps the key doesn't work at all until the starting time for the competition; you could even go so far as to not make a given scramble set work until 30 minutes before the scheduled time of that event. It is nice because the scrambles could then be stored in the WCA database for later access, with little danger of them ever being lost. If you have enough laptops, you could have the scrambler be the one to call up the scrambles as they start scrambling, so no one else even touches the scrambles until scrambling is begun. The problem with this, of course, is the need for technology (computers and probably Internet connectivity, which may not be available at some competitions), and the danger of failure of the technology on the day of the competition.

I would love some sort of technological solution like that, with the idea that the delegate also brings hardcopy scrambles, in case the technological solution fails. Then the idea would be that the delegate is out of luck if the technological solution fails - he/she must not compete since the hardcopy scrambles are being used. I'd be willing to accept that condition as a delegate.

It seems that there might be other issues besides the scrambles to be considered regarding delegates competing, but I think scrambling seems to be the biggest of the issues.

Unfortunately I feel I have to agree - we need to stop a delegate from competing as soon as it's feasible.

However, we could slightly get around the problem by getting two delegates, with each being in charge of non-intersecting sets of events, and unable to compete in the events they are in charge of. (I do realize this would require a change in the regulations and a greater number of delegates.) So if one delegate is world-class at BLD events they could get scrambles and be in charge of the others, and have a second delegate track BLD events to make it fair. Of course, if a single delegate is OK with not competing in any events, we wouldn't need a second one for that competition.

About the choosing of delegates, I think it would be worthwhile to try not to choose delegates who are world-class at anything (or nearly there). It would be better to have delegates who are more interested in the social aspect of cubing, and who would not be losing anything substantial such as potential national/regional/world records if they were to not compete in any event.

Surely an official WCA scrambling program would be the solution here. If it already exists, then I don't see the problem. A button is pressed, a scramble is generated, the scramble is used right there and then. The generation would be witnessed and the first, and only the first, scramble would be used. The scramble would be copied down into sealed envelopes and distributed. Also, no cube should be within useable distance of the delegate generating the scramble or the witnesses.

Surely this leaves no scope for tampering and still allows the delegate to participate fairly.

Mike Hughey said:

I make it a point to have someone else provide scrambles for any BLD events that I compete in when I'm the delegate (the BLD events are the only ones I'm any good at, so I'm not really that worried about the other events - I'm pretty bad at them).

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The WCA delegate for a competition is responsible for: 1c8) Providing the scrambles.
Sure, you're still following that reg by making sure that the scrambles are at the competition, but were you not the person that the WCA has put their trust in rather than the other person? I'm not saying that I think what you're doing is wrong - just explaining why I choose to do something different. I had Robert Yau in my room when I generated the bld scrambles to make sure that I wasn't spamming scrambles for an easy one/memoing them there/etc, and that they went in the sealed envelopes. Yes I know he could be working with me to cheat, and the same is true of Mike's solution, but I still think it's worth a fair amount.

qqwref said:

About the choosing of delegates, I think it would be worthwhile to try not to choose delegates who are world-class at anything (or nearly there). It would be better to have delegates who are more interested in the social aspect of cubing, and who would not be losing anything substantial such as potential national/regional/world records if they were to not compete in any event.

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I totally agree with this, but there isn't always that option so what would we do if that wasn't possible? Also, cubing is still at a stage where anyone can get to a National Record standard in some event very quickly, so I think there's always something 'important' to be gained

As a transitional idea (or perhaps even the final standard as well) I like Michael's suggestion of having two delegates covering non-intersecting events. This way we ensure that no delegate is competing in an event where they also generated scrambles.

I don't know if it is necessarily time to make such a change yet. However, I do agree that the time for this is fast approaching as cubing is being taken more and more seriously, and as competitions are happening more and more frequently like they are right now.

Further to that idea, couldn't they compete in all events as long as they were in separate groups? i.e. Delegate A generates 3x3 scrambles for group1 and competes in group2. Delegate B does the opposite.

But...we'd need 2 delegates at each comp? At the moment sometimes it's hard enough finding one delegate (we had this problem in the UK for a couple of years).

Just another fun idea:

1. WCA generates scrambles.

2a. Delegate gets and brings sheet of paper with 25 scramble parts:


2b. Organizer gets and brings sheet of paper with numbered places for the scramble parts:


3. Organizer and delegate take some scissors&glue, cut the parts from the delegate's sheet and paste them onto the organizer's sheet.

Or the delegate could prepare the parts by printing/writing them on sticky paper (post-its?) to save some time at the competition. Or they could use lego pieces.

Oh wait, maybe the delegate could manipulate by producing somehow special scramble parts.

Also, much easier idea:
Delegate gets the left half of each scramble, organizer gets the right half of each scramble. So they both bring half a sheet of paper and then glue them together in the middle.

But what about the images of the scrambled state? Whoever has the half with the image basically has access to the entire scramble. Such a system would require us to eliminate images.

I prefer the idea of spontaneous generation on the day of the competition, with our current system to be used as a backup in case of technological issues.

DavidWoner said:

But what about the images of the scrambled state? Whoever has the half with the image basically has access to the entire scramble. Such a system would require us to eliminate images.

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No. Images could be done similar to my first idea (one has the image parts, the other knows how to combine them). Or they could be copied from a cube after applying the scramble alg.

If we're using computers, then my favorite idea for spreading the trust is still the encrypted zip file. Delegate gets the file, organizer (or delegate #2 or some other trustee) gets the password. And both get some moves of each scramble so they know the other doesn't fake something in the computer (like a fake unzip-program accepting any password and outputting a prepared scramble file instead of the real one). But they must get different moves and not know which moves the other has, otherwise the one with the computer could write a program that unzips the real file and then quickly produces a fake file with moves matching those of the other trustee.

We could also develop a system where the WCA board (or someone similarly trusted) creates scrambles and puts them online somewhere, with only the delegates and organizers having access. Then any of those people can check that the correct scrambles are being used while the competition is running.

Sure, there's been delegates in the past that have cheated. But guess what? There have been non-delegates that have cheated.

I think we're a long ways from excluding delegates. You would need to lower the bar so that we have more delegates, which I think would do more harm than good.

Running a competition is a lot of work. Now, according to the regulations, the delegate merely has to observe. However, most of them are running the competition unless they're working with a really good team. I do a bunch of stuff before the competition to make sure things are correct. And during the competition I usually rush my solves and compete in just a handful of events.

But really, you want to tell a delegate you'd like them to do a bunch of work, probably drive a few hours, maybe have to use some vacation time, work really hard all day and they don't even get to compete? I think most delegates would say their time is worth more than that.

If this ever came about, I would probably just quit cubing.

I'm with Brian here.

We have a good team, but I need to do a LOT of stuff (and carry an extra bag, with displays and other things) on competitions to make them work. If I wouldn't be allowed to participate, I would seriously consider not even going.

The better solutions to me is to generate the scrambles in the time of their use, with some witness(es) (probably the scramblers) and just run away (that's what I do )

I see two main issues here

- The effort a delegate would have to go through, related to the facts that any qualified delegate probably would like to compete a bit, and that it is easy to do so.
- I don't know if an extra delegate would prevent problems we currently have.

I think Stefan's scramble-splitting suggestion, while maybe a bit silly, is the most practical kind of approach. However, it prevents perhaps only one source of "easy" cheating.

Would it be too difficult to generate the scrambles at the venue? For example have an outside source, such as a spectator, use the WCA scrambler and print them out on the spot.

Pedro said:

generate the scrambles in the time of their use, with some witness(es)

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Pretty pointless. If you do want to cheat, you simply manipulate the scramble programs.

Stefan said:

Pretty pointless. If you do want to cheat, you simply manipulate the scramble programs.

Click to expand...

That's why I liked the idea of scrambles being auto-generated by the WCA. When you submit your competition to the database before the competition, you would tell what the events and rounds are, and the scrambles would be generated on a WCA server automatically, then served on the day of the competition. Since the scrambles would be stored there as they're generated, someone could verify the scrambles used at the competition with those on the server, to make sure they weren't manipulated. The only danger of manipulating the scramble program then should theoretically be hacking the server, right?