[WCA Regulations 2012] Remove +2 penalty for misaligned sides

keyan said:

Cool, two more. So, that makes three. Out of the hundreds of thousands of solves in competitions. Doesn't seem to be nearly as common as people are suggesting.

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You missed the 3 that qqwref just mentioned in a Nationals competition. These are 6 that have been mentioned just since you said something about it. How many could have possibly happened that haven't been mentioned on the forums? This forum have a small percentage of active posters compared to registered competitors in the WCA database. You can't possibly account for all +2's, much less know if a +2 was a result of "bad luck" or not.

That also doesn't account for your minimizing of the situation. First you have "never seen it happen" but now that we point out 6 (not just 3) of these instances all of a sudden it's "so rare it's insignificant." The fact is: it happens (and more often than you think).

Can you honestly tell me you've never once overshot an AUF? Maybe not in competition, but if you told me never, I'm not sure I'd believe you.

Dene said:

Ok but I have provided several reasons, mainly the fact that the competitor should be responsible for their actions, to change it to a DNF.

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As right as you are on this, I suppose I'd just like to think we all can have a little bit of accountability for error. Just like I asked keyan, I'm sure you've overshot an AUF at least once. I understand that you might show more responsibility in these situations, but I honestly think that completely DNFing such results might impede such WR's like Feliks 5.66. I think if we forced a change in cubing style that it might cause a small bit of hesitance to all solves just to ensure you don't DNF your average.

When I heard about rules at Toronto World Championship, I remember I was disappointed with 3 bad ones (in my opinion), especially because I was thinking that kind of rules are hard to change when people have become accustomed:

- Extra solve for a POP.
- Curious angles for judging misalignments.
- +2 penalty for a clear (HTM) misalignment. The most difficult to kill.


Some points:
- A cube is solved, or it is not.
- It's not a question a luck. Cubers can learn and perform optimally hundreds of move sequences. We can ask them to do their last move correctly! (You take a risk during the solve and pop a piece, you loose 5 seconds...)
- Competitors are responsible for what happens to their puzzle when they drop it too fast. Starting/stopping the timer, grabbing/dropping the cube is part of the procedure, part of the measured time. But I agree it would be nice to have a timer embedded in the cube, triggered by the first move, stopping when the solved state is reached, just like when you cross the finish line.
- Easier to judge.
- No more people asking for +2 for a misaligned inner slice.
- Problems especially obvious for BLD last moves.
- And more...

I know this rule is not going to change.
I personnally don't care much. It's just that it's weird and I like the beauty of simple rules.

Stefan said:

What if you think it's clear enough to rule DNF but the competitor disagrees?

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Recently one where I'm looking at one side and call a +2. Competitor is looking at another side and says it shouldn't be. Look at all four sides, checking that we agree on the angle. Two over two under, give the competitor the benefit of the doubt. Had it somehow been, for example, three over one under, I would explain to the competitor what I'm seeing on each side, and ask where they disagree. Ought to be able to clear it up. If someone is so desperate that they're going to start arguing over something clear enough to call, well, maybe they need to grow up.

fatboyxpc said:

You missed the 3 that qqwref just mentioned in a Nationals competition. These are 6 that have been mentioned just since you said something about it. How many could have possibly happened that haven't been mentioned on the forums? This forum have a small percentage of active posters compared to registered competitors in the WCA database. You can't possibly account for all +2's, much less know if a +2 was a result of "bad luck" or not.

That also doesn't account for your minimizing of the situation. First you have "never seen it happen" but now that we point out 6 (not just 3) of these instances all of a sudden it's "so rare it's insignificant." The fact is: it happens (and more often than you think).

Can you honestly tell me you've never once overshot an AUF? Maybe not in competition, but if you told me never, I'm not sure I'd believe you.

As right as you are on this, I suppose I'd just like to think we all can have a little bit of accountability for error. Just like I asked keyan, I'm sure you've overshot an AUF at least once. I understand that you might show more responsibility in these situations, but I honestly think that completely DNFing such results might impede such WR's like Feliks 5.66. I think if we forced a change in cubing style that it might cause a small bit of hesitance to all solves just to ensure you don't DNF your average.

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I said that in all my competition experience, I've never seen a 'bad luck' +2, suggesting they're very rare. You're suggesting that I claimed it's never happened. Please don't do that.

And I'll give you four. The other two, if you know the cube is going to do that, can you really call it bad luck? More like can't be bothered to find a better cube.

I have mis-turned on many occasions, of course. And, regardless of whether it was in the middle of a solve or at the end, unless I fixed it, it means I didn't solve the cube correctly.

Given what you said about him, I'm curious if anyone can tell me how many +2s Feliks has in competition. Because with the rules as they currently are, he's not worried about "bad luck" and gets lots +2s because he isn't afraid of getting "punished". Or something like that?

gogozerg said:

I know this rule is not going to change.

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Well, certainly not with that attitude! Sure wish you hadn't withdrawn from the board.

To review:
Overall, +2s are uncommon, and when they do happen, the competitor is at fault. The vast majority of +2s are the fault of the competitor choosing to haphazardly end their solve. This shouldn't be pampered. A small minority of +2s are a result of 'bad luck' where the cube turns after being dropped. This is the fault of a cubing style that allows this to happen, and is easy to fix. Eliminating this rule would eliminate several weird problems that it causes. It also is cleaner, in that we only have "solved" and "not solved", without a silly "not solved but a gold star sticker for effort" in between, which simplifies judging.

keyan said:

I said that in all my competition experience, I've never seen a 'bad luck' +2, suggesting they're very rare. You're suggesting that I claimed it's never happened. Please don't do that.

And I'll give you four. The other two, if you know the cube is going to do that, can you really call it bad luck? More like can't be bothered to find a better cube.

I have mis-turned on many occasions, of course. And, regardless of whether it was in the middle of a solve or at the end, unless I fixed it, it means I didn't solve the cube correctly.

Given what you said about him, I'm curious if anyone can tell me how many +2s Feliks has in competition. Because with the rules as they currently are, he's not worried about "bad luck" and gets lots +2s because he isn't afraid of getting "punished". Or something like that?

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My point is that you were minimizing the amount it has happened. You also don't even know for sure this hasn't happened at any of your competitions, especially the larger ones. Thus your statement about never seeing it might be true, but that does not mean it doesn't happen. That's the point I was making.

I don't know how many +2 penalties he has received, however, how many solves do you think he'd slow down on and make sure it's solved properly if he knew he'd get a DNF instead of +2? Keeping that in mind, do you think we would see WR's such as 5.66?

I wasn't minimizing anything. I said I don't recall having seen it happen and that I thus think it's a rare event. Assuming your definition of rare isn't particularly unique, I don't think you can disagree.

I am fully confident that if there hadn't been this rule to begin with, cubing would have progressed just as it has now. I'm confident that if this rule is removed, cubing will progress just as well in the future.

Reading back my earlier post, I see my phrasing was pretty poor. My fault for sleep deprived posting. If I may clarify:
The suggestion (that this is caused by) 'bad luck' is absurd. (end of point 1) (beginning of point 2) I don't think I've ever seen a cube solved, that ended unsolved after being dropped onto the stackmat (and thus suppose that this is a very rare situation).
Does that do it for you?

Again reading back, one of the "bad luck" solves you mentioned was actually a pop. Are you saying that a cube that is solved, dropped and popped should be considered solved? Or rather "almost solved so why not, we'll just say it was"?

keyan said:

To review:
Overall, +2s are uncommon, and when they do happen, the competitor is at fault. The vast majority of +2s are the fault of the competitor choosing to haphazardly end their solve. This shouldn't be pampered. A small minority of +2s are a result of 'bad luck' where the cube turns after being dropped.

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I second that.

keyan said:

This is the fault of a cubing style that allows this to happen, and is easy to fix.

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For example by putting the cube down instead of dropping it, but you lose about 0.1 to 0.2 seconds doing that as Lars has shown in his (scientific) video a while ago:

So if we remove the +2 penalty this might've an impact on people's times.

keyan said:

I wasn't minimizing anything. I said I don't recall having seen it happen and that I thus think it's a rare event. Assuming your definition of rare isn't particularly unique, I don't think you can disagree.

I am fully confident that if there hadn't been this rule to begin with, cubing would have progressed just as it has now. I'm confident that if this rule is removed, cubing will progress just as well in the future.

Reading back my earlier post, I see my phrasing was pretty poor. My fault for sleep deprived posting. If I may clarify:
The suggestion (that this is caused by) 'bad luck' is absurd. (end of point 1) (beginning of point 2) I don't think I've ever seen a cube solved, that ended unsolved after being dropped onto the stackmat (and thus suppose that this is a very rare situation).
Does that do it for you?

Again reading back, one of the "bad luck" solves you mentioned was actually a pop. Are you saying that a cube that is solved, dropped and popped should be considered solved? Or rather "almost solved so why not, we'll just say it was"?

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I wouldn't really say it does that for me either Just because you (one person) haven't seen it doesn't mean it's "rare." I haven't seen any 3x3 WR's but I wouldn't call them rare as of recent, either. All I was trying to do by pointing these out is suggest that you might not have seen it and it very well might have happened at a competition you've been to. From my own observations, it seems that the larger the competition gets, the less everybody knows every detail about it. This obviously will be skewed towards the "popular" cubers (Such as Anthony Brooks recently making it KOII comps, he got a fair bit of attention, just like Big Green). However, what if it's some average cuber with say super30 times that not many people watch happens to have such luck?

In regards to bad luck as in popping: I honestly don't think that cube should be DNF'd if it was a single edge piece that popped out at the end of a solve, and you can verify all other edges and corners are flipped in place correctly, and there was not a single pop during the solve. This just brings back to Dene's point though, it's the cuber's fault since they used a cube that was loose enough to do this.

fatboyxpc said:

I don't know how many +2 penalties he has received, however, how many solves do you think he'd slow down on and make sure it's solved properly if he knew he'd get a DNF instead of +2? Keeping that in mind, do you think we would see WR's such as 5.66?

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You cannot seriously be saying that you think people would be more hesitant if the penalty was a DNF rather than a +2 if they were about to get a WR solve. Someone would have to get a solve .66 to not have any concern about getting a +2 on top of their solve time if they were going for the WR.

Dene said:

You cannot seriously be saying that you think people would be more hesitant if the penalty was a DNF rather than a +2 if they were about to get a WR solve. Someone would have to get a solve .66 to not have any concern about getting a +2 on top of their solve time if they were going for the WR.

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I'm saying they're going to be more hesitant with every solve in general, which I think could make the difference between the 7.08 and 7.03 WR; the 5.66 depending on the hesitation might not have been sub6 in this case (though doubtful, since it was Feliks. Not even trying to be a fanboy here).

James makes a perfectly good point. Changing +2 penalty to a DNF negatively affects the meta, for what gain exactly?

In my opinion the rule should not have been enforced in the first place, but right now I don't believe there's any 'need' to change it.

Well, I had a feeling it would happen, and I guess it did. I think we've said as much as can be said, and at this point I don't really see anything new being brought up that isn't of the form "how could you possibly believe X, it is obviously ~X". To me, it's just a flamewar between people who think we should be sympathetic when possible towards people who get unlucky, and people who think we should not be, which is obviously not something that has an objective answer, since it depends on your personality.

I think we've seen that the community is divided, with staunch people on both sides, and no really convincing arguments. Honestly, we ought to just keep the regulations as they are until there is some kind of consensus or real argument to change it, and there is definitely not one now. The thread has served its purpose.

qqwref said:

Well, I had a feeling it would happen, and I guess it did. I think we've said as much as can be said, and at this point I don't really see anything new being brought up that isn't of the form "how could you possibly believe X, it is obviously ~X". To me, it's just a flamewar between people who think we should be sympathetic when possible towards people who get unlucky, and people who think we should not be, which is obviously not something that has an objective answer, since it depends on your personality.

I think we've seen that the community is divided, with staunch people on both sides, and no really convincing arguments. Honestly, we ought to just keep the regulations as they are until there is some kind of consensus or real argument to change it, and there is definitely not one now. The thread has served its purpose.

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Sure that's easy to say when your conclusion supports your position. I have actually provided plenty of reason to change the rule to a DNF, and no one has sufficiently responded to me, or even come close really. The competitor has a task of solving the cube. If they stop the timer and the cube is not solved that is their own fault. We should not reward them for an incomplete solve.

Also I liked the point someone else brought up, that if you miss out one move earlier in the solve it would most likely completely mess the puzzle up by the end, but that person would receive a DNF, even though they messed up the same number of turns as someone who gets a +2. Why should we arbitrarily differentiate between these two possiblities?

Dene said:

Also I liked the point someone else brought up, that if you miss out one move earlier in the solve it would most likely completely mess the puzzle up by the end, but that person would receive a DNF, even though they messed up the same number of turns as someone who gets a +2. Why should we arbitrarily differentiate between these two possiblities?

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In that scenario, how can we know it was only one missed move?

2 seconds is much more time than it would take to fix it, so it is a real penalty. If +2s were DNFs, then it could seriously mess up averages. Like what if a person accidentally stopped the timer at .5 seconds (which is DNF) then forgets one turn on another solve. All of a sudden, their average is DNF. Did they do something so horribly wrong that they deserve to not get an average? No. They just made two small mistakes.


There's my opinion. Just like when reversing a call in football, the officials must have substantial evidence to prove that in no way should the 'call' stay the way it is.

Stefan said:

In that scenario, how can we know it was only one missed move?

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Could be difficult to discern, but what about, say, missing the third to last move on a Y perm. Sticks out like a sore thumb, obvious what the competitor did wrong, but still a DNF.

BlueDevil said:

2 seconds is much more time than it would take to fix it, so it is a real penalty. If +2s were DNFs, then it could seriously mess up averages. Like what if a person accidentally stopped the timer at .5 seconds (which is DNF) then forgets one turn on another solve. All of a sudden, their average is DNF. Did they do something so horribly wrong that they deserve to not get an average? No. They just made two small mistakes.

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Actually a time of 0.05 will result in a resolve for the competitor. But I won't be picky, I'll just assume you're innocently ignorant, and pretend you said 0.06 which is a DNF. In this case, unless the competitor can show the timer is malfunctioning, it is the competitors fault for not starting the timer correctly, and they deserve a DNF. If they also fail to solve their cube properly then they again deserve a DNF. It is not the WCAs responsibility to compensate for competitors that don't follow the procedures correctly.

BlueDevil said:

There's my opinion. Just like when reversing a call in football, the officials must have substantial evidence to prove that in no way should the 'call' stay the way it is.

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Don't see how your analogy fits. If the ball bounces of the post and doesn't cross the line in football you aren't awarded half a goal for a close attempt. Or, another analogy, in a running race you don't get +2 seconds added on for stopping 1 metre short of the finish line.

Dene said:

Actually a time of 0.05 will result in a resolve for the competitor. But I won't be picky, I'll just assume you're innocently ignorant, and pretend you said 0.06 which is a DNF.

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he said .5, not .05

good job you're not too picky, you'd look like even more of a fool.

I don't think it should be removed.
A Competition should be still about fun. When I don't come into the second Round because of 2 DNF's i would be quite depressed.

A +2 Penalty is still very much, it can put up your average by 0.66 and in 2x2 for example thats quite much. I don't think that there a advantage for any cuber if it's added.

And what are we doing with the old time in the database, many averages would change with that rule.

Kirjava said:

he said .5, not .05

good job you're not too picky, you'd look like even more of a fool.

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Oh dear, BlueDevil I apologise for my error.

That being said, 0.06 makes for a stronger case than 0.50, as a timer stopped at 0.50 is 99.999999% going to be a competitor error and not a timer malfunction, unless it's a 2x2 solve, in which case it might be the actual time.

Is it right (in principle), to either allow, or partially overlook (i.e. +2 for a bad drop) - any substantive changes that are claimed to have occurred to the cube after the timer was stopped?

@Stefan, could you please post some +2 and DNF frequencies derived from the WCA database?

reThinking the Cube said:

Is it right (in principle), to either allow, or partially overlook (i.e. +2 for a bad drop) - any substantive changes that are claimed to have occurred to the cube after the timer was stopped?

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If the competitor drops the puzzle in a rush to stop the timer, causing the cube to land in such a way as for a piece to pop or a layer to turn, then we have no choice. It is impossible for us to accurately regulate on whether something has happened before or after the timer is stopped unless intensive video evidence was used, which, as discussed in another thread, is not going to happen in speedcubing any time soon. It is unfortunately impossible to obediently abide to principles when we have technological limitations. The best thing we can do is have a clear rule that decides what to do in situations, and to apply that rule consistently and fairly so that everyone is on equal footing.

reThinking the Cube said:

@Stefan, could you please post some +2 and DNF frequencies derived from the WCA database?

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+2s are not recorded in the database, or at least not to my knowledge. Also, I'm pretty sure many judges do not know the correct procedure for writing up a +2, and instead don't bother to write it out properly they would just add the 2 seconds in their head and write down the appropriate time straight away. Also, a +2 penalty can be given for reasons other than a misaligned slice. It would be impossible to even make an estimate of whatever you want to know.