Proposal: Add Gender Sorting on the WCA Rankings

"I just spent 20 minutes reading all of that unproductive crap."

Same phenomenon as why people watch soap operas o.O

Anyway I'm with Rowan on this. If I were a female cuber, I would be interested in how I stack up against the rest of my gender. The fact that I happen to be male means I have never had this issue. I also see why other guys may not see the point, because we are the overwhelming gender in this sport.

So yeah. It wouldn't be very hard to implement.. Just another button.

Stefan said:

It costs screen space.

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Weigh the cost against the positive result. The things that rowan and others have outlined are surely worth a small bit of screen space, no?

Edit: I've realized that it's possible that you may just be trying to provide a possible response to what I said, not that you actually support the response as a valid reason.

The fact that a 2 minute solver could aim for top 10 in their country whilst I have a 12 second average and aren't in top 10 is stupid.

When I compete I compete against friends, OcR and WR. I don't ignore female cubers ranked ahead of me in the world. I still think it's ridiculous to rank gender, and whilst the suggestion is just ranking and not NRs CRs and WRs, you obviously don't realise that that's the entire underlying point of this system, regardless of what is suggested.

I personally don't think it's productive to give one gender an easier ranking system, when something like age has a far bigger impact on cubing.

Tim Major said:

The fact that a 2 minute solver could aim for top 10 in their country whilst I have a 12 second average and aren't in top 10 is stupid.

When I compete I compete against friends, OcR and WR. I don't ignore female cubers ranked ahead of me in the world. I still think it's ridiculous to rank gender, and whilst the suggestion is just ranking and not NRs CRs and WRs, you obviously don't realise that that's the entire underlying point of this system, regardless of what is suggested.

I personally don't think it's productive to give one gender an easier ranking system, when something like age has a far bigger impact on cubing.

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This is because there are very few female cubers ahead of your speed in the world. We aren't trying to say they should be ranked differently, just that they should have an option to show only results from a certain gender.

Tim Major said:

The fact that a 2 minute solver could aim for top 10 in their country whilst I have a 12 second average and aren't in top 10 is stupid.

When I compete I compete against friends, OcR and WR. I don't ignore female cubers ranked ahead of me in the world. I still think it's ridiculous to rank gender, and whilst the suggestion is just ranking and not NRs CRs and WRs, you obviously don't realise that that's the entire underlying point of this system, regardless of what is suggested.

I personally don't think it's productive to give one gender an easier ranking system, when something like age has a far bigger impact on cubing.

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It is just an unofficial ranking. It is is NO WAY anything serious! This wouldn't give female cubers their own section for records, it would simply give them a way to see how the stack up to other female cubers. Male cubers essentially already have this since the majority of male cubers make up the rankings.

Edit: ninja'd but I still stand by my point

ChickenWrap said:

It is just an unofficial ranking. It is is NO WAY anything serious! This wouldn't give female cubers their own section for records, it would simply give them a way to see how the stack up to other female cubers. Male cubers essentially already have this since the majority of male cubers make up the rankings.

Edit: ninja'd but I still stand by my point

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There is already unofficial ranking but that's supposedly not good enough because it isn't on the WCA site...

The only reason people want it on the WCA site is to add legitimacy, when at the same time they're trying to pretend it would be "unofficial"

Tim Major said:

There is already unofficial ranking but that's supposedly not good enough because it isn't on the WCA site...

The only reason people want it on the WCA site is to add legitimacy, when at the same time they're trying to pretend it would be "unofficial"

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If you had read the thread, you would know that it has nothing to do with legitimacy, rather, it is about ACCESS.

Would there be a WR beside their name on their profile? No. Therefore, it is not official.

Tim Major said:

There is already unofficial ranking but that's supposedly not good enough because it isn't on the WCA site...

The only reason people want it on the WCA site is to add legitimacy, when at the same time they're trying to pretend it would be "unofficial"

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I have never mentioned legitimacy in my arguments and I can't recall anyone who has.

The rankings are already recorded on the WCA via user profile so in that sense it is already "legitimate," it's just harder to access. Sum of ranks is listed on the website and it isn't an official title, either. The WCA provides rankings that aren't official records, but they still motivate people. This would simply be an additional one.

Access? Seriously you're going to try to pretend that this site isn't accessable?
http://iwca.jp

Tim Major said:

Access? Seriously you're going to try to pretend that this site isn't accessable?
http://iwca.jp

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I meant access to everyone, not just people on this thread. How many people who are first getting started cubing and who aren't on speedsolving.com or in other Rubik's cube groups or are unable to attend competitions are going to know about that site? Google Rubik's cubes rankings, it doesn't show up in the first five pages. I didn't go any further because who does?

Tim Major said:

Access? Seriously you're going to try to pretend that this site isn't accessable?
http://iwca.jp

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I've never heard of that website until this thread and I've been cubing for five years.

I started cubing in 2009, I didn't view the miscellaneous page on the WCA until 2013/2014

In fact I saw this site before the misc page.

The only way to make it more accessable is to have it in the same place as the genderless rankings, and I think that's a sad divide for no reason.

At a comp, instead of you being competitive with other cubers, you want to say "sorry I'll just go for the ****easy female top 100 instead"?

This decreases competitiveness in my opinion.

Tim Major said:

I started cubing in 2009, I didn't view the miscellaneous page on the WCA until 2013/2014

In fact I saw this site before the misc page.

The only way to make it more accessable is to have it in the same place as the genderless rankings, and I think that's a sad divide for no reason.

At a comp, instead of you being competitive with other cubers, you want to say "sorry I'll just go for the ****easy female top 100 instead"?

This decreases competitiveness in my opinion.

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No, that makes no sense. Do you think competitive girls only care about being competitive with girls? I'm just saying this is *added* motivation. Did you read through this thread? I've made that point three times now I think. I've also addressed why there IS a reason to create a gender sorting option and quite a few girls have said why this is important to them and helps motivate them. You're not a female cuber and they are. They say it makes them more competitive, what other evidence would people like to see? These arguments are repetitive. I spent a long time forming my argument. This is in the constructive cubing discussion section for a reason. If you're not making any new points and you won't dignify the thread by reading it, I don't know why you're posting. Also we have been saying it shouldn't been in the misc section.

I'm sorry, I've been trying to respond really politely since this thread has gone on, but I don't think the people arguing against gender sorting have even taken the time to really think about their posts and views and I don't find it productive for me to keep repeating myself. The WCA board is discussing this and told me they'd get back to me. I will let you know what they think. I encourage you to read this.

Jaycee said:

Weigh the cost against the positive result.

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Weigh it with the number of affected people, though. Costs everybody's screen space, but not everybody is interested. And yes, a single little filter won't be a space problem, but you can use the same argument to argue for further filters so it could become a problem eventually. And it's not just space, it's also attention/time (takes a small amount to ignore it and to move the mouse across it compared to it not being there).

Jaycee said:

The things that rowan and others have outlined are surely worth a small bit of screen space, no?

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Don't know, thread suddenly became much TL;DR, sorry.

Jaycee said:

Edit: I've realized that it's possible that you may just be trying to provide a possible response to what I said, not that you actually support the response as a valid reason.

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Yeah, not saying it's particularly important, just that it's *something*.

Stefan said:

And yes, a single little filter won't be a space problem, but you can use the same argument to argue for further filters so it could become a problem eventually.

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I think the only other reasonable category that could be argued for is age groups. Any other category that I can currently think of is just arbitrary. I'm curious, is there any other category within reason that deserves a filter in your opinion? (Or anybody else's, if they'd like to share)

Stefan said:

Costs everybody's screen space, but not everybody is interested. (.....) And it's not just space, it's also attention/time (takes a small amount to ignore it and to move the mouse over it compared to it not being there).

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The same could be said of the regional filter or the year filter. Is adding one more beyond reason? At some point we have to draw the line between an effect that matters and an effect that exists but isn't actually a problem.

Tim Major said:

Access? Seriously you're going to try to pretend that this site isn't accessable?
http://iwca.jp

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That site is glitchy, it won't let me view the female records in certain continents/countires

Jaycee said:

I think the only other reasonable category that could be argued for is age groups. Any other category that I can currently think of is just arbitrary. I'm curious, is there any other category within reason that deserves a filter in your opinion? (Or anybody else's, if they'd like to share)

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Birth date is the only other data the WCA collects and is allowed to publish publicly. 2c-2d in the regulations.

Edit: Stefan corrected me, this data is supposed to be confidential.

are the people requesting gender rankings also for age categories?

rowan said:

Birth date is the only other data the WCA collects and is allowed to publish publicly.

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It also collects participants initials, ima go for the top 10 of people who's name starts with T!

Seriously, I appreciate you remaining calm/collected through all these posts, but I have still seen 0 reason to rank it differently.

I'm sure you agree that ranking via initials is stupid, but give your arguments against ranking with initials, and you'll see most apply to ranking by gender.

Tim Major said:

It also collects participants initials, ima go for the top 10 of people who's name starts with T!

Seriously, I appreciate you remaining calm/collected through all these posts, but I have still seen 0 reason to rank it differently.

I'm sure you agree that ranking via initials is stupid, but give your arguments against ranking with initials, and you'll see most apply to ranking by gender.

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Is there a disparity amongst people with certain initials? Do these same people face other marginalization? I also spoke about this in relation to birth month.

Kirjava said:

are the people requesting gender rankings also for age categories?

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Personally not opposed or in favor, I wouldn't argue either way.