Should the Face-turning Octahedron be WCA official?

[penguinz7]

The OP is talking about a corner turning octahedron. I personally think that replacing pyra with this could be a good option in a few years time.

How dare you...

 

[Lucas Wesche]

The OP is talking about a corner turning octahedron. I personally think that replacing pyra with this could be a good option in a few years time.

I agree wholeheartedly

 

[~Adam~]

YOU TAKE THAT BACK

No =P

It's very similar to solve so once the WRs stop progressing I think it's a good idea. Also the luck factor is reduced but it's still just as easy to solve which means it's still appealing to younger siblings who are dragged along to comps.

 

[DGCubes]

The OP is talking about a corner turning octahedron. I personally think that replacing pyra with this could be a good option in a few years time.

The very nature of this idea is sacrilegious! Pyra is the best event of all time. We must worship the mighty Pyraminx!

 

[TMOY]

To all the cubers advocating the addition of VTO (vertex turning octahedron): do you realize that it is nothing else than a 3^3 mod with tips added ?

IMHO FTO is the only octahedron which could be considered for addition, and it's still far from being popular enough.

 

[tseitsei]

What is it about competitions not holding all events that is bad?

There are certainly a lot of puzzles/events that could fit the bill to be official. I think that as long as a particular puzzle/event has developed methods of solving, is popular on a global scale, and has the ability to be implemented in competition (procedurally, for scrambling, for data entry), then it should be considered for eventhood.

There are already some events that rarely get held as it is in some parts of the world (e.g. feet in the USA, 4BLD/5BLD everywhere, FMC means of 3). Should we remove some events to make the others more palatable for organisers to accommodate?

And the Olympics does just fine with changing events.

I don't know what you want to say with the first link but I can tell you what is bad about not holding all events:
I think that everyone should have as many opporturnities as possible to compete in any WCA event they choose... if they only get 1 try/year that can be very discouraging for them to practise.

Also I have to tell you that your last claim is simply not true. In finland we have all events in (almost) every comp if we only can have 2 or competitors for that event. So we practically have all events that someone wants to compete in at every comp. Which I think is very nice

+ olympics is IMO not comparable to speedcubing since it holds events from so many different sports... I think speedsolving is better compared to track&field or swimming or gymnastics. Olympics mainly host sports that are popular enoughto gain some media attention...

 

[cashis]

To all the cubers advocating the addition of VTO (vertex turning octahedron): do you realize that it is nothing else than a 3^3 mod with tips added ?

IMHO FTO is the only octahedron which could be considered for addition, and it's still far from being popular enough.

I'm an idiot and have no idea what I'm talking about, I dont know the difference between any octahedrons and was poorly informed when I posted this, and I apologize for that.
however there's a lot of 3x3 shape mods that have been looked at being added (mirror blocks) and I dont really see why shape mods are so bad. They bring a lot of variety, and even if it is essentially the same solve, there's a lot of variety

 

[tseitsei]

I'm an idiot and have no idea what I'm talking about, I dont know the difference between any octahedrons and was poorly informed when I posted this, and I apologize for that.
however there's a lot of 3x3 shape mods that have been looked at being added (mirror blocks) and I dont really see why shape mods are so bad. They bring a lot of variety, and even if it is essentially the same solve, there's a lot of variety

What did I just read...

They are essentially the same solve BUT IN THE SAME SENTENCE you say that they bring a lot of variety

 

[Ranzha]

I don't know what you want to say with the first link but I can tell you what is bad about not holding all events:
I think that everyone should have as many opporturnities as possible to compete in any WCA event they choose... if they only get 1 try/year that can be very discouraging for them to practise.

Also I have to tell you that your last claim is simply not true. In finland we have all events in (almost) every comp if we only can have 2 or competitors for that event. So we practically have all events that someone wants to compete in at every comp. Which I think is very nice

This isn't the case everywhere.
At the competition I described above (which I am helping organise), there simply was not enough time to hold 2x2 along with everything else, so it was removed from the events list before the competition becoming official in the interest of allowing more competitors to attend the competition. The competitive speedcubing community here is large enough that we regularly have competitions with around 100 competitors, and it is very difficult to accommodate even half of the official events because of it. Thus it is unreasonable for us to consider holding a competition with every event unless we increase the number of judging stations (and thereby staff, who we all want to be capable and efficient and experienced), but at a certain level the logistical planning is simply too much.
If we have more events, the urge to hold every event diminishes due to its futility.

I am not in favour of saying "We have enough official events" if there are unofficial events that are just as viable.

+ olympics is IMO not comparable to speedcubing since it holds events from so many different sports... I think speedsolving is better compared to track&field or swimming or gymnastics. Olympics mainly host sports that are popular enoughto gain some media attention...

The Olympics is comparable in some regard because the events held at each iteration change, just like cubing competitions. There are obviously some "regular" events (especially 3x3) that many would consider a necessity at most competitions, in the same way that we expect track and field events at the Summer Olympics every four years.

 

[CiaranBeahan]

I'm going to say no to this because yet again when anybody suggests that a new puzzle should be added to the WCA, there's always another puzzle that is in higher demand that people would like to see added to the WCA e.g 8x8 and other puzzles

 

[cashis]

I'm going to say no to this because yet again when anybody suggests that a new puzzle should be added to the WCA, there's always another puzzle that is in higher demand that people would like to see added to the WCA e.g 8x8 and other puzzles

There's always interest for other things.
I mean i'm weird in liking 8 sided puzzles, and some people like bigBLD, and some like geranium puzzles.
You can't really say "no" to one thing just because there are others options

 

[cashis]

What did I just read...

They are essentially the same solve BUT IN THE SAME SENTENCE you say that they bring a lot of variety

Okay? So? 5x5 and 7x7 are essentially the exact same thing, but we have those.
Octahedron is like a big pyraminx.
Sorry for the repetition

 

[pdilla]

I just busted out my CT-Octohedron after reading this thread.

I hate it.

 

[cashis]

I hate it.

you don't have to participate

 

[qqwref]

Okay? So? 5x5 and 7x7 are essentially the exact same thing, but we have those.

What? Lol no.

And the corner-turning octahedron is just a 3x3x3 with center orientation and no corners. Boring. The shape also does not make it conducive to turning fast.

 

[cashis]

What? Lol no.

And the corner-turning octahedron is just a 3x3x3 with center orientation and no corners. Boring. The shape also does not make it conducive to turning fast.

I'm not sure what the real difference between 5x5 and 7x7 are, other than one takes more time and there's more pieces. I dont know man, ill probably just stop defending octahedron, I guess I'm the only one who likes it.
Its just a shame that so many people dont want to add events because competitions wont hold them

 

[TMOY]

You''re probably not the only one who likes it. But events don't get added only because a couple of people like them.

6^3 and 7^3 got added in 2009 because as soonas they got released in 2008, there was instantaneously a big interest in them, ans many comps decided to hold them as unofficial events. Skewb got added in 2014 because people advocated for it for several years and because unofficial Skewb events were regularly held at comps. I hhave yet to see any unofficiel octahedron event.

 

[tseitsei]

This isn't the case everywhere.
At the competition I described above (which I am helping organise), there simply was not enough time to hold 2x2 along with everything else, so it was removed from the events list before the competition becoming official in the interest of allowing more competitors to attend the competition.

Yes I know that but your claim was:

There are already some events that rarely get held as it is in some parts of the world (e.g. feet in the USA, 4BLD/5BLD everywhere, FMC means of 3).

So I just wanted to say that this is not the case everywhere

The competitive speedcubing community here is large enough that we regularly have competitions with around 100 competitors, and it is very difficult to accommodate even half of the official events because of it. Thus it is unreasonable for us to consider holding a competition with every event unless we increase the number of judging stations (and thereby staff, who we all want to be capable and efficient and experienced), but at a certain level the logistical planning is simply too much.
If we have more events, the urge to hold every event diminishes due to its futility.

I also understand this and that is exactly why I think we should NOT have more events because more events means more staff members and more logistics is needed. And I'm not saying that EVERY comp should hold EVERY event. I'm just saying that there is certainly some limit for the number of events where it starts to go bad. Think if we had significantly more events (which we eventually will have if we just keep increasing the number of official events constantly...), let's say 50+ events for example. Then we would probably have events that are held in 1 out of 5 or even fewer comps. So here in Finland it would mean that the event is held maybe once a year or once every 2 years. Now I would say that it is very discouraging to practise for something you get to do once a year maybe if that one comp happens to fit your schedule :/ .

That's why I think it is important to not have too many official events. And I think everyone who organizes comps should at least try (I understand it may not be always possible) to hold every events in 2 comps. I mean like if comp number 1 didn't hold event X then I think comp number 2 should hold event X even if they then had to leave out some event Y that was just held in the previous comp of the same area...

I am not in favour of saying "We have enough official events" if there are unofficial events that are just as viable.

What would you say is a good amount of official events then? Or do you think that whenever there is enough interest in some new event it should be added?
If so then that will eventually be a problem because we will eventually have HUGE amount of events that all (except popular ones like 3x3 and 2x2) get held at 1 out of 10 comps. Not good IMO.

The Olympics is comparable in some regard because the events held at each iteration change, just like cubing competitions. There are obviously some "regular" events (especially 3x3) that many would consider a necessity at most competitions, in the same way that we expect track and field events at the Summer Olympics every four years.

Well yeah, we don't have time to hold every event at every comp but I don't think we should be changing official events too lightly... Adding too many events has the problem I have already tried to explain above. And removing events I find very unfair towards people who have put a lot of time and effort to practising those events.

 

[Ranzha]

So I just wanted to say that this is not the case everywhere

Fact: On a global scale, 4BLD was held at about 1 in every 4 comps in 2014 (with an average of about 1 success every competition).
On a global scale, 5BLD was held at about 1 in every 5 comps in 2014 (with an average of about 0.7 successes every competition).
I have no problem with saying that 4BLD and 5BLD get held rarely.

I also understand this and that is exactly why I think we should NOT have more events because more events means more staff members and more logistics is needed. And I'm not saying that EVERY comp should hold EVERY event. I'm just saying that there is certainly some limit for the number of events where it starts to go bad. Think if we had significantly more events (which we eventually will have if we just keep increasing the number of official events constantly...), let's say 50+ events for example. Then we would probably have events that are held in 1 out of 5 or even fewer comps. So here in Finland it would mean that the event is held maybe once a year or once every 2 years. Now I would say that it is very discouraging to practise for something you get to do once a year maybe if that one comp happens to fit your schedule :/ .

That's why I think it is important to not have too many official events. And I think everyone who organizes comps should at least try (I understand it may not be always possible) to hold every events in 2 comps. I mean like if comp number 1 didn't hold event X then I think comp number 2 should hold event X even if they then had to leave out some event Y that was just held in the previous comp of the same area...

I'm not sure about the "more staff" and "more logistics" if competitions intentionally don't try holding as many events as possible, but rather hold events that will still provide a worthwhile experience for the competitors overall.

I agree with the statement that there can be too many events. I don't think we've reached that point.

By the standard you set of holding an event maybe 1 in 5 competitions, 5BLD isn't looking too good.

I like the idea of trying to hold as many of the events as possible across multiple competitions, which is why BASC 5 is a 2-day competition (most of the time, we only hold 1-day competitions here).

What would you say is a good amount of official events then? Or do you think that whenever there is enough interest in some new event it should be added?
If so then that will eventually be a problem because we will eventually have HUGE amount of events that all (except popular ones like 3x3 and 2x2) get held at 1 out of 10 comps. Not good IMO.

The relative number of events is just that--relative. With the current event list, I don't think we should remove anything (unless judging becomes logistically unfeasible), but there are many advocated unofficial events (maybe not well-advocated, but still) that, with proper development could likely become official.

Another constant issue for organisers is that cubing is growing overall, so it inherently should become more difficult to hold competitions.

 

[tseitsei]

Fact: On a global scale, 4BLD was held at about 1 in every 4 comps in 2014 (with an average of about 1 success every competition).
On a global scale, 5BLD was held at about 1 in every 5 comps in 2014 (with an average of about 0.7 successes every competition).
I have no problem with saying that 4BLD and 5BLD get held rarely.

Globally yes. In Finland we had 4 comps last year. All had 4BLD and 2 had 5BLD

I agree with the statement that there can be too many events. I don't think we've reached that point.

I think we are quite balanced right now. But we shouldn't keep adding more and more events. What we have now is good.

By the standard you set of holding an event maybe 1 in 5 competitions, 5BLD isn't looking too good.

Yes it would be nice if 5BLD was held more often . I totally agree with that... This just further proves my point that we shouldn't be adding new events if we struggle to hold the ones we have now often enough.

I like the idea of trying to hold as many of the events as possible across multiple competitions, which is why BASC 5 is a 2-day competition (most of the time, we only hold 1-day competitions here).

:tu

The relative number of events is just that--relative. With the current event list, I don't think we should remove anything (unless judging becomes logistically unfeasible), but there are many advocated unofficial events (maybe not well-advocated, but still) that, with proper development could likely become official.

There are many events that could be official in the sense that they would fit the WCA quite well and be quite easy to organize. I agree with that. BUT those should not be made official because (once again) IMO we shouldn't have too many official events.

Another constant issue for organisers is that cubing is growing overall, so it inherently should become more difficult to hold competitions.

And this also just further proves my point:
Cubing is growing and it is getting harder to organize comps because we have more competitors. Then why would we make that organizing even harder by adding new events as well as new competitors?

tl:dr Don't fix it if it isn't broken. You'll just end up breaking it...