One-Answer WCA Competition and Regulations Question Thread

Goosly said:
Bigbld & multibld are (as far as I know) the only events for which it would be useful to use scrambles for longer than two hours. People who compete in those events are smart/mature enough to not leak scrambles.
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We cannot simply trust the integrity of competitors by the nature of the event they are doing. 4b4's intent is to supersede recommendations from 1h++. These are the only events where this makes sense, as you say, and they are almost always held in one round, so 4b4 would be effectively redundant if 1h++ were the dominant recommendation.
 
Kit Clement said:
We cannot simply trust the integrity of competitors by the nature of the event they are doing.
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I disagree.
All of the times I noticed people talking about scrambles (during a round), it were inexperienced kids. Last time was this weekend during a round of 2x2.

I haven't met one bigbld'er who I trust less in leaking scrambles during a full day/weekend than a random kid during a round of 2x2 that only takes 10 minutes.
 
Goosly said:
I disagree.
All of the times I noticed people talking about scrambles (during a round), it were inexperienced kids. Last time was this weekend during a round of 2x2.

I haven't met one bigbld'er who I trust less in leaking scrambles during a full day/weekend than a random kid during a round of 2x2 that only takes 10 minutes.
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That doesn't mean it won't be the same everywhere and for the rest of time. Just because someone is smart or doing more advanced events doesn't mean they are trustworthy. As a matter of fact, it may mean that they've found better ways to discuss scrambles than blatantly shouting them out to the whole room. You say you haven't noticed, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
 
DGCubes said:
That doesn't mean it won't be the same everywhere and for the rest of time.
(...)
Just because someone is smart or doing more advanced events doesn't mean they are trustworthy.
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Of course, I can only discuss based on the competitions I've been to (Western Europe) and the competitors I've met.
-
On average, they are a lot more trustworthy than inexperienced kids competing in 2x2 and 3x3 only.
 
Goosly said:
Of course, I can only discuss based on the competitions I've been to (Western Europe) and the competitors I've met.
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Yes, and you can only discuss that based on what you have heard and what you have noticed. And sorry to say that, but believing that people are trustworthy and taking this as a reason to not care about options to cheat is naive.

In fact, the way BigBLD was done at competitions here (which also means in Belgium) motivated me to propose that scrambles should not be used on two consecutive days (see here). We (= the WRC) later decided that switching scrambles once a day is not enough and it makes way more sense to switch them every two hours. This is also not completely cheat-proof, you could still share your memo after an attempt, but it makes cheating a lot more difficult and it reduces the risk that competitors upload a video of their solves so that others can see the scrambles they will get later.

I am not sure if you noticed, but since this regulation was changed in April, competitions in Belgium used more than one scramble set for BigBLD events (see here and here).
 
Isn't the whole point of regulations to provide a framework that ensures fairness as far as practically possible, thereby making it irrelevant to discuss whether one set of competitors is subjectively more trustworthy than another?

Otherwise you could apply the same argument to say that sight blockers aren't required for BigBLD.
 
Laura O said:
And sorry to say that, but believing that people are trustworthy and taking this as a reason to not care about options to cheat is naive.
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I think you're missing my point. If we care so much about not leaking scrambles that we need to switch scrambles every two hours (in whatever event), why don't we also announce "Don't talk about scrambles!" before every (speedsolving) round? To me, that would seem a lot more useful.

But you seem to be talking about deliberate cheating instead of leaking scrambles, so maybe we're missing each others points. :)

Also, the last competition in the Netherlands with bigbld used one set of scrambles for both days.
 
Goosly said:
I think you're missing my point. If we care so much about not leaking scrambles that we need to switch scrambles every two hours (in whatever event), why don't we also announce "Don't talk about scrambles!" before every (speedsolving) round? To me, that would seem a lot more useful.
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We have 2g3):
Competitors in the Competitors Area must not communicate with each other about the scrambled states of the puzzles of the round in progress. Penalty: disqualification of the competitor from the event, at the discretion of the WCA Delegate.

Every competitor competing in an official WCA competition has to comply with the regulations. Therefore, they should also know that they can be disqualified for talking about scrambles. If we start to cite every relevant regulation that we want competitors to follow, we could have a 5-minute speech before each round and I don't think anyone will listen to that after 2-3 rounds. Apart from that, I think taking about scrambles is most often unintended and happens just because people did a good result or there was a remarkable scramble. This doesn't change that talking about scrambles is bad and we should do everything to stop competitors from doing that, but I am completely sure that reminders do not help much.

If you notice that competitors are talking about scrambles in the waiting area inform your delegate. Competitors have been disqualified for talking about scrambles and I do not think any delegate would hesitate to disqualify competitors who share specific information about scrambles.

But you seem to be talking about deliberate cheating instead of leaking scrambles, so maybe we're missing each others points. :)
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Well, deliberate or not - leaked scrambles can lead to cheating and the abuse of the leaked information. And that's exactly the point.
4b4 exist to prevent that scrambles are used over a long period of time and thus to reduce the possibility that scrambles are leaked and this information can be used for cheating. You can understand that as the long-term addition to 2g3).

Also, the last competition in the Netherlands with bigbld used one set of scrambles for both days.
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Yes, we are aware of that and it has been discussed internally.
 
Is it permissible to take in an extra cube during a multiblind attempt and use it to keep the hands warmed up during the memo phase?

If 3x3 is not permitted because of the risk of mixing it up with the attempt, how about a different puzzle?
 
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