Where is the human decency in the cubing community today?

[Caleb Valenzuela]

If a community is full of teenagers and minors, you are definitely bound to have immaturity. Most of the kids nowadays probably have gaming as a “side-hobby”, which would explain your observation. However, I believe that your observation shows only a small margin of the cubing community, kind of like a “dark side” of cubing. With growing hobbies/sports like speedcubing, toxicity will always sprout somewhere, no matter how genuine a community may be. Most cubers still keep the genuiness from however many years ago. Your thoughts just zoomed in onto the negative parts, which is a very typical thing that our brains do. I feel like this reflection of yours is a bit too focused on the negative parts of cubing. It’s not like cubing has become a totally toxic community, after all. Just take a look at this forum. I don’t see anything like what you’ve stated here. I don’t really like how you made it sound like the cubing community is a horribly toxic place now compared to back then. Most cubers are still kind, helpful, outgoing, etc. It’s true that cubing has been a a significant rise in controversy, which leads to what seems like hate, but again, your mind just made the situation bigger and made it look like the cubing community is a horrible place.

TDLR: Try not to spiral into negative things. You might be discouraging newer cubers to not pursue their hobby of cubing.

PS. it was not my intention is anything sounded rude

Wanted to add something: If you’re saying that people in the cubing community are toxic, hateful, immature, etc, Then you’re referring to ALL of us. You didn’t very clearly specify whether that meant a part of the cubing community or all of it.

 

[isaacvr]

Agree with those points. It seems like society in general is going down on respect, focus and the capacity of thinking deeply about things. That leads to some of the issues here. Is sad to see it but is good that we can still fix it. The first step to fix an error is to recognize there's an error, even if you cannot identify it yet. That step was covered by this post. Next steps should be towards the fix itself. Thanks for your thoughs and hope we can do better.

 

[abunickabhi]

Wanted to add something: If you’re saying that people in the cubing community are toxic, hateful, immature, etc, Then you’re referring to ALL of us. You didn’t very clearly specify whether that meant a part of the cubing community or all of it.

I did not mean to imply everyone, but a fair share of minority which can be a majority in the future if the good natured people leave the community due to these experiences.

I feel the cubers who are more rich and not well brought up are extremely hard to engage with. And such kids are trying out speedcubing more and more as time progresses.

 

[Jared Burkhart]

I did not mean to imply everyone, but a fair share of minority which can be a majority in the future if the good natured people leave the community due to these experiences.

I feel the cubers who are more rich and not well brought up are extremely hard to engage with. And such kids are trying out speedcubing more and more as time progresses.

Well, it is up to cubers like you to keep the vibes good!

 

[abunickabhi]

Well, it is up to cubers like you to keep the vibes good!

I will try, although I have a lot of flaws, like picking up online fights, talking back to cubers who do not deserve attention etc.

It will require some efforts to have the perfect attitude like Feliks Zemdegs yo

 

[-Cube Kid-]

Agree 100% about Felix Zemdegs. One of the very few top cubers I respect as a person

And Max Park.

(Sorry for the unrelated post guys)

 

[Deleted member 27249]

Maybe you should distinguish between cubing, speedcubing, and the community.
Cubing is more of a hobby.
Speedcubing is a sport.
The community built around cubing or speedcubing, however, is something entirely different.
You shouldn’t lose the fun of solving puzzles because of the community itself.
It’s true that the community could be at risk in the future due to toxic behavior, but unfortunately, I can’t really help you with that.

 

[SpeedCubingLord]

Filipe Teixeira's words (He told me to redact usernames):

Good day.

I asked [username] and [username] to delete my account. I was compulsively checking the forums and the conversations in the forum was making me sick because of the toxicity.

So they deleted it after I confirmed that was my decision (They asked me various times)

I enter the forum very rarely just to check if there are any new world records, but I dont see any new engaging or new developments in the speedcubing community.

In my last months in the speedsolving forum I I tried developing software and tools for speedcubing but instead of incentive I received criticism and negative narratives about artificial intelligence (mainly from [username]) so I decided I didn't want to continue exposing me to that toxicity.

I sent a mail to y friend [username] last week, you can confirm with him the things I said. I think he didn't read it yet (I grabbed the email from his youtube account)

I'm actively researching and working with software engineering and artificial intelligence, you can see my research here

https://www.kaggle.com/shuantsu

Other links:

https://linktr.ee/filipe_teixeira

My youtube:

https://youtube.com/@filipemtx?si=vxFkbWM4j_-QCUnd

I don't frequent forums or discord anymore, I just participate on socials that are more "disconnected" and focused, mainly linkedin circle communities and kaggle discussions

But I'm fine, I keep doing things I like and I was recently diagnosed with autism so taking care of my psychologic side and my compulsive behaviors is very important.

Have a good day thanks for getting in touch

 

[Ordway Persyn]

I'd say that the actual competitions I go to aren't any less friendly then they were when I started, even though there are more little kids. Most of them actually behave quite well for their age. but that could just be where I'm from.

I do find more immaturity and useless post on this site then it used to have. Not that the site was always free of that the first few years I was here (and I was personally guilty of some of it back then). I noticed there was a point where lots of people tried to get their post count as high as possible instead of making meaningful posts, so you would have a lot of garbage posts around the forum. Or others were milking likes and reactions (Which used to not be a thing here). though I think this site is better than most. the fact that this forum's feed is based on recency over likes or popularity has helped it from becoming an extreme echo chamber like some other sites become.

I also think that people spend more time on the Internet nowadays and things like thoughtfullness and courtesy are increasingly disappearing. Especially as algorithms have increasingly incentivized maximizing attention seeking and outrage at the expense of insightfulness. When you interact with people in real life you are often far more respectful of them (especially if they are taller and/or stronger than you) than when you interact with a screen. It also doesn't help that younger people use the internet more as the internet has increasingly become a worse influence on young people, which of course causes bad habits that people carry with them for their lives.

I also think that there's some growing pains with cubing that needs to be overcome. I think that how the WCA operates at this point is based a lot on trust still and as communities get bigger trust tends to decrease. Also as it's become more competitive and people have got insanely good. There is more temptation to cheat and get ahead through questionable means as it's now harder to get to the top of the rankings. also more cutthroat and ambitious personalities are more likely to get to the top as that really is more beneficial at this point for being world class. not that such personality traits are universally bad but they can be misapplied or excessive.

All in all human folly has always been ever present and it will always be so. Just try your best to avoid them and practice thoughtfulness, self control and prudence. In other words, think before you post!

 

[SpeedCubingLord]

And Max Park.

(Sorry for the unrelated post guys)

Max doesnt talk a lot but hes really nice when he does. His mom does a verh nice job talking to him, I see it now as well.

As for others, I truly believe we need to realize that everyone here is a real person with real feelings in real life.

I heard a quote, from someone Mioe Tyson. "Social media made y'all way too comfortable with disrespecting people, and not getting punched in the face for it." You guys have forgtte that just because your actions don't have as severe of consequences to you, doesn't mean it doesn't affect others. Apologies, but we need to stop [fill in with word that emphasizes the next word] disrespecting people.

 

[acrystal]

And Max Park.

(Sorry for the unrelated post guys)

I dont see anything abt max park, hes a great guy imo

 

[-Cube Kid-]

Max doesnt talk a lot but hes really nice when he does. His mom does a verh nice job talking to him, I see it now as well.

As for others, I truly believe we need to realize that everyone here is a real person with real feelings in real life.

I heard a quote, from someone Mioe Tyson. "Social media made y'all way too comfortable with disrespecting people, and not getting punched in the face for it." You guys have forgtte that just because your actions don't have as severe of consequences to you, doesn't mean it doesn't affect others. Apologies, but we need to stop [fill in with word that emphasizes the next word] disrespecting people.

so big time yes!

 

[MrCubert]

Sometimes I feel like I stepped into cubing a bit too late. I've been into cubing since the mid/late 2010s but I never really decided to learn how to solve a cube and get into the community until last year.

I didn't start cubing until mid-2024, so I just feel like a complete newcomer to the community. I feel like I joined at the best and worst time

 

[MrCubert]

I am usually a bit shy at comps (I'm not very good at talking to people) but when I find people that are nice, I can talk to them. Unfortunately, I have had it happen before where people made fun of how slow I was (Or in one case, just the fact that it was my second competition) and I had to switch tables.

Rule 1 of cubing (This also applies to life in general but especially cubing): you should try to make others feel good about themselves

 

[abunickabhi]

Max doesnt talk a lot but hes really nice when he does. His mom does a verh nice job talking to him, I see it now as well.

As for others, I truly believe we need to realize that everyone here is a real person with real feelings in real life.

I heard a quote, from someone Mioe Tyson. "Social media made y'all way too comfortable with disrespecting people, and not getting punched in the face for it." You guys have forgtte that just because your actions don't have as severe of consequences to you, doesn't mean it doesn't affect others. Apologies, but we need to stop [fill in with word that emphasizes the next word] disrespecting people.

Absolutely true,

Social media and online chatting has played a big part in killing human decency in the majority of kids in the new generation.

 

[Sub20Soon]

Absolutely true,

Social media and online chatting has played a big part in killing human decency in the majority of kids in the new generation.

Also the parents who gives phones at their kids at a very young age (like bro what is the utility of having a phone in 2nd grade)

 

[Caleb Valenzuela]

Also the parents who gives phones at their kids at a very young age (like bro what is the utility of having a phone in 2nd grade)

Absolutely true,

Social media and online chatting has played a big part in killing human decency in the majority of kids in the new generation.

*cough cough
I’ve had an ipad since I was 4 years old and I’m just fine lol

 

[ih8bld]

Guys please see this post for what it is - Abhijeet making a thread to cry like a little baby and act like he's the victim of his own negative and damaging behavior in the (Indian) cubing community.

This post was made right after a conversation in an Indian cubing discord server where the message that triggered him into this outburst was "ask in the BLD server, oh wait you're banned there", referring to how he was banned for years of willfully lying about his BLD ability to make himself look better than he really is.

This triggered him to accuse the mods of the server of being racist and framing him because of his race (complete stupidity of course). When a large number of Indian cubers called him out on his BS, he turned on them and called them rich and NRI (living in foreign country) Indians who "show love for white men and enable racism".

He is the one who is creating a divisions and a lot of toxicity in the community. Accusing racism to divert attention away from his bad behavior is arguably just as bad as racism itself. At a minimum, we should not take any of his claims seriously because of his history of dishonesty and deception, unless corroborated by others as well.

 

[ih8bld]

The community's average age is smaller, which also breeds immaturity.

Abhijeet says while acting like more of a child than the actual kids in the community

Gaming and cubing cultures have also come close to each other which makes slangs, usage of cuss words, ghosting, blocking, online bullying seem ok and just.

Abhijeet has said the r word at least twice (with proof) in a chat where swearing is banned due to many kids being in the chat on their parents' accounts.

Fake framing tactics like victim card play, drawing conclusions prematurely, gaslighting situations, selectivity, manipulations are how conversations go bad in today's age. Rather than resolving things in private with good faith and good soft effective communication and mutual respect.

Textbook example of playing the victim and accusing being framed when caught and banned for a long history of lying.

Sometimes I do feel if I did not have the stubborness to understand 5-cycles fully, my way of cubing would have been inclusive with today's cuber, but I feel the issue is agnostic of my personal pursuit to map of interesting cases and mnemonics.

Again trying to divert attention. No one has a problem with his understanding of 5-style, it's his willfully lying about it like knowing 30000 algs etc.

 

[SpeedCubingLord]

Abhijeet says while acting like more of a child than the actual kids in the community

Abhijeet has said the r word at least twice (with proof) in a chat where swearing is banned due to many kids being in the chat on their parents' accounts.

Textbook example of playing the victim and accusing being framed when caught and banned for a long history of lying.

Again trying to divert attention. No one has a problem with his understanding of 5-style, it's his willfully lying about it like knowing 30000 algs etc.

I do not know what you are talking about. I have never seen any immaturity from Abhijeet.

If this is the Speedcubing IN discord server, I believe swearing is allowed. Can I have some context? (ngl wrm does kinda ragebait people)

If he was banned and all this you are saying is true, why would he become a super moderator (which he himself gaveup, and was not taken away) without changing?

I don't want to accuse someone on this arguement, I want to hear from both sides.

Yes, this on topic and relating to human decency in the cubing community.