Regulations Discussion at Worlds (Saturday Lunch)

Lucas Garron

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Anyone is always welcome to talk to the WRC about the Regulations, including at competitions.

Since there will be a *lot* of competitors at Worlds, would anyone be interested in something slightly more structured?
For example, we could plan to meet for lunch one day, or get together in the corner of the room during the unofficial competition.

Mainly, I feel like a lot of competitors have *some* sort of questions or suggestions about the Regulations, and it would be nice to encourage them to bring it up at Worlds. (Other than saying "just go find Vincent/Lucas and talk to them".)


Would anyone be interested in this?
Or does anyone have another suggestion for using the fact that everyone will be at Worlds to improve the rules that define our sport?

UPDATE, July 24, 2013:

We now have a scheduled room for this. We'll be meeting in one of the Skyboxes at lunch (12:30) on Saturday.
 
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I think this could be a pretty good thing to do, and I would probably turn up if it happened. While personally there's only a couple of things that I think I would bring up, I would be more than happy to join in with the discussion on other issues.

Also as a side point, if you wanted this discussion streamed on the live feed, we can set that up, but I realise that you may not want it as well.
 
I think this could be a pretty good thing to do, and I would probably turn up if it happened. While personally there's only a couple of things that I think I would bring up, I would be more than happy to join in with the discussion on other issues.

Also as a side point, if you wanted this discussion streamed on the live feed, we can set that up, but I realise that you may not want it as well.

I'm not sure it's a streaming kind of thing. Although now that you mention it, a Regulations-themed CubeCast may not be such a terrible idea.

the only thing i think should be changed is DNFs on M slices.

It's probably more likely that we'll remove +2 alignment penalties altogether, partially because of such inconsistencies. However, I am more than willing to be blabbed at by people with different opinions, or explain the weird historical reasons for certain Regulations.

I'd attend! =D

You just want to add Skewb, right? :-P
Definitely a good thing to talk about, though.
 
Lucas linked me to this thread. Thanks for getting the word out, Lucas.

I will also be available for questions and comments.
 
Unfortunetly I can't go, but I have a topic to discuss:

In the scramble of the BLD, add a random cube oriantation to the end of the scramble. For example, the scramble is F R2 D' B (...) R2 F' x y'.

This should eliminate (or decrease) the advantage of "if you solve the cube with white on top, green on front, then probably you don't have to rotate the cube first, because most of the time the cube is already in that orientation before you." This is negligible during a regular solve (since inspection time doesn't count to the result), but not in BLD; it could save half a second. I always felt a bit discriminated because I learned BLD with white top, orange front.

The regulation currently says only "A2e) The judge places the puzzle onto the mat in an arbitrary orientation (...)". Which is usually eqivalent to the original one.
 
because most of the time the cube is already in that orientation before you."

'most of the time'? Scramblers place the cube in the box, add the scoresheet, judge picks it up, goes to the table and flips the box to place it on the table. I'd say most of the time yellow would become the color on top then, with front being pseudo-random.

But I agree that the orientation should either be fully random or whatever the competitors wants :)
 
Scramblers place the cube in the box, add the scoresheet, judge picks it up, goes to the table and flips the box to place it on the table.

I saw many times this: scrambler put the cube on the score sheet, judge checks the sheet, put the box on the sheet/cube, goes to the table, pulls out the sheet from under the cube/box. Cube orientation remains.

But I admit, the way you described happens many times as well.
 
The regulation currently says only "A2e) The judge places the puzzle onto the mat in an arbitrary orientation (...)". Which is usually eqivalent to the original one.

So, the problem with this is that we would need to force all scramblers and judges to make sure to coordinate orientations. That's yet another thing for them to worry about, and easily get wrong. And if they do, what should be the consequence?

One possibility is to do a "best-effort": do a random rotation, then send the cube out and hope it's random enough by the time it reaches the competitor. But even adding cube rotations to the end of scrambles can be discouraging to scramblers who are not particularly used to that notation. And some competitions have trouble finding enough of those.

Certainly another good thing to discuss.
 
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Since we sort of have critical mass, let's try to set a time.

The schedule is rather packed, but how about during the unofficial competition on Friday at 9pm, in some corner of the room?

I'm also willing to talk Friday during my lunch break at 1 pm, if it's decently fast.
 
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