WCA Documents: Updated January 1, 2013

[AvGalen]

"And I want to add oldest solver and youngest solver.
Haruo Aoki, he is 77 years old, enjoyed looking these data and these data gave his power"

You must understand that there are big risks involved here for men of Aoki´s age. Maybe he has children - or friends - who with the best intentions urge him to try harder in order to accomplish some results. If he follows the "advice", he may ultimately come under stress, which can lead to a heart attack with death as a consequence.
We must by all means avoid such an outcome and therefore the first step will be to stop the ranking list for the oldest solvers.

If this was coming from anyone else I would think it was for the lulz. Now, I just don't know what to think. WCA, please add a "if you have a weak heart you shouldn't compete" clause in the rules

Ah, ok. So the real point was neither that we don't reach all possible cases (I really didn't see how that mattered) nor that we don't have a pre-picked goal state (we do have a goal state once we have the scramble, though), but that a mistake in megaminx scrambling doesn't matter much. Don't know how true that is, but if the mistake was skipping a scramble line or two, that could make the scramble easier. We do use a certain number of turns to reach "enough randomness", after all, so shouldn't use fewer.

I never understood why we only do ++ and -- and not + and - as well. I recall reading something like "++ and -- looked like they gave a better random scramble and are easier to perform" but nothing more than that.

I take him quite seriously and agree with him. While I think Bob's solution was reasonable, it does violate the letter of the regulations. CubeRoots' "maybe I'll hand scramble" example also isn't that far-fetched, given that exactly that has just recently actually happened. I mailed the WRC about the issue (megaminx and in general) with proposals, among them the obvious one of including megaminx in 4g1.

I agree. This was bad behavior by Bob. Understandable given the pressure, but bad nonetheless. I also agree with 'just allow misscrambles on megaminx like we do on 6x6x6 and 7x7x7'.

 

[CubeRoots]

lol, I don't need to get anywhere.

And I do think clear deductions can be made... what other reg COULD be changed to fix my complaint? :s I can't be assed to write it out and so just hope people'll figure it out, cause it's pretty damn simple.

Besides, I was just responding to a sarcy dick-ish comment with my own dick-ish comment. He could have just asked what I meant.

 

[ryanj92]

Would it not be reasonable to include the 5x5 in this discussion? In terms of solving time and puzzle size, the megaminx is way more comparable to a 5x5 than the two larger cubes. So do we treat the 5x5 in the same way that has been discussed for the megaminx? Surely, if verifying 132 stickers is unreasonable then 119 is almost as unreasonable.

 

[Carrot]

The same thing happened to someone else at Worlds, except with megaminx.

If that competitor had not mentioned about the incident to the judge, he would have ended up 2nd place at megaminx.

 

[TMOY]

Would it not be reasonable to include the 5x5 in this discussion? In terms of solving time and puzzle size, the megaminx is way more comparable to a 5x5 than the two larger cubes. So do we treat the 5x5 in the same way that has been discussed for the megaminx? Surely, if verifying 132 stickers is unreasonable then 119 is almost as unreasonable.

Where does your 119 come from ? There are 150 stickers on a 5^3.
Megaminx is harder to check properly because of the varous color schemes (and mainly because of the fact that the one which is becoming the most standard (the chinaminx/MF8/Dayan scheme) is not the one used by the official scrambler, but this could be easily fixed), at least on 5^3 almost everyone uses the same. But I agree with you that 5^3 should also be included.

 

[Mike Hughey]

The other thing that makes megaminx harder to check is that there are more possible colors on each face. With just 6 colors to check on a 5x5x5, it's easy to find and recognize patterns for each color on that face. With megaminx, there's often only one sticker of a given color on a given face - not much of a pattern to easily recognize. I scrambled for 6x6x6 and megaminx at WC, and it was MUCH easier to recognize patterns that indicated you probably had scrambled it correctly with 6x6x6 than it was to recognize them on megaminx. An exact check would certainly have taken very long on 6x6x6, but a quick check of a couple of faces to make sure the proper patterns were there only took a few seconds.

 

[ryanj92]

Where does your 119 come from ? There are 150 stickers on a 5^3..

Whoops, my tired brain did 25*5-6, how embarrassing... I removed the centres because they are fixed throughout the course of a scramble (provided the scrambler makes no accidental triple layer turns), unlike the megaminx. Although arguably, checking the position of two centers fixes the rest so there are 10 fewer to check...

An exact check would certainly have taken very long on 6x6x6, but a quick check of a couple of faces to make sure the proper patterns were there only took a few seconds.

This is what I tend to do for megaminx too - I look for matching colours on pieces in the scramble on maybe two or three faces, and then check on my scrambled minx whether the same positions also have matching colours. Recognition is a little harder than cubic puzzles admittedly but certainly not difficult.

 

[Mike Hughey]

This is what I tend to do for megaminx too - I look for matching colours on pieces in the scramble on maybe two or three faces, and then check on my scrambled minx whether the same positions also have matching colours. Recognition is a little harder than cubic puzzles admittedly but certainly not difficult.

Yes, that works on megaminx too, but not very well. The fact is that there aren't many matching colors per face on megaminx vs. 6x6x6 or even 5x5x5. So if all you do is check for matching colors on megaminx, you're not doing nearly as good a job at checking as you are with a cube.

 

[cubizh]

I need a clarification over the following regulation:

1c1) Reporting to the WCA Board regarding adherence to WCA Regulations during the competition, the overall course of the competition, and any incidents. The report must be submitted to the WCA Board within one week of the competition date.

I assume it's counting from the last day the competition takes place(?)
For competitions that run through 2 (or 3) days, the text is somewhat ambiguous, as "date" usually refers to a single day.
Thank you.

 

[Lucas Garron]

I need a clarification over the following regulation:

1c1) Reporting to the WCA Board regarding adherence to WCA Regulations during the competition, the overall course of the competition, and any incidents. The report must be submitted to the WCA Board within one week of the competition date.

I assume it's counting from the last day the competition takes place(?)
For competitions that run through 2 (or 3) days, the text is somewhat ambiguous, as "date" usually refers to a single day.
Thank you.

*Need*? Is this an urgent thing?

The last day would make the most sense. Is 9i2 suggestive enough?

In practice, it doesn't really matter. We can fix it for 2014, though.

 

[DrKorbin]

We can fix it for 2014, though.

What are the changes planned? Will you make a proposal thread or something?

 

[cubizh]

*Need*? Is this an urgent thing?

No, absolutely not, I was just working/nitpicking on the translation.
I have found some other very minor possible issues which I will convey through the appropriate channels.
Thank you for your response.

 

[Rune]

Quote Originally Posted by Rune View Post

"And I want to add oldest solver and youngest solver.
Haruo Aoki, he is 77 years old, enjoyed looking these data and these data gave his power"

You must understand that there are big risks involved here for men of Aoki´s age. Maybe he has children - or friends - who with the best intentions urge him to try harder in order to accomplish some results. If he follows the "advice", he may ultimately come under stress, which can lead to a heart attack with death as a consequence.
We must by all means avoid such an outcome and therefore the first step will be to stop the ranking list for the oldest solvers.
If this was coming from anyone else I would think it was for the lulz. Now, I just don't know what to think. WCA, please add a "if you have a weak heart you shouldn't compete" clause in the rules

Was my sarcasm too subtle?