WCA Regulations - Out of Hand?

[Bob]

[rant]
A lot goes on behind the scenes. As a WCA Delegate, I regularly read the mailing list in which some of the regulation changes were discussed. As I was reading through these most recent discussions, I felt several times that people are starting to create and modify regulations just for the hell of it. Some of the regulations and changes that were suggested were just downright ridiculous and against the spirit of the organization and community. To me, it seems silly to have so many rule changes every year. Some sports and games go decades without rule changes, but yet we seriously alter our regulations every year. Sure, sometimes changes are necessary to clarify something or prevent cheating (BLD covers, for example), but so many of these recent changes seem arbitrary. My faith in the WCA dwindles.
[/rant]

 

[rybaby]

I agree. WCA regulations are here for a reason, but sometimes they get a little out of hand. Example: proposal for logo changes and outlawing certain logos. This seems unnecessary to me.

 

[Mollerz]

The thing is with the WCA is that it is still a relatively new organisation and was very small for the first few years. Major props go to those who have helped get it this far but now competitive solving is getting quite popular. This means that a standard needs to be set. In a couple of year, or probably less, a lot of these changes will be ingrained into the competing community so it won't matter. We've got to a point where it is getting reasonably serious and so a lot of necessary changes are happening now, in future years there will be less and less changes. There will always be rule changes, always. Even in sports that have been around for a hundred years or more are getting rule changes that coincide with modern day equipment and such and cubing is no different.

 

[Kit Clement]

I think that many of the arbitrary decisions were made with respect to what puzzles we accept as legal, and to make the process of identifying legal puzzles simpler. Some decisions made this year with respect to this had other good reasons (Overlay logos in BLD, can feel center piece to track M2 moves), but others were made with no other significant reason or without considering how it affects the community (tile thickness, mf8 megaminx especially).

There might have been other non-puzzle changes that came off as arbitrary, but I do not recall any without reviewing changes specifically.

 

[Kirjava]

I felt several times that people are starting to create and modify regulations just for the hell of it.

You have to be exaggerating.

 

[Jaysammey777]

Just to quell any concerns: there will be no change to the Regulations about misalignments at the end of the solve. A 3x3x3 that is U2 away from the solved state will still receive a +2 time penalty.

Since this is a very controversial topic where all major arguments have been debated extensively, we wanted to avoid wasting community time on it. The WRC put the change to a Board vote, and the decision was to keep things the same for 2014. This is not a future commitment or anything like that -- just a judgment that the community is not prepared for such a divisive change.

I feel like the majority of the community is not ready for some of the changes made, such as megaminx tiles. This was the reason that the removal of +2 was ended, why not megaminx tiles?

EDIT: also is the reason why pillowed 7x7s are legal (I think)

 

[Bob]

You have to be exaggerating.

Do you have another explanation for this regulation change, for example?

3d+) [REMINDER] Painted/printed colors are no longer permitted instead of stickers.

 

[Kirjava]

Do you have another explanation for this regulation change, for example?

I think it's unfair to ask me to justify something I didn't do, but I have compete faith that the source can do so.

 

[Jaysammey777]

The goal of the World Cube Association is to have
more competitions in more countries with more people and more fun, under fair and equal conditions.

The spirit of the World Cube Association is that
people from all over the world have fun together in a friendly atmosphere, help each other and behave sportsmanlike


with so many regualtions, I feel that the FUN is being taken out. as well how can one define "Fair and Equal conditions." I take that to mean that if I put a mirror behind my cube it is fair, because everyone else could do it if they wanted to. Whereas WCA seems to be setting a standard that limits cubers, making it just as equal as before, but less fun.

 

[Dene]

with so many regualtions, I feel that the FUN is being taken out. as well how can one define "Fair and Equal conditions." I take that to mean that if I put a mirror behind my cube it is fair, because everyone else could do it if they wanted to. Whereas WCA seems to be setting a standard that limits cubers, making it just as equal as before, but less fun.

I would absolutely love to hear of some examples which you think make cubing competitions less fun. Do please elaborate.

 

[Noahaha]

The goal of the World Cube Association is to have
more competitions in more countries with more people and more fun, under fair and equal conditions.

The spirit of the World Cube Association is that
people from all over the world have fun together in a friendly atmosphere, help each other and behave sportsmanlike


with so many regualtions, I feel that the FUN is being taken out. as well how can one define "Fair and Equal conditions." I take that to mean that if I put a mirror behind my cube it is fair, because everyone else could do it if they wanted to. Whereas WCA seems to be setting a standard that limits cubers, making it just as equal as before, but less fun.

Defining fair and equal conditions is exactly what they are trying to do. If the regulations are not completely tight, people will try to use them to their advantage. Many people have cheated before, and they will continue trying to cheat forever.

The regulations are not meant to create as much fun as possible. They are meant to create as much fairness as possible. I think that there are definitely some regs that should not be in there, but saying that they are not fun is not a good argument.

 

[Jaysammey777]

I would absolutely love to hear of some examples which you think make cubing competitions less fun. Do please elaborate.

Sanding down megaminx tiles to make them exacally 1mm or smaller does not sound like fun to me.

Defining fair and equal conditions is exactly what they are trying to do. If the regulations are not completely tight, people will try to use them to their advantage. Many people have cheated before, and they will continue trying to cheat forever.

This makes since when talking about obtaining scrambles prematurely, but what about colored plastic?

The regulations are not meant to create as much fun as possible. They are meant to create as much fairness as possible. I think that there are definitely some regs that should not be in there, but saying that they are not fun is not a good argument.

my past post was taken directly from WCA. I interpreted to try to make it as much fun as possible. So in the future, if finger tricks are banned for some reason, I would say that a majority of the community's arguments would center around it is more fun and fast to use finger tricks.

 

[Erik]

If it aint broke don't fix it.

Some changes are absolutely unneccessary and propostrous. The regulations become more and more like an unreadable LAW, trying to ban out irregularities that never occured and forcing people to ruin their cubes because their tiles are a bit too thick.

 

[Lucas Garron]

A serious question: How can we do it better?

One problem with the Delegate list is that it is closed.
I made sure this year that absolutely everything is documented on GitHub, but there still is not one good place for discussions.

I would have used the WCA forum extensively, except that has never, ever worked.
Thus, I asked PJK to create a Regulations subforum here.
Here, for example, I posted about possible logo changes. I had to start from a strict set of rules to see which changes were reasonable and which ones actually infringed on many competitors' legitimate preferences. In the end, a decision like that required a Board vote, though.

One valid concern is that the changes appear very sudden. That's mostly because I was the only one making things happen, and spent almost all my spare time in December trying to pull things together.
This is entirely a community/volunteer effort. If you want things to be done better, please help us find a way to do it. Throwing out complaints and partial suggestions is not enough.

 

[Goosly]

I would absolutely love to hear of some examples which you think make cubing competitions less fun. Do please elaborate.

I have to remove logos from my multiblind cubes. One of those is also my main for blind and for speedsolving. I will not be able to easily distinguish my cube(s) from other cubes on any table at any competition. So I guess I'll have to choose one main for speedsolving (with a logo) and keep my cubes for blind hidden in a bag so I don't lose them. I am frustrated about this.

The last question in this topic ([WCA Regulations 2014] Logos and Stickers) is about keeping track of your cubes with logos. Many people have answered that they use their logos for that purpose, and if not, stated that they know a lot of people who do. It seems to me that this has not been considered enough, when making a decision about logos (but I may be wrong of course).

 

[Lucas Garron]

The last question in this topic ([WCA Regulations 2014] Logos and Stickers) is about keeping track of your cubes with logos. Many people have answered that they use their logos for that purpose, and if not, stated that they know a lot of people who do. It seems to me that this has not been considered enough, when making a decision about logos (but I may be wrong of course).

I presume you had overlay stickers?

It was definitely considered. Instead of coming up with carefully balanced standards that apply regardless of event, the vote went to be strict for BLD (don't allow anything distinguishable by touch) while allowing looser standards for sighted events. That is, overall more logos are allowed without change than might have been.

And logos are still allowed for BLD. Some options:

- Use certain printed brand stickers.
- Get your own custom printed stickers.
- Draw a logo in indelible ink.
- ...

If that won't work to you, sorry... it is a bit strict, and you'll have to be more careful with your BLD cubes. But considering how easily touch can be used to cheat in BLD (e.g. feeling parity), I think this is a reasonable requirement.

 

[Goosly]

I presume you had overlay stickers?

Yep. I don't think I've ever had a cube with a non-overlaying logo.

(...) the vote went to be strict for BLD (don't allow anything distinguishable by touch) (...) But considering how easily touch can be used to cheat in BLD (e.g. feeling parity), I think this is a reasonable requirement.

I just removed the logo of my Weilong that I've had for one month now. I can still - blindfolded - find the orientation I want, only by feeling the stickers (that are still brand new!), after tossing the cube in the air to get a random orientation. Identifying parity would even be easier. I don't understand how banning logos will prevent competitors from cheating.

(Just to clarify, I never have cheated nor intend to cheat in this way, I'm just saying it is possible and banning logos will not prevent it from being possible.)

 

[cubizh]

A serious question: How can we do it better?

One problem with the Delegate list is that it is closed.
I made sure this year that absolutely everything is documented on GitHub, but there still is not one good place for discussions.

I would have used the WCA forum extensively, except that has never, ever worked.
Thus, I asked PJK to create a Regulations subforum here.
Here, for example, I posted about possible logo changes. I had to start from a strict set of rules to see which changes were reasonable and which ones actually infringed on many competitors' legitimate preferences. In the end, a decision like that required a Board vote, though.

One valid concern is that the changes appear very sudden. That's mostly because I was the only one making things happen, and spent almost all my spare time in December trying to pull things together.
This is entirely a community/volunteer effort. If you want things to be done better, please help us find a way to do it. Throwing out complaints and partial suggestions is not enough.

The regulation changes were all documented on GitHub long before they were approved and were discussed among delegates (I suppose) even earlier than that.
I agree that some discussions should be private among delegates to prevent certain potential cheating and other situations that should be undisclosed, but other changes could also potentially be discussed in a more open forum.

The only thing that could have probably been done better was make the subforum and open the discussion on certain things here some time earlier, so that people that are not necessarily on top of regulation discussion be more aware of things and are able to express their oppinion and/or rant about it before they are approved, since GitHub can be a challange for some discussions.
I guess one month is not enough for this type of open discussion and regulation adjustment for people to gain awareness of them.
Next year, perhaps the discussion of eventual changes or updates should start earlier than that.

To me, the feeling of "let's wait to see if it's approved to rant about it" seem a bit unjustified. I ranted about certain things way before they were approved or not and made my points there. There wasn't much more I could have done after that than accept the changes and see how they work out for people.
Even though that are certain changes I do not agree with, generally, I don't see a problem in the changes done to standardize the look and feel of competition puzzles. I think people shouldn't be surprised if, in the future, things like the vcube-7 is to be made illegal, in this effort to standardize the look and feel, which I can understand.

Agree with the changes or not, the WRC's task is not easy one at all, on one hand trying to maintain consistency in the regulations, preventing situations and occurances and determining outcomes, and on the other, keep everyone happy.

 

[jazzthief81]

One piece of advice I would like to give is to not start this process so late in the year. Discussions on proposals should be finished by December at the very latest so there is enough time left to consider all the consequences of the accepted changes and adjust when necessary. The deadline for submitting proposals should be even earlier, say early October.

If there is not enough time to do this properly, simply don't make the changes and wait for next year. Many of the main changes pushed through in 2014 were not necessary and could have waited.

Using a dedicated section of the speedsolving forum for getting community feedback on proposals is a good idea and I would like to keep this, but again start doing this earlier. Consider that the last weeks before New Year are busy times for many people and they may be less inclined to check websites, forums and mailing lists.

I don't like how the poll system was used in some instances. There shouldn't be a ton of options to choose from and the options should be clearly defined and neutral.

For instance in the Mean of N for FMC discussion, people were given three options, two of which support the change and one of which doesn't. I feel this is trying to steer the poll in a certain direction.

As much as possible, a poll should be a simple yay or nay. You either support the change or you don't (or abstain from voting). People can motivate their decision further by posting in the forum, you don't need to suggest opinions in the poll itself.

I think we should keep in mind that these polls are always going to be heavily biased and the people who participate only represent a very small portion of the community. It's a good way to test the waters, but we shouldn't conclude that getting a majority on a speedsolving poll means that community at large agrees with the proposal.

For example, in the Mean of N for FMC discussion, Sebastien used the result of such a poll as an argument in favor of his proposal:

The community generally agrees that "Mean of 3" should be a possible format for FMC (see http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?34216-WCA-Regulations-2014-Mean-of-N-for-FMC)

I think this is a wrong representation of the facts.

 

[Schmidt]

One rule to rule all rules: WCA provides brand new Rubik's brand cubes for each competition ( like the good old days ). That would be fair/equal for all.