I have to be perfectly honest that I am lost as to the track this discussion is taking.
I will try to list what my understanding of this discussion is so far. I imagine this may not be (fully?) correct, so someone please help me to clarify:
1) Eric79 proposes to discuss the topic of whether "lucky" scrambles should be allowed.
2) Various discussion takes place
3) Stefan proposes to limit scrambles that are "trivial", which could include scrambles that are less than 4 turns in length.
4) Various other discussion on this topic takes place in which some people agree with Stefan's proposal, and Eric79 seemingly does not find it sufficient
5) Currently we are now debating why Eric79 does not find Stefan's proposal a sufficient solution to eliminating "enough" of a luck element from cubing competitions?
Have I understood this correctly? The reason I ask is that I feel the proposal to eliminate scrambles of length less than 4 turns is a good one, and one that does not require the eliminating of all records before such a new rule is added.
I find Eric79's proposal to reset all single records and start from scratch unreasonable, but if he can provide an instance where this has happened previously in another sport then I might consider it with more of an open mind. I do not like the idea of restarting the records over from scratch. Has Guinness ever done this with their records? Has any other sport who made a large change done this? It seems reasonable that some other sport at some point in their history may have done this before. However, I would like to see a concrete example of what effect this had on that sport or competitive activity before we even begin to consider if this might (possibly) be a viable option for cubing. Such a drastic change should not be taken lightly in my opinion. I agree with Stefan, I see nothing wrong with the current records, and I have not yet been convinced that a change beyond Stefan's proposal is even necessary in the first place.
From what I see, you summary is correct.
I'd love to present you an example where records were voided (I'm not talking about revoking) in sports. The problem is: In sports there is no lucky factor similar to the one we have for easy scrambles - at least I can't think of one. The only factor I can possible think of is wind: But in athletics wind speeds are usually given together with records (while in speedsolving the move count is not given together with the record) where it is a factor affecting times a lot (sprinters usually are 0.1s faster per 1m/s tail wind speed). The rule was implemented in 1938 to avoid falsification of competition and if there are stronger tail winds than 2m/s, all jump (long, triple and pole vault) and sprint (100m and 200m) disciplines are paused. What happened with the before set records? Nothing, they were just slower. But e.g. in 100m sprint world records history: After the new wind rule, there was no new rekord set (last one set in 1936) until 1956 but the sprinters before 1038 still were relatively slow, conditions were not always almost the same, so it wasn't almost "impossible" to beat the record and times still kept improving ever since.
I would assume the responsible people in athletics implemented to rule just in time while in speedcubing the statement "random scramble" just wasn't thought through well enough - causing what this thread is about: Scrambles which allow "trivial solves" due to luck.
Regarding Guinnes records, new approaches for a world rekord have to be accomplished under the exact same conditions - which also is different to speedsolving as the scrambles are not always the same but differ from e.g. 10 move solves to e.g. possibly 2 move solves.
So I couldn't find anything without extensive research and don't really have the time for it right now but in my opinion the WCA made the mistake to not create a rule from the start which takes care of every solve within the same event is, at all competitions, actually a compareable challenge instead of just being lucky being at the right competition/group/time.
Caused from this I would assume that we already have quite some records set which mostly are based on lucky scrambles. Thus I hypothetically suggested to void all records set up to date. If I have a client who wants a sophisticated construction for a machine or a device, it can happen that I am done, that the constructed unit actually would perfectly do what it is supposed to after being built but still the client doesn't like anything at all and asks me to redo it - just everything in a different way. Then I can't waste time whining around about all the wasted time and hard work, I have to put it aside, accept that the client just wants something different for whatever reason and start over again - and especially in research where prototypes are developed this happens quite often.
But as said, I don't even say "delete" all records so far, I just say: Make a new list, fill it with new, future records based on possibly new rules - if rules would exclude previous set records. About as you probably meant it when you said:
[...]I say current because his record is still the record for the old style. However, I think that the circumstances made it clear that such a change was necessary.
Edit: Wow, quite a lot now posts in the meantime...
